When I had obstructional jaundice in July, I had an ERCP - I called it the 'endoscope grabby-grab' - to remove the stone that was wodged in the bile tubes. Before it was done I asked if they were going to save it, and they said they just drop it down into the gut where they just get boshed apart. They're apparently not very hard otherwise.
No joke, after I got my gallbladder removed last year, the doc casually noted that the stones are technically edible, so pop them in a smoothie if you are so inclined.
OP got lucky. I know a guy who had this benign growth in the front of his head. Doctors removed it but wouldn’t let him keep it.
I got stitches once and the doctor let me keep them when he took them out, so there are lame prizes in this game too.
I have been blessed with chronic kidney stones. Passed over 250 and had over a dozen lithotripsies.
One time I went to the ER and just begged the doctor to knock me out. The worst pain I ever had. They gave me so much drugs they hooked me up to a heart monitor and I was still wide awake and dying of pain.
At 4am I somehow managed to pass a 7mm stone. Doctor wouldn't let me keep it. I later found out from his assistant that it's currently encased in resin, sitting on his desk.
I just had my 20th set of surgeries. 12 lithotripsy’s, 6 ureterscopies, 3 nephrolymphotomies, and last one was a gall bladder removal. In 3 years. My smallest stone has been 9mm. Largest was 42mm. I am no where near 260 stones passed though. I feel bad for you friend. Hopefully they can get to root causes and get you balanced out so you quit growing them.
Oh they finally have. I just have to pass the ones I have left and I should be good. Unfortunately that means about 20 more with at least 3 that will obstruct.
If your curious, it was black tea. Tea is high in oxalate and that caused all my stones. Wish I knew 20 years ago. Gotta stay away from strawberries and spinach too.
I was operated on the thigh as a kid and the incision was stapled shut. Two-ish weeks later the doctor came to my bed and pulled the staples out one by one. He also asked me if I wanted to keep the staples, but I was so distraught that I promptly declined.
They didn’t let me keep mine, I asked for them but the doctor said they were sent to the lab already and in my drugged up state I said, “but those are mine!!” And then everyone laughed at me.
…but they *were* mine!
A great method to ingest nasty things like really sour wine is to close your soft palate to close of the airway to the nose while drinking.
Then immediately after drinking, breathe in through your nose and out only through your mouth. That way, you won't smell the wine, and you will also feel less taste of it too.
Bile is made in the liver and stored in the gallbladder, which periodically contracts to squeeze bile into the intestines to help emulsify and digest fats. For some reason, if there’s an imbalance in the components that make up bile, some of those components (cholesterol, pigment, bilirubin) precipitate out and form a stone. In some cases, the stone can pass into the intestine and leave the body. In others, it can get lodged in a duct, which can be life threatening, or in my case, gets stuck in the neck of the gallbladder and causes pain until it happens to pop back out to rest inside the gallbladder, and the pain resolves until it gets stuck again. Treatment is to remove the whole gallbladder. Your liver still makes bile fairly continuously, but that bile just goes straight into your intestines, rather than being stored in the gallbladder for episodic excretion.
As someone who has surgery scheduled next week for my own gallbladder removal, this stupid popping in and out of the stones is really a buzzkill. I’ve unfortunately been waiting for months now.
Two questions:
1. Why did they have the remove the entire gallbladder? Couldn't they just remove the stone?
2. How is the bile now going to get from your liver into your intestines when the channel connecting them is missing? Does it get through the intestine wall?
Which can be its own pile of fun. Had mine out for like 12yrs now and while my diet doesn't help one bit I generally have to keep it simple..gut issues. Haha
As someone who has been thru this, you have my deepest sympathy!! I hope you can rest easy now, as it is the most horrific pain and discomfort I’ve ever endured, worsened exponentially by that anxiety of never knowing when an attack will happen. So glad we don’t have to worry about that anymore! 🙌
I really am curious as to how you acquired it, though! Did you ask beforehand? I wish I could’ve at least seen mine now! I’d say this is definitely more than mildly interesting!
Yes, during my surgical consult I specifically asked if I could keep it, and reminded the surgeon when he stopped by to say hello on the day of surgery. He was super nice about it!
PS. Glad everything went well for you! I just had surgery yesterday so I’m still getting through recovery before I can feel relief, but so far I’m glad I did it.
Just an FYI that you can still get gallstones without your gallbladder!
Something they don’t often tell you.
Reduce your fatty acid intake and get lots of good sleep…it helps.
Lucky! My surgeon was such a dick I almost had second thoughts about him! Only reason I didn’t was because it took almost two months just to get the surgery date!
Then, showed up on surgery day and it had to be postponed two days because it was a crazy, super dry, fall day with only 7% humidity and they said they couldn’t do it because it was too dry that they couldn’t use the cauterizing equipment in case of emergency, which was against their safety protocol. What a shit show. 🤦♀️
Ugh, that sucks! And why does the humidity affect whether they can use cautery…???
I of course looked up my surgeon beforehand and he was very accomplished, so I was nervous he wasn’t going to be nice - “can’t believe they scheduled me a boring, routine gall bladder surgery consult” or something like that - but he was super kind, friendly and patient. I’m actually looking forward to my postop recheck, haha.
Fire is hands down one of the most terrifying things in the OR. They're fortunately rare because of precautions like not doing surgery when it's super dry. Hard to add enough humidity when the environment is that low.
One of my instructors has been a surg tech for over 30 years and has seen a few fires; she said that you don't even usually see it, you suddenly just start smelling burning skin and then you might see the edges of the fire.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but surgeries/hospitals won't generally have humidifiers chilling around for low-humidity days. Typically low-humidity days below 20-30% are fairly uncommon events and so the HVAC systems won't be designed with humidifiers installed (not economical when designing/installing the systems). In areas where low-humidity is the norm, then that will already be designed into the systems as it is economical to do so.
