Who would have guessed something so small could be quite so painful?

I’m now lying in bed in hospital waiting for them to whip out my gall bladder. I’ve asked for poached eggs on toast to keep me going but so far they’ve refused 🙁

Horrible pain. Collapsed gall bladder here. Went in for mine out on Christmas Eve a few years ago. Everyone else on ward was let out same day, I had the after party surgeon who did a botch job & had to stay in for a week 🙁
Due to the xmas celebrations, Every fruit & chocolate known to man was on offer at the end of my bed which isn’t so good when you’re nil by mouth.
Now have 4 tiny scars and no trouble with it at all. Good luck

Gall stones are normally found in menopausal overweight women, which i found out as a fit 19yo man Hurts like a goodun but i passed mine after a night on proper painkillers, but they are def on my list of things not to try again.
Good luck

Had my gall bladder out 3 years ago after several long bouts of excruciating abdominal pain over a few years. Every now and then a stone would dislodge from gall bladder and stick itself in the pipe between it and the liver – id go yellow, scream in pain, end up in hospital.

The surgery was fine, recovery was quick so you’ll be fine and on poached eggs within hours…

Gall stones yes extremely painfull, I passed mine but a nurse said to me it’s the only experience for man anywhere near childbirth.

I never want to have this.

My mum said they were worse than childbirth.

What causes them?

Apparently I have three ‘good sized’ gall stones. They were discovered while the medicos were looking for something else (which they didn’t find). Thus far, I haven’t had any trouble with them….didn’t even know they were there. The comments above explain the ‘you’re lucky’ sort of comments they were giving me!

Same experience as ch11i here. Months of abdominal pain, which my useless GP said was gastric reflux, culminating in me collapsing and being taken to A&E .
Small gall stone had stuck at the junction of the pancreatic duct and the common bile duct. This causes the pancreatic fluid to back up and get into the body where it does what pancreatic fluid does – break things down including your organs!
I was in hospital for 10 days with pancreatitis and for the first 7 days I could only have 100ml of water/hr, no food at all for a week!
They put me on the urgent list to have my gall bladder removed but this was still going to be 6 months away at the earliest and during this time I could get another stone could get stuck, so I coughed up and had it done privately 4 weeks later.
Surgery is dead easy and I believe they now throw you out the same day. There are possibly some interesting bowel episodes after you’ve had surgery, because the bile is not being controlled any longer, but overall it’s been good for me and much better than death which was a possible option.

For those above that have had gall stone problems – just because you passed one it doesn’t mean it won’t happen again…. You will have more stones in your gall bladder, it’s just a question of whether they get out or not.

Had mine removed a few years ago. The Bilary Colic is extremely painful. I thought it was indigestion to start with so took a tablet which only made it much worse. If you having gallstones problems cut fats out your diet altogether, no poached eggs, as the gall bladder releases bile into your stomach to breakdown the fat pushing the gallstones along with it. I still have my gallstones in a jar from when they removed my gallbladder. They are like small dried peas but when they been forced through a duct the size of a Bic refill you know why it’s so painful.

Anyone here had both gall stones before and appendicitis? Just wondered how they compared as appendicitis made every pain I have had in life seen rather minor, it is the only pain that has caused me to pass out and having open surgery to take the f***** out was sweet sweet relief. If gall stones are as bad then I’m going to look at how you avoid them!

If you having gallstones problems cut fats out your diet altogether, no poached eggs, as the gall bladder releases bile into your stomach to breakdown the fat pushing the gallstones along with it.

Yep, interestingly since the op I can get rather ‘soft’ poo to put it mildly (this is pretty common) but if I eat crappy food everything’s fine. This is because with no gall bladder the body just produces bile and chucks it unregulated into your bowels, so if you have a fat free diet you have too much bile in your system.
I’ve also recently found that fruit has quite an effect as well it seems but that may be unrelated.

Anyone here had both gall stones before and appendicitis?

A friend of ours is a nurse and she said that Pancreatitis/galll stones is the daddy.

A friend of ours is a nurse and she said that Pancreatitis/galll stones is the daddy.

Jesus! Time to google how you try and prevent it!

Not sure you can

I had a similar experience to you sharkbait but surgery was more immediate. Surgery was successful and uneventful. I do however since suffer with acute pancreatitis if I over-indulge in fats, hot spices, or alchohol 🙁

fr0sty125 – you really don’t want to suffer with gallstones; the pain is cold-sweat-vomit-inducing agony. Not to be confused with kidney stones which are, apparently quite bad enough 😯

I don’t think you can avoid gallstones. The specialist that did mine said some people are just more prone than others at getting them as the stones are collections of minerals.
Mine were brought about from an accident where my gallbladder became infected.

You can’t avoid them really. I had a virtually fat free vege diet and – in the words of the radiologist scanning me – I had 100s of small ones. A lot of people have them and never know.

Having the gall bladder out has given me some problems. Often excess bile comes out with my poo and boy does it give you fiery hole… sorry if thats too much info 😉 but its better than the other symptoms before removal…

Well they’ve cancelled the op in order to investigate why I’ve got pain in the wrong place (underneath sternum) as well as the right place (gall bladder).

So stuck here another 24 hours fantasizing about hot buttered toast and thick cut marmalade…

I had nearly all my pain under my sternum – it confused my docs as well as they were sure it should have been hurting around my back!
Forget food, they ain’t giving to you.

Mine were spotted by chance on a MRI scan. Clear result for scan but told I had gall stomes. I’d had no pain whatsoever! Consultant recommended removal because it was more than likely they would cause problems later. Pondered for sometime but agreed to procedure (didn’t want the pain or surgery in my 70s! (I’m an old bugger).
In and out in a day after keyhole surgery. Hardly any pain (didn’t need painkillers) but the bloatedness and feelings of organs shoved here and there isn’t very pleasant for a few days. Best advise is to get walking asap which really does help. Two weeks off work.
This was seven months ago and I eat just about everything I used to eat (didn’t have a high fat diet). Just start with small amounts and build up.

The pain I had was underneath the sternum to the right. No mistaking the pain as it feels like someone has there hand in there squeezing harder and harder until it stops. Sweats, vomiting, drip white and lots of cursing.
I had painkillers, many didn’t even touch the pain. Pethidine worked but made me violently sick. Only thing that really worked was morphine. That made the pain worth it just for the drugs they gave you.

No mistaking the pain as it feels like someone has there hand in there squeezing harder and harder until it stops.

Oh yes. That’s exactly it!

^yip remember that pain too well^