Gallbladder removal side effects

[Hazel30]

Im posting for my Mom.  She had her gallbladder removed 2 months ago laproscopicly (sp).  Two weeks after surgery its been awful.  Vomiting bile and sometimes food,  excruciating pain where the gallbladder was and sometimes radiates to the back.  We've been to the hospital twice ever since, a week each time, and nobody can find whats going on.  She's had upper GI, CT scan, US, X-rays, some sort of nuclear study and everything showing no complications.  What can this be ????
She came home 3 days ago from the hospital, on second day she began vomiting again bile after each meal.  Cannot stand straight, on hydrocodine for pain, nexium, zofran for nausea.  All she does is drink water and pediasure.
At the hospital no vomiting, but was on constant drip for dehydration and nexium and nausea medicine.
Tomorrow is our appointment to a GI specialist and praying he can help us.
If anyone has any input please please reply to this post.
thank you
Fiana

[CalGal]

Dark urine can indicate the presence of bilirubin which can be a problem associated with SOD, sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. You may want to read this: http://www.hopkins-gi.org/GDL_Disease.aspx?SS=&CurrentUDV=31&GDL_DC_ID=320F4EDD-0021-4952-83D7-8B0C67B47BFF&GDL_Disease_ID=7AB086B0-AB01-446E-B011-2E67CAFEF96D

She needs to be checked for stones/sludge that may have escaped into the common bile duct during surgery. Or she may be having a spasm of the common bile duct. She should be checked with 24 hours of intense pain for elevated liver and pancreatic enzymes.

When the bile duct spasms or is blocked, the bile and the pancreatic fluids back up. That back up causes liver enzyme and bilirubin to flow into the blood stream and the bilirubin can be found in the urine and the enzymes can be found in the blood.

Your mom needs to speak with a doc who understand postsurgical issues facing those with gallbladder problems. Don't let the doc tell you her system is 'adjusting' or anything else - she needs to be checked now to find out what's going on with her biliary system.

[jonnyfrag]

You might ask a gastro about an ERCP. If the spincter of odi (regulates all that stuff) has become 'stiffened', this procedure might help. I had problems still after having my gall out and this procedure helped (for a while) although not the same problems you describe. One thing they may overlook telling you is that after this procedure she might experience stomach spasms, like someone punched you in the stomach, but then goes away very quickly. Kind of like getting the wind knocked out of you but very brief. They failed to mention this side effect to me before hand and then had me drive 2 hours for an office visit to tell me that this was a very common side effect and one I should have been told about before hand (exact same office BTW.)  They say some people might have it for a short time, some not have it at all, some forever (mine seems to be in the forever group.) Hope that might help.

[Matthew007]

well just from some of the things you said, the urine part being dark means she's super dehydrated ..sometimes caused by a UTI so that's a problem.

The bile reflux i've heard does happen sometimes when the stomach valve doesn't work normally (usually it stays about 90% closed until food is digested and then it opens up.. if it stays open bile can reflux...sometimes this is caused by an ulcer that's near the stomach valve so it can't close correctly) there are ways to correct it surgically (but i'm not a doctor..)

so my guess is she has ulcers from reflux or the surgery itself...and it might be causing bile reflux at the same time.

Best way while sitting around waiting is to make sure she lies on her right side to avoid bile piling up in her stomach.  Since she has no gallbladder now, bile is draining freely from her liver and going into her stomach...also nexium/protonix/acidphex probably should be continued.  If she eats I wouldn't lie down right after but if she has to, prop the chest up and lie on the right side so that bile doesn't fill up her stomach.

That's all I can think of :S i'm sorry your mom is going through this.

[Hazel30]

Also want to add that at the hospital her urine was dark as tea with tingling at times.  They checked the urine for UTI and came back negative but contaminated.  Not sure what that means.  I know sometimes dark urine indicates dehydration but can that also indicate something else with bile or something that is not digesting properly?
thank you