Gastroenterology :: Gallbladder Removal And Weight Gain
Apr 1, 2012
I am a 5' 7" tall 53 yr. old Woman & in fairly good Health. Last month, March 16, 2012 I went to take care of my Oldest Daughter who got sick. One month later while I was still there, I suddenly got sever stomach pains & started to vomit Blood. The pain was excruciating! My Husband took me to the Hospital where we had discovered that I was experiencing a Gallbladder attack. I was told that I had to have my Gallbladder removed, now the prospect of surgery doesn't scare or bother me but I have been told several horror stories about Weight Gain after surgery & frankly I'm not sure I even want to go through with it now. You see 6 years ago I was put on some medication & one of the side effects was Weight Gain. At the time I weighed between 98 pounds & 105 pounds (on a good month) but that was my normal weight. I know that isn't normal for most people but it was normal for me, remember we're not all built the same. At the time I was taking the new medication I thought to my-self "Hmm I could use a few extra pounds" (as I always have had a really hard time gaining any weight, unless I got pregnant & that was an impossibility for me, because I had a Partial Hysterectomy when I was 24 yrs. old due to Uterine Cancer). Within a 3 month period I had gained almost 100 pounds, so I took my-self off of the medication I was on. Since then I have managed to lose only 20 pounds, so the prospect of Gaining more Weight kind of freaks me out a little bit. Plus there is another thing I've been thinking about, my Older Sister needs a Partial Liver Donation & it seems I'm the only person in my Family who's not only willing but able to Donate a part of my Liver to her & the thing that is worrying me right now is the amount of Tylenol I've been taking for the pain (although I've been trying to keep it to a minimal). I'm worried that the Tylenol might be causing some kind of damage to my Liver & I won't be able to donate a piece of my Liver to My Big Sister in June of this year (2012). My questions are, should I wait until after the Liver Donation to have my Gallbladder removed or should I do it as soon as possible so I can start the healing process? I really hope that I don't have any more Weight Gain but Weight Loss instead after the surgery.
View 8 Replies
I am 25 years old, 5 feet tall, always been petite and around 105-110 lbs. I have always watched what I ate and the last few years have been gluten free because I thought I had a gluten intolerance/celiacs. Since getting my gallbladder out on 10/12/2015 I have gained almost 20 lbs in that one month. I was 108-110 lb before surgery and I am now almost 130 lb, the heaviest I have ever been in my whole life. My "normal" diet before and my diet now is the same. I eat a grapefruit or orange for breakfast, fruit, carrots, tuna or salad for lunch along with salad or a lean protein for dinner (basically the Scarsdale diet). Since surgery though, it doesn't matter if I eat salad for 2 meals a day and take a spinning class at the gym for an hour I still gain weight each and every day. It's very frustrating because people say there's nothing wrong or "I could afford to gain a few lbs" but a few lbs is a few, not 20. And no, I shouldn't be gaining weight if I'm burning more calories than I'm taking in. The weight I'm gaining also seems to be very cellulite-y which I've also never had before. It also seems tight and my stomach looks like I'm 6 months pregnant. I'm at my wit's end and getting so depressed about it. I know it's only been a month and a half but at this rate I will be obese by next summer. I have read hundreds of blog posts similar to mine so I know other people are feeling the same way. Has anybody here found a way to deal with this?
