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has anyone else ever had more problems after surgery with gallbladder. i am not either producing enough bile or it's not going to the right place. it is causing major digestion problems alsmost as many as before. i told my doctor it may be my sd, but she says she is not so sure about that. any suggestions appreciated, i'm taking ox bile, hydraucloric acid, and digestive enzymes. the gang has always been so helpful. thank you so much.
[user=345]tish[/user] wrote:
i am not either producing enough bile or it's not going to the right place. it is causing major digestion problems alsmost as many as before.
Tish, I haven't had my gall bladder out, but I did have bilary attacks a few years ago, which I managed to clear by alternative means to surgery. While I was researching this, it was clear that although the procedure is pretty commonly done nowadays and considered to be routine, there are some post-operative complications of gall bladder surgery that patients should be informed and made aware of possibly occuring afterwards. I read somewhere that GB surgery is now one of the most lucrative surgeries that is being performed and a good many GBs are removed unnecessarily, as a result.
One thing you could ask your doctor about is the possibility of sphincter of oddi dysfunction. This is the result of scar tissue that builds up around the surgery site, often where the bile duct has been nicked, close to the sphincter of oddi. The inability of the sphincter to properly open and close (like a valve) due to this build up of scar tissue causes the bile to back up, and is therefore not released into the gut to help in the digestion process. The pain from this can be as severe as the original GB pain.
This type of surgical injury is more common now with the keyhole incisions they use today than it was when they did open abdominal surgery. Patients should be informed of this prior to surgery, because it is such a common occurance. Unfortunately, because it takes a while for the scar tissue to build up, it can also take a while for a connection to be made, even though the pain is quite similar to GB pain. Apart from pain, one of the signs may be elevated liver enzymes due to the back-up of bile.
Sphincter of oddi dysfunction – or at least the scar tissue build-up – can't be seen too well on ultrasound, so they normally do a procedure called an ERCP, which is a tiny camera used to go in to take a look. Using this small camera, they can sometimes dislodge and remove any stuck stones (still being formed in the liver, but no longer being caught by the GB) without the need for surgery and can also remove any scar tissue that may be stopping the sphincter from opening and closing properly. As far as I know, it's a pretty simple day-surgery procedure and doesn't normally require a hospital stay.
I'm, of course, not a doctor and this is just what I remember reading, so you may want to do a bit of research on this yourself. There's quite a bit of info online, if you search with the key words “gall bladder surgery” together with “sphincter of oddi dysfunction.” If it is this, supplementing likely won't help, but definitely worth asking your doctor about as a possibility. If it is this, you should be able to have it sorted out fairly easily.
Good luck and let us know how you get on, Tish!!!
Peace, Maz
[user=345]tish[/user] wrote:
has anyone else ever had more problems after surgery with gallbladder.
Hey Tish,
I had my gallbladder out, but it was before I got sick with SD. One thing I discovered post-surgery was to stay away from all animal products. Slowly, very slowly you can then test your tolerance by adding small amounts.
Wishing you the best…..kim
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