I had a couple of gall bladder attacks a couple of years ago after I did some hardcore fasting. They are very unpleasant. I presume an infection means that one of stones has lodged in a bial duct. That can be very serious and can mean emergency surgery. My understanding is they can't do the laparoscopic method in those cases, which means they have to open you up. I wish her a quick recovery.
My last go around I had a big fucker stuck in a bile duct. The only tip off was an elevated bilirubin count in my blood tests. Luckily my family doctor spotted it and set me up with an MRI. When the gastro doc's NP saw the image, he nearly crapped his pants. I was in surgery within a a couple of days (during the New Year's break). They were able to do it laproscopically but it was still an unpleasant experience.
I had my gall bladder taken out. Man the pain was excruciating for the weeks up to the point I went to a doctor. The next day I was in surgery. Fortunately, I didn't have to be cut wide open but the doctor said when they went in they almost decided to stop the laparoscopic method and go old school on me. It was that bad.
Laproscopic was no picnic for me. I hate to think how bad it would have been to go the old-fashioned way.
I've got a recommendation from my doctor to have my gall bladder removed (apparently I've got a bag full of stones)...it hasn't been a problem unless I've been fasting. I've intended to get it taken out and would've if I stayed in L.A. last year. Eventually.
Well, I would say get it done as soon as practicable. You've been through it once, believe me it can get a lot worse if it turns into pancreatitis...as in fatally worse, not to mention probably making you sicker than you've ever been in your life. Good luck.
Now that you mention it I did have my gall bladder removed when the doctors were removing some other things from that general area while removing a tumor. But I've never experienced the pre-surgery pain like you guys are talking about - I can't even imagine it!
The real bitch of it is you can still get gallstones after your gall bladder is gone. But that can’t be very common....I hope...
My father had to have his removed. Being basically John Wayne, he just kept ignoring the pain and vomiting until he was almost immobilized, and Mom forced him to go to the doctor. The doc told him one more day ignoring it would have killed him.
That's because you still make the bile which is what gallstones come from. The gall bladder is simply a bag your body puts bile in for easy fast access when needed. It's also why we can take it out of the body without dying.
It was like being stabbed in the lower back with an entire set of high quality German kitchen knives at the same time. Here's a visual representation: My lower back is the block of wood.
pain is generally your body's way of telling you that something is amiss. Might not want to ignore that for too long, but that's just me.
Ouch! I feel for you. The only time I felt that level of pain was after the accident a year and a half ago. Fortunately, the extreme pain only lasted about a week, and didn't require any operations in order to eliminate it. Never had any gallstones or anything like that, but I have had close friends tell me about it. It hurts just to hear them describe it.
I try to be sensible about such things, but I waited far longer than was smart. Luckily I had great people looking after me to clean up the mess. No one wants to be a hypochondriac, but bottom line is well....don't do what I did....
She's been released. She crushed those gallstones, much like she crushed the testicles of the patriarchy.
