Lean meat....rice, veggies, slice of bread with a little jelly for taste.
How about a roast chicken, with some oven roasted potatoes and a side of fresh green beans? Remove the skin from her serving of chicken.

Linda C

Thanks, Linda. I have chicken on hand and will probably use the grill instead of the oven to cook it since we're still in the grips of a heatwave.

I usually cook "lean" but I do flavor my vegetables and salads with olive oil, SP, herbs, spices, lemon juice, etc. The more I read about the guidelines, the more bland the recommended diet sounds.

I realize this is not a medical forum, but I thought that with all the folks who frequent CF someone might have had to deal with this issue.

Still hoping for additional suggestions....

She may have to stick to low fat and bland until she gets the gal bladder thing figured out. It's probably irritated so it has to rest to have any chance of healing. This isn't a diet she will have to follow forever. She will need a lot of tests etc to decide what is the problem..like whether she has stones or if it is irritated or what's going on. She should eat small meals frequently not a big meal. If she overloads her stomach that may trigger the pain again. So instead of three normal sized meals something like 6 small ones. No hard to digest veggies like corn or things with skin..like she could have a slice of apple but it should be peeled. The skins are harder to digest. She can try small amounts of stuff and see if she can tolerate it.
Joann

Low fat and bland is about right!

Sorry.... DH Joe just had his removed this month. He had a bad attack 2 years ago, then held it at bay with no problems til this month.... then another awful flareup and he decided to do the surgery. The only complication has been that he felt so good after that it has been nearly impossible for him to remember that he still isn't supposed to be doing a lot of lifting!

Grace

Thank you, Joanne & Grace for your replies. DD & her family are headed home (only 40 mins. away) and I'm looking forward to hearing from her tomorrow about her upcoming appointments. We're all eager for her to get a handle on this and know what course of action is advised.

We got through the weekend's meals w/ little problem, but it is a diet that lacks variety and would be hard to maintain over time, I think.

Grace, it was heartening to read that your DH is doing so well following the surgery.

Ouch. The main thing is, avoid large and sudden doses of fat.

Here's what I've learned, in dealing with my own troublesome gallbladder. I'm not a doctor, though have consulted my doctor friends, and done a ton of reading.

The liver produces bile which helps your body digest fat. The gallbladder stores bile, and releases it into the digestive tract when the body senses fatty food coming down the pipe. In olden days, we survived on roots, berries, small rodents, birds, insects, the occasional fish - all pretty lean stuff and not much of it. Every now and then, we'd kill a big animal and gorge ourselves, and we'd didn't trim off the fat, rather we fought over it. So, our fat intake - and hence our need for bile - was boom or bust, and the gallbladder delivered lots of bile when we needed it.

Sometimes stones form in the gallbladder. Only the very tiniest stones can pass through the duct from galbladder to digestive tract. Anything larger stays in the gallbladder and can get stuck (''impacted'') in the neck of the gallbladder. That's when we have gallbladder ''attacks''. If the stones are badly impacted, the gallbladder can become infected, and that is serious - prompt surgical attention is needed. Otherwise, the attacks end after a few hours.

There isn't a highly effective way to dissolve or break up gallstones, although there are ultrasound treatments which attempt to do that. For some reason, doctors don't usually open up the gallbladder to remove the stones. The usual treatment is to remove the gallbladder itself. It can be removed laprascopically, with a few small incisions. If it has become infected, open surgery is necessary.

You will read all about gallbladder ''flushes'', which usually involve fasting and then consuming a large amount of oil. My opinion is that these are bunk. The regimens produce lots of gray round things in your stool, which are not gallstones but merely fatty accumulations of the 8 oz of oil that you just drank. You can look up the diameter of the common bile duct, I forget what it is, but no stone of any size is going to pass through it. If your daughter has enough ultrasounds, she'll learn the number and size of her gallstones, compare that to the duct diameter.

Life without a gallbladder is much like life with, according to people I know who've had theirs removed. Some people have a little bit more difficulty tolerating some foods, or have looser bowel movements upon eating spicy food, but I haven't talked to anyone who found this a major inconvenience. There are some theories claiming that having a gallbladder is still important (talk about immune system , etc), but I haven't seen any real scientific/medical evidence.

I started having gallbladder atttacks 1 year ago. The first one sent me to the ER at 4AM, concerned about a heart attack. Boy, walk into an ER and say you're worried about a heart attack, and suddenly you're the most popular guy around. 20 minutes later, when the tests show its your gallbladder, everyone disappears. Since then I've had three more, about one every few months. I'm still debating what to do about it. Yes, they are painful and have other unpleasant effects, but it is just an occasional thing and I know it will pass, so I'm not convinced it merits surgery. I've always had a cast-iron stomach, able to eat anything whatsoever no matter how hot or spicy, and I value that. So I've simply cut back on my fat intake, am careful about how much fat/oil I'll consume at one sitting, and am in a ''wait and see'' mode. I'm still eating everything I ate before, but smaller portions of some foods, which I needed to do anyway.

Good luck to your daughter.

amck, Elery had his gallbladder removed years ago, my secretary had surgery to remove hers 3 years ago and my sister gave up her gallbladder 5 or 6 years ago. They all recovered quickly, my secretary was back at work in two weeks, she had a laproscopic type surgery. Now they all eat whatever they want with no problems.

Before, though, it was pretty tough to stay on the "diet" for all of them. Low fat for all of them, no coffee or tea for Elery or my sister, and carbonated beverages seemed to bother them all.

They did all go to small meals and that helped somewhat. Oh, and eggs would make my secretary sick every single time. It seemed that each of them had something different that really bothered them.

Good luck to your DD, I hope she gets this resolved quickly.

Annie

I had my gall blader removed 50 years ago, when I was 25 years old. Back then they didn't think young folk like me could get gallstones... but mine was chock full. My grandmother had problems for years and over the years several cousins, aunts and uncles from both sides of my family developed problems, mostly stones.

I actually got tired of my diet: lean broiled steak, poached lean chicken, dry-pan-sauteed liver. I would have killed for a nice green salad.

Some of my cousins had a slightly restricted diet (mainly fats), but after a few months, I was back to my normal diet.

I was so glad they took mine out ... when my grandmother had stones, they operated 3 or 4 times and removed the stones, but they didn't think they could take out the gall bladder.

I've got a railroad track scar, but things have changed in 50 years and my daughter and son-in-law both have almost invisible tiny scars from laproscopic surgery.

I'm sure my grandkids (in their 20s) will join the ranks, cause they get it from both sides, too.

Kay

I've had a grumbling gall bladder for about 18 months, and they just took it out last week. The gallstones were impressive :-) One reason they don't like to break them up to flush out as with kidney stones is if a smaller bit blocks your pancreatic duct further down the line you can die from the resulting pancreatitis :-(
I found simply avoiding too much fat (not ALL) in my diet kept it quieter on the whole. With too much fat in my diet it was noticeably achey all the time, while if I minimised fat it would just be a little achey, if I pressed my tummy in the gallbladder region (right where I lean up against a counter :-( ).
Coffee didn't seem to be an issue, luckily ;-)