gallstones

[jrsgirl1964]

i have just been diagnosed with gallstones and they fill my gallbladder.  i have been passing a few that have become lodged and then go back into the gallbladder.  my question is this.....when passing a stone where does it come out?  is it painful to pass the stones?  is there an alternitive to surgery?  please help.  i have three small children and cant be off my feet for to long due to surgery.
thanks and please any advice,
jrsgirl1964

[jesussavedme]

I have had my gallbladder removed about a year ago and a c-section 6 years ago. The pain of a c-section rates 8 on the pain scale and the gallbladder removal, which mainly feels sore, not painful, ranks about a 4 or 5 on the soreness scale. I have had more soreness from intense workouts than the procedure. Has your doctor explained the risks of keeping a diseased (gallstones) gallbladder? If one tiny stone (about the size of a grain of sand) gets lodged in a bile duct, it can become infected, you can get liver cancer and all kinds of problems can occur from such of a tiny little speck. It sounds scary to have a doctor say he must remove something God gave us(The first think I told my doctor is "If I didn't need it, God wouldn't have put it there.")But gallstones are pretty common, and God knew that, so guess what, we function just fine without them. At the most, you MAY get more gas from fatty, unhealthy foods, but that is just another way our bodies are telling us we don't need that junk anyways. Oh, I only had to sit in a chair for like 24 hours and do no chores for a few days. But that too can be a good think if you feel like you never get to take a break. Use recovery time to let everyone cater to you for once, and don't feel guilty about it either! Good Luck to you.

[AnnieBrooke]

Good work, PTop!

[PTop]

I had my gallbladder out three years ago 8 weeks pregnant with my second. The stones do not pass out of you like kidney stones.they pass out into your body and can get into your pancreas which then gets very dangerous. Once your getting stones there is no going back, it just doesn't function anymore. The good news is that they do a laproscopy laser surgery now. I had one hard night and was walking the next day, and felt almost normal within three. There are four very tiny incision points on my stomach and into my belly button,that you can barely see now. I would say that a c-section would probably worse than this surgery. Don't be scared, just try not to eat anything with fat in it until your surgery. Without fat there is nothing to make the stones. hope that helped:) Good Luck!

[AnnieBrooke]

I think they have a better surgical procedure these days for gallstones than they did even ten years ago, seems to me it involves running a catheter in and breaking them up with sound waves.  Not sure though, it might only be for kidney stones.  You might google gallstone surgery and see if that is it and how complicated it is.  I know whichever one it was that I read the description of, it made the process from something you took days to get over into something that is practically day surgery, in and out.