Re: Gallbladder? ** Stand up and be counted!**

[Guest guest]

I had my GB removed laparoscopically on October 23rd by my weight

loss surgeon. I am 30 months post-op DS. About a month beforehand,

I had a really bad tummy ache one Saturday when a contractor was due

to estimate a tiling job for our bathroom. Not wanting to put it

off, I did the macho thing and went with him to select tiles, etc.,

and treated him to lunch at UNO's Chicago Pizzaria. Funny thing, but

after the cheese in the pizza, the pain improved (I had no idea at

the time what the pain was all about!)! Then one Sunday about a

month later, while at a lecture, I doubled over with stomach pain and

had to get up and walk out on the speaker. The pain subsided, but

came back around midnight. I took a Percoset (left over from my

kidney stone bouts the previous year), and slept until morning. I

called my WLS, believing by then that it was gall bladder, and he was

doing pre-op endoscopies at the hospital that morning, and told me to

come in and that he would work me in to check for an ulcer. He also

ordered an ultrasound to be done first. OK, IF YOU ARE WITH ME THIS

FAR, HERE'S WHERE IT GETS GOOD:

The ultrasound did not show any stones in the gall bladder or in

the bile duct, BUT, then a more experienced ultrasound technician

was called in, and she asked me to STAND UP, and BOOM! THERE

THE SUCKERS WERE, PLAIN AS DAYLIGHT!!

I had an ultrasound a year previously to check for stones before a

hernia repair and TT, and it was negative. I wonder if it would have

shown anything at that time, had I been asked to stand up.

My surgeon has me on Actigall for three months now, " To get rid of

any residual sludge, " he says. The surgery itself was about as much

nuisance as a root canal (though I was asleep during the procedure),

that is, I had very controllable minor pain for a few days, but was

totally mobile and not terribly inconvenienced, considering that I

had a procedure that, done open for my father and others in his

generation in the early 1960's, left people in so much post-operative

pain and discomfort that they wished they had died (REALLY--same

comment from several of my afflicted relatives). The Actigall is

causing me intermittent diarrhea, so the doc says that I can

temporarily reduce the dose from time to time until the diarrhea

resolves and then go back to the 3x/day dosage.

So, for those of you who may ever need an ultrasound to look for

stones: STAND UP AND BE COUNTED!!!

--Steve

At 11:48 AM +0000 12/3/03, shrinkin2000 wrote:

> Next I will have an ultra sound done on Fri. Anyone

>who has had something like this happen could you please give me your

>input? I deal with pain pretty darned good, but this is NOT

>something that I want to go through again.

Stand up and be counted!

>Seems to me that the high " fat " content of what I ate could have

>triggered the gallbladder?

Absolutely.

>Had some trouble about a yr ago that

>testing found that I had sludge in there. I don't usually eat much

>fat and what we cook with at home is olive oil or peanut oil. Maybe

>it's time to find an new PCP.

Sounds that way!

>Kinda tired of being poo poo'ed all

>the time. I think that he thinks that I am just looking for

>attention or something. Couldn't possibly be that I am more attuned

>to my body now, could it (she says with sarcasam)?

Listen to your body and trust it more than any doctor at first blush.

I knew that I had appendicitis in 1984 even though the white blood

cell count was not elevated; I was right--my appendix had abscessed

and had been slowly leaking for months, as the surgeon found when he

opened me up. I knew that I had broken my collar bone when I fell

off a bicycle in 1987, even before the X-Ray confirmed it. And, I

was pretty darned certain that it was my gall bladder this time

around even before the ultrasound. I trust me more than I trust most

docs now. They have to give me proof that they are right before I

give up on my belief in my own body's messages.

At 7:01 AM -0500 12/3/03, switty36@... wrote:

>Not sure, I went for ultrasound on my gallbladder about a month ago to be

>told it wasn't my gallbladder. ...The pain I'm

Did you stand up at all during the testing? Maybe they were right; I

have no way of knowing, but maybe you might consider re-testing and

standing up during part of the exam.

>experiencing is in my lower 'gut'...under the belly button/waist

>line area...it has

Hmmm, GB symptoms are usually higher up, but that doesn't mean that

you are not experiencing GB involvement.

>me baffled as to what this pain is...it lasts for about an hour,

>after the pain

>is gone, I'm completely wiped out, so last night I was in bed at 8ish! lol

I do not want to ba an alarmist, but it is possible that you are

experiencing a twisting/kinking and obstruction of your bowel, or

herniation of your bowel into the holes in the mesentery (the

membrane which encases and supports your innards) left over from

laparoscopic surgery. There is an alarming incidence of this in WLS

post-ops. The symptoms come and go , and they get worse each time.

If not taken care of, they can lead to death as the bowel tissue dies

from lack of blood supply. Apparently, as reported by others who

have had this problem, most diagnostic tests will not find a bowel

obstruction, and only exploratory surgery can find it.

At 7:42 PM -0500 12/3/03, Regina Block wrote:

>For any of you who still have their gallbladders and are known to have

> " sludge " and are not taking Actigal on a regular basis, watch what you

>eat during the holiday season. If a sonogram is not definitive, the

>doctor may order a HIDA scan with ejection fraction.

What's a HIDA scan , please?

Best regards,

Steve