Slightly irritated... What would you do?

[slzerbst]

First off I would like to say that just after my frist trimester ended, I started having terrible rib pain.  I mean on a scale from one to ten it was a ten plus.  Well the first time it happend I was working and it lasted for about 2 hours and it didn't really hurt me too bad.  But then the second time, which was three days ago it worke me up from a dead sleep and it lasted about an hour.  Then this last(which was yesterday) time it happend at 12:45am which woke me up from a dead sleep again and I squarmed and wiggled and tried to find a comfertable way to lay needless to say I was finnally able to fall asleep  around 2am.  Then I woke up at 5:20am to get ready for work, still in a little bit of pain, well I get to work at 6:30am and the pain is slowly climing, finally at 7am I couldn't take it any more!  I bursted into tears and asked to leave and go to the hospital.  Well because I am pregnant they sent me strait to the labor and deleivery floor where they hooked me up to moneters to make sure that 1) I wasn't going into labor, 2) make sure that the baby was okay... well I wasn't contracting and they baby was fine.  Well then it was on to finding out what was wrong with me.  At 11am they took me to do an ultrasound on my gallbladded.  Well they found out that I have gall stones...  So I sat here for a little while longer... and talked to the on call OB and to the genral sergan, they both decied not to do sergary, NOT because I was "high risk" but because they don't want to put the baby in danger, which I understand compleatly, however, my OB also said that I am at the point where they still could do sergary electivly.  But if i continue to have these attacks, then it will get infected and I will have to have it out any way, no matter how far along i am...

So in my eyes they should just have taken it out at this time...  I have had two attacks in under a week, I have family history of gallbladder problmes, needless to say that most of my family has had their gallbladders out.  *sigh*  So I'm kind of worried about that, none the less the doctor put me on vikaden, which I'm not sure how safe it is durn pregnancy.  

So my question is what would you do...  

[Stacey1718]

I hope you don't have anymore attacks.  The best you could do is get a second (third) opionion as was mentioned and go from there.  Otherwise I think you have to stick it out.  The diet should help if you can stick to it.  Good luck!!  We are getting close to the end!

[slzerbst]

Well I guess that has put me at ease with what the doctor's have told me.  Oh and the only other med that my doc was willing to have me take was tylenol... which I don't think would ever work because if the pain wakes me up out of sleep, then i'm pretty sure tylenol wont work... Any who... that was my option.  But we'll see... I haven't had another attack since then, so I'm just praying that nothing else will set it off.  Oh and I'm trying to avoid eating as much fat as possible... but it's terribly hard, because I don't like vegies... *sigh* so we'll see... how the next three months go.

[NicMom]

I had my gallbladder out a few years ago and I know how horrible the pain can be. That said your in the home stretch. The surgery is a quick procedure and it's just day surgery, but when I had it I got an infection and ended up in the hospital on crazy pain meds for over a week. If it was me... I would wait until after the baby is born.

I don't see anything wrong with taking vicodin only when having an attack. If you were taking it every day you'd have to worry about the baby getting addicted, but once or twice a week won't hurt the baby. I did tons of research on vicodin after they gave it to me in the first trimester for a severe bladder infection. It's a class C, but only because they don't think it would be right to test the effects on pregnant women and unborn babies. There haven't been any studies to prove that it will hurt either one of you.

Just my two cents.

I hope you feel better, hang in there.

[therese101]

hey, i also have the gallstones which were diagnosed at i think around 15 weeks, i waited it out and after having an attack every day for like  a week and a half i have not had one since. The main risk is premature labour, which is why i decided not to go ahead with the surgery, they said they would wait till the pregnancy was viable, however since i have not had a problem since i have been fine. I have been controlling with diet i pretty much needed to cut fat out of my diet for a week or two until my gallbladder was no longer inflamed and then i was able to slowly introduce the low fat foods back in. Good luck with your decision, i was out on panidine forte with codeine for the attacks which seamed to take the pain away quickly. Also the one thing my doc did say was the pain in an attack is worse than labour pain. so if you can work through the pain of an attack labour will be a breeze. well i guess we will soon see if that is correct.

[sphillips]

The reasoning for voting to 'stick it out':
This is what I found online about vicodin:
The FDA has classified Vicodin as a pregnancy category C drug, meaning that it is unknown whether it would be harmful to an unborn baby. If you are pregnant, you must
not take Vicodin without discussing it with your doctor first.
I would kinda do a combo of what you have listed up there. I would wait and see how it goes from here on before taking the meds. Also, I would call around to get second, third, fourth, etc. opinion. I would also contact doctors to see if there were any more options. Maybe there is a 'safer' pain med you could take.....
I hope this some how helps you make a decision. and I hope your pain goes away and you don't have to remove it until your little one is born or at all.