Dude... I had mine taken out in late 2004 - and haven't looked back. I spent the summer of 2003 gorging on KFC, and rapidly lost about 70 pounds spring of 2004, those two events apparently are almost guaranteed to cause gall stones.
Spring of 2004 I suffered numerous small attacks, small in time only, the pain was unbearable - supposedly up there with childbirth I'm told. But early summer 2004 a stone got stuck in my bile duct for 14 hours and, well, let's say that day gave me a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder, my skin even turned yellow with bile. My doc fast-tracked the surgery (keyhole surgery, they make 4 small incisions, one to inflate your abdomen with CO2, one to put in a light, one for tools, and the biggest one by the navel is where they take the gall bladder out through).
They didn't let me keep the bastard either, or see the video of surgery. Oh well. But push for the surgery anyway - the discomfort of the small incisions only lasts about week and it's entire orders of magnitude less than an acute attack. You'll notice some changes in your digestive ability though, fats/oils will tend to run straight through you, since you can't produce bile on demand to absorb them. More gas too, somewhat. But worth it.
Spring of 2004 I suffered numerous small attacks, small in time only, the pain was unbearable - supposedly up there with childbirth I'm told. But early summer 2004 a stone got stuck in my bile duct for 14 hours and, well, let's say that day gave me a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder, my skin even turned yellow with bile. My doc fast-tracked the surgery (keyhole surgery, they make 4 small incisions, one to inflate your abdomen with CO2, one to put in a light, one for tools, and the biggest one by the navel is where they take the gall bladder out through).
They didn't let me keep the bastard either, or see the video of surgery. Oh well. But push for the surgery anyway - the discomfort of the small incisions only lasts about week and it's entire orders of magnitude less than an acute attack. You'll notice some changes in your digestive ability though, fats/oils will tend to run straight through you, since you can't produce bile on demand to absorb them. More gas too, somewhat. But worth it.
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