View 1 Replies
I am a 16 year old girl who for the most part was healthy prior to the start of my digestive problems. I am 5"3 and have never weighed over 99 lbs but my weight has now dropped to below 94 lbs due to inability to eat without pain and nausea. Around August 2011, I started having moderate-severe nausea and abdominal pain following most/all meals, which over time progressed to be nearly constant pain and nausea that made eating nearly unbearable. Starting in early March, I had multiple blood tests, an ultrasound, a HIDA scan, and an upper endoscopy. The only explanation offered to my mother (a doctor) and myself was that my gallbladder was hyperactive and excreted bile way too quickly, with an ejection fraction of 89%. Normal ejection fractions are considered to be roughly between 30-75%, but high ejection fractions are a gray area in the medical world at the moment, as most bad gallbladders have a low ejection fraction. All the children's surgeons refused to take out my gallbladder for this reason, but with it being our only hope we searched for a surgeon willing to take the chance. We were luckily able to find a surgeon with some knowledge of hyperactive gallbladders who removed my gallbladder in early May. My surgery went well and there were no complications immediately following. I did not have constant diarrhea following my procedure and my pain and nausea were alleviated until approximately early-mid June. I began having moderate nausea and pain again following nearly all foods and some drinks such as slushies or shakes. It increasingly worsened but has not yet reached the constant pain/nausea i was experiencing pre-surgery. I also had approximately 3-5 bouts that lasted about 10-20 minutes of extreme nearly unbearable pain, usually in my left abdomen just below the ribs approximately 20-30 minutes after I had eaten. Each time brought me to the floor and to tears. I visited the GI doctor again July 5 and was told their best explanation was Functional Dyspepsia and that I should begin taking 30g Amitriptyline each night. I was told results should appear approximately 3 weeks after I start regular dosage, which I did on July 5. I have seen some improvement in my pain and nausea as they do not necessarily occur after every single time I eat anymore, but they are still way too frequent and persistent for me to feel normal, much less function normally. Over the past week or so, my stools have been a bright green color and my urine has been clear for the most part. There seems to be no connection between my symptoms and my hormones as they do not worsen or alleviate with my menstrual cycle. I am sick and tired of being so sick and tired as my symptoms have majorly impacted my life and prevented me from participating in many things as they caused me to miss over 40 days of school just since January 2012. Please please please offer any ideas or thoughts you might have, i truly am desperate.
current symptomsgreen stoolclear urinemoderate/severe nausea and pain after eatingoccasional extreme pain during digestioneasily tired
gallbladder removed may 2012currently taking 30g Amitriptyline daily
View 5 Replies
Has anyone on this forum gotten new info about this issue? I have been on nuvaring for 3 years. I removed it 6 weeks ago and have gained 16 pounds!!! I am 5'1 so this is a HUGE gain for me, and it is all in my stomach ( I look pregnant and always have an uncomfortable bloated tummy) I have been in a fitness program for 1 1/2 years,5 days a week. (I'm actually a fitness trainer now). I follow the paleo diet and train class 4-7 times per week. Yes I have the occasional cheats but nothing has changed in the past 1 1/2 years except removing nuvaring. I can't help but think this is the culprit.
View 1 Replies
Last November I suffered severe pains in my stomach and back and after a scan was found to have gallstones and an inflamed gall bladder. I was told that I would need to have the gall bladder removed which I did five months after being first diagnosed. In that five months I eased the discomfort by cutting out dairy food and fried / fatty food (which I had little of anyway) . I did get pains but were manageable. I did lose a lot of weight though, I went from 13st 12lbs to 12 stone within about three months. This was drastic as I was still eating.
I had the operation to remove my gallbladder on 4 April and came out of hospital on the same day. Unfortunately one of the "wounds" from the operation got badly infected and an abscess formed. This led me being taken into hospital for 5 days for the infection to be cut away and put on a strong course of antibiotics. Unfortunately I haven't felt well since the gallbladder removal, leaving aside the abscess, I still get considerable pain from my stomach most days. I have to go to the toilet more which is quite loose and I get dreadful indigestion making me want to burp quite a bit. I was hoping to put on some weight as I am very thin but sadly if anything it has gone down a bit more.
My GP says I have to be patient and it will get better. Has anyone else suffered symptoms like this after a gallbladder removal ?
