GLPs, Your Gallbladder, And You – Birdwhacker's Guide to Busting Organ Failure

birdwhacker

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Rapid weight loss caused by GLPs, and perhaps even GLPs themselves, cause gallbladder failure as a side effect.
No, I will not source my claim, because I'm not a nerd. Use Google.
No, I haven't been diagnosed by a doctor. Unless you want to pay for the visit, go to another thread if this bothers you.

Me, 27m 6'0", started reta about 13 weeks ago and I'm down 32lbs (14.5kg) in that time. This is basically a sustained 3lbs per week starting from my first week on reta. Cardio and diet only, no lifts. 1200 calorie defecit.

About two months in, I started having URQ (upper right quadrant) pain while running. A distinct point at the 1 o'clock position at the line of my lowermost rib. Almost like a cramp on the inside. Once it starts, it continues to get worse unless I cut down the activity level. Coming back to the house and eating a meal seemed to make it go away for the rest of the day.

I now know that these attacks were triggered by having a zero fat cold breakfast (whey shake with nonfat milk).

Note that others may have totally different symptoms. Some people like to question this and suggest that I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't have some sawbones telling me to go take ibuprofen about it. I have done more research than you, and my dozens of forum posts and reddit threads trump your medical credentials any day of the week.

What follows will be a short explanation of symptoms, risk factors, and most importantly what you can do to fix it. Feel free to search reddit.com/r/gallbladder, reddit.com/r/altgallbladder, and other forums if you want to read more experiences. I just want to inform people using the search function in future of what they can do to potentially keep their gallbladder (hold out until surgery is required) for as long as they can.

TMI warning:
Ever since this started happening, I also noticed that taurine (any amount) and TUDCA cause me to shit my entire ass within minutes of taking them. These are not normal side effects of either supplement. If you take taurine and immediately shit your pants, you may have issues with your gallbladder! The poo is yellow or orange, burns, and doesn't smell or look like normal poo. It also floats on top of the water due to poorly digested lipids.

Taurine and TUDCA both stimulate the flow of bile. When the gallbladder is functioning poorly due to inflammation, sludge, or stones, taking something to stimulate it causes it to dump out all of the bile which subsequently stimulates the colon to produce lubricating mucous that tells you to shit your britches.

Here are some things that are bad for your gallbladder: Opiates, GLPs, calcium channel blockers, progesterone, merely being a woman, being over 40, being fat, not being fat too quickly after being fat, fasting, keto, skipping breakfast, cold drinks, nicotine, excess calcium, excess copper, excess iron, and beef.

Women are more likely to have gallbladder issues. Men are more likely to require surgery and medical intervention.

Here is what you can do to unfuck your gallbladder:

  • Digestive enzymes
  • Chanca piedra
  • Curucumin (turmeric) extract (with piperine)
  • Betaine HCL with Pepsin
  • Ox Bile
  • TUDCA
  • UDCA (Medication: Ursodiol)
  • Magnesium malate
  • Psilium husk, magnesium malate, zinc, lemon juice, ginger, vinegar
  • Oxytocin peptide

UDCA is the medication that a doctor would prescribe you to potentially dissolve gallstones. This does not work in more than half of cases, but you and me are built different so our chances are much better. TUDCA is taurine conjugated UDCA. Research shows that UDCA is more effective than TUDCA in dissolving stones. I haven't tried UDCA yet, but TUDCA produced an immediate relief in URQ symptoms for me (and taurine to a lesser extent). TUDCA is also used by bodybuilders and alcoholics to help protect the liver.

Chanca piedra, also known as stone breaker (a little on the nose imo), is some kind of bullshit tea that was originally used to break down kidney stones. Apparently is works for gallstones as well. From what I've seen in my research, this is one of the more effective treatments on par with UDCA. There are extract capsules on Amazon, and it seems that pairing these capsules with tea would be the smart move.

Curucumin with piperine, it's fucking turmeric. It's gotta be super good for you. The people on reddit told me to take it. Can't hurt, right? When it comes to herbal extracts and more esoteric supplements, I trust nootropicsdepot more than anyone on Amazon, so I'm gonna mention them since they have some high quality curucumin extracts available. I'll be picking them up for sure.

