Week 5

I’m a little late posting for week 5, but I have a good excuse. I’ve been having some pretty bad upper right abdominal pain, and it was confirmed that I have gallstones and my gallbladder has a thickened lining. I’ve had to pretty much ditch the low carb diet (as of the last 4 days), just in an effort to try to find something my body will tolerate without throwing my gallbladder into a full blown attack that lasts for hours on end. I’m still low sugar, of course, but I’ve had to include things like oatmeal and other “low fat” foods to reduce the pain. Due to this, my weight loss for the week is only 0.2 lbs. I’m sure a lot of that is water from the carbs and/or from the gallbladder issues since I’m staying well under 1,000 calories/day still. I’ll admit it’s been difficult to find low fat, gluten free, and low carb soft foods that my body will tolerate.

I had a HIDA scan today to look at my gallbladder function. The output was only 12%, and you need at least 38% or so to “pass” the test. I am already scheduled to have it removed October 31st, but I just want to be extra sure what’s causing the pain, so I decided to get the HIDA scan. I’m not looking forward to surgery (this will be the 3rd time in 3 months), but if it puts an end to this miserable pain permanently, then I think it’s worth it. Weight loss can make more gallstones because the liver purges cholesterol into the gallbladder (cholesterol is one of the things that forms stones). They saw I have more stones now than I did a little over a month ago, which makes sense since I’ve lost weight. I don’t plan on stopping the weight loss, so unless I want more stones and more pain, it’s gotta come out.

I contacted my ESG clinic and they agreed with the gallbladder surgeon that if the pain was anything to do with the ESG, then it would be on the left side (where the stomach is) instead of the right. They reassured me that having gallbladder surgery won’t mess with the ESG at all since the surgeon stays out of the stomach area when removing the gallbladder. Once it’s out, I plan on returning to my low carb diet (when my body tolerates it). Until then, I’m just focusing on healthy, low sugar, low fat options.