Replete gallbladder

Hi, Ozziegirl, and thank you for your question.

I'm so sorry that you're having such pain and discomfort. Especially since it appears you may have to wait a few weeks (a few weeks? really?) to talk to the surgeon. That's a lot of time to be dealing with this.

You may know much of this information since you dealt with this already once all those years ago. But here's some great information on gallstones from our encyclopedia. It includes info on how they form, how they are diagnosed and the various surgeries:

https://www.empowher.com/media/reference/gallstones#definition

It may help you to know that most gallbladder surgery can now be done laparoscopically, through tiny incisions in your belly button and abdomen. While it is still surgery, of course, it carries fewer risks and has a far shorter recovery time.

Is the doctor who diagnosed you concerned that you may have any sort of an infection? If so, did she or he put you on antibiotics?

The Mayo Clinic has a lot of information about gallstones. Be sure to click on the blue links to the left that lead you to pages on risk factors, complications, treatments and drugs:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/gallstones/DS00165

If you had small stones, or just a few, or if they were not causing you active symptoms, doctors might choose to try to dissolve them with medicine. I assume that your doctor talked to you about this but that she or he thinks you have too many or that yours are too large to benefit much from this therapy?

Do you have other health conditions that are related to this? DIabetes, obesity, high cholesteral?

The Mayo Clinic says that there aren't alternative therapies that have been proven to dissolve gallstones. However, there are sites that focus on how to lower cholesterol in order to help. They recommend getting enough Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), taking supplements or eating foods that are rich in lecithin, such as tofu, lentils and grains, get the saturated fat out of your diet, drinking lots of water (even more than the 8 glasses recommended normally) and eating foods rich in fiber. I'm with you -- work on these areas for a few weeks while you wait to see the surgeon and see if they help!!

Are you concerned more about the surgery itself? Or are you concerned about living without a gall bladder?