Digestive enzymes and betaine HCL with pepsin: Again, it's in the name. Digestive enzymes? That shit has to be super good for digestion. Betaine HCL with Pepsin, I have actually taken before when I was much younger. It cured my indigestion and I was quite impressed, but I never actually bought more. People on Reddit who have actually have success recommend the stone breaker tea in the morning, and the enzymes+pepsin taken before every meal. I personally would like very much to digest my fish oil again instead of dumping it into my toilet bowl.

Ox Bile: Gonna be honest, I don't know if this is totally necessary with UDCA/TUDCA since those are already bile salts. Use at your discretion, it comes up a lot so I had to mention it.

Magnesium Malate: Magnesium and zinc are good for the gallbladder. To be honest, if you're not already supplementing one or both of these, I have to wonder if you're responsible enough to be using peptides at all. I recommend malate, because I heard through a little birdy that malic acid is also good for stone dissolution and this seems like a good way to kill two paraquets with one cholesterol stone.

Oxytocin: This is a fun one and it's actually been super beneficial in my routine. Oxytocin is known for two things: Making you poop, and causing headaches. It excels at both of these tasks. In-fact, I have a headache right now. I was curious and I looked up the mechanism and found out that oxytocin causes contractions in the gallbladder that help push out bile acids.


My routine currently is as follows: Wake up, go make a hot toddy with honey, ginger, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper (surprisingly good). Then I chug down some psilium husk, and I chase it with 500mg tudca and a few grams of taurine while sipping the warm mixture. Then I have a few prunes and drink a shit load of olive oil. Then as I'm nearing the end of my drink, I blast 200-500mcg of oxytocin. After about ten minutes, the gall bladder starts dumping and I have a BM.

Today is day 3 of this routine, and I actually haven't pooped yet today because the gallbladder is getting better. Poops are looking slightly more normal, and I'm actually doing the routine for a second time right now after i had my dinner (7pm here). I'm going to add all of the above in next month and try to actually dissolve the stones and keep them dissolved moving forward. Thank God I'm unemployed and had the time to figure all of this out because the surgery is wildly expensive and good luck getting one immediately if it isn't like threatening or you don't have 10k sitting around.

Birdwhacker out!
 
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Tons of info, thanks for sharing your research as I am having issues having a bm at the moment. I'm on day 3 of no movement at all. Reading up now on all your info! Thank you again
I've never had that issue. Definitely do lots of magnesium, plenty of healthy fats, don't skip breakfast, warm liquid in the AM, and potentially TUDCA or taurine to stimulate the bile flow.

And I can't stress enough, LOTS of magnesium!
 
I've never had that issue. Definitely do lots of magnesium, plenty of healthy fats, don't skip breakfast, warm liquid in the AM, and potentially TUDCA or taurine to stimulate the bile flow.

And I can't stress enough, LOTS of magnesium!
Thanks ordering some of that right now! Appreciate it, this is kinda miserable
Edit: just ordered the TUDCA and the magnesium!
 
Gallbladder pain is like nothing else I have ever experienced. Rapid weight loss often results in the organ's failure. Removal is common following bariatric surgery. Pre-op my gallbladder was perfect. 16months post-op, out it came.

Anecdotally, my husband went to the hospital decades ago with severe gallbladder pain. During evaluation, a much more serious issue was discovered requiring immediate surgical intervention accompanied by a grueling months-long recovery. The gallbladder issue was never addressed. A few years ago, the pain again became an issue unresolved by digestive enzymes and other at-home remedies. Out it came. Sadly, the pathology report was unfavorable. He required a second - this time open - surgery to address the marginal tissue.

Chronic inflammation damages cells. Gallbladder cancer is almost never detected until it is very advanced.

I'm not telling anyone how to manage their health or to be afraid. I am, however, advocating medical attention over avoidance.

I hope your self care eliminates the pain and it's source!
 
I was asking chatgpt about this last night , trying to work out how common it is to need hospital treatment from taking GLP drugs.

Old research had shown rates of gallstones as high as 10% with bariatric surgery so I was curious if GLPs were similar or if not why?

