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Have you had your gallbladder out?

By December 23, 2008 - 10:55am
 
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My doctor says I really need to have my gallbladder out. I was wondering if anyone else who has had this done could tell me about their recovery? How long you were in the hospital, and how long it took you to recover at home afterward before you could resume your previous schedule?

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I had Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy about 2 years ago. Mine was done in day surgery and was more painfull to me than when I passed a kidney stone. Every person is different but this was not an easy walk in the park for me. It was about 3 weeks of a lot of pain and about 4 weeks before I did not need pain meds every day. It was about 6 months before I think I was really fully recovered. I still have pain in that area when I eat something I am not suppose to eat and I have to be close by a restroom if I eat something really fatty. It will go through me pretty quick.

Gained about 20 lbs since the surgery as well.

I am sure there are more positive outcomes than mine but be prepared for the worst but hope for the best!

Good Luck and let me know how it goes for you!

Amy

June 15, 2009 - 9:12pm

Thank you so much for all your information. I am supposed to have it out laparoscopically. It's very good to know about the recovery time today, I think I was expecting it to be much longer.

December 24, 2008 - 10:37am

I had my gallbladder removed over 12 years ago when Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy was very new and most doctors’ experience was performing it on pigs. I was lucky to end up in the ER when a great doctor was available. He had done 11 humans. I felt reassured. Prior to that people needing their gallbladder removed had to undergo a pretty invasive surgical procedure that included a horizontal cut ranging from 4 to 8 inches. Recovery was very long and painful. My procedure was fast and I stayed at the hospital only 24 hours. I was ready to go back to work the next day. Recovery depends on each person. But I have heard from many who have had this procedure that with a couple of days of rest they were ready to go back to a normal routine.
What I did not know is that tiny stones sometimes escape the gallbladder during the procedure and are left behind unnoticed. I was among the lucky ones who seven years later had to be rushed to the ER because a couple of stone left from the original procedure were left behind and they grew to the point that they blocked that pancreatic duct causing me acute pancreatitis. I do not know what could have prevented that but I learned that if genetically you are programmed to make stones, then it is not unusual. Good luck!

December 23, 2008 - 10:58pm

Patti,
I am sorry to hear that you need surgery. Do you have gallstones or another condition that is causing you to have a cholecystectomy?

According to Empowher's reference page on Cholecystectomy, you can expect a recovery period of 4-6 weeks with an open cholecystectomy, and approximately a 3 week recover period with a laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

Can you tell us more about which procedure you are having done?

MedlinePlus also has a lot of information about: different types of surgery, an interactive tutorial, clinical trials and even alternatives.
You can read all of these here: http://vsearch.nlm.nih.gov/vivisimo/cgi-bin/query-meta?v%3Aproject=medlineplus&query=cholecystectomy&x=34&y=7

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, I hope we hear from you soon!

December 23, 2008 - 3:15pm
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