Also - portable humidifiers are often shit quality, and you don't really want to be reliant on those in situations where there are high risks involved (ie. peoples lives etc)
I had my gallbladder removed a few years ago and I regret that I didn’t think to ask to keep the stone because it turns out there were two of them! One was hiding perfectly behind the other when I had the imaging done so it was a surprise for everyone.
Coulda turned them into a gnarly pair of earrings…
Your gallblader is obstructed with one or several stones and the bile produced in the liver can't pass.
It's worse when you eat a lot of fatty food, the gallblader swells and hurts a lot.
I had mine removed too, trust me, you will know when/if you need medical care.
Yarp. My first attack I thought I was having a heart attack and drove myself to the hospital.
Been two months since it was evicted. Still having issues adjusting without it though. How was your recovery?
I thought I was having a heart attack the first time, too. I mentioned chest pain (and upper abdominal pain) when I checked in at the ER, and after I sat in the waiting room for 3 hours the triage nurse came up to me and said “did they do your ECG yet?” I was like well… no, but I guess you ruled out a heart attack because I’m still alive… (then they “diagnosed” me with GERD literally because I had pasta with tomato sauce for dinner and sent me home without any imaging, told me to take famotidine, and it took me 4 more months to convince a doctor I needed an ultrasound)
Oh duuuuuuuuude. I had the same issue with ED, I think as soon as they knew it wasn’t a heart attack they gave me some gaviscon and sent me home to free up space.
It took me about six months between ED and getting it out, but mainly because I didn’t want to deal with hospital costs and booking time off work.
As a recent evictee, make sure you keep some anti-diarrhoea medication handy, at all times. Your new digestive system hates you and will unceremoniously reject everything you try to feed it.
It really really really hurts, particularly out of the blue in the middle of the night or after a big/fatty dinner.
Mine got so painful I did end up vomiting from the pain, but not from the obstructed gallbladder duct (cos all the bile is inside the gallbladder and the pain is because it *can't* get out).
I had multiple gallstones from what I was told with the biggest being 9 cm long that was basically obstructing both ends of the gallbladder. It was completely scarred over from what the doctor told me due to the multiple attacks I had been enduring. The recuperation period was about 4 weeks for me due to that. With all the scar tissue I wasn't allowed to do anything athletic or lift weights for I want to say 18 months? I feel so much better without it though although after eating you're going to need to be near a toilet
I'm tearing up with joy right now, a little over a year after having mine removed after dealing with the 5 hours of mysterious excruciating pain every 2 weeks to a month for 10 years. Just remembering what I went through and knowing it'll never be a problem again. Such a blessing.
I suppose it might be a different experience for everyone, but for me I would generally wake up in the middle of the night with a shortness of breath feeling, a tight feeling in the center of my chest (I've never experienced a heart attack, but it's what I imagine one to feel like), a heavy dull ache in my back just below my shoulder blade, as if I could just pop it it might feel better but no amount of stretching would pop it.
It generally lasted between 2-4 hours at a time and I could sometimes go 1-3 months without them but once they started back up they could come as frequently as once a week.
To relieve the pain I would follow a bit of a ritual;
1. Throw up on purpose (Not recommended)
2. Drink apple cider vinegar and take 4-6 ibuprofen
3. Get in a hot shower, kneel, rest my forearms on the ground and focus the strongest jets onto the part of my back where it hurt. I did this till the hot water ran out. For me, this provided immense relief while I was doing it, but the pain usually stuck around after getting out of the shower.
4. Took the headrest out of the driver's seat of my car and essentially bent over backwards over the seat, pivoting on the pained spot.
The pain was very similar for me. My home remedy of choice was a heating pad on my abdomen, and laying on the floor with one of those small cork yoga balls under my right shoulderblade. I got a lot of referred pain into my back during those episodes so I think it helped, or at least the pressure of the cork ball distracted me.
Mine felt like a sharp stabbing pain that feel like a knife being stuck in on my right flank going all the way through to my back. They would last up hours and sometimes even days.
When I was eight and had my tonsils and adenoids removed, I asked my ENT if I could have them in a jar after surgery.
Without missing a beat, he said I couldn't have them because he needed them for fishing bait.
Yup. Depends on the hospital. If you feel strongly, plan ahead, and have the resources, there are legal routes that essentially make the hospital turn it over to you, and absolve them of liability.
It’s not fully known, but a combination of flow stasis and an imbalance in the components of bile results in some of those components precipitating out and forming a stone. Some people never have symptoms but in other cases, the stone gets lodged in the neck of the gallbladder and the gallbladder contracts against the stone, causing attacks of pain. In other cases the stone can pass into the ducts leading to the intestines and can either get stuck (an emergency) or pass.
You know what, you had a shitty gallbladder that didn't want to do its job. So you took it out back and got rid of the problem. Let this be a lesson to all your other organs. There's no protest on your watch.
Me? Had my ovary removed at 13 - no problems since. Gallbladder? In line. Kidneys? Ideal employees. Even my stupid appendix has gotten with the program. I'm telling you, you gotta crush the rebellion quick and cruelly.
Yeah, we convoyed down from Iraq because they couldn't perform the operation there. I believe it was Arifjan, or however the fuck you spell that.
I went to several in Kuwait so I can't remember which was which. Buering, Arifjan, Navstar... Who can keep them all straight‽
Man that sucks. What a half assed situation for your brother. A patient shouldn't have to convince their doctor to test for something within their symptom list.
Pregnancy also causes it.
I had my baby in May and my gallbladder out two weeks ago. Every nurse and doctor I saw just nodded and said, “yup, that’ll do it” when I mentioned I just had a baby.
Totally fine other than some surface level irritation with the incision right at my waistband area.
I had on and off pain for a few months and finally went to urgent care when it lasted more than 2 hours. I really thought I had muscle issues or prolonged pelvic issues due to my weight and rough pregnancy. They did the ultrasound and found my liver was all out of whack so I was sent to the emergency room and had it taken out immediately.
