Gallbladder Removal or Not ?

I have been to the ER 5 times with extreme stomach(gallbladder) pain. Each time I have ate some real greasy pizza or barbecue. When I dont eat those things I feel fine. Well I had a CT scan done and they saw one gallstone. They wanted to perform surgery right there. I talked to my gastroenterologist and he said that none of the methods used to flush your gallbladder work effectively and have a real low success rate. He said I could try them but there are unwanted side affects. This decision is very difficult cause I have googled gallbladder things and I have read so many blogs from doctors to patients about having a gallbladder and what people go through after having one removed ! I have read some horrible things and many people have used Chinese medicine or hoeopathic things and it has worked and how they would have never had their gallbladder removed or wont. I have a disease called Ulcerative Colitis which is basically inflammation of the colon. I will always have it. Its under control but because of that I have had digestive problems. Which is another reason I dont want my gallbladder removed. My doctor says this is minimal and not many people have problems, However I read different. I would love to hear someones comments that has this problem or similar and some good advice would be much appreciated believe me !!! Thanks all. !!!

Gallbladder Removal or Not ?
if ur stone is small, the doctor can just remove ur stone. no need to remove gall bladder.

removal of gall bladder does not have much physiological effect on your body.

bile is still made by ur liver. the only difference is that the bile is not concentrated.Gallbladder Removal or Not ?
Skip the homeopathic nonsense.



When you've had enough pain from your gall bladder, have it taken out. If you do it electively, it's a very low risk procedure in most people. If you end up with gallstone pancreatitis or a stone in the duct, it's a different matter. Then you get to have lots of different procedures and hospital admissions. It's not common to get those side effects, but they DO happen. (And you'll end up losing your gall bladder in the process, anyway)



Surgery of any type may exacerbate your UC, but a course of steroids around the time of surgery may reduce that chance. Talk to your gastroenterologist about that, and have him/her talk to your surgeon before having the GB out.



Good luck.Gallbladder Removal or Not ?
The Gall bladder's a pretty useless parts of our anatomy really (like the appendix). All it does is store bile, not make it (the liver does this).



When you eat the fatty food you're gall bladder contracts to squirt the bile out into your duodenum (the stone makes this process painful). Without the gall bladder all that will happen is the liver will squirt the bile into the duodenum more directly. The over-all result will be very similar.



These 'Horror stories' are likely to originate from surgical complications, which are always present with every type of surgery. Nowadays gallbladder surgery can be done relatively non-invasively with laproscopic instruments! Minimising the chance of infection, plus there'll hardly be any scaring (as the inscisions are very small).



Also think about it, all the people who have had very sucessful operations (i.e. the vast majority) will not have bothered to write anything about it on the internet.



Still, in the end it's your body and your descision. But your doctor IS the best person to talk about issues like this (not random strangers from the internet).