Any thoughts on this one guys?

[Guest guest]

OK. Its been a while since I have participated or followed this

thread. I still have not done a flush yet, -- but now I am convinced

I will! I just need to schedule it.

First, brief history. I am a mid-thirties, overweight, medium

complexion female and have been a pregnant or nursing mom for the

last 5 years. 5 years ago within 4-6 weeks after having my first

child I was awakened at 12:00 AM with excruciating pain just below my

bra strap on the right side which radiated all along my bra strap

area, front and back. I was doubled over thinking I was having a

heart attack or maybe cancer was taking over my body. I took several

showers and the pain dissipated after 30 - 40 minutes. Those attacks

happened twice both in the middle of the night. Then not again until

4 -6 weeks after my second daughter was born 2.5 years later or 2

years ago. Same exact symptoms. This time I had it checked out and

gallstones were confirmed.

Thank goodness I found this site a year ago! Although I was VERY

skeptical, in June 2001 I canceled my surgery a week before it was to

take place and started seeing a naturalpathic doctor. He did blood

tests to try to figure out why I had gallstones and work on

preventing them before letting me do a flush. That was a year ago

and I have been taking magnesium supplements to bring my magnesium

and calcium levels back into the correct range and fish oil ever

since. I started out with a horrible diet and made some slight

improvements, less red meat and less carbos and really trying to

avoid the sweets (but I am only human and a sweets addict too), so

lets just say minor changes. Up to now, I have not had an attack in

two years.

With in the last few months a couple things have happened. My

parathyroid levels were elevated and the levels of calcium in my

bones was low, but blood levels of calcium were low normal. I was

diagnosed with a calcium deficiency so I was put on 50,000 IU of

vitamin D 1 x a week for 8 weeks to help my body metabolize calcium.

I started that regimen mid-June 2002. Plus, I have been under a lot

of stress (my Dad passed away 2 mo. ago and my hubby lost his job

last week), plus my two year old is almost weaned (she nurses about

1x a day). Surprise, surprise I have had two attacks in the past

week but MUCH worse that the ones I had before.

The first one last week started at 12:00 midnight. Over the next 6

hours I took 3 long showers tried really hard to have a BM thinking

that would help and finally ate some yogurt at 3:00 AM just to get my

digestive system moving. I could not lay down or the pain would

just overwhelm me. I actually have an adjustable bed and I sat the

bed straight up and it still did not help. I just basically paced

for 6 hours sitting down and rocking in different positions (as if I

were in labor). It finally occurred to me I should try a Tylenol for

the pain and then I thought of my magnesium supplements (which my

naturalpathic Doc had mentioned helped to relax the muscles and

ducts). I took both at 6:00 AM but I could tell that my body was not

digesting anything and within a half an hour I threwup everything.

Feeling a little better and less pain,I finally fell asleep at 7:15

AM.

That day I had to visit the bathroom several times and I noticed 10 -

20 blackish-green things in the toilet -- some floated. I looked at

one closely and thought that looks like a shriveled skin of a grape

but I have not eaten any grapes and it looked like there was a seed

in it. Again I had not eaten any seeds. Then it dawned on me! --

" could those be gallstones???? Duh? Maybe those folks on the

gallstone website were actually flushing stones! "

Luckily, that day I had a doctors appointment about something else so

I mentioned it to the doc who was filling in for my primary and her

response was we need to have you meet with the surgeon. When I told

her I was keeping my gallbladder, it completely caught her off guard

and she was surprised. She was very concerned and said well I will

be on call this weekend so call me if need to come in. And shared

with me that I should get straight to the hospital if I get a fever.

I didn't need to go this past weekend but Saturday night I hand

another attack that lasted about 3 hours the following day I had very

loose frequent stools and more floating blackish-green stones.

Coincidentally, I had an ultrasound today for something else so I

asked the technician to look at my gallbladder. She showed me the

picture on the screen and there were several dark spots in the tail

of my gallbladder but nothing in the neck (which made sense since I

did not have any pain). She said that is good that they are back in

the tail area. Maybe 1/5 of my gallbladder had stones in my (lay)

opinion. I asked her to print the picture and she said " No, I can

get into a lot of trouble for even looking at your gallbladder when

it was not ordered " . I said do they look small or big to you, and

she said small. Whoo hoo! That is all I needed to hear because I

was scared to death that a big one would get stuck! Now I am

planning my first flush!!

Just a couple of thoughts - I am completely convinced that my

nursing or weaning has something to do with my attacks. Anyone else

have thoughts on that? I am also thinking that the Vitamin D that I

am taking is actually contributing to causing more gallstones from

the calcium being restored to my body stores. Does anyone else

agree? How about the stress I am under? Does that contribute? I

have been " carrying " a lot of my stress in my stomach and I have been

suffering from insomnia. I really don't think it was my diet because

I have not done anything differently than I usually do - except last

week I had 4 donuts in one week - usually, I have a donut maybe once

a month. Also, why does it always happen at midnight? I would love to

hear feedback.

Thanks!

Naomi