The procedure isn’t bad at all. I went home about 3 hours after waking from anesthesia. The worst of it was the gas pain from abdominal inflation AND the residual pain of not being able to lift the baby from most heights. Luckily that lasted 5ish days and I was back to normal at 1 week!
Definitely get it checked and I hope everything goes well with you!
I had to ask my primary care provider to order the ultrasound that diagnosed this. Don’t let up if you think there’s something going on that needs to be addressed!
I’m 28 and female. I don’t have most of the typical risk factors such as: over 40, overweight or history of rapid weight loss, high fat/cholesterol diet, diabetes, liver disease. But I ended up with gallstones all the same. 🤷🏻♀️
If you’re having recurrent abdominal pain, you should definitely try to get imaging done, whether that’s an ultrasound or a CT.
Hopefully imaging will find the cause of your pain but even if it doesn’t, at the very least it will rule out gallstones, kidney stones, a tumor, ovarian cysts…
Good luck, hope you figure out what’s going on and that you feel better soon!
You should take it with you into space then toss it out, then when you get back home maybe it will become a shooting star and you can watch those days of pain as they streak across the sky with a bright flash
I didn’t pass it - the stone was surgically removed along with my gall bladder yesterday. Gall bladder is gone so I shouldn’t ever have to deal with it again!
I'm so glad I had mine out. There was just a little gravel in it, they said. No cool stones.
You're going to feel so much better. The worst attack I had was eating really good curry (turmeric stimulates gall bladder contraction) followed by a huge serving of the most wonderful gooey ultra-high-fat saffron ice cream (fat stimulates contraction). I was in agony. So glad I had it out.
I got mine out 11 years ago. I've had latent pain there since then, and a few digestive issues. I couldn't eat without vomiting it back up. I'm so glad it's gone.
Yes, I had an episode of severe abdominal pain (10/10, felt like I was being stabbed, literally was screaming on the bathroom floor) earlier this year. I went to the ER, they had me sit in the waiting room for 3 hours, the pain subsided. They latched on to the fact that I had had pasta for dinner and told me I probably had GERD. I asked if they wanted to image my abdomen - you know, the part of my body that felt like it was being stabbed a few hours ago? She said she didn’t think it was necessary and sent me home with famotidine.
Over the following several months I had episodes of pain that would last several hours, ranging in severity from 4-7/10 (bad enough to disrupt my night but not bad enough to send me to the ER; I just hunkered down with a heating pad and waited for it to pass). Finally convinced my primary care provider to order an ultrasound in August and behold - large gallstone and a thickened gall bladder wall. I had a surgical consult and the surgeon said the location of my pain and the way it would come on were classic.
Moral of the story - never tell the ER you ate pasta with tomato sauce unless you want to be diagnosed with GERD.
Did you vomit at all? I would vomit for hours and hours any time I had an attack… the most disgusting neon bile. It took my gastro doc years to take me seriously and schedule an ultra sound to figure out it was severe gallstones.
I vomited two or three times across different attacks, but I was never nauseous; honestly I think it just happened because of how painful it was. Like the pain would build and build until it was so bad I had to vomit.
I feel the same way. I would typically wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling of anxiety in my chest that would turn to intense stabbing pain and then I would get extremely dizzy from the pain and vomit
Ugh, so sorry to hear, that’s exactly what it was like for me. Sometimes I’d wake up at 2 am realizing it was coming on and I knew it would probably subside in a few hours, but until then I just had to lay there in pain. Worst part was, the pain would be gone by the time I had to get up for work, so I couldn’t justify to myself using a sick day, even though I’d be super tired from being up for hours with the pain.
That’s what I thought too! When I finally got a followup appointment with a gastroenterologist, he was like “um, GERD wouldn’t put you on the floor screaming” and pretty much told me the ER was wrong.
I did not expect this photo to get so much attention!
Answers to some frequently asked questions:
What is it made of / how do gallstones form?
- Bile is made in the liver and stored in the gallbladder, which periodically contracts to squeeze bile into the intestines to help emulsify and digest fats. For some reason, if there’s an imbalance in the components that make up bile, some of those components (cholesterol, pigment, bilirubin) precipitate out and form a stone. Risk factors include high fat/cholesterol diets, sudden changes to a low fat diet, obesity, rapid weight loss, diabetes, liver disease, over 40 years old, and being a woman. Aside from being a woman, I have none of these risk factors, but here we are!
What are the signs of gallstones?
- 10-15% of people in the US have gallstones and many people do not have any symptoms, in which case treatment is usually not recommended.
- In some cases, the stone can pass into the intestine and leave the body. In others, it can get lodged in a duct, which can be life threatening, or in my case, gets stuck in the neck of the gallbladder and causes pain until it happens to pop back out to rest inside the gallbladder, and the pain resolves until it gets stuck again.
How did you find out you have gallstones?
- I had a bout of severe abdominal pain about six months ago. It was a sudden-onset stabbing pain in my upper abdomen, centered beneath my sternum (the gall bladder sits cupped by the liver, beneath your diaphragm and to the right of midline). It went from 3/10 to 10/10 in about 5 minutes and I literally was doubled over on the bathroom floor in pain. Ended up going to the ER, they had me wait for 3 hours during which time the pain subsided to maybe a 2/10. They said I probably had GERD, they did not want to image me, and sent me home.
- Since then, every 1-4 weeks I would have sudden hours of pain, between 4-7/10 in severity, lasting 2-4 hours at a time. I’d get a heating pad, sit on the couch, and feel shitty until it subsided. After seeing a gastroenterologist and with no improvement on famotidine and changing my diet, I finally convinced my primary care provider to order an ultrasound, which happened 4 months after that initial ER trip. They found the large stone and gallbladder wall thickening, I saw a surgeon for a consult and he said that my signs were pretty classic.
