Gallbladder Removal

[Amazoniac]

@extremecheddar
If you don't mind sharing, what happened?

 

[extremecheddar]

@extremecheddar
If you don't mind sharing, what happened?

Still have discomfort. Eating lower fat , lower sugar, high starch is the only thing that gives relief. Taurine helps too. Seriously considering the
surgery.
My mother had the same issue at my age and the surgery fixed all her health problems. She was able to live a normal life and eat regular foods again.

Thanks for checking in.

 

[Amazoniac]

Still have discomfort. Eating lower fat , lower sugar, high starch is the only thing that gives relief. Taurine helps too. Seriously considering the
surgery.
My mother had the same issue at my age and the surgery fixed all her health problems. She was able to live a normal life and eat regular foods again.

Thanks for checking in.

Thank you for sharing. Have you tried everything that should've worked in combination?
Do you eat enough calories and protein? Have enough magnesium, potassium and zinc? What about b vits (especially b1, b6, choline)? (Especially considering your username)
Fat-soluble vitamins are balanced?

What do you crave? And do you eat something despite disliking?

Gallbladder

This was more for you to consider.
I know someone that found those aspects to be extremely helpful. Finding a good and tolerable source of casein and gelatin can also be protective and aid the process. I think that doing what they refer to as protocols for "flushing" the gallstones but in sane doses, spread throughout many days is better than megadosing magnesium, oil and acid. In some cases, especially when the metabolism is weak, loading up on calcium can cause problems, including displacing other important minerals. So again (and back to the idea of spreading those protocols), eating a couple of eggs, magnesium malate or bicarbonate, and apple cider vinegar plus citrus can increment the strategy.

Edit: I forgot to add that paying attention to stool is also a great tool
A diet that is working tends to give you the best stools possible: solid forms and leaving no residue.

If that doesn't help at all, you can consult this: Comprehensive biochemistry and physiology material
I know it's difficult to understand due to the scientific jargon but it's worth the effort.

 

[Amazoniac]

SPONTANEOUS EVACUATION OF A LARGE GALLSTONE.
(17, March, 1888)

"On the morning of the fourth day the substance was not perceptible, the obstruction was as complete as ever, the pain as acute, especially in the right iliac region, and the vomit unmistakably faecal. The temperature, which had hitherto been rather below the normal, rose to close on 99 deg. At 8 A.M. on the fifth day the patient expressed herself as feeling much easier, and the vomiting was less frequent; she looked altogether brighter, and had slept a little: About 3 P.M. a semi-liquid motion was passed, and the bowels acted again twice between that time and 8 P.M., when with the last stool, after some straining, a large stone was expelled with considerable force into the bedpan. I had asked them to keep all that passed for inspection."

"A rather severe attack of enteritis, which kept the patient in bed a month, delayed the convalescence, but she is now quite well. The stone is round, tuberculated on the surtace, non-facetted, and measures 3 3/8 in. in circumference."

"I certainly felt much more satisfied after the diseppearance of the tumour, and am pretty well assured that it was the stone on its travels."

But seriously, it's bit more than an inch in diameter, the thing was huge.
I hope that it gives hope for people that are dealing with this problem, because if it doesn't, I don't know what will..

Edit: what's interesting about this case is that the woman was relatively stable and fine (despite, as mentioned there, problems related to a "fatty heart"). The moment that the excruciating pain started was only when the stone obstructed the valve between the small and large intestines. According to the doctor she had an "acute intestinal obstruction".

 

[Amazoniac]

Resolution of Gallstone Ileus with Spontaneous Evacuation of Gallstone: A Case Report

"We report a case of spontaneous resolution of gallstone ileus in an elderly patient after the per rectal passage of a large stone measuring 4 cm × 3.8 cm. This report and a few others from literature highlight the possibility of spontaneous resolution of gallstone ileus after the passage of gallstone. However, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report where such a large stone passed spontaneously."

"Gallstone ileus is a rare complication of cholelithiasis. The term ‘gallstone ileus’ was first coined by Bartholin (1654) and referred to as mechanical obstruction due to impaction of one or more large gallstones within the GI tract. Size of stone should be at least 2–2.5 cm in diameter to cause obstruction [3]."

Image

 

[Kennya]

D-Limonene

 

[amethyst]

Bile salts-ox bile which is often found in digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes are great for your digestion.

