Surgery seems like a gamble to solve mystery pain
I’m really struggling with the decision of whether or not to get my gallbladder removed.
I’m 38F, have two young kids, decently active, and eat pretty healthy overall. Lots of home cooking and whole foods. My BMI is around 26.5.
Shortly after I finished breastfeeding my second baby, I started getting this awful gnawing pain right below my ribs in the center of my upper stomach. Weirdly, it would often happen when I bent over the crib to put my baby down. Or when I was bending over repeatedly with tidying the house or something. My body would feel like it wanted to eat to help soothe the pain, but eating never really helped.
My doctor initially thought it was GERD and put me on meds, which did nothing. Aloe vera juice helped a little. Acupuncture actually helped the most, but only temporarily. Laying down in an arched sphinx position most reliably relieved the pain. This went on almost daily for two years. I even got an upper endoscopy which was totally clean.
Then in february, my husband and I went to the mountains for his birthday and had a steak dinner. That night I woke up in pain. It felt different from the chronic gnawing pain I’d been having, but it was in the same general area and radiated into my back. I went to the local ER, they did an ultrasound, and found gallstones plus a mildly inflamed gallbladder. My bloodwork was all great except for low B12, which I’m now supplementing.
When I brought this all back to my home doctor, they wanted to schedule surgery.
What makes this hard for me is that my sister had her gallbladder removed at 19. At first she felt much better, but a few years later she developed pretty significant GI issues that she still struggles with. I know there’s no way to prove it was caused by the surgery, but it definitely makes me nervous about long-term effects. Also, while I've dealt with a decent amount of nausea in my life, I've never had (excuse my candor, but) south-of-the-border GI issues, and I don't love the idea of inviting that into my life.
Since the mountain incident, I’ve had two other episodes of nausea/stomach/back pain, but both happened while a stomach bug was going through my family, so I honestly don’t know if they were gallbladder attacks or a virus. With the most recent one, I also had severe body chills/aches that passed in 24 hours so makes me think virus rather than GB.
I asked my surgeon whether my chronic upper stomach pain could actually be from the gallstones, and he basically said he wasn’t sure. Surgery might help it, or it might not. Honestly, that chronic pain is my bigger issue. The actual “attacks” have been relatively manageable and may have only truly happened once. But I also know there are risks with symptomatic gallstones, regardless of the frequency of attacks, and I certainly don't want to risk something more serious developing.
I guess I’m just looking for perspective from people who were on the fence. Especially anyone whose symptoms were more chronic/atypical rather than the classic repeated attacks. Did surgery help? Did anyone regret doing it, or regret waiting?