View 4 Replies
I am 31 years old, female have one son and am married On Oct 12 2013 my life went straight to you know where! 2 weeks prior to Oct 12, I was experiencing horrible right shoulder pain, semi old injury didn't think to much of it, it hurt yes but I usually just suck it up. I am in college full time ( was in the Army for 7 years before all this) well Oct 12 came and all the usual first round symptoms one might get from Gallbladder issue, I lost 13 lbs in 2 weeks, just sick and now scared. The pain was crappy, the not knowing sucked more. Had a HIDA scan done since the doc I was seeing suspected GB issues, it came back abnormal. Took 4 hours just to show up and when they injected me with that CCK stuff, 3 min later I was severely sick to my stomach, reports go back to doc they refer me to surgeon, was supposed to be about a month, well I relay this to my husband, who is 1000 miles away training, and he notices now a difference in me as a person, it has taken its toll on me, this is Thanksgiving now...I am trying to tough it out since I had finals around the corner, well I didn't make it, I collapsed on my parents kitchen floor in agony and thought I was having a heart attack, just on my right side! Go to ER, doc there says he will admit, I need to talk to insurance, I went home called them got the green light, and was like well maybe its past, no more than 3 hours of being home, my husband calls I tell him I am about to go back and hang up, my Dad brought me and I was admitted, GB removed the next day. So normal after surgery pain, at this point I had not worked out since Oct 12, I went from running about 15 - 18 miles a week, I lifted weights and all that, I enjoyed it, now I looked like a shriveled raisin who looked like a swarm of beavers beat the crap outta me...So 2 weeks post op doing pretty good, I am eating yay! Until I sat down one morning and ate an apple, within 4 -5 min I doubled over in agony, couldn't breath, horrible cramps, more like contractions, and burning...lasted about 15 min, I am thinking what the hell! I couldn't help but ask my Mom if they actually removed it, so I made an appt with my surgeon, well it was his Boss, the older Doc, very nice, said I prolly had some grit that needed to be worked out, Im thinking ok, that plausible...I barely managed to make finals that semester, but I pulled it off Phew! Now we are around Xmas time frame, Husband is coming home on leave excited! Had some good days, still had pain, but I could handle it, wrong! From Xmas to New Years I spent in and out of hospitals. We moved me up here to North Carolina on top of stopping at different ER's along the way, the pain was just awful. The worst one was when we finally made it here to North Carolina, I unpacked as much as I could under the circumstances, my husband is now worried, which he isnt, and Im not one to cry over pain and well that's all I had done for 4 days of driving and ER trips, anywho we were about to eat some dinner and I started getting this burning sensation right over my BIG scar, I had a small open cholecystectomy, only like 2.5 inches if that....well of course my poor husband was like Ill take you to the ER here if need be, I was so tried I didn't want too, well about 3 min later I passed out in the living room from intense wave of pain and husband called an ambulance, when I got there I was tachycardic and sweating from bad pain, it was like an 8, pretty bad, well the doc wanted to do a CT scan with that stuff you have to drink the dye stuff, 3 big glasses...I discovered later on that the dye quite literally moves everywhere thru your body, worst thing possible for that day, I drank maybe have of the first glass and my pain shot up, mind you I had been given now two 1 mg of Dilaudid and was still in pain, well I pushed on and drank it down hit glass two, I wanted that CT scan to start, I downed the 2nd cup and I finally experienced level 10 pain...albeit it was more like 15, The burning pain in my Upper Right Quadrant was excruciating, it went into my rt shoulder, down my right arm, and I cramped so hard I couldn't breath, like constant contractions, I literally yowled in pain, didn't let up, then my heart rate went to 157 then dropped to 31, my husband now is on the edge of losing it, and I really thought I was dying, gets better , the burning pain started to travel under my right breast and half of my sternum, I honestly cannot put into words how to describe this pain, I was terrified, I seriously thought I was dying, on top of my heart rate going nuts and me going in and out of consciousness in small increments, well fast forward, more pain stuff and they are admitting me.
View 3 Replies
has anyone experienced a gallbladder attack following wine consumption? i have gallstones and i have a surgery programed for next month.
Thanksgiving is coming up and i really would want to have a glass of wine on this holiday or christmas; however i am afraid of having an attack. What do you guys think? any experiences?
View 3 Replies
Cruddy gallbladder, ejection fraction of 20 percent, going to the surgeon soon. But I'm at my wits end with the queasiness. I've hit the point where slight nausea is a constant rather than an occasional gripe. Anyone dealt with this kind of slight, but uncomfortable, nausea and a nonfunctional gallbladder? Any advice for the next couple weeks to help mitigate it?
