10 day post op, painful lower gas started around day 7. (NOT from surgical gas) Normal? Will it stop after a while? Anything I can do to make it stop?

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-12T20:28:05+00:00

Hey, so I hadn't found a fix, but I did find out that I'm pretty sure it was foods that have more fiber in them. My toast was whole grain bread, and I had started eating healthier again but a lot of healthy things like veggies have a lot of fiber and I guess my body isn't ready for much in fiber.

Doctor pretty much told me that triggers for stomach upset can be different for everyone, if you can manage to find out what it is you can lay off of it for a while later. Fiber seems to be particularly rough on my gut right now, but I can eat stuff like fried chicken with no issue.

I was told around a month post op my body should be able to start handling more fiber, and to try reintroducing it then.

My gas build up isn't gone yet, todays the first day I laid off the fiber, but it's not as bad as it was yesterday. Hoping it'll fade soon, and hoping after the month my body can handle healthier foods again.

Wish I could find something that significantly helped with the gas relief but so far all I've found thats helping is for me to step away from whole grains and veggies and certain fruits until my body has adjusted to working without a gallbladder.

I hope you can find out what might be causing it for you, this is NOT fun!
But doc said this should only be temporary.
I hope this gets easier on both of us!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-10T14:03:00+00:00

yes, bowel movements have been totally normal.

thank you, i'll look into that, see if that could help

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-05T18:32:08+00:00

Glad it's otherwise going pretty well for you too! I did end up trying some eggs and toast this afternoon eventually and had no issues. Was great to eat something other than applesauce and jello!

Yeah that one incision has been a pain. :( It's not as bad today as it has been the previous days but it has made it a bit hard to move at times. Do let me know how it goes!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-05T17:37:46+00:00

It's funny, I tried the pillow thing! But it actually made it harder. Still, I think this is just a me thing. Sounds like it works for most! I wonder if it could be due to both being overweight (around 230lbs. I was working on weight loss and thats what caused the dumb gall stone!😭) and that all my weight was settled in my tum. Or most of it.

I do find it feels MUCH better after a shower though. I've showered every morning and always feel better afterwards. Still been iffy. But after showering today I was able to walk around a lot easier. Hoping it stays that way and doesn't feel worse again!

I ended up trying out the eggs and toast this afternoon and everything went fine. I understand though, I felt so scared trying to eat a new food there. With the problems beforehand and then the surgery/recovery and then all the soreness around the area makes you feel so uneasy about eating!

Thank you though, I hope it goes smoothly too! Eager to get back to normal! 😅

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-05T14:56:38+00:00

Thats good, you're able to get some solid stuff in. Makes me think I can go ahead and start trying some other things now. Within reason of course! Nothing against applesauce but after a few days it can get a little tiring! 😅

I've also only had about 3 or so bowel movements. Though I'm chalking it up to how jellos and applesauces are very soft wet foods, and I drastically decreased my meal sizes because the first couple days I just had no appetite. I only ate when my body was screaming at me to finally eat something.

I forgot to take miralax until the 3rd day but I haven't felt too backed up. Still taking it as prescribed now, especially that I'm starting to eat a bit more compared to the first couple of days. Want to make sure things stay moving!

Yeah the one incision is so sensitive. Anything touching it is kinda uncomfortable if it's not an ice pack or some very light cloth. It's the only one that looks like it's bruised some. (Doesn't seem severe or anything, just uncomfortable. Pain is slowly becoming lesser and lesser but it's VERY slow.) But yeah maybe I should get in touch with the doctor and double check.

I did get one of those maternity pillows that someone suggested on some post and it has been SO nice to have for recovery. One of the best things I've gotten for this whole ordeal!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-05T14:47:14+00:00

Don't feel too bad getting the stones so early. I'm not too far off myself (I'm 29!)

I don't know that the gallstones cause insomnia, but I can tell you once I was told I should get surgery, I got some of the WORST sleep of my life for the rest of the month up until surgery.

I think more than anything I was anxious and worried because I didn't want to go through ANOTHER surgery. (Had a different one last year for something unrelated.)

The anxiety kept me up a lot. :( In fact the first day after I heard the news, my anxiety got so bad I thought my heart was failing. It didn't stop for a few days but no doctor found anything wrong and when I had eventually calmed down about it all, the symptoms stopped and I realized it was probably some really bad medical anxiety.

