Has anyone had a gallbladder cleanse instead of removal?

her70cuda

A lot of people have stones without pain or symptoms of stones. I think there are more tests they can do to find out if the gallbladder is working ok. You might ask your Dr. to have those done before deciding on surgery if your stones aren't causing pain.

Collector167

While I think you are being proactive to consider alternatives to surgery, you should be aware that a lot of stuff sold on the internet is quackery. On the other hand as you apparently are not in a lot of pain, you have some time to experiment. There are some supplements like Lecithin which may be helpful.

Currently ursodiol or actigall can be prescribed to help dissolve most types of gallstones and sludge. It is a somewhat expensive and a long term treatment. It is an appropriate treatment for the elderly and those for whom surgery is a big risk. I have been on ursodiol for almost two years now and am pain free most of the time.

The bottom line seems to be that once you have gallbladder problems, you will probably have them until the gallbladder is removed. Removal of course is not risk free as the recent death of Congressman Murtha from gallbladder surgery complications shows. Also 10%+ of those who have the gallbladder removed have continuing problems.

Finally, if it becomes necessary to have the surgery, make sure you find a surgeon with lots of experience.

CFIDS

on mine i was not into or aware of alternative medicine/natural stuff back then...so i just did what they told me and got it out. However, in research afterwards, I gathered that it might be possible to maintain or even completely heal a sick gall bladder with the correct diet and natrual substances, flushes or whatever if does correctly. But on the contrary, if it has stones it needs to come out because of the dangers there...

In my case mine was just sick but no stones so I wish I had at least gotten the opportunity to try to heal it before I just listened to the doctors and got it removed. I know they say there can be flushing processes for stones, but I am not sure about those; I'd be likely to recommend an attempt to heal a sick one than to try to flush stones, but it might work...JUST DO LOTS OF REASEARCH 1st, or even find a good naturopath in your area.

But to the other comments, I think it is not off-base to say that once it is sick, or has stones, unless you became a super-health nit for life, then your problems are likely to arrise again at some point. In my case, I figured it was best to have it out at 29 than later on....the doc did at least tell me with better diet I might be able to "manage it". I chose the easy road and I regret it. A lady in mt neighborhood made it 15 extra years with her sick gall bladder (no stones) but she said eventually it had to come out...and I think she just tried flushes & herbs but no radical life style changes...

Titchou

I had stones and elected to have mine out. The reasons were:

1) The flush might not work. One of my was large and I was concerned that it would get stuck in the bile duct and I would have to have emergency surgery.

2) It runs in my family so even if the flush worked, I would probably develop more stones down the road and be right back where I was. Even without the family connection they can come back because you can't change what caused them in the first place.

3) No flush or cleanse can undo any damage already done to the gb itself.

4) Gallbladders can rupture jsut like your appendix. This can lead to death - see Congressman Murtha and a friend of mine's father...not how I wanted to go.

5) While diet does have some bearing on this, low fat, healthy diets can produce stones as well. A balance of fat is required to keep the bile at the proper level and the gb functioning properly. Too little is just as bad as too much. Take my word, I eat healthy - 5'2", 110 pounds, 64 year old female and I can bench press 65 pounds and do squats with 78. I jog regularly - in fact, jogged 2 miles one week after having my gb out. My total cholesterol is 168.

Be sure to take all facts into consideration. Mine's been out 5 years and I don't miss it and I don't have any problems without it.

Chum

Find yourself a good surgeon and get it out. I suffered with mine almost 2 years(2 wasted years) eating bland fat free food, trying the apple juice, herbs and other quackery found on the net. The operation is a piece of cake. Now a neighbor of mine waited as well and had hers out, but she started getting sick and they found a small stone in her duct which they may have to get out if it dont pass. What convinced me to have it removed was a friend of my sisters is a nurse and warned me what can happen.....ruptute, stones stuck in the bile ducts....gangrene. I had mine removed feb 8th and was up and moving the next day. Murtha was from my area and his intestine was nicked during surgery. When I returned to visit my surgeon a week later he told me there is no excuse for that to happen and nobody should be afraid to have theirs out.

her70cuda

After having pancreatits from a stone I would have never tried to do any sort of flush.

Indianmist

Hi Chum,

I wasted my time doing all of that stuff too. Flushes, drinking large amonts of apple juices, taking herbs that supposedly "healed" the gallbladder, and anything else you can think of - it was all a waste of time and money. I was just putting off the inevitable.

I finally relented and had my gallbladder removed along with my appendix. I'm so glad I did, because I found out that my appendix was retrocecal, and hidden behind my colon and other organs. The surgeon informed me that if I ever got appendicitis, I could have died because they would have never found it on a CT scan. He had a difficult time removing it due to it's position, but finally got it out. It turns out - due to the pathology report - that I'd been suffering from chronic appendicitis all along, which in turn severely scarred my appendix. I would have never known this if I hadn't gotten surgery.

It was the best thing I could have done. So don't put off getting your gallbladder removed out of fear, because you could be making a bad situation even worse by waiting.

Indianmist

The quality of my life hasn't changed much. Unless you consider cessation of constant right-sided pain, vomitting after every meal, and constant bowel problems 'lower quality'. Oh yeah and I can't digest nuts anymore. But I can live with that.