And tell me that once your gallbladder was gone, so was the nausea.
View 4 Replies
I'm a 19 yr old girl and had my gallbladder out 2 years ago, everything I eat seems to disagree with my stomach and is very stressful. I've tried loads of different tablets to help bind it up but it doesn't really work does anyone suggest anything that's helped for them?
View 1 Replies
I had my gallbladder out a month ago after only a few weeks of severe pain, which I know is lucky compared to a lot of others. No stones were found. My HIDA scan found my function at 28% and I started vomited three days before the removal. Surgery went perfect and for the first days after, I slept and walked and took my pain pills and ate normally, although low fat.
Two weeks ago I began having severe pain in the RUQ, right where the pain initially began. My surgeons office suggested OTC painkillers (Advil, Tylenol, and Aleve). I tried all of them separately for a few days and they did nothing. A trip to the ER (no X-rays or anything were performed) said it was a muscle strain. I'm still having the same pain and I think my surgeons office is kind of blowing me off. Also, my acid reflux got about 100 times worse, and I have a bravo probe coming up and have had constant diarrhea since surgery.
Has anyone else had this pain after a normal surgery?
View 6 Replies
After putting it off for ages I just can't take it anymore and have finally decided to have my gallbladder removed. I'm actually writing this lying on my knees doubled over a pillow after another attack. They are so frequent now it's ridiculous.
I'm having keyhole provided all goes to plan but am concerned about how long recovery will take as I have an 11 month old, 23 month old and 9 year old. As well as worrying about the op I'm concerned about how they'll be. Got my husband and sister to help me out but you know sometimes kids just want their mum. I know I can't lift for 2 weeks but how strict is that? And could it be longer then that? Will it hurt lifting my younger two a month or two months after?
Anyone with toddlers had the op? What was it like?
View 36 Replies
Is there a connection between gall bladder removal and reflux getting worse? I suffered from acid reflux before my surgery 6 weeks ago but boy am I ever suffering now...what could cause this?? My surgeon said it takes 8 months for the body to get used to life without a gb...I didn't like what he had to say and offered no explanation as to why..has anyone experienced this and how long did it take to resolve itself because at this point I find it hard to believe that this will resolve itself.
View 2 Replies
Have been getting a heaviness across the stomach which is very uncomfortable, plus Lots of stinging and the Obvious aches and pains from surgery.
As have IBS, Barrett's Oesophagus and severe diverticulitis it's sometimes hard to know what discomfort belongs to what.
Have taken tramadol which 2 hours later is easing up. Is this heaviness normal.
View 74 Replies
I had my gallbladder out about 9 years ago now, and have found every time I have opiates like codeine Etc it brings on a SOD attack. Has anyone else experienced this? So I have to avoid anything with opiates in it. Which is awful as I can't have any pain relief during labour and I am due in sept, I'm just wondering if anyone here knows of any of pain relief one can have if they can't have opiates?
View 2 Replies
Well it's been 4 months since I had the gallbladder removed on Tuesday and I'm no better. Still persistent nausea no appetite dry retching or sometimes vomiting in the morning and horrendous weakness. It's been the worst 4 months of my life. Waking up in the middle of the night every night with the nausea sometimes at 230am and can't go back to sleep. Some days it eases off by lunch time some days it doesn't. Have been in and out of hospital and have been told it's a side effect of the surgery and it's very rare. Have found other people who had gone through similar experiences and it can take 6-9 months to recover. Have posted on this before but got little feedback. Just posting again in case there's anyone this has happened to or that they may know of this happening to.
View 61 Replies
Has anyone else had IBS since having Gallbladder removed? I have never had IBS but since having my GB removed I seem to have developed IBS. I still get the pain where my GB was and also in the same place on the opposite side of my abdomen and am beginning to wonder why I bothered. It was great having the 4 weeks off work but having the op to get it was not the best way.
View 35 Replies