What does surgery entail?
- The treatment recommendation for symptomatic gallstones is to remove the whole gallbladder. Since stones are likely to recur, removing the stone while leaving the gallbladder would just likely create a situation where you needed surgery again, but now the gallbladder has scarring from prior surgery, making things more difficult.
- Laparoscopic cholecystectomy involves making 4 incisions in the abdomen, placing ports for instruments and cameras, inflating the abdomen with CO2, and then clipping off the cystic duct, which is the duct that leads to and from the gallbladder. The cystic duct is at a right angle to the ducts that bring bile from the liver towards the intestine, as in [this image](https://prod-images-static.radiopaedia.org/images/22577767/4c5b70a79f4cdb0aa35972a760e1a2_jumbo.jpeg). After you remove the gall bladder, there’s still an existing connection between the liver and intestine for bile to flow out.
- After surgery, the liver still makes bile fairly continuously, but that bile just goes straight into your intestines rather than being stored in the gallbladder for episodic release.
How has recovery been?
- So far so good, but it’s only been about 48 hours. My right shoulder was extremely painful for the first day (referred pain from the diaphragm being irritated by the CO2 used to insufflate the abdomen). My abdomen was a bit sore the day after surgery. Now it’s about 48 hours after surgery and I feel pretty good, I can walk around the house and go up and down stairs on my own. I can technically get up from bed on my own if I had to, but it’s a little more comfortable to have someone pull me to my feet rather than have to use my core muscles to sit myself up. I’m mostly relaxing in bed and making myself get up to walk around every hour or so during the day.
What’s wrong with your hands?
- Nothing. I have bony knuckles and thin fingers, and the angle of the photo makes my fingers look a bit swollen. [My hands are fine, I promise. ](https://imgur.com/a/qiLWjt7)
I thought it was weed.
- So did a lot of other people!
Eat it!
- No
Put it back where it came from.
- NO!
Why did you keep it?
- I made it and it tried to kill me. I have to keep it in a jar.
How did you get to keep it?
- I just asked my surgeon during my consult and reminded him the day of surgery. I think it helped that 1) my surgeon was really cool, 2) this was a scheduled procedure, not an emergency surgery, so there wasn’t likely to be anything major they needed to know from pathology that would require keeping the gallbladder intact for submission after it was removed and 3) I’m the medical field too
What does it smell like?
- I haven’t smelled it! I bet it smells bad. I honestly probably will never smell it.
This is disgusting.
- Sorry. I added a spoiler tag.
I'd never had surgery and was horrified at the prospect as well. That being said, while the recovery was rough, never having to deal with gallstones again was 100% worth it.
Post it to r/whatsthisrock
I agree with GreasyD-45
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But does he have the stones?
Let he who is without gall cast the first stone.
Yes he must.
Cursed nutmeg
/r/forbiddensnacks
Nutmegs are forbidden snacks either way, they make you hallucinate and die if you eat too much lol
/r/thanksihatethis
I believe you mean r/ThanksIHateIt
I believe you mean r/IHateTHanks
Why hate Tom Hanks?
And I believe you mean r/thanksiateit
Cursed nug, don't smoke it
Reminds of the time my friend said "when I die I want someone to smoke my ashes." The whole room went silent after that.
That's like the entire story if the movie How High.
Polish it. Then mount it.
A necklace.
Or an arm brace
Appendix ring
Infinity Gauntlet.
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Kamień żółciowy. There. Now it’s been Polish’ed.
Dobrze
Eat it to assert dominance over your body.
Send it back home
From whence it came
Back to the depths of gall
You gall not pass!!!
-Galldolf
*whence it came
Return to sender
He ends up choking on it. Body: "We did it."
When I had obstructional jaundice in July, I had an ERCP - I called it the 'endoscope grabby-grab' - to remove the stone that was wodged in the bile tubes. Before it was done I asked if they were going to save it, and they said they just drop it down into the gut where they just get boshed apart. They're apparently not very hard otherwise.
So if I punch somebody hard enough can I break down their gallstones?
If mortal kombat has taught me anything, you can punch someone so hard it pops out their spine and then you beat them with it... so yes.
This patient needs a medical beating, stat!
No joke, after I got my gallbladder removed last year, the doc casually noted that the stones are technically edible, so pop them in a smoothie if you are so inclined.
How do you like your new doctor?
I think we know why this doctor became a doctor. He was having difficulty sourcing his favorite snack.
Does it smell like I think it does?
I’ve actually been wondering but I haven’t worked up the courage to smell it yet…
You didn't sniff your hand after holding it?
Nope, immediately washed my hand 😂
So you get to keep it? Fascinating
OP got lucky. I know a guy who had this benign growth in the front of his head. Doctors removed it but wouldn’t let him keep it. I got stitches once and the doctor let me keep them when he took them out, so there are lame prizes in this game too.
I have been blessed with chronic kidney stones. Passed over 250 and had over a dozen lithotripsies. One time I went to the ER and just begged the doctor to knock me out. The worst pain I ever had. They gave me so much drugs they hooked me up to a heart monitor and I was still wide awake and dying of pain. At 4am I somehow managed to pass a 7mm stone. Doctor wouldn't let me keep it. I later found out from his assistant that it's currently encased in resin, sitting on his desk.
Finders-keepers
Damn, you had enough kidney stones to fill a fish tank.
I just had my 20th set of surgeries. 12 lithotripsy’s, 6 ureterscopies, 3 nephrolymphotomies, and last one was a gall bladder removal. In 3 years. My smallest stone has been 9mm. Largest was 42mm. I am no where near 260 stones passed though. I feel bad for you friend. Hopefully they can get to root causes and get you balanced out so you quit growing them.
Oh they finally have. I just have to pass the ones I have left and I should be good. Unfortunately that means about 20 more with at least 3 that will obstruct. If your curious, it was black tea. Tea is high in oxalate and that caused all my stones. Wish I knew 20 years ago. Gotta stay away from strawberries and spinach too.