There were a lot of different numbers, and a lot of people get gallstones but never get symptoms, but maybe as high as about 1% on GLPs will get symptomatic gallstones, but varies a lot with weight loss and age etc, the more weight loss and the faster the weight loss the more likely it gets. So really rapid weight loss can have gallstone risks as high as 10%, which is an extremely good reason to not go overboard at the start.

I was trying to find out the odds of needing hospital treatment for dehydration from GLP side effects, as this was my guess for the most common serious problem and the answer was about 4 per 1000 emergency department visits and about 1/1000 hospital admissions, this is going to vary with drug , dose and person, older sicker people being at higher risk. And grey GLP users being higher risk due to dose errors.

But at or around 1% sounds like you are more likely to need an emergency department visit for gallstone pain than dehydration. Usually gallstone pain is that severe.
 
I was asking chatgpt about this last night , trying to work out how common it is to need hospital treatment from taking GLP drugs.
It's a great question, and Lilly has a vested interest in leaving it unanswered for as long as they can.

But at or around 1% sounds like you are more likely to need an emergency department visit for gallstone pain than dehydration. Usually gallstone pain is that severe.
"Usually" is doing some heavy lifting here. It's much more accurate to say that usually gallbladder issues remain unnoticed until it's severe. Plenty of stories similar to my own, small episodes that led to GI distress and trying to manage things off and on for months/years until needing surgery.
 
Rapid weight loss caused by GLPs, and perhaps even GLPs themselves, cause gallbladder failure as a side effect.
No, I will not source my claim, because I'm not a nerd. Use Google.
No, I haven't been diagnosed by a doctor. Unless you want to pay for the visit, go to another thread if this bothers you.

Me, 27m 6'0", started reta about 13 weeks ago and I'm down 32lbs (14.5kg) in that time. This is basically a sustained 3lbs per week starting from my first week on reta. Cardio and diet only, no lifts. 1200 calorie defecit.

About two months in, I started having URQ (upper right quadrant) pain while running. A distinct point at the 1 o'clock position at the line of my lowermost rib. Almost like a cramp on the inside. Once it starts, it continues to get worse unless I cut down the activity level. Coming back to the house and eating a meal seemed to make it go away for the rest of the day.

I now know that these attacks were triggered by having a zero fat cold breakfast (whey shake with nonfat milk).

Note that others may have totally different symptoms. Some people like to question this and suggest that I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't have some sawbones telling me to go take ibuprofen about it. I have done more research than you, and my dozens of forum posts and reddit threads trump your medical credentials any day of the week.

What follows will be a short explanation of symptoms, risk factors, and most importantly what you can do to fix it. Feel free to search reddit.com/r/gallbladder, reddit.com/r/altgallbladder, and other forums if you want to read more experiences. I just want to inform people using the search function in future of what they can do to potentially keep their gallbladder (hold out until surgery is required) for as long as they can.

TMI warning:
Ever since this started happening, I also noticed that taurine (any amount) and TUDCA cause me to shit my entire ass within minutes of taking them. These are not normal side effects of either supplement. If you take taurine and immediately shit your pants, you may have issues with your gallbladder! The poo is yellow or orange, burns, and doesn't smell or look like normal poo. It also floats on top of the water due to poorly digested lipids.

Taurine and TUDCA both stimulate the flow of bile. When the gallbladder is functioning poorly due to inflammation, sludge, or stones, taking something to stimulate it causes it to dump out all of the bile which subsequently stimulates the colon to produce lubricating mucous that tells you to shit your britches.

Here are some things that are bad for your gallbladder: Opiates, GLPs, calcium channel blockers, progesterone, merely being a woman, being over 40, being fat, not being fat too quickly after being fat, fasting, keto, skipping breakfast, cold drinks, nicotine, excess calcium, excess copper, excess iron, and beef.

Women are more likely to have gallbladder issues. Men are more likely to require surgery and medical intervention.