 

[Giraffe]

Cholecystectomy and NAFLD: does gallbladder removal have metabolic consequences? - PubMed - NCBI

Abstract
Pathogenesis of nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD) disease and gallbladder (GB) disease secondary to cholesterol gallstones is complex, yet both conditions share similar associated risk factors, most of them related to the metabolic syndrome. Cholecystectomy, the best treatment for GB disease, is one of the most performed abdominal surgeries worldwide. In this issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology, Ruhl and Everhart, using data from the Third United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988-1994), show that NAFLD is associated with cholecystectomy (odds ratio (OR)=2.4; 1.8-3.3), but not with gallstones (OR=1.1; 0.84-1.4). This finding suggests that cholecystectomy may itself represent a risk factor for NAFLD, which is in line with the recently undisclosed role of the GB and bile acids in systemic metabolic regulation. Thus, cholecystectomy may not be innocuous and may have a major impact on public health by contributing to NAFLD development.

 

[Syncopated]

Try the Clark liver flush. I did my first one 16 years ago and the entire toilet water was covered completely in green stones. I have done maybe 10-12 over the years since and get no gall stones anymore. My liver and gall bladder are clean.

Basically you fast for the morning and afternoon then take some Epsom salts in water at 6:00 p.m. , 8:00 p.m. then drink a mixture of 1/2 cup fresh grapefruit juice and 1/2 cup olive oil. Make sure you take L-ornithine from the Dr. Clark Store to put you to sleep and in the morning you take a couple more doses of Epsom salts/water.

According to Clark, the magnesium sulphate relaxes the bile ducts and opens them up so the gallstones and liver stones easily are pushed out. Expect to find parasites in the toilet the next morning too. I once found a flat worm about the size of my pinky nail. This stuff is reality.

Google or YouTube "Clark liver flush"

 

[Amazoniac]

Seraphics, impacting stuff:

Review: pathogenesis of gallstones - Dowling - 2002 - Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics - Wiley Online Library

"Patients with spontaneous gallstone disease also have prolonged LBTTs [large bowel transit times], more colonic Gram-positive anaerobes, increased bile acid metabolizing enzymes and higher intracolonic pH values, than stone-free controls. Together, these changes lead to increased DCA formation, solubilization and absorption. Thus, in addition to the 'lithogenic liver' and 'guilty gallbladder' one must now add the 'indolent intestine' to the list of culprits in cholesterol gallstones."
Endotoxin And Fat Consumption

"There are multiple ways by which an increase in the percentage DCA in bile may predispose to cholesterol gallstone formation."
"[..] the percentage of DCA also correlates with the percentage arachidonic acid-rich phospholipids in bile.57 In turn, this is linked both to mucus glycoprotein synthesis and secretion by the gall-bladder, and to impaired gall-bladder emptying.56"

"[..] the colon is the principal site for DCA formation.65,66"

"In normal weight women with gallstones but no other obvious risk factors, the Bristol investigators found that, compared with age- and sex-matched controls, the gallstone carriers had almost a 20-h longer whole gut transit time. Despite this, their mean faecal wet weight was only half that of the controls. Put another way, the women with gallstones had slow transit constipation."
"Then in 1995, Shoda and colleagues from Japan and Sweden71 found that gallstone carriers had significantly prolonged small bowel transit times compared with controls. They too had a twofold increase in the percentage DCA in bile that was associated with supersaturated bile, in contrast to the unsaturated bile found in the gallstone-free controls."
"Similar findings have been reported by Azzaroli et al.72 from Bologna in Italy. In fact, these investigators measured oro-caecal transit time by three different methods and again showed that the MCTT [mouth-to-caecum transit time] was significantly longer in gallstone patients than in matched controls."

"In brief, the results [of another researcher] showed that, compared with stone-free controls, the gallstone patients had significant increases in: (i) LBTT; (ii) total and Gram-positive anaerobes; (iii) cholic acid 7a-dehydroxylation; (iv) the luminal pH in both proximal and istal colon; and (v) the percentage DCA in fasting serum (and, by implication, the percentage DCA in bile)."
"Based on these results, the authors concluded that there was indeed prolonged colonic transit in conventional gallstone patients and that this, in turn, was likely to result in increased DCA formation, solubilization (and there bioavailability) and absorption."

 

[Giraffe]

Basically you fast for the morning and afternoon then take some Epsom salts in water at 6:00 p.m. , 8:00 p.m. then drink a mixture of 1/2 cup fresh grapefruit juice and 1/2 cup olive oil. Make sure you take L-ornithine from the Dr. Clark Store to put you to sleep and in the morning you take a couple more doses of Epsom salts/water.

According to Clark, the magnesium sulphate relaxes the bile ducts and opens them up so the gallstones and liver stones easily are pushed out. Expect to find parasites in the toilet the next morning too. I once found a flat worm about the size of my pinky nail. This stuff is reality.

