Gall stones

Anyone else have the joy of these? Being pg is starting to set them off again. My mW said if I can handle a decent gall bladder attack then I should be fine with labour. I thought she was joking but she didn't laugh. Any comparison in regards to pain levels from anyone? I get some doozey attacks that have me collapsed and vomiting from the pain. Last one stuck around for 24 hours.

And what do you know..........I get pregnant and can't have surgery and what letter do I get from the hospital? You've got to be flimmin kidding! ggggrrrrrrr, annoyed my med insurance wont cover it so I have the joy of public.

Hi Millie,

From what my surgeon said first time round and from what i've read, Gall stones pretty much mean good bye gall bladder. My sister had them too and lost her gall bladder. Probably depends on how bad they are too. I've got a high pain threshold (like most females) and these attacks are just way too much these days and they're getting worse.

It's all done through key hole now and they say the recovery time is about 5-7 days till your up and about again. Nothing like it used to be. I guess maybe that's why they're more inclined to take it out rather than leave it? I'd rather have mine gone if it will fix the problem. Have to wait till baby is out and on the bottle I guess.

Hi Kazzle,

It's good to hear the recovery time is so short. Still, must of been hard with a little one at 9 weeks old!

Kazzle wrote: and honestly i preferred the gallstone attacks to labour...but thats only because i was induced and was stuck on a bed.....at least with the attacks i could walk it off, even if it did take 6 hours.

LOL, I wasn't going to say anything in case it scared you, but I too found that labour was a lot worse. But I also was induced and stuck on my back in bed and it was very difficult to try and work through the pain like that. My attack lasted about 13 hrs until I went to the afterhours clinic at 4am (with a 4 month old baby in tow) because I didn't know what it was at the time and received pain relief there.

I am awaiting surgery to have my gall bladder removed and I have only had the one 'attack'. The gall stone was too big to pass on it's own and they said that once you have one, you are most likely going to keep getting them so they just remove the gall bladder in most cases. I've been told that it'll be keyhole surgery (all going well) and that I'll have to stay over night but then they also said not to lift anything for 3 weeks afterwards (including my daughter). It's not going to be totally practical to do this so I'm just going to see how we go. I'm glad that you said you were pretty much back to normal after a few days Kazzle.

The surgeon I saw for my assessment said that it's "not uncommon" for them to occur during/after pregnancy

Wow I didn't realise how common it is for people to have Gallstones. Glad to hear that it is only keyhole surgery and recovery is very quick. I am hoping that I won't need to have surgery but will find out this week.

I don't know much about gallbladders but I sure wasn't vomitting and flaking in labour

Will they look to remove them/it or can you just sort it out with a good diet? My mum has them but she finds they are ok when she keeps the fats down.