I had read so many comments on line about how intensely painful gallstone are, and how that pain is no joke.
I was in my second year of nursing school and the chronic niggling abdominal pain I’d had for several months changed in an instant to the most crippling colicky pain I had ever felt. I swear it radiated throughout my entire body. The way it “gripped” in my entire torso made me feel like my heart was seizing, but it was just my gallbladder full of stones.
I knew immediately what it was. I’d been ignoring the niggling pain because I had stage 4 endometriosis at the time so abdominal pain wasn’t unusual. And it’s a common phenomenon for medical students and nursing students to experience strange pshycogenic symptoms, especially as they learn about a new disease, and the niggling pain had started around the same time I was doing my unit on biliary and hepatic anatomy and physiology, so when my gallbladder was “grumbling” I just assumed I was imagining it.
I booked into my GP, who instantly agreed it sounded like gallstones, she ordered an ultrasound and liver function test. My gallbladder was full of stones, most were tiny, 2-3mm, but there were 4 chonky bois, and my Liver function test was all sorts of abnormal.
Up until this point, everyone had treated this very seriously. My GP was rushing around like it was urgent, when I told my teachers at nursing school that I’ll likely need time off because I was dealing with gallstones they all acted like it was a catagory 2 emergency, and everyone had this assumption that in less than 2 months I’d be gallbladder-less.
I was referred for surgery. That was April, I got my intake letter and my surgery was scheduled for October.
So I spent the next 6 months in occasional agony. I was lucky that I’d get a solid 3-4 days without pain, and then I’d get an “attack” that would last a few hours but fade out.
But as it got closer to October, the attacks were lasting over 2 days, by the end I was delirious. I went to the ER twice out of desperation. Both times they gave me buscopan and told me to go home and wait for my surgery. My GP prescribed me some muscle relaxants which helped a bit.
On the night before my surgery, I was having the worse pain of the whole ordeal by far. I was fasting for surgery so I couldn’t take the pain relief my GP had prescribed because it was an oral tablet. I wasn’t getting any sleep, so I just went to the hospital at 2am (instead of 8am for my surgery).
I went to the ER and explained that my surgery was in the morning, I’m fasting so can’t take my meds, but the pain is unbearable. They gave me, you guessed it, buscopan. I sat in the waiting room and at 7:45am said goodbye and walked over to the day surgery wing.
Everyone I told was baffled, saying gallstones were so incredibly painful there’s no way I’d have to wait that long for surgery and not get proper pain relief while I waited. Even my GP was confused, I saw her once a fortnight between August and October because I was just in such a sorry state. My skin was yellow, I was shitting clay, I couldn’t keep much food down, I’d lost a lot of weight. My GP would spend most of the appointment on the phone with the surgical intake team asking “what the fuck?”
But 9 years after my surgery, my best friend started getting gallbladder attacks. She went to the ER, they confirmed the stones with an ultrasound, and they referred her for surgery. 2 months later she still hadn’t gotten her intake letter, so when she had another bad attack she went to the ER and they gave her buscopan and advil and told her to be patient, the surgical list is backed up. She got her letter a few days after that, surgery was booked for August.
She scrounged together some money to see a private surgeon, she saw him on February 10th, and she had her gallbladder removed on February 15th, and they sent her home with endone for the 5 days between. It took a chunk out of the savings that she and her partner want to use for a house deposit, but there’s no way she could have made it to August with how much pain she was in.
Sounds similar to my experience, but I was told multiple times by my GP that it was really bad heart burn. He held that line for 8ish months until I had an attack so bad I drove myself to the ER at 2am (the morning they caught the Boston Marathon bombers, watching the coverage rocking in pain in an ER waiting room is a core memory now).
When I finally got seen I said I felt bad that it was just bad heart burn, so they gave me liquid pepcid and left me alone for 10 minutes. When they came back to check on me, I was obviously still in pain so they pressed around my abdomen and as soon as they hit the area near my gallbladder I almost jumped off the gurney.
30 minutes later I had an ultrasound, and I was extremely pregnant with gallstones and it was on the verge of rupturing. I was in surgery a couple hours later.
All of this to say, if you or anyone you know who had their gallbladder removed and are now having horrible GI issues (especially after first meal of the dag) talk to your GP about Cholestyramine. It’s for cholesterol, but it’s binds to and neutralizes stomach bile which is getting dumped into your upper intestine since there’s not the buffer of your gallbladder anymore. Utterly changed my life years after surgery, could finally go out to eat breakfast without worrying about shitting my pants. Ironically it was the doctor who misdiagnosed me who finally recommended it when I started seeing him again (moved away like 6mo after surgery, boomeranged back years later.
I’ve had bike acid diarrhoea/malabsorbtion (BAM) almost every day since my surgery and my GP has said it’s to be expected because I had inflammatory bowel disease and my deodeunum is the most effected so it’s the reason I get gastric motility issues (some days I get gastric dumping, some days I have gastroparesis)
My doctor has just been changing my immunosuppression therapy trying to find the formulation and dose to reduce my BAM.
But it sounds like I need something to bind or neutralise the bile in addition to treating the IBD. I can’t believe my GP never suggested it, I’m definitely going to be asking if it’s worth trying.
I had read so many comments on line about how intensely painful gallstone are, and how that pain is no joke.
