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Gallbladder: Should it stay or should it go?



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My abdominal ultrasound test results are in!

The gallbladder is unremarkable. No gallstones or sludge identified.

I don't have any history with gallstones and I don't want to take the risk of gallstones developing after surgery because of the rapid weight loss.

Should the gallbladder stay or go?

Has anyone been in the same predicament or similar?

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Mine looked fine on the ultrasound and then had to quickly be removed within a month (I had to wait a bit longer but it was seriously bad). I am unsure if sludge actually shows up on ultrasound? That's what I had and in retrospect, some intermittent pains I had attributed to heartburn were actually my gallbladder before the surgery causing trouble.

If I could do it over again, I would have had it removed at the same time just to avoid a second surgery.

I occasionally feel uncomfortable when I eat very fatty meats, like carnitas or a ribeye but otherwise don't notice that I'm missing it.

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My PCP put me on a 6 month prophylactic course of ursodiol. I started it 2 weeks before surgery. I'm 18 months out and at goal, and have never had an gallbladder issues. It is not uncommon after WLS, but also not a sure thing. I'm not sure what the value in a proactive removal would be. Definitely talk through options with your PCP/surgeon!

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they used to take gallbladders out routinely during WLS, but they don't anymore. Lots of us take ursodiol (Actigall) for the first few months after surgery now. It doesn't completely prevent gallbladder trouble, but it greatly reduces the risk. I never had any issues with mine (almost eight years out)

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14 hours ago, catwoman7 said:

they used to take gallbladders out routinely during WLS, but they don't anymore. Lots of us take ursodiol (Actigall) for the first few months after surgery now. It doesn't completely prevent gallbladder trouble, but it greatly reduces the risk. I never had any issues with mine (almost eight years out)

With having no current gallbladder issues & taking the Ursodiol for hopefully only 6 months will greatly decrease complications

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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

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