After gallbladder surgery, digestion can be tricky for a while — here's what to avoid.When you have a problem with your gallbladder, like gallstones, your doctor may recommend that you have gallbladder surgery to remove your gallbladder. Your gallbladder is an organ that you can live without, but some people need to avoid certain foods after gallbladder removal, since the gallbladder is involved in digestion.
After Gallbladder Surgery: Digestion Adjustments
The gallbladder is a small organ that sits under your liver. It stores, concentrates, and helps secrete bile, a liquid made by your liver that helps digest fatty foods.
If you need to have surgery to remove your gallbladder, your liver still makes enough bile for normal digestion. Even so, it is not unusual for people to have some difficulty digesting certain foods in the days and weeks following gallbladder surgery.
After Gallbladder Surgery: Diet Adjustments
It is important to carefully follow your doctor's instructions about your diet after your gallbladder surgery.
If you are hospitalized, your medical team will help you transition from a liquid to a solid diet almost immediately after your gallbladder surgery. If you are recovering at home, you will need to introduce foods slowly, and consume mainly clear liquids, like broth and gelatin, at first. If you feel ready and are not nauseated, you can slowly begin introducing solid foods back into your diet as you start feeling better. But you may need to avoid certain types of foods for a while.
More than half of people who have recently had gallbladder surgery report problems with digesting fats following their surgery. This is because your gallbladder is no longer there to control the release of bile into your intestines after eating a meal. Instead, a small amount of bile is now directly "leaked" from your liver into your small intestine at a slow, constant rate. It can take a few weeks for your body to get used to this change, and you may experience bloating, diarrhea, and gas after eating fatty foods during this time. But most people can return to a normal diet within a month after having gallbladder surgery
After Gallbladder Surgery: Foods to Avoid
While your body adjusts, it is a good idea to avoid high-fat foods for a few weeks after having gallbladder surgery. High-fat foods include:
High-fiber and gas-producing foods can also cause some people discomfort after gallbladder surgery, so you may want to introduce them slowly back into your diet. These include:
Spicy foods may also cause some gastrointestinal symptoms for a short time after gallbladder removal.
If you need help devising a diet plan after your surgery, ask your doctor to refer you to a registered dietitian.
After Gallbladder Surgery: When to Call Your Doctor
Although it is common to have some food-related symptoms after surgery, it is important to contact your surgeon if you experience the following symptoms, since they may be symptoms of a serious complication:
While some digestive symptoms are normal immediately after gallbladder surgery, it is best to call and let your doctor know if you are having any problems with eating or digesting your foods
Gallbladder Problems and Diabetes
For reasons that aren’t fully understood, people with diabeteshave more gallstone problems than people in the general population.
Diabetes and Gallbladder Problems: What’s the Connection?
The evidence that people with diabetes are at greater risk ofgallstones is clear, but “we still don’t know why,” says Armand A. Krikorian, MD, an endocrinologist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at
Case Western Reserve
University School of Medicine in Cleveland.
Perhaps it’s because people with diabetes are generally overweight, and obesity is linked to gallstone disease. People with diabetes have higher levels of triglycerides — a type of fat — and it’s theorized that the triglycerides themselves encourage gallstone formation.
Another theory is that stones form because of what is calledautonomic neuropathy, or damage from diabetes to the involuntary nerves that control movement of the bowels and gallbladder. According to this line of thought, the bile stored in the gallbladderis not released efficiently because the nerves are damaged, and gallstones form from the resulting sludge.
Also, recent research on insulin-resistant mice shows that FOXO1, a specific protein involved with diabetes, increases the amount of cholesterol that enters the bile, which may lead to the formation of gallstones. Cholesterol is a major component of most gallstones.
Diabetes and Gallbladder Problems: Know the Symptoms
Dr. Krikorian says that for a person living with diabetes, controlling the diabetes is the way to head off gallbladder problems.
When diabetes is under control, it's much less likely that autonomic neuropathy will become an issue, and your triglyceride levels will be lower — thus decreasing your odds of developing gallstones, according to Krikorian.
Diabetes and Gallbladder Problems: Gallstone Symptoms
This common-sense approach means that people with diabetes should be aware of gallstone symptoms, Krikorian says.
Some gallstones, called silent stones, cause no symptoms and do not require treatment. However, in many people, gallbladder “attacks” may occur, especially after consuming a fat-laden meal.
