A thread about GALLSTONES

and the liver method is bogus

when they removed mine it was 7 inches long

creeeeepy

Essentially when patients trying the liver flush report gallstones in their "performance" the next morning, they're not gallstones at all. Instead they are compounds caused by a vicious reaction between the oil, lemon and salts!

Is there perhaps anything I can do to stave off the need for surgery whilst I'm travelling - although this will be for about 2.5 - 3 years!

1. Never eat fatty foods. Ever. NO CHIPS. EVER. EVER YOU WILL REGRET IT.
2. Do not eat after 6pm

Also your liver will be putting out some funky enzymes which can make you fatigued

I did this for about 6 months, but I couldn't take it for much longer than that

1. Never eat fatty foods. Ever. NO CHIPS. EVER. EVER YOU WILL REGRET IT.
Difficult - we'll be in the States for a month.

2. Do not eat after 6pm
Which time zone?

This is obviously sound advice, but anything that stops you eating chips, or prevents post-watershed snacking is most certainly a menace. Is there anything, um, complimentary that might actually get rid of the stones?

and if you must eat fatty foods do it before 6pm or so

I once ate some chex mix and was in pain for days

huey, have you had pains because of the gallstones yet? or at all?

The gallbladder is a small pear-shaped organ that sits on the right side of our bodies just beneath the liver. Its primary function is to store and secrete bile. Bile is a yellow-brown fluid produced by the liver, which helps us digest fats. Our liver produces up to three cups of bile a day. Our gallbladder can store up to a cup of bile as it awaits a fatty meal.

When we eat, our gallbladder contracts and pushes bile into the small intestines where it helps with the digestion of fats. Bile is made up of water, cholesterol, fats, bile salts, proteins and bilirubin. Under certain conditions, substances in the bile, especially the cholesterol or bile pigment (bilirubin) can harden into stones – gallstones. Gallstones can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as a golf ball. We can develop one large stone or a multitude of smaller ones.

Many people with gallstones have no symptoms at all. Others go through life relatively symptom free, experiencing minor symptoms such as abdominal bloating, intolerance to fatty foods, belching, intestinal gas and indigestion. For others, however they may suffer what is called a gallstone “attack”. Gallstone attacks often follow a fatty meal. Symptoms of an attack include steady, sever pain in the upper abdomen that can last from 30 minutes to several hours. Sufferers may also experience pain in the back between the shoulder blades or under the right shoulder. A gallstone attack is often accompanied by nausea or vomiting. If symptoms such as sweating, chills, a fever or a yellowish color to the skin or whites of the eyes occur, it is important to seek medical assistance.

There are a number of factors that increase your risk of having gallstones. Those at a higher risk include women, especially women who are pregnant, on hormone therapy or taking birth control pills, people over 60 years of age, Native and Mexican Americans, overweight individuals and individuals who fast or go on crash diets and lose a lot of weight quickly.

It is important to recognize that if the gallbladder is loaded with stones, there is very little room to store bile and fat digestion may become impaired. In turn, the unused bile can back up into the liver causing liver congestion. If this is the case, it is important to evaluate your liver’s health prior to cleansing on your gallbladder.

Recommendations For Wellness

The traditional treatment for gallstones is to have your gallbladder removed. There are, however, a number of things you can do to reduce your risk of producing gallstones or experiencing a gallstone attack.

Reduce your consumption of saturated fats typically found in red meat and pork, while increasing the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables you consume.

Start a diet and exercise program, but avoid crash dieting which can increase your risk of gallstones. Both diet and exercise can help you reduce your risk of producing gallstones.

If you are taking birth control pills or are on hormone replacement therapy, speak with your doctor regarding your risk of forming stones or have them check your gallbladder for the presence of gallstones regularly.

Studies indicate that coffee increase the flow of bile and may help to decrease the risk of gallstones. If you decide to add a little coffee to your health plan for this reason, make sure you only consume organically grown coffee beans.

Supplement with vitamin C. Vitamin C is needed by the body to convert cholesterol to bile acids in the body.

Lecithin has been shown to help break down and transport fat molecules and may help dissolve gallstones. Studies indicate that it is helpful in protecting us from gallstone formation.

Safflowers can be used to thin body fluids as well as aid in the digestion of oils.

Nature’s Sunshine Gall Bladder Formula can be used to help stimulate circulation, improve liver function & aid in the production of digestive fluids.

Do a gallbladder flush. During a gallbladder flush, 1-2 cups of olive oil are consumed to simulate the gallbladder into releasing bile. This increased demand on the gallbladder to release bile works to push the stones out.

If you think your liver is congested, or if you have been having minor symptoms of gallstones for a long period of time, it is important to support and cleanse your liver for a period of time before doing a gallbladder flush. Try taking herbs such as milk thistle, dandelion or a liver cleanse formula.

Dahlin, do you know where I might be able to find that NHS list search facility? I realise I could probably google it, but credit where credit's due.

BTW, what's "chex mix"?

http://images.phantomgourmet.com/phantomImage280-normal.jpg

yeah, gygax, i have the four scars.. one on my belly button, two on the right side of my abdomen, and one like, sort of near the top of my chest

ack, I wonder if that is what I had a few months ago.

No doctor's ever said it was gallstones though, they always said I just had a sluggy liver from booze and things.

Can one find out if they have stones? Does an ultrasound show it up, cos I had one and no one said it showed stones (tho I did apparently have a splenal cyst, which I was told I didnt need to worry about wtf)

I consume lots of water, and I take milkthistle and dandelion tablets too. Maybe thats helped. I'm now scared I'll have an attack yargh :/

HII, gygax, those scars sound quite over the top for a simple operation. Also, why so many different places? What are they doing in there??!

And Miguelito, do you know what your sister's treatment actually is, and especially how much it costs? Herbalist remedies generally leave me a little suspicious, clinically, but I'm up for the craic, if anything.

TMI, sorry.

when I had an "attack" there would be this intense pain to the right of my chest, so much that it went to my back - I would just scrunch up in a fetal position, sometimes for days, being in complete agony

-You don't really need your gall bladder. It's only marginally more useful than your appendix. All it does is collect bile and squirt it into your upper intestine during digestion. In people without gall bladders (like me!) the bile just flows directly into your intestines as it is produced.

-Gallstones don't always show up on an ultrasound. Mine didn't... it turns out my gall bladder was filled with a viscous gel that hid the stones from an ultrasound. I was only properly diagnosed after my gall bladder got infected and became septic. Which is why my advice is to have your gall bladder out ASAP if you're symptomatic, especially if you plan on travelling in the coming months. Barring complications you can be out of the hospital in a day and back on your feet in a couple of weeks. I spent a week in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics and almost died.

-At first, my attacks didn't hurt that much. But then all of a sudden they became much more frequent and about a thousand times more painful. I'm talking about curled up in a ball on the floor and moaning until you vomit repeatedly and pass out, three or four nights a week.

-Side effects of having no gall bladder are minimal for the majority of people. Personally if I skip breakfast and then eat a big greasy meal I get nasty cramps and so forth. But that happens to a lot of people who still have their gall bladders. I can still, for example, eat an entire pizza in the evening without any problems if I have a high-fiber breakfast and small lunch first.

-I had the laparascopic surgery and my scars are hard to see. The belly button one is in my belly button and hence invisible, the two on my side are just dots, and the topmost one is a tiny one-inch scar.

http://oxgallstones.com/4.html