In clinical practice, cholecystectomy is a common procedure, accounting for 20% of all general surgery and gallbladder surgery.
When it comes to the gallbladder, everyone is familiar with the fact that the gallbladder is an important organ in the body for storing and concentrating bile, which contains a certain amount of calcium and cholesterol, and saturation of either of these two components can lead to bile precipitation.The accumulation of calcium and cholesterol in high concentrations in bile will form crystalline deposits in the lining of the gallbladder, and when the concentration of bile becomes too high, more crystals will attach to the deposits and form one or more gallstones.The most common symptom in patients with gallstones is abdominal pain. In some patients, there is a vague colic in the right abdomen, medically known as biliary colic.
In addition to pain, people often eat fatty foods, feel nausea and vomiting, and as gallstones develop, patients may develop jaundice, fever, and even pancreatitis.
Usually, when a patient has gallstones, the doctor will recommend that they be removed surgically. When people hear that the gallbladder has to be removed, they immediately object.
To understand the treatment of gallstones, let us first understand who is prone to gallstones?
People who skip breakfast
After waking up in the morning on an empty stomach, the bile in the gallbladder is stored overnight for about 12 hours and is highly saturated with cholesterol. If you don’t eat breakfast, the bile is not involved in digesting food and the cholesterol in the bile becomes oversaturated, leading to cholesterol deposits and the gradual formation of stones.
People with high cholesterol
The main way cholesterol is eliminated from the body is by being dissolved in bile, which is excreted into the human intestine through the bile duct and out of the body through the feces. People with high cholesterol, especially those who like to eat high cholesterol foods, are more likely to develop gallstones.
People who cannot control their weight
People who are overweight are more likely to develop gallstones because of their sedentary lifestyle, lack of exercise, unhealthy eating habits, and high fat content in the gallbladder.
Most people who are unable to control their weight have poor metabolism, which also increases the burden on the liver and gallbladder, and problems with bile excretion, which increases the incidence of gallstones.
Pregnant women
Pregnant women are one of the groups at risk for gallstones. It is known that after pregnancy, the metabolism of the body changes and the level of estrogen secretion increases, which affects the level of contraction of the gallbladder.
In addition, pregnant women usually consume too many tonic products in their diet and do not exercise frequently, which makes it easy for bile to accumulate in the gallbladder, especially in late pregnancy when the abdomen of pregnant women increases and the abdominal organs in the body are squeezed, which affects the discharge of bile and leads to the occurrence of gallstones.
People who like to eat sweets
The sugar content of sweets is very high, and eating too many sweets will secrete insulin, which will promote the sugar in the blood circulation to enter the liver cells and fat cells, and promote the synthesis of fat, cholesterol and protein, which will indirectly lead to the increase of cholesterol concentration in bile and induce stones.
Crowd huddling after a meal
When people’s bodies are in a huddled position, the pressure in the abdominal cavity increases, gastrointestinal peristalsis is restricted, which is not conducive to the digestion and absorption of food and the excretion of bile, and sitting for a long time after a meal will also affect the absorption of bile acids, resulting in an imbalance of cholesterol and bile acid Billy in the bile, and cholesterol deposits form gallstones.
In the past, gallstones were treated with bile preservation and extraction, but why is it necessary to remove the gallbladder when gallstones are detected?
In fact, the removal of any organ of the body requires a certain standard, the main purpose is to make the patient’s body healthier, in general, usually take the method of retaining the gallbladder to remove the stones, but in the case of acute gallstone disease, this method usually requires the removal of the gallbladder.
In some cases, the stones do not cause any discomfort or significant changes in the body, then no special treatment is needed at this time, but regular check-ups are required.
If the occurrence of gallstones affects health, the doctor will usually remove the gallbladder, depending on the situation, as cholecystectomy is the best treatment.
In clinical practice, retaining the gallbladder to remove the stones can be risky and also prone to recurrence, which brings certain safety risks to the patient’s body, so many patients will take the initiative to remove the gallbladder even after the doctor has explained the relevant information to the patient.
What are the physical effects of having your gallbladder removed?
Tendency to indigestion
After gallbladder removal, the gallbladder cannot store a large amount of bile, which will affect the speed of digestion and absorption of food. Therefore, patients will feel bloated as soon as they eat greasy and sticky food, and they will also feel uncomfortable when they eat quickly, and they will want to vomit and regurgitate if they see greasy food for a long time, and they will also have diarrhea if they accidentally eat too much.
Susceptibility to Reflux Gastritis
Lack of bile storage in the gallbladder, when there is too much bile, it will reflux into the stomach and irritate the stomach lining, leading to reflux gastritis. Patients will experience stomach pain, acid reflux and belching and are advised to eat fewer and more frequent meals and not to eat too much in one sitting to prevent excessive bile secretion.
It may have certain effects on colon health
After the removal of the gallbladder bile will go directly into the intestine, if there is no food digestion in the intestine, bile will react with bacteria to produce bile acids to corrode the intestinal mucosa, long-term stimulation of the intestine has a certain impact on the health of the colon. This patient must eat breakfast, do not be in a state of fasting for a long time, breakfast and dinner should not be saved.
Although removing the gallbladder may also cause side effects to the body, if keeping the gallbladder will lead to more serious consequences, then it should be cut or removed. After gallbladder removal, patients should follow medical advice, strictly control their diet, adhere to the principle of low-fat and low-calorie, and eat three meals a day regularly. Also, remember that the bile in the common bile duct is checked after gallbladder removal, so check the common bile duct for stones every year.