Symptoms of a gallbladder attack may include:
Diabetes and Gallbladder Problems: Managing Diabetes
Most people with diabetes who are under a doctor’s care have a plan in place to manage and treat their disease. A management plan should address food intake, exercise, medications, and daily monitoring ofblood sugar levels.
Controlling blood glucose levels should not only help you feel better in general, but it may also delay the onset of complications often associated with diabetes, including gallbladder problems.
Diabetes and Gallbladder Problems: Treatment
People with diabetes are usually considered high-risk for any surgery, including gallbladder surgery, says Krikorian. But, in most cases, when gallstones are problematic, the best course of action is to remove the gallbladder. According to Krikorian, controlling the diabetes doesn’t change after the gallbladder is removed.
In general, whether they have diabetes or not, most people can avoid gallbladder problems by eating a consistently balanced diet, getting enough exercise, and managing their overall health
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Do Gallbladder Problems Cause Headaches?
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Practitioners of Eastern medicine see a clear connection between headaches and gallbladder problems. One study indicates that idea may be correct.
Ask a doctor if she thinks that there is a connection between getting headaches and gallbladder problems, and you’ll likely hear, “There isn’t much of a link.” Headaches are usually not listed as asymptom of gallbladder problems, nor does a connection between the two appear to be a popular research topic, judging by the lack of such articles in medical research databases.
But ask someone who practices Eastern medicine, a
practitioner
who looks at the body in a different way, and you’ll get a much different answer.
Eastern medicine practitioners recognize the "gallbladder headache," and believe that gallbladder problems can be related to certain headaches.
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Headaches and Gallbladder: The Gallbladder Meridian
In Eastern medicine philosophy, all your internal organs — yourgallbladder, your liver, your kidneys, and so on — are thought to be connected to channels inside your body known as meridians, according to David Canzone, an acupuncturist in Santa Fe, N.M. The gallbladder "is an organ that functions in a system, [and the] meridians are seen as an outlet for the energy of these organs," says Canzone.
Canzone says these meridians are similar to what Western practitioners call neuropathways. "So if you have gallbladder problems, an energetic blockage, it is going to show up in the corresponding neuropathway, or meridian," he says.
Headaches and Gallbladder: In the Pathway
"In Eastern medicine, we would say that anything that causes the gallbladder to be congested, or not function well, can potentially cause a disruption in that meridian pathway," says Canzone.
In Eastern medicine, the gallbladder meridian pathway traverses that part of the head where that person feels the headache. The location of the gallbladder meridian in the head is why headaches that are associated with gallbladder problems are often occipital — at the back of the head — or temporal, at the side of the head.
One commonly recognized symptom of gallstones, which are the most common of all gallbladder problems, is pain in the upper back. According to Canzone, the Eastern medical explanation of this symptom is that the gallbladder meridian crosses through the area between the neck and the shoulder. "If you have something going on in that nerve pathway and you have muscle tension in that part of the neck and shoulder, you could see that as the cause of a headache," he says.
But he also says that people can have gallstones and never experience headaches, while others with gallstones will develop gallbladder headaches.
Headaches and Gallbladder: Acupuncture
In the Eastern medicine world, headaches attributed to gallbladder problems are treated with acupuncture. Needles are inserted into the skin along meridian pathways in an effort to release blocked energy and restore balance. "From an Eastern point of view, we talk about acupuncture being an energetic medicine that treats the nervous system," Canzone notes.
With acupuncture, "you can relax the built-up tension via irritation of that meridian," says Canzone. "If you can relieve that tension, you can relieve that headache."
In fact, researchers in a recent study involving 253 people with migraine headaches investigated the effects of acupuncture at points along the liver and gallbladder meridians as a headache treatment. The researchers found that the participants who received acupuncture instead of conventional medication had fewer headaches, and headaches of shorter duration, than those who were otherwise treated. However, this study was designed only to look at the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for migraine headache — it did not look for a link between gallbladder problems and headaches.
Symptoms To Be Concerned About
If you are having sudden, severe, or persistent headaches, or headaches associated with other worrisome symptoms, it is important to contact your doctor. In some cases, headaches can be symptoms of serious medical conditions that require medical treatment. Similarly, if you are having symptoms of gallbladder problems, such as severe pain in the right side of your abdomen or pain in your upper back, you should see your doctor to rule out a serious problem and get treatment, if necessary.
If your headaches are ongoing and your doctor has ruled out other medical problems, a licensed acupuncturist may help to relieve your pain.
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