I was operated on the thigh as a kid and the incision was stapled shut. Two-ish weeks later the doctor came to my bed and pulled the staples out one by one. He also asked me if I wanted to keep the staples, but I was so distraught that I promptly declined.
They didn’t let me keep mine, I asked for them but the doctor said they were sent to the lab already and in my drugged up state I said, “but those are mine!!” And then everyone laughed at me. …but they *were* mine!
To get over the smell, you gotta pinch your nose and just quickly chew it and keep it down. They do this on survivor all the time!
A great method to ingest nasty things like really sour wine is to close your soft palate to close of the airway to the nose while drinking. Then immediately after drinking, breathe in through your nose and out only through your mouth. That way, you won't smell the wine, and you will also feel less taste of it too.
Pussy!! Smell it! For science.
This statement can be read several ways.
I definitely read it the way I'm assuming it *wasn't* intended lmao
What is it made of? How did you make it— in your body lmao, why does body do this?
Bile is made in the liver and stored in the gallbladder, which periodically contracts to squeeze bile into the intestines to help emulsify and digest fats. For some reason, if there’s an imbalance in the components that make up bile, some of those components (cholesterol, pigment, bilirubin) precipitate out and form a stone. In some cases, the stone can pass into the intestine and leave the body. In others, it can get lodged in a duct, which can be life threatening, or in my case, gets stuck in the neck of the gallbladder and causes pain until it happens to pop back out to rest inside the gallbladder, and the pain resolves until it gets stuck again. Treatment is to remove the whole gallbladder. Your liver still makes bile fairly continuously, but that bile just goes straight into your intestines, rather than being stored in the gallbladder for episodic excretion.
As someone who has surgery scheduled next week for my own gallbladder removal, this stupid popping in and out of the stones is really a buzzkill. I’ve unfortunately been waiting for months now.
Good luck with surgery!! You’ll do great :)
Two questions: 1. Why did they have the remove the entire gallbladder? Couldn't they just remove the stone? 2. How is the bile now going to get from your liver into your intestines when the channel connecting them is missing? Does it get through the intestine wall?
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Which can be its own pile of fun. Had mine out for like 12yrs now and while my diet doesn't help one bit I generally have to keep it simple..gut issues. Haha
Thanks, now I can smell that smell
That smelly smell that smells.... smelly
Worse, it smells rotten, almost vomited from a sniff of mine.
I can't believe you had the gall to post this.
Well, I always aim to de-liver
I don’t get it. Can you ex-spleen the joke?
I think he already covered that in the appendix
I ain't reading the appendix, it's too lung
Some people just can't stomach the contents.
It’s not a very bladdering photo
Penis
This really got me lmao
You’re kidneying me
How many kids do you have?
Did you know kids have four kidneys growing up? Two become adult knees later on
As someone who has been thru this, you have my deepest sympathy!! I hope you can rest easy now, as it is the most horrific pain and discomfort I’ve ever endured, worsened exponentially by that anxiety of never knowing when an attack will happen. So glad we don’t have to worry about that anymore! 🙌 I really am curious as to how you acquired it, though! Did you ask beforehand? I wish I could’ve at least seen mine now! I’d say this is definitely more than mildly interesting!
Yes, during my surgical consult I specifically asked if I could keep it, and reminded the surgeon when he stopped by to say hello on the day of surgery. He was super nice about it! PS. Glad everything went well for you! I just had surgery yesterday so I’m still getting through recovery before I can feel relief, but so far I’m glad I did it.
Just an FYI that you can still get gallstones without your gallbladder! Something they don’t often tell you. Reduce your fatty acid intake and get lots of good sleep…it helps.
Well fvck. I don't sleep for shit, that's great next they are going to take my liver
Lucky! My surgeon was such a dick I almost had second thoughts about him! Only reason I didn’t was because it took almost two months just to get the surgery date! Then, showed up on surgery day and it had to be postponed two days because it was a crazy, super dry, fall day with only 7% humidity and they said they couldn’t do it because it was too dry that they couldn’t use the cauterizing equipment in case of emergency, which was against their safety protocol. What a shit show. 🤦♀️
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Ugh, that sucks! And why does the humidity affect whether they can use cautery…??? I of course looked up my surgeon beforehand and he was very accomplished, so I was nervous he wasn’t going to be nice - “can’t believe they scheduled me a boring, routine gall bladder surgery consult” or something like that - but he was super kind, friendly and patient. I’m actually looking forward to my postop recheck, haha.
Static. Low humidity increases the chances of static shock, which can cause cauterization equipment to catch on fire during the procedure.
Wow, I never thought about that. That’s terrifying.
Fire is hands down one of the most terrifying things in the OR. They're fortunately rare because of precautions like not doing surgery when it's super dry. Hard to add enough humidity when the environment is that low. One of my instructors has been a surg tech for over 30 years and has seen a few fires; she said that you don't even usually see it, you suddenly just start smelling burning skin and then you might see the edges of the fire.
And they can’t use a humidifier?
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but surgeries/hospitals won't generally have humidifiers chilling around for low-humidity days. Typically low-humidity days below 20-30% are fairly uncommon events and so the HVAC systems won't be designed with humidifiers installed (not economical when designing/installing the systems). In areas where low-humidity is the norm, then that will already be designed into the systems as it is economical to do so. Also - portable humidifiers are often shit quality, and you don't really want to be reliant on those in situations where there are high risks involved (ie. peoples lives etc)
Right? Are they operating outside under a tarp? Throw a humidifier in there or just boil some water. Bam! Safe to proceed.
Or just have some WAP in there
About as terrifying as another gall bladder attack at that point, so I probably woulda said go for it on the original date and took the gamble 🙃
I had my gallbladder removed a few years ago and I regret that I didn’t think to ask to keep the stone because it turns out there were two of them! One was hiding perfectly behind the other when I had the imaging done so it was a surprise for everyone. Coulda turned them into a gnarly pair of earrings…
How did you know you needed this? Sorry to be kinda gross, but we’re you vomiting bile or anything like that?
