I just scheduled my band surgery for the end of Feb. Found out today I have gall stones. They will proceed with the banding, but I'll need an additional surgery later to remove gall bladder. Any idea ~how long after you need to heal before the 2nd surgery? I haven't had any pain / problems from the stones yet, found them during the ultrasound, so I figure that's why it's fine to wait a while. I wouldn't have known about them if not for this surgery anyway.

Surgery sounds sounds similar to the band, looks like I'll have to go through recovery twice.

There have been other Bandsters here that have had the gallbladder removed during the banding. Will your doctor consider that, so you don't have to go through to surgeries and two recoveries?

Hello,

I knew that I had gall stones before I had the band. I had several bad attacks of pain from them. When I decied to talk to my Dr. about lap band he said he would not take the gall bladder out at the same time as he put the lapband in due to possible contamination. I had the lapband on 1/24/08 and I just had my gall bladder out 1/16/09. When I went back to talk to him about taking my gall bladder out he told me that if I wasn't having any problems with it then I didn't need to have it taken out. I told him I had had problems in the past but only had one minor attack since I had my band put in, but that I wanted to get pregnant soon. Every Dr. I had ever talked to told me I had to have it taken out before I got pregnant because if you have stones then the chances of everything flaring up during pregnancy is very possible. So thats why I had mine out and as far as time, I wanted to wait until I lost some weight but my doctor didn't give me a time line.

I would ask your Doctor why he wants you to have it taken out if you've never had any pain from it. You can check and see if they do the procedures at the same time I think some doctors will. I found the gall bladder surgery to be easier than the lapband surgery. Hope this helped. Good luck.

Thanks, the person I talked to when scheduling the band operation said the doctor will not do both at once. Band is 2/27, I didn't want to delay that.

He said I don't need it out before it. I'm going to talk with my PCP about needing it out or how likely to have problems later. I'd need to have it done by a different surgeon anyway if done later. The band is being put in a couple hours away, it would normally be out of network, except the local hospital does not perform lap band.

After I posted I started finding some other threads about gall stones, feel better about options at this point. Don't think I'll need an immediate operation. Glad I found them prior to having the pain, sounds like quite an unpleasant experience...