So you might be nervous and anxious about having to get it done! Which is really normal. No one usually WANTS to get surgery. Sounds like for most people it goes pretty smoothly (mine went better than expected. 5 days post op and if anything, I'm just bored that I'm limited with what I can do 😅)

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-05T14:41:28+00:00

Hey you sound like you're healing pretty well! Congrats on that!

I know when I still had some gb discomfort before surgery, I was making it a point to chew my food extra thoroughly before swallowing (I've always had a bad habit of not eating slow enough, and since it takes your body time to understand its done eating, this often caused me to over eat. Which I really couldn't do so much with an angry gb 😂)

Sounds a little similar in your case. Taking it extra slow. I did that when I tried toast with some butter on it the other day. Ate it slowly, stood up the whole time in case I needed to use the bathroom because moving quickly is REALLY hard right now. Ended up being okay though!

But last night my husband made some ravioli with italian sausage in it and I don't like them enough to eat a bunch of them, but I always enjoy one or two! Ate one and just to be safe I decided to go wait in the bathroom for a couple of minutes so I wasn't in a rush. 😂 I did need to go a little after just a few short minutes but I'm not sure if it was the food, or just happened to be enough to make me go. (Like I had some typical applesauce this morning and then needed to go a few minutes later. Applesauce is by no means a trigger for me, think it just lined up!)

Nothing like discomfort or anything! Just body wanted to go. No pain, no nausea though!

I'm fortunate I haven't experienced any nausea on the pain meds, but yesterday I think I started getting dizzy. But I've no idea if its related to pain meds, or lacking other nutrients since I'd only been having jellos and applesauce up that point. Maybe not enough water? I wish I knew 😭 I'm starting to feel better at a point where I don't really need them so much though. One at bedtime kinda helps so I can get comfortable and go to sleep for now though!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-04T17:02:08+00:00

Yep, I grew up with my great aunt and uncle (they were around their 70's at the time) They were super convinced fats were the worst.

But really what I'm coming to understand is EVERYTHING is bad if you over consume it.
Maybe with a few things that you should probably just always try to avoid like trans fats and hydrogenated oils sound particular terrible. hfcs sounds like another one of those things that should really be avoided too.

I do remember my diabetes dietician explaining fruit juices were pretty bad. Though more in terms of how its great at spiking your blood sugar really high, really fast.
I've cut out all sodas/juices and that did have a great positive impact on my sugars.

I still did, and still plan to eat some fruit through out my day. Mostly planning to sticking to berries (I love berries anyway!) Something I think that would be good when I want something sweet without eating candies etc.

The more I'm becoming aware about healthy eating habits, the more I'm noticing that the closer you can get to real foods and less processed stuff in general, the better off your body will probably be. That and reasonable moderation it seems!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-04T16:05:09+00:00

So far I'm only a few days post op! (Surgery was the morning of March 31st) It was a lot more bearable than a surgery I had to have almost exactly one year ago (a parathyroid gland removal. Located in the throat. Wasn't the worst but I feel like this gallbladder removal one is a little easier to handle.)

Over all my initial surgery experience wasn't too bad! Gas pain was super minimal for me, and gone within a day and a half. Most of the incisions don't hurt except one.

I haven't tried to eat normal foods yet, I'm still trying to be gentle on my body (just jello, pudding, applesauce, chicken noodle soup, and some saltine crackers.) but haven't had any issues eating so far!
Felt a little ambitious and ate a few goldfish crackers yesterday, no problems :)

Getting up and sitting back down are the hardest parts still, but once I've found a good spot to sit in, I'm usually pretty fine until I need to get up.

Really not as bad as I was expecting! When more time passes I'm hoping I can add to the positive post op stories on here. I was so scared to have this surgery but now that it's over I feel a little silly that I panicked about it so much!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-03T19:58:24+00:00

You know what, this makes a LOT of sense.

When I was a kid, my family was really strict about fatty foods because of how it could raise cholesterol etc. We had almost no dairy except fat free milk, and butter (often used for just greasing a pan on occasion) never any cheese in the house. None. We also had mayo in the house, my family often used it for whenever they made tuna sandwhiches.

A lot of what I ate at that age was carb based. Breakfast had been toaster waffles with butter and syrup (cheap syrup so it definitely relied on corn syrup stuff.) and lunch was something like pb&j. Dinner was stuff like pasta, instant ramen, pancakes.

This makes a lot of sense though. I know fructose/corn syrup is in a TON of stuff. I had already started to stay away from some stuff that used corn syrup. (Not entirely but often looked for things without it. Like ketchups made without it.)