Here is what you can do to unfuck your gallbladder:


  • Digestive enzymes
  • Chanca piedra
  • Curucumin (turmeric) extract (with piperine)
  • Betaine HCL with Pepsin
  • Ox Bile
  • TUDCA
  • UDCA (Medication: Ursodiol)
  • Magnesium malate
  • Psilium husk, magnesium malate, zinc, lemon juice, ginger, vinegar
  • Oxytocin peptide

UDCA is the medication that a doctor would prescribe you to potentially dissolve gallstones. This does not work in more than half of cases, but you and me are built different so our chances are much better. TUDCA is taurine conjugated UDCA. Research shows that UDCA is more effective than TUDCA in dissolving stones. I haven't tried UDCA yet, but TUDCA produced an immediate relief in URQ symptoms for me (and taurine to a lesser extent). TUDCA is also used by bodybuilders and alcoholics to help protect the liver.

Chanca piedra, also known as stone breaker (a little on the nose imo), is some kind of bullshit tea that was originally used to break down kidney stones. Apparently is works for gallstones as well. From what I've seen in my research, this is one of the more effective treatments on par with UDCA. There are extract capsules on Amazon, and it seems that pairing these capsules with tea would be the smart move.

Curucumin with piperine, it's fucking turmeric. It's gotta be super good for you. The people on reddit told me to take it. Can't hurt, right? When it comes to herbal extracts and more esoteric supplements, I trust nootropicsdepot more than anyone on Amazon, so I'm gonna mention them since they have some high quality curucumin extracts available. I'll be picking them up for sure.

Digestive enzymes and betaine HCL with pepsin: Again, it's in the name. Digestive enzymes? That shit has to be super good for digestion. Betaine HCL with Pepsin, I have actually taken before when I was much younger. It cured my indigestion and I was quite impressed, but I never actually bought more. People on Reddit who have actually have success recommend the stone breaker tea in the morning, and the enzymes+pepsin taken before every meal. I personally would like very much to digest my fish oil again instead of dumping it into my toilet bowl.

Ox Bile: Gonna be honest, I don't know if this is totally necessary with UDCA/TUDCA since those are already bile salts. Use at your discretion, it comes up a lot so I had to mention it.

Magnesium Malate: Magnesium and zinc are good for the gallbladder. To be honest, if you're not already supplementing one or both of these, I have to wonder if you're responsible enough to be using peptides at all. I recommend malate, because I heard through a little birdy that malic acid is also good for stone dissolution and this seems like a good way to kill two paraquets with one cholesterol stone.


Oxytocin: This is a fun one and it's actually been super beneficial in my routine. Oxytocin is known for two things: Making you poop, and causing headaches. It excels at both of these tasks. In-fact, I have a headache right now. I was curious and I looked up the mechanism and found out that oxytocin causes contractions in the gallbladder that help push out bile acids.


My routine currently is as follows: Wake up, go make a hot toddy with honey, ginger, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper (surprisingly good). Then I chug down some psilium husk, and I chase it with 500mg tudca and a few grams of taurine while sipping the warm mixture. Then I have a few prunes and drink a shit load of olive oil. Then as I'm nearing the end of my drink, I blast 200-500mcg of oxytocin. After about ten minutes, the gall bladder starts dumping and I have a BM.

Today is day 3 of this routine, and I actually haven't pooped yet today because the gallbladder is getting better. Poops are looking slightly more normal, and I'm actually doing the routine for a second time right now after i had my dinner (7pm here). I'm going to add all of the above in next month and try to actually dissolve the stones and keep them dissolved moving forward. Thank God I'm unemployed and had the time to figure all of this out because the surgery is wildly expensive and good luck getting one immediately if it isn't like threatening or you don't have 10k sitting around.

Birdwhacker out!
I cant see anything in that big block in the beginning its all dark.
Am I the only one? If I select all it highlights and I can read it.
 
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I cant see anything in that big block in the beginning its all dark.
Am I the only one? If I select all it highlights and I can read it.
Man let me hop on my computer. Something is up with the formatting. Some of the text was white so I tried to change the color to black.

@desinr-gal Absolutely. I titrated up from 2.33mg weekly to 4.66mg weekly in the second month. But I never increased my dose from there. I'm actually going down now to 1.8mg every 3 to 4 days because 2mg every 3 days was just too effective.

I even tried to do a refeed the last two weeks and ended up losing another 5lbs lmao. Suffering from success
 
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