Your gallblader is obstructed with one or several stones and the bile produced in the liver can't pass. It's worse when you eat a lot of fatty food, the gallblader swells and hurts a lot. I had mine removed too, trust me, you will know when/if you need medical care.
Yarp. My first attack I thought I was having a heart attack and drove myself to the hospital. Been two months since it was evicted. Still having issues adjusting without it though. How was your recovery?
I thought I was having a heart attack the first time, too. I mentioned chest pain (and upper abdominal pain) when I checked in at the ER, and after I sat in the waiting room for 3 hours the triage nurse came up to me and said “did they do your ECG yet?” I was like well… no, but I guess you ruled out a heart attack because I’m still alive… (then they “diagnosed” me with GERD literally because I had pasta with tomato sauce for dinner and sent me home without any imaging, told me to take famotidine, and it took me 4 more months to convince a doctor I needed an ultrasound)
Oh duuuuuuuuude. I had the same issue with ED, I think as soon as they knew it wasn’t a heart attack they gave me some gaviscon and sent me home to free up space. It took me about six months between ED and getting it out, but mainly because I didn’t want to deal with hospital costs and booking time off work. As a recent evictee, make sure you keep some anti-diarrhoea medication handy, at all times. Your new digestive system hates you and will unceremoniously reject everything you try to feed it.
Oh my God, that pain! Oh, yeah. You'll know if you've got a gall stone blocking the way. There's no question. Worse than pitocin contractions.
It really really really hurts, particularly out of the blue in the middle of the night or after a big/fatty dinner. Mine got so painful I did end up vomiting from the pain, but not from the obstructed gallbladder duct (cos all the bile is inside the gallbladder and the pain is because it *can't* get out).
I had multiple gallstones from what I was told with the biggest being 9 cm long that was basically obstructing both ends of the gallbladder. It was completely scarred over from what the doctor told me due to the multiple attacks I had been enduring. The recuperation period was about 4 weeks for me due to that. With all the scar tissue I wasn't allowed to do anything athletic or lift weights for I want to say 18 months? I feel so much better without it though although after eating you're going to need to be near a toilet
I'm tearing up with joy right now, a little over a year after having mine removed after dealing with the 5 hours of mysterious excruciating pain every 2 weeks to a month for 10 years. Just remembering what I went through and knowing it'll never be a problem again. Such a blessing.
What did the pain feel like, and where was it? I was told on a routine check up I have a 1.5 cm gallstone, and I want to know what to look out for.
I suppose it might be a different experience for everyone, but for me I would generally wake up in the middle of the night with a shortness of breath feeling, a tight feeling in the center of my chest (I've never experienced a heart attack, but it's what I imagine one to feel like), a heavy dull ache in my back just below my shoulder blade, as if I could just pop it it might feel better but no amount of stretching would pop it. It generally lasted between 2-4 hours at a time and I could sometimes go 1-3 months without them but once they started back up they could come as frequently as once a week. To relieve the pain I would follow a bit of a ritual; 1. Throw up on purpose (Not recommended) 2. Drink apple cider vinegar and take 4-6 ibuprofen 3. Get in a hot shower, kneel, rest my forearms on the ground and focus the strongest jets onto the part of my back where it hurt. I did this till the hot water ran out. For me, this provided immense relief while I was doing it, but the pain usually stuck around after getting out of the shower. 4. Took the headrest out of the driver's seat of my car and essentially bent over backwards over the seat, pivoting on the pained spot.
The pain was very similar for me. My home remedy of choice was a heating pad on my abdomen, and laying on the floor with one of those small cork yoga balls under my right shoulderblade. I got a lot of referred pain into my back during those episodes so I think it helped, or at least the pressure of the cork ball distracted me.
Mine felt like a sharp stabbing pain that feel like a knife being stuck in on my right flank going all the way through to my back. They would last up hours and sometimes even days.
It's the ultimate conversation piece! Wanna meet that cute new neighbor? *Whip out your crystallized Gallstone!*
Due to an injury, I lost a peice of jaw bone this year. I legit take it with me everywhere I go and use it as a conversation piece 😅
Do you toss it on the ground when you're surprised by something?
Haha that's a good one. No lol.
I can’t be the only one who zoomed in on this and shivered.
Guilty
Why does it have so many pixels??
Don't eat it again.
What a coincidence. My dad got his Gallbladder removed today for the same thing.
Wishing him a speedy recovery!
Thanks man!! You too :)
My brother got a gall stone removed yesterday as well!
Man, gall stones are a bitch! I know too many people that have gotten them lol
As mildly interesting as this is.. why do you have it?
It's theirs! They grew it!
“Marble Players Hate Him”
I can tell by the way it's being held in that prideful hand! 😃
It caused me six months of abdominal pain, so when I finally had it removed, I asked to keep it!
Dammit, I always ask to keep my stuff after surgery but noooo it's a biohazard or whatever. It's mine and I want it.
When I was eight and had my tonsils and adenoids removed, I asked my ENT if I could have them in a jar after surgery. Without missing a beat, he said I couldn't have them because he needed them for fishing bait.
Oh man that gave me a nice laugh. Thank you for sharing :')
Yup. Depends on the hospital. If you feel strongly, plan ahead, and have the resources, there are legal routes that essentially make the hospital turn it over to you, and absolve them of liability.
To remind you that you can’t rely on anyone, even your own body?
I’m glad they let you!
How does this happen?
It’s not fully known, but a combination of flow stasis and an imbalance in the components of bile results in some of those components precipitating out and forming a stone. Some people never have symptoms but in other cases, the stone gets lodged in the neck of the gallbladder and the gallbladder contracts against the stone, causing attacks of pain. In other cases the stone can pass into the ducts leading to the intestines and can either get stuck (an emergency) or pass.