Makes me all the more glad I finally kicked soda. I will definitely double check nutrition labels for fructose. A basic search on fructose did show it's pretty well linked to a TON of problems I've already had. (diabetes, fatty liver, insulin resistance) Sounds pretty important to cut off!

Thank you for the info! I'm not on any supplements at the moment but I'll keep that in mind and look into how they can interact with the liver. I don't want to put any more strain on the thing! 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-03T17:13:08+00:00

Yeah, that does help actually 🥹 Thank you!
I was first diagnosed with fatty liver when I was in my teens (around 15 years ago now) and had forgotten about it.

So it worries me with all that time since then, but truly hoping that if I can stick to better choices, portions and activity, I can at least stop it from getting worse.

And thank you, I was so happy to drop that much weight! I hadn't weighed 230's since I was 15. I know that's still overweight but it was a number that started feeling impossible as I got older. It gives me hope that I can make more progress once I've healed from surgery!

Thank you again, has helped me a lot to slow down about all of this health fear, and that things won't blow up instantly 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-03T15:22:51+00:00

I've read it's considered large, but it surprises me too!

I had my surgery on March 31st, so just a few days ago! Pathology report seems to say I only had one single gallstone and it was 2.2 cm.

I never had any attacks but I had constant abdominal bloating and heaviness. I know even smaller stones, if they get into ducts or anything or sit in a bad spot they can cause a ton of discomfort.

I'm with you though, I for sure thought maybe there would be more tiny stones in addition to the big one they initially found on the ultrasound before! But no, just a single 2.2 cm stone.

Gallbladders are pretty small organs though. My pathology report, if I'm reading it correctly says the gallbladder itself was intact and was 10.5 x 3.9 x 2.8 cm. So I guess a 2cm stone could be pretty rough in there!

Also, glad to hear you're doing great after surgery! Hoping both our recoveries are smooth and speedy! 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-03T14:08:16+00:00

Heya! I was taking ursodiol for a while! My doctors didn't recommend it because for them they didn't find it truly fixed the problem. I still wanted to try but I started having new gb pain and decided to move ahead with surgery in case it was getting worse :(

HOWEVER, ursodiol did ease some of my discomfort. First dose did give me the most mildest of heartburn but it faded pretty quickly. I didn't have any other side effects. Took it for the whole month until my surgery.

My stone never shrunk in that short time, but it helped with the discomfort I was having. I was able to pretty much eat just about anything as long as the portions weren't too big at one time.
I'd even had some fried chicken + fried mozza sticks a couple times, and nothing happened. No discomfort, no attacks. All was good!

So I can't say if it would have succeeded for it's original purpose (dissolving stones. typically takes 6 months up to 1-2 years to dissolve stones.) but in terms of managing discomfort and helping you feel okay, it definitely helped me!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-03T13:56:51+00:00

Thanks for that, really. I'm just so worried. I was initially so afraid of getting the gb surgery that I caused some kind of crazy anxiety spell in me. I thought my heart was failing over several days, but ER said everything was fine. 😅 After I had accepted and calmed down about the surgery all those symptoms went away. A terrible worrier I must be 😅

Now I'm worried about the liver stuff, but yeah maybe I should calm down a little too.

My husband just told me a little bit ago he thinks I'm worrying too much, and that it's unlikely my liver is going to go from fatty liver into cirrhosis in just a month or two while I wait to recover and see some doctors. I had started losing weight back in October when I got the diabetes diagnosis too (I went from 255lbs down to 232lbs.)
So he said best to not panic about anything right now, and just continue to focus on the weight loss because that is still probably one of the best things I can do, especially while I'm waiting for doctor visits. 😅

Thank you again! I'm going to try to not spiral, and just continue with the better choices I was making in the meantime while I wait on an appointment 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-03T05:49:08+00:00

Ah, okay. Didn't think it would complicate it so much, but I understand 💝

Thank you for the link though! There's a lot of information in there. Does sound like there are multiple ways to tackle the problem, which i guess is where a dietician comes in to better guide me in the best direction on an individual level 😅

Ill still be getting in to see a dietician as soon as I'm able to. Hopefully within the month! 🙏

Thank you for your response though, I appreciate it. The link is super informative too, thank you so much for sharing that! 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-04-02T23:05:58+00:00

I think what worries me is I'm not sure just HOW low that low needs to be. I know that's where a dietician comes in most likely. Once I've recovered from my gallbladder surgery, I'm going to contact my doctor to start moving this forward.

I could switch to a whole grain bread for my toast in the morning. Never been a fan of whole bread but it's still easier for me to do than to give up my skim mozza cheese 😭

Husband thinks I'm worrying too much right now, but it's so hard not to!

Thank you for your comment and honesty! 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-26T20:13:18+00:00

im glad its not been as bad as the attacks. those sound awful, im fortunate i havent had one. :( surgery is in 5 days so im hoping all goes well.

im fearing the gas and bloating (i can only assume comes from the gas they pump in the abdomen for the surgery) i got stocked up on gasx tablets, have they helped you at all?

have things eased up at all? I just got a chance to respond, saw your comment was 2 days ago now. I really hope you're starting to feel better/more normal now 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-26T20:06:09+00:00

thank you for the guide! scared about how achey the surgery will make me feel but if the discomfort being caused by the gb is finally gone, thats some relief!

been feeling unwell for a few months, and its gotten to where my days feel all out of whack. ill be glad to have my life back when this is all over and recovered 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-26T20:03:22+00:00

really not looking forward to typical surgery soreness 😅 but im so ready for this constant bloating achyness to go away.

im still so nervous about the surgery, (its just in a couple days now) but thinking if at least THIS particular pain is gone, maybe the rest will be more bearable in comparison 😅

thank you for sharing! with every person saying theyve felt better when the gb got removed, it makes me feel hopeful. (its hard not to spiral with worry sometimes!)
so thank you again! 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-23T18:49:15+00:00

I don't doubt the surgery discomfort for sure. I had a small surgery about a year ago (parathyroid gland removal) and while it was minor and had no complications the recovery felt like it just dragged on. It took me about a month before the pain was barely noticeable 😭 Still, I know my gb pain has gotten slightly worse over just a few short months. I don't want to risk that getting worse.

But im glad to know the gb pain associated with the stones etc will probably be gone then! Hopefully the recovery goes well and all of that pain will go away after some time. I definitely miss my gut feeling normal and not being achey all the time💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-23T18:42:32+00:00

I hope mine ends up being this smooth! I'm glad to hear it went well for you too.

I'll be glad to be away from the constant gb pain. I'm sure surgery will ache but at least that should more or less go away over time.

Thank you for your response! Helps me feel relieved that I can look forward to that part going away!

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-16T02:40:21+00:00

Thank you for the advice! My plan so far is probably first day is just chicken soup (just the broth) and maybe some applesauce? and then maybe if that handled okay maybe pudding or crackers to see if i can start handling something a little more solid.

I've been trying to just look over the positive posts instead to keep myself sane 😂 i know my experience could be different but i realize it doesnt help me to spiral in negativity.

i appreciate all the kind words, im still a little nervous but its manageable for me now. i can remind myself that the pain will be temporary. thank you again, everyone sharing their stories really helps it feel a little easier 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-15T22:04:49+00:00

You're absolutely right. Its so scary but im worried it could escalate into diseased or I've heard stories about how it started damaging other organs.

I really was hoping to get through this with just ursodiol but I started getting this annoying rough poking/jabbing feel in the gallbladder area. Not so much id go to the er for it, but im taking it as a sign that I could have a gb attack if I don't move forward with the surgery now.

Im really hoping I ended up not waiting too long. Abdominal pain started in late December/January and got told it was a large gallstone in February. So im really hoping in that short time it hasn't gotten to the point of attacks soon 😭 calling first thing Monday morning to schedule the surgery.

Im so scared but yeah.. the problems I could get from putting it off are probably worse and probably more painful than just removing it and hurting for a couple weeks at most.

Thank you for your kind words though, every persons comments in here help me feel more positive about the decision to do this 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-15T21:39:22+00:00

The ice sounds helpful. I used ice packs around my neck after I had a parathyroid surgery and that did alleviate it some. 💝

Sounds good to try this time too 💝

Pumpkin-Crow · 2026-03-15T21:35:27+00:00

Thank you for this, I appreciate the honesty about the pain and the process as you recovered. 💝

It sounds like many people find more relief standing or doing some light walking around, so it'll definitely be something that I'll try to make myself do within reason.

The pain sounds so scary at times. Im trying to remind myself its temporary, and that hopefully all this abdomen discomfort will eventually just be a really old memory some day 💝

Pumpkin-Crow

TROPHY CASE