Cholesterol is a normal component of the bile that is stored in the gall bladder. The amount of cholesterol in the bile is normally managed by bile salts and lecithin, which break up the fats. In some people, the amount of cholesterol may become too much and may not dissolve completely. When this happens, the excess cholesterol may form into micro crystals. Cholesterol, together with calcium bilirubinate and a mucous gel, become gall bladder sludge. This may be an early sign that you could develop gall bladder stones. In many individuals, however, the sludge may just go away.

Aside from excess cholesterol, gall bladder sludge may also form if the gall bladder is in stasis, and is thus often not completely emptied. Certain conditions like pregnancy, celiac disease, and high cholesterol levels may contribute to this condition. Stasis, however, may also be the result of crash dieting, eating too little fat, and skipping meals.

Living with Sludge and Stones

There are a lot of individuals who go on with life without showing any unusual or alarming symptoms, even when the sludge has become stone. Depending on the doctor’s evaluation, a person with no symptoms may only have to take medication to dissolve the stones.

The gall bladder may only be removed when there are already symptoms and complications caused by duct blockage. A person with gall bladder stones may suffer prolonged pain in the upper right abdominal area, accompanied by nausea and vomiting. Severe cases will also cause fever and chills.

Prevention

Preventing gall bladder sludge also means that you may be able to prevent gall bladder stones of the cholesterol type. There are a couple of preventive measures that you can take.

Being at risk of developing gall bladder sludge and stones should teach us a basic health rule—moderation. You may eventually think that avoiding fatty foods altogether is a good idea, but the absense of fat in your diet can also produce sludge. It would therefore be best if you simply avoided saturated fats and got your fat ration from healthy fish oil and non animal based cooking oils like olive and canola. Foods to avoid are pure pork fat, mayonnaise, butter, and processed or junk foods with trans fat.

• Don’t skip meals and never get into crash diets. You need to eat something at the right times of the day so that your gall bladder will open and empty its bile content.
• Drink eight glasses of water everyday and fill your daily meals with a lot of fiber, vitamins and minerals from fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
• Exercising regularly will not only help you burn excess fats, but may also help you maintain your recommended weight. Being obese is a risk factor for gall bladder sludge and stone formation.

It is normal for a lot of us to think that things will be different after surgery. After all, an organ, a part of the body, has been removed. This may lead some people to look for a special diet after gall bladder removal. But before you think about special diets, you should first try to understand what happens to the body after the gall bladder is removed.

The Body After Surgery

Experts say that a long term after-surgery diet is not entirely necessary for most individuals. Although the gall bladder has been removed, the liver is still present. This means that bile production will proceed as usual. The only difference is that all of the bile produced will proceed directly to the intestine. In other words, there will no longer be any concentrated amount of bile that used to come from the gall bladder. This doesn’t mean that fats and fat soluble nutrients will no longer be processed. The amount of direct bile present will take care of metabolizing fat, but in some people, there may be slight problems.

It is possible that since there are no longer any concentrated amounts of bile, you may have a problem managing fat. Absorption of fat may not be at an optimum level which means there is more extra fat in the intestines. This could mean more water as well, which is the reason for soft stools. The extra bile that has nowhere to go for storage may also eventually find its way to the colon, where it can also hold water and is released with the stools.

It is important to note, however that not everyone will have bowel problems after gall bladder surgery. It is estimated that at least less than 25% of individuals who go through the procedure may experience diarrhea. It has been observed that loose bowel movement among some individuals after surgery may gradually improve after some time. Depending on your individual system, you may have to go through years of diarrhea before your digestion returns to normal.

What to Eat

In the past, doctors used to carefully prescribe what should and shouldn’t be eaten. Gall bladder disease and surgery, however, is now better understood. You may go on eating as usual. If you do have bowel problems, you may be asked by your doctor to maintain a temporary diet that is low in fat. Fat may be introduced gradually. Eating fiber rich foods is also often a good idea. Make sure that you check with your doctor first before adopting any form of special diet.

In any case, you should strive to eat a healthy diet. Whether or not your gall bladder has been removed, it is always a good idea to maintain a healthy diet. Keep away from foods that contain trans and saturated fats. Choose healthy fats like those in fish and vegetable based oils. A healthy diet should also contain more whole grains, vegetables and fruits.

Your doctor is the best judge of whether your gall bladder should be removed. Of course, he will typically avoid having to perform surgery if your condition can still be helped through alternative treatments. If he does decide on surgery, it may be because you have gall stones that are already blocking the ducts, or the gall bladder may be severely inflamed. In some cases, having severe gall bladder problems may result in infections of the organ and also the liver and pancreas. In some cases, an individual may develop gall bladder cancer.

Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

In the past, gall bladders could only be removed through a large, open, abdominal incision. The modern method only requires small incisions, a little over 5mm each, near the navel area. The gall bladder is removed using tools inserted through the incisions, and through the assistance of a laparoscope. This is a long thin tube with a camera at the tip which allows your doctor a good view of your gall bladder and other internal parts of your body. Once the gall bladder has been detached, it can be moved out through one of the incisions. The cuts are then closed with stitches that will dissolve on their own. This procedure is also called keyhole surgery.