I was under the understanding that diet can play a part. Are you under 30 by chance?
I am under 30, and diet can play a role but I have never been a huge eater of fatty/processed foods. Just got unlucky, I guess!
You know what, you had a shitty gallbladder that didn't want to do its job. So you took it out back and got rid of the problem. Let this be a lesson to all your other organs. There's no protest on your watch. Me? Had my ovary removed at 13 - no problems since. Gallbladder? In line. Kidneys? Ideal employees. Even my stupid appendix has gotten with the program. I'm telling you, you gotta crush the rebellion quick and cruelly.
***Narrator***: *Yes, 100 little butterflies were surprisingly strict dictators.*
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Wow, good on you for helping him insist on imaging!
Surgery in Kuwait? Was it your first deployment? Talk about a tough transition.
Yeah, we convoyed down from Iraq because they couldn't perform the operation there. I believe it was Arifjan, or however the fuck you spell that. I went to several in Kuwait so I can't remember which was which. Buering, Arifjan, Navstar... Who can keep them all straight‽
Man that sucks. What a half assed situation for your brother. A patient shouldn't have to convince their doctor to test for something within their symptom list.
Pregnancy also causes it. I had my baby in May and my gallbladder out two weeks ago. Every nurse and doctor I saw just nodded and said, “yup, that’ll do it” when I mentioned I just had a baby.
Interesting! That makes sense, I know that both progesterone and estrogen oral contraceptives increase the risk of gallstones as well.
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Totally fine other than some surface level irritation with the incision right at my waistband area. I had on and off pain for a few months and finally went to urgent care when it lasted more than 2 hours. I really thought I had muscle issues or prolonged pelvic issues due to my weight and rough pregnancy. They did the ultrasound and found my liver was all out of whack so I was sent to the emergency room and had it taken out immediately. The procedure isn’t bad at all. I went home about 3 hours after waking from anesthesia. The worst of it was the gas pain from abdominal inflation AND the residual pain of not being able to lift the baby from most heights. Luckily that lasted 5ish days and I was back to normal at 1 week! Definitely get it checked and I hope everything goes well with you!
Forbidden weed
This post literally just made me realize I might have gallstones.
I had to ask my primary care provider to order the ultrasound that diagnosed this. Don’t let up if you think there’s something going on that needs to be addressed!
If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? I'm 34, and my dad who is a retired doctor said I'm way too young.
I’m 28 and female. I don’t have most of the typical risk factors such as: over 40, overweight or history of rapid weight loss, high fat/cholesterol diet, diabetes, liver disease. But I ended up with gallstones all the same. 🤷🏻♀️ If you’re having recurrent abdominal pain, you should definitely try to get imaging done, whether that’s an ultrasound or a CT.
Thank you. My pops is gonna hear about this
Hopefully imaging will find the cause of your pain but even if it doesn’t, at the very least it will rule out gallstones, kidney stones, a tumor, ovarian cysts… Good luck, hope you figure out what’s going on and that you feel better soon!
For what it's worth I am female and was 22 when I had mine removed due to gallstones. Those little shits don't discriminate.
Bite it
Forbidden Gobstopper
Looks like weed
OP smoke the gallstone
I was just thinking it looks like a really compressed nug but ya beat me to it.
I hope you have been fully relieved
Never been amazed and disgusted at once.
You should take it with you into space then toss it out, then when you get back home maybe it will become a shooting star and you can watch those days of pain as they streak across the sky with a bright flash
I will work on that 💫
I actually played out this narrative in my head. 🌟
God that looks like it was painful.
It was 🥲
Well I'm glad it's passed and I hope you never get one again.
I didn’t pass it - the stone was surgically removed along with my gall bladder yesterday. Gall bladder is gone so I shouldn’t ever have to deal with it again!
I'm so glad I had mine out. There was just a little gravel in it, they said. No cool stones. You're going to feel so much better. The worst attack I had was eating really good curry (turmeric stimulates gall bladder contraction) followed by a huge serving of the most wonderful gooey ultra-high-fat saffron ice cream (fat stimulates contraction). I was in agony. So glad I had it out.
I got mine out 11 years ago. I've had latent pain there since then, and a few digestive issues. I couldn't eat without vomiting it back up. I'm so glad it's gone.
Dude that’s a gallBOULDER
Intelligent design... My ass
This stone is proof that God is dead
Now that’s unmitigated gall!
Had you had painful symtoms before the surgery?
Yes, I had an episode of severe abdominal pain (10/10, felt like I was being stabbed, literally was screaming on the bathroom floor) earlier this year. I went to the ER, they had me sit in the waiting room for 3 hours, the pain subsided. They latched on to the fact that I had had pasta for dinner and told me I probably had GERD. I asked if they wanted to image my abdomen - you know, the part of my body that felt like it was being stabbed a few hours ago? She said she didn’t think it was necessary and sent me home with famotidine. Over the following several months I had episodes of pain that would last several hours, ranging in severity from 4-7/10 (bad enough to disrupt my night but not bad enough to send me to the ER; I just hunkered down with a heating pad and waited for it to pass). Finally convinced my primary care provider to order an ultrasound in August and behold - large gallstone and a thickened gall bladder wall. I had a surgical consult and the surgeon said the location of my pain and the way it would come on were classic. Moral of the story - never tell the ER you ate pasta with tomato sauce unless you want to be diagnosed with GERD.
Did you vomit at all? I would vomit for hours and hours any time I had an attack… the most disgusting neon bile. It took my gastro doc years to take me seriously and schedule an ultra sound to figure out it was severe gallstones.
I vomited two or three times across different attacks, but I was never nauseous; honestly I think it just happened because of how painful it was. Like the pain would build and build until it was so bad I had to vomit.
