FourthQuintile
New Member
Had some top center abdominal pain two nights ago going to bed. Woke up the next morning, felt much worse. Pain worse, I rated it 8-9 on a 1 to 10 scale, as while I could still move, dealing with the pain was basically taking up my entire thought process. Also had added nausea, vomiting, and profuse sweating overnight. I am not someone who randomly sweats profusely so I knew it wasn't good. Went to the emergency room. Was getting additional pain on upper right of abdomen as they ran through some tests and I waited. Scans and tests revealed that my pancreas was fine, I was concerned about that as I know pancreatitis is possible. However, my gallbladder was not so fortunate. There was one large impacting gallstone along with other gallstones. Was told there's only one option at that point, surgical removal of gallbladder, or cholecystectomy. They had space at the hospital to fit me in for the surgery same day at least, and they also could do a laparoscopic surgery instead of an open surgery, with smaller incisions and reduced downtime.
Thankfully, surgery went very smoothly and I'm recovering now, still in some pain but I was prescribed a small army of painkillers for the next week
. The person who went with me and waited for me spoke with the surgeon and the surgeon seemed in very good spirits about how the surgery went. I'm posting this mostly for anyone who finds themselves facing similar pains or concerns, as pain in that area is a possible side effect of significant weight loss, and of GLP-1 drugs. But, I am now without a gallbladder for the rest of my life.
Individually I'm a little frustrated, as I intentionally started dosing really low and increased slowly, mostly to try to reduce the risk of exactly what happened here. I've also been basically stalled out on weight loss for 4-5 months now, losing only about 1 pound per month in that time despite being pretty high up on dosing now. Maybe this isn't directly related to the weight loss or the GLP-1s even, I'm not sure. Maybe there was little I could do to prevent this from happening...but I definitely tried, so it's a little frustrating for this to happen anyway.
In the long-term I should be fine. Will have to avoid fatty meals for a few weeks now, and likely be slightly careful of them for life. I was told that I should be fine, as the liver will still produce bile and it will still enter my digestive system, it just won't be retained in my gallbladder anymore which might make some high-fat meal digestion a little more difficult. Short-term, going to be a number of bland meals, I still don't feel great and haven't eaten much so far today, one day after the surgery. Still a good amount of pain and soreness in abdomen, but down to about a 5-6 instead of the 8-9 it was at. Going to follow this for the next couple of weeks: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/5-ways-to-avoid-discomfort-after-your-gallbladder-removal . Also going to run a fairly aggressive course of BPC-157 and TB500 that I have on hand to help with recovery, going 500 mcg of each twice daily for about 10 days, mostly because that's all the TB500 I have but might go another bit longer with the BPC as I have quite a bit more of that.
Posting this thread for anyone else who has been through gallbladder removal, or is looking at it, or wakes up one day with significant abdominal pain. Take it seriously, no matter how you are sourcing or researching GLP-1s. Please share your experience, or share sources that helped you, or ask questions if you have any!
My recommendations:
1. Get the laparoscopic surgery if at all possible. I'd even switch hospitals if needed to get laparoscopic surgery, if the one I went to only did open for whatever reason. I have only four small incisions on my abdomen, which all should heal and scar minimally if at all, and my recovery should be shorter and better than open surgery.
2. This is a common enough procedure that most surgeons will have experience with it, I believe it is one of the ten most common surgeries, so I would not be too concerned about complications or difficulty as a general rule. There is no routine surgery, especially an unscheduled one, but this is about as close to routine as it gets in terms of surgery.
3. The gallbladder is not a required organ, you can live without it. You'll have to be a little more careful with diet, especially right after the surgery, but long-term there should be few to no concerns.
And while I think my health insurance is pretty good...I am about to find out the hard way just how much it does or does not cover
Thankfully, surgery went very smoothly and I'm recovering now, still in some pain but I was prescribed a small army of painkillers for the next week
. The person who went with me and waited for me spoke with the surgeon and the surgeon seemed in very good spirits about how the surgery went. I'm posting this mostly for anyone who finds themselves facing similar pains or concerns, as pain in that area is a possible side effect of significant weight loss, and of GLP-1 drugs. But, I am now without a gallbladder for the rest of my life.Individually I'm a little frustrated, as I intentionally started dosing really low and increased slowly, mostly to try to reduce the risk of exactly what happened here. I've also been basically stalled out on weight loss for 4-5 months now, losing only about 1 pound per month in that time despite being pretty high up on dosing now. Maybe this isn't directly related to the weight loss or the GLP-1s even, I'm not sure. Maybe there was little I could do to prevent this from happening...but I definitely tried, so it's a little frustrating for this to happen anyway.
In the long-term I should be fine. Will have to avoid fatty meals for a few weeks now, and likely be slightly careful of them for life. I was told that I should be fine, as the liver will still produce bile and it will still enter my digestive system, it just won't be retained in my gallbladder anymore which might make some high-fat meal digestion a little more difficult. Short-term, going to be a number of bland meals, I still don't feel great and haven't eaten much so far today, one day after the surgery. Still a good amount of pain and soreness in abdomen, but down to about a 5-6 instead of the 8-9 it was at. Going to follow this for the next couple of weeks: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/5-ways-to-avoid-discomfort-after-your-gallbladder-removal . Also going to run a fairly aggressive course of BPC-157 and TB500 that I have on hand to help with recovery, going 500 mcg of each twice daily for about 10 days, mostly because that's all the TB500 I have
but might go another bit longer with the BPC as I have quite a bit more of that.Posting this thread for anyone else who has been through gallbladder removal, or is looking at it, or wakes up one day with significant abdominal pain. Take it seriously, no matter how you are sourcing or researching GLP-1s. Please share your experience, or share sources that helped you, or ask questions if you have any!
My recommendations:
1. Get the laparoscopic surgery if at all possible. I'd even switch hospitals if needed to get laparoscopic surgery, if the one I went to only did open for whatever reason. I have only four small incisions on my abdomen, which all should heal and scar minimally if at all, and my recovery should be shorter and better than open surgery.
2. This is a common enough procedure that most surgeons will have experience with it, I believe it is one of the ten most common surgeries, so I would not be too concerned about complications or difficulty as a general rule. There is no routine surgery, especially an unscheduled one, but this is about as close to routine as it gets in terms of surgery.
3. The gallbladder is not a required organ, you can live without it. You'll have to be a little more careful with diet, especially right after the surgery, but long-term there should be few to no concerns.
And while I think my health insurance is pretty good...I am about to find out the hard way just how much it does or does not cover
. Take it easy for as long as your instructed to even if you think you're all healed up or you'll likely be hurting the next day. 