Benefits of Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Keyhole surgery is the preferred procedure for gall bladder removal. It is less invasive than open surgery, and often does not result in cutting abdominal muscles. Since there are only very small cuts, you may not experience considerable pain at all, and you may only be required to stay overnight. Recovery after surgery is also faster.

Open Surgery

For some patients, doctors may recommend the old open method for removing the gall bladder. This decision is often made because it is deemed safer due to certain circumstances. The lack of a clear organ view, obesity, and prior surgical operations are some of the possible factors that may influence your doctor’s decision to use open surgery. In this method, a five inch incision is made below your rib cage to remove the gall bladder.

Complications

Since keyhole surgery is less invasive than open surgery, it is also less likely to result in side effects. It is however, still a form of surgery. Like all surgical procedures, keyhole or open surgery to remove the gall bladder may have some unwanted side effects. Naturally, you may feel some pain and minor bruising. Sometimes, the side effects may be unforeseen. A patient may develop reactions to anesthesia, infections and bleeding. If your doctor is not careful, you might suffer from accidental organ punctures.

For some people, gall bladder removal is not a question. There may be no other alternative. It is very important, however, that you choose a doctor who has a good reputation and considerable experience to avoid possible complications.

Gall Bladder Disease

The most common form of gall bladder problem involves the formation of gall stones. Most of these stones are formed when cholesterol in the bile crystallizes. This happens when there is more cholesterol than the regulating bile salts. In very rare cases hemolytic anemia may also cause a different kind of stone formation from bilirubin.
In some instances, gall bladder problems may not be accompanied by the presence of stones. The gall bladder may become inflamed or may not function properly due to a natural defect in the organ, or due to another severe ailment that has come to affect body organs, including the gall bladder.

Problem Symptoms

In some people, there may be no symptoms at all. Clues to a gall bladder problem may only be found accidentally during check ups. There are actually several symptoms that may accompany a gall bladder problem. These symptoms may spread themselves through many years so you should be alert and attentive to body sensations. You may not immediately have a succeeding symptom or you may easily confuse some symptoms for something else. Here are possible indications you should take note of.

The most obvious possible indication of a gall bladder problem is pain that accompanies an attack. You may feel pain in the upper central portion of your abdomen where your ribs meet. Most often though, the pain really stems from under the right rib cage. The sensation may move on throughout other areas of the abdomen and even the back. Vomiting and dizziness may accompany this pain sensation. The symptom may appear some hours after eating a fatty meal and may last for a couple of hours. You may have an attack again after a short interval of time but it is likely that a succeeding attack will only follow after a few years. Some people mistake attack symptoms as caused by ulcers.

Indigestion, bloating and too much burping may or may not be early indications of a gall bladder problem. These symptoms however can be misleading since you can easily think of having only a condition as simple as acid reflux.

Jaundice is the yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes. We normally associate this with liver problems but it may also be a sign that you have gall bladder disease or that the ducts from the organ are blocked with stones.

Fever, chills, painful breathing, and severe pain in the right rib area or center of the abdomen may indicate that your gall bladder is already inflamed. The pain may be more prolonged than that felt with an ordinary attack.

The symptoms may not always be easy to read. You should see a doctor immediately once you feel the characteristic upper right abdominal pain, and especially when it is accompanied by vomiting, nausea and radiating back pain.

Gall Bladder and Bile

The gall bladder is a pear-shaped located at the back of the liver, which is in turn found behind the right rib cage. The organ is part of the digestive system, is green in color, and contains yellow bile. The gall bladder is actually connected both to the liver and to the small intestine through ducts.

Normally, when we eat food, it enters the stomach and intestines to be broken down into particles, with some to be absorbed by the body and others to be eliminated. The liver and the gall bladder play an important role in this digestive function. The liver produces bile, some of which goes directly to the intestine while the remaining amount is stored in the gall bladder.

The organ can hold about 50 ml of bile. In the gall bladder, the bile is kept for future use, and in the meantime is made even more potent through water removal. When a person eats, a hormone is produced which tells the muscle valve that keeps the bile from flowing to relax. It also signals the gall bladder to contract. Once bile gets out, it goes into the small intestine, where it breaks down the fats. The bile also makes the acids neutral.

The gall bladder, therefore, is very important for fat to be efficiently metabolized. This means that the organ also has an indirect role in the body’s use of fat soluble vitamins. Moreover, the bile that is produced by this organ is crucial in the elimination of waste from the body.

Gall Bladder Problems

There are different kinds of gall bladder problems, but most of them arise due to the presence of gall bladder stones. These are formed when cholesterol crystallizes. Sometimes, gall stones may only cause a sensation of indigestion, but the pain can also be extreme, especially when blockage occurs in the ducts. If the stones are too large to go out on their own, the gall bladder may have to be removed entirely. It has been observed that gall stones are most common among women who are largely built and are over forty. These days, however, people at the age of 30 or even 20 may already have gall stones. It is possible that the popular modern fatty diet may be responsible for this.

Taking Care of Your Gall Bladder

The best way to prevent gall bladder disease is to reduce one’s intake of saturated fats. It is not a good idea though to avoid fats altogether, since the right kind of fats in the right amount also help maintain gall bladder health. Consume regulated amounts of fats contained in fish oil, olive oil and canola oil, among others.