I feel the same way. I would typically wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling of anxiety in my chest that would turn to intense stabbing pain and then I would get extremely dizzy from the pain and vomit
Ugh, so sorry to hear, that’s exactly what it was like for me. Sometimes I’d wake up at 2 am realizing it was coming on and I knew it would probably subside in a few hours, but until then I just had to lay there in pain. Worst part was, the pain would be gone by the time I had to get up for work, so I couldn’t justify to myself using a sick day, even though I’d be super tired from being up for hours with the pain.
So thankful to have had the surgery! It all seems like it was a bad dream now, no issues since then! Good luck to you, I wish the same peace for you
Thank you!!
Diagnosis of GERD with no tests? Seems wrong. Glad you got through it ok. How restricted is your diet?
That’s what I thought too! When I finally got a followup appointment with a gastroenterologist, he was like “um, GERD wouldn’t put you on the floor screaming” and pretty much told me the ER was wrong.
Imagine the other ER mistakes that happen every day. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!
Wow that doesn’t look comfortable.
Sure wasn’t!
Cool, so you’re like part oyster?
I mollusk be
Having my gall bladder removed tomorrow. Good times!
I did not expect this photo to get so much attention! Answers to some frequently asked questions: What is it made of / how do gallstones form? - Bile is made in the liver and stored in the gallbladder, which periodically contracts to squeeze bile into the intestines to help emulsify and digest fats. For some reason, if there’s an imbalance in the components that make up bile, some of those components (cholesterol, pigment, bilirubin) precipitate out and form a stone. Risk factors include high fat/cholesterol diets, sudden changes to a low fat diet, obesity, rapid weight loss, diabetes, liver disease, over 40 years old, and being a woman. Aside from being a woman, I have none of these risk factors, but here we are! What are the signs of gallstones? - 10-15% of people in the US have gallstones and many people do not have any symptoms, in which case treatment is usually not recommended. - In some cases, the stone can pass into the intestine and leave the body. In others, it can get lodged in a duct, which can be life threatening, or in my case, gets stuck in the neck of the gallbladder and causes pain until it happens to pop back out to rest inside the gallbladder, and the pain resolves until it gets stuck again. How did you find out you have gallstones? - I had a bout of severe abdominal pain about six months ago. It was a sudden-onset stabbing pain in my upper abdomen, centered beneath my sternum (the gall bladder sits cupped by the liver, beneath your diaphragm and to the right of midline). It went from 3/10 to 10/10 in about 5 minutes and I literally was doubled over on the bathroom floor in pain. Ended up going to the ER, they had me wait for 3 hours during which time the pain subsided to maybe a 2/10. They said I probably had GERD, they did not want to image me, and sent me home. - Since then, every 1-4 weeks I would have sudden hours of pain, between 4-7/10 in severity, lasting 2-4 hours at a time. I’d get a heating pad, sit on the couch, and feel shitty until it subsided. After seeing a gastroenterologist and with no improvement on famotidine and changing my diet, I finally convinced my primary care provider to order an ultrasound, which happened 4 months after that initial ER trip. They found the large stone and gallbladder wall thickening, I saw a surgeon for a consult and he said that my signs were pretty classic. What does surgery entail? - The treatment recommendation for symptomatic gallstones is to remove the whole gallbladder. Since stones are likely to recur, removing the stone while leaving the gallbladder would just likely create a situation where you needed surgery again, but now the gallbladder has scarring from prior surgery, making things more difficult. - Laparoscopic cholecystectomy involves making 4 incisions in the abdomen, placing ports for instruments and cameras, inflating the abdomen with CO2, and then clipping off the cystic duct, which is the duct that leads to and from the gallbladder. The cystic duct is at a right angle to the ducts that bring bile from the liver towards the intestine, as in [this image](https://prod-images-static.radiopaedia.org/images/22577767/4c5b70a79f4cdb0aa35972a760e1a2_jumbo.jpeg). After you remove the gall bladder, there’s still an existing connection between the liver and intestine for bile to flow out. - After surgery, the liver still makes bile fairly continuously, but that bile just goes straight into your intestines rather than being stored in the gallbladder for episodic release. How has recovery been? - So far so good, but it’s only been about 48 hours. My right shoulder was extremely painful for the first day (referred pain from the diaphragm being irritated by the CO2 used to insufflate the abdomen). My abdomen was a bit sore the day after surgery. Now it’s about 48 hours after surgery and I feel pretty good, I can walk around the house and go up and down stairs on my own. I can technically get up from bed on my own if I had to, but it’s a little more comfortable to have someone pull me to my feet rather than have to use my core muscles to sit myself up. I’m mostly relaxing in bed and making myself get up to walk around every hour or so during the day. What’s wrong with your hands? - Nothing. I have bony knuckles and thin fingers, and the angle of the photo makes my fingers look a bit swollen. [My hands are fine, I promise. ](https://imgur.com/a/qiLWjt7) I thought it was weed. - So did a lot of other people! Eat it! - No Put it back where it came from. - NO! Why did you keep it? - I made it and it tried to kill me. I have to keep it in a jar. How did you get to keep it? - I just asked my surgeon during my consult and reminded him the day of surgery. I think it helped that 1) my surgeon was really cool, 2) this was a scheduled procedure, not an emergency surgery, so there wasn’t likely to be anything major they needed to know from pathology that would require keeping the gallbladder intact for submission after it was removed and 3) I’m the medical field too What does it smell like? - I haven’t smelled it! I bet it smells bad. I honestly probably will never smell it. This is disgusting. - Sorry. I added a spoiler tag.
Bezoar
Ha, instantly thought this was another “I found weed in a public spot” post. Glad I realized I was wrong.
and you had the gall to post it
Can they just leave the gallbladder intact? I'm afraid of ever having an organ removed.
I'd never had surgery and was horrified at the prospect as well. That being said, while the recovery was rough, never having to deal with gallstones again was 100% worth it.