I was in my second year of nursing school and the chronic niggling abdominal pain I’d had for several months changed in an instant to the most crippling colicky pain I had ever felt. I swear it radiated throughout my entire body. The way it “gripped” in my entire torso made me feel like my heart was seizing, but it was just my gallbladder full of stones.
I knew immediately what it was. I’d been ignoring the niggling pain because I had stage 4 endometriosis at the time so abdominal pain wasn’t unusual. And it’s a common phenomenon for medical students and nursing students to experience strange pshycogenic symptoms, especially as they learn about a new disease, and the niggling pain had started around the same time I was doing my unit on biliary and hepatic anatomy and physiology, so when my gallbladder was “grumbling” I just assumed I was imagining it.
I booked into my GP, who instantly agreed it sounded like gallstones, she ordered an ultrasound and liver function test. My gallbladder was full of stones, most were tiny, 2-3mm, but there were 4 chonky bois, and my Liver function test was all sorts of abnormal.
Up until this point, everyone had treated this very seriously. My GP was rushing around like it was urgent, when I told my teachers at nursing school that I’ll likely need time off because I was dealing with gallstones they all acted like it was a catagory 2 emergency, and everyone had this assumption that in less than 2 months I’d be gallbladder-less.
I was referred for surgery. That was April, I got my intake letter and my surgery was scheduled for October.
So I spent the next 6 months in occasional agony. I was lucky that I’d get a solid 3-4 days without pain, and then I’d get an “attack” that would last a few hours but fade out.
But as it got closer to October, the attacks were lasting over 2 days, by the end I was delirious. I went to the ER twice out of desperation. Both times they gave me buscopan and told me to go home and wait for my surgery. My GP prescribed me some muscle relaxants which helped a bit.
On the night before my surgery, I was having the worse pain of the whole ordeal by far. I was fasting for surgery so I couldn’t take the pain relief my GP had prescribed because it was an oral tablet. I wasn’t getting any sleep, so I just went to the hospital at 2am (instead of 8am for my surgery).
I went to the ER and explained that my surgery was in the morning, I’m fasting so can’t take my meds, but the pain is unbearable. They gave me, you guessed it, buscopan. I sat in the waiting room and at 7:45am said goodbye and walked over to the day surgery wing.
Everyone I told was baffled, saying gallstones were so incredibly painful there’s no way I’d have to wait that long for surgery and not get proper pain relief while I waited. Even my GP was confused, I saw her once a fortnight between August and October because I was just in such a sorry state. My skin was yellow, I was shitting clay, I couldn’t keep much food down, I’d lost a lot of weight. My GP would spend most of the appointment on the phone with the surgical intake team asking “what the fuck?”
But 9 years after my surgery, my best friend started getting gallbladder attacks. She went to the ER, they confirmed the stones with an ultrasound, and they referred her for surgery. 2 months later she still hadn’t gotten her intake letter, so when she had another bad attack she went to the ER and they gave her buscopan and advil and told her to be patient, the surgical list is backed up. She got her letter a few days after that, surgery was booked for August.
She scrounged together some money to see a private surgeon, she saw him on February 10th, and she had her gallbladder removed on February 15th, and they sent her home with endone for the 5 days between. It took a chunk out of the savings that she and her partner want to use for a house deposit, but there’s no way she could have made it to August with how much pain she was in.
Sounds similar to my experience, but I was told multiple times by my GP that it was really bad heart burn. He held that line for 8ish months until I had an attack so bad I drove myself to the ER at 2am (the morning they caught the Boston Marathon bombers, watching the coverage rocking in pain in an ER waiting room is a core memory now).
When I finally got seen I said I felt bad that it was just bad heart burn, so they gave me liquid pepcid and left me alone for 10 minutes. When they came back to check on me, I was obviously still in pain so they pressed around my abdomen and as soon as they hit the area near my gallbladder I almost jumped off the gurney.
30 minutes later I had an ultrasound, and I was extremely pregnant with gallstones and it was on the verge of rupturing. I was in surgery a couple hours later.
All of this to say, if you or anyone you know who had their gallbladder removed and are now having horrible GI issues (especially after first meal of the dag) talk to your GP about Cholestyramine. It’s for cholesterol, but it’s binds to and neutralizes stomach bile which is getting dumped into your upper intestine since there’s not the buffer of your gallbladder anymore. Utterly changed my life years after surgery, could finally go out to eat breakfast without worrying about shitting my pants. Ironically it was the doctor who misdiagnosed me who finally recommended it when I started seeing him again (moved away like 6mo after surgery, boomeranged back years later.
Thank you!
I’ve had bike acid diarrhoea/malabsorbtion (BAM) almost every day since my surgery and my GP has said it’s to be expected because I had inflammatory bowel disease and my deodeunum is the most effected so it’s the reason I get gastric motility issues (some days I get gastric dumping, some days I have gastroparesis)
My doctor has just been changing my immunosuppression therapy trying to find the formulation and dose to reduce my BAM.
But it sounds like I need something to bind or neutralise the bile in addition to treating the IBD. I can’t believe my GP never suggested it, I’m definitely going to be asking if it’s worth trying.
Wow. That sounds awful. Sorry you had to love through all that for such a long time.