Can You Believe The Gall Of That?

As I detailed the pain and diagnoses in my last post, I thought I would write a quick description of my issue with Gallstones.

Over the weekend, and on Monday morning, it turns out that I experienced some gallstone attacks, also known as flare-ups. Gallstones form in the gallbladder, in fact many people (20%) have them. Sometimes (about 1% of the time) these gallstones move to block a duct in the gallbladder causing extreme pain, this is then considered a medical emergency - which makes me feel better about ending up at the hospital when it happened to me.

Sometimes this blockage can lead to infection and inflammation of the gallbladder, which requires emergency surgery to remove the organ imminently. This is not the case for me. However, I will need to have my gallbladder removed since I am now considered to have gallbladder disease. The attacks will continue and if the stones pass through the ducts in the gallbladder into other areas than more serious complications can occur. I have been given an appointment with a general surgeon next week.

In the meantime, I was prescribed some strong pain killer medication to take if another attack occurs and given some suggestions as to how to eat to possibly avoid the attacks, though a lot of what I have read is contradictory. What I am trying while I wait to have the pesky thing removed is multiple (6-8) very small meals each day of low fat foods, mainly fruit and vegetables. I am not eating anything that is high in fat, and am not having caffeine, or anything carbonated, deep fried, or overly processed.