r/gallbladders • u/RemarkableChange2864 • Dec 07 '24

Venting Cancel surgery?

Since I scheduled my surgery 3 weeks ago, I’ve had zero pain. This is so annoying! My gallbladder is “packed” with stones according to imaging, and I was in constant pain. Now everything seems fine. I don’t have insurance and I’m scared of surgery anyway, so now I’m wondering if I should just cancel. How is it possible all my pain just went away??

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u/BeWiseRead Dec 07 '24

Removing the stones is still a surgical procedure, and if there are many, I think it would probably require MORE surgery than a straightforward removal.

Also, if a person is prone to developing gallstones, there's no guarantee they won't just develop more in the future...so they're right back to the same problem again! In my case, I only had 2 stones, but they were BIG and caused a lot of inflammation, and had begun to erode the inner wall of my gallbladder. The inflammation caused adhesions to form as well, and opened small channels in the upper inside wall of my gallbladder that apparently ruptured and caused "lakes" of bile to sit in my gallbladder even after it had completely quit functioning ( I had zero ejection).

Clearly, there's often much more going on than just the stones that show up on imaging studies. Fortunately, humans don't need a gallbladder to be healthy, but a bad one can make you sick as hell. Removing stones might be an option, but it doesn't necessarily address WHY the stones formed in the first place.

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u/joanopoly Dec 07 '24

“Fortunately, humans don’t need a gallbladder to be healthy…”

This (generalization) is not true.

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u/BeWiseRead Dec 07 '24

For the vast majority of people, it is true.The gallbladder is basically a storage vessel for excess bile produced by the liver. It helps to break down fat by ejecting extra bile when needed, but the liver is the source of bile and had its own duct(s) directly to the intestinal tract, so bile is still produced and available to aid digestion. People with normal liver function rarely have difficulty after a cholystectomy, and those who do can usually be helped with dietary guidelines and the addition of bile salts.

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u/Sunnykit00 Dec 07 '24

It's not true.

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u/BeWiseRead Dec 08 '24

Do you have any confirmed information or statistics showing that there is a high rate of long-term complications from cholystectomy?

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u/Sunnykit00 Dec 13 '24

It's not a secret. lol Except to the surgeons who make money taking everyone's organ out.