Gallbladder Removal and Weight Gain

[avatarkorraa 4]

Hey everyone! I'm 9 months post op VSG and have lost about 105 pounds so far (including pre-op liquid diet). Everything in general has been good so far, except for the past two weeks I've been experiencing a lot of abdominal and side pain after eating, and also some really terrible bloating, gas, nausea, and Constipation. Did an ultrasound a few days ago and it turns out I have a contracted gallbladder full of stones.

I know that the only way to get rid of gallbladder problems is to do gallbladder removal surgery, but I've been doing a lot of research and I've been finding that A LOT of people have been complaining that they experience uncontrolled weight gain after gallbladder removal. Despite eating healthy, exercising, and limiting the consumption of fats, people seem to rapidly gain huge amounts of weight, especially in the abdomen, and find it impossible to lose it. As a bariatric patient this of course scares the heck out of me! I don't want to do this surgery and ruin what I've worked so hard to achieve with my weight loss, and I still have so much more weight I want to lose until I hit my goal.

What should I do? Has anyone else had gallbladder removal after wls? Did it impact your weight loss or give you any unwanted side affects after surgery? I'm so scared of having to do this surgery. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[sgc 538]

I had my gallbladder out in 2007. I had lost 100 pounds and weighed 250 pounds. After the surgery, I had started to gain and got up to 470. Looking back, my activity and eventually my eating habits changed after the gallbladder surgery. I had sleeve surgery a year ago and am down to 201 pounds, 50 pounds less than when I had the gallbladder surgery. My conclusion is that the gallbladder had no impact on my weight gain or loss.

[Pam_2-06-2017 375]

I had my gall bladder removed in 2009 after losing lots of weight very quickly on HCG. I gained weight back but it was because I stopped doing HCG and went back to my old, nasty way of eating. I had vsg on 2/6/2017 and am eating healthy and happily and steadily losing weight.

The gall bladder is simply a storage unit for bile to be released into the stomach when bile is needed. If you eat high fat foods more bile is needed to break down the food so the gall bladder goes to town. The reason we don't necessarily need a gall bladder is because the pancreas can do the same thing. As a matter of fact the pancreas is what fills the gall bladder in the event that bile is needed. When we crash diet or go on a very low calorie diet the gall bladder just sits there with all this bile just waiting for you to pound down a couple Big Macs again. When you don't, it just sits in there and crystallizes into stones. The stones move into the opening where it hurts like hell. Then into surgery for gall bladder removal.

As you can see, this has nothing to do with weight loss or gain. You will not gain weight because you do not have a gall bladder.

Take care

[bossportsgal 136]

I had GS in January and had my gallbladder out in June. It's only a month but I am maintaining my weight. I had it out because of attacks. It was horrible. I hope I don't gain weight back. I find that hard to do. I'm sticking to my healthy life style, and see what will happen