Does anyone have experience with gallbladdar issues during pregnancy?

I’m not ever going to be pregnant, but I’m fighting with my gallbladder. It’s just like a mini heart attack if I eat something with a lot of fat. It’s almost a relief when I puke and it stops. Red meat and anything else that’s high in fat sets it off.

I don’t know if this will help, but it is something I just heard about that should be totally safe for a pregnant woman too.

“HOW TO REMOVE GALLSTONES NATURALLY

1. For the first five days, drink at least four glasses of apple juice every day. Freshly squeezed or packaged apple juice are both okay. Or eat four or five apples, whichever you prefer. Apple juice softens the gallstones. During the five days, eat normally.

2. On the sixth day, take no dinner. (But take breakfast and lunch as usual and ok to drink water or other light fluids at night, but not, for example, a hearty soup.)

3. At 6 pm, take a teaspoon of Epsom salt (magnesium sulphate) with a glass of warm water.

4. At 8 pm, repeat the same. Epsom salt or magnesium sulphate opens the gallbladder ducts.

5. At 10 pm, take half cup olive oil (or sesame oil) with half cup fresh lemon juice. Mix it well and drink it. The oil lubricates the stones to ease their passage. See above about possible instant diarrhea during this final step to remove gallstones naturally.

6. After this, sleep or at least lie down and rest. Do not engage in physical activity.

The next morning, you will find green stones in your stools.
“Usually they float”, Dr Lai Chiu Nan notes. “You might want to count them. I have had people who passes 40, 50 or up to 100 stones. Very many”. Even if you don’t have any symptoms of gallstones, you still might have some. It’s always good to give your gall bladder clean up now and then.”

Source

@marinelife Woah… that sounds so interesting. Unfortunately, I am certain that I cannot swallow epsom salt water or olive oil/lemon juice, but I’m going to read more about this “cleanse”. Thanks!

@Adirondackwannabe – is it just fat? What about spicy? Does anything else cause it? I just ate some dry peanut butter cereal and feel awful, although it is more discomfort (and a ton of reflux) than real pain.

It is anything high in fat that gets to me. Steak, ham, tunafish, cheese doodles have all got to me. It starts with massive indigestion, 8 rolaids didn’t touch it, profuse sweating, abdominal pain, back pain, and then the vomit. I can eat spicy. I eat pepperoncinis right out of the jar and it doesn’t bother.

I love cheese doodles.

Thanks @Adirondackwannabe. Will you consider surgery?

Please do NOT do a gallbladder cleanse during pregnancy. Not safe.

I guess the short term solution is to eat very low fat the rest of the pregnancy. Just make sure the fats are GOOD fats (i.e. olive oil, etc) and not bad fats. Eat a lot of veggies too. Hope you feel better soon.

@Cupcake Supposedly it’s better if I can keep it versus having it taken out. Adjusting the diet has kept the acute attacks to a minimum. If I need to I’d do the surgery. But I haven’t had a steak since July. It’s driving me a little nuts.

I feel awful… so I just made an appointment with my regular doctor (not OB-GYN) for this afternoon. We’ll see…

@Seafaery Thanks for adding that warning. Do you have a source for it?

@marinelife That method DOES NOT WORK. It is a complete waste of time. Basically what you are doing is consuming the ingredients to make small stones form in the gut which you then pass out. They are not the stones that were in the gallbladder. It is nothing more than a cheap magic trick.

@Lightlyseared OK, thanks for the input. Do you have anything to support that?

@marinelife Link

@Lightlyseared Thanks. Great link!

Gallbladder issues are very common in pregnancy. In fact, there is a slightly derogatory mnemonic of the 4 “Fs’ of gallbladder disease, “Fat, female, forty, and fertile.”

@Lightlyseared I love quackwatch. Science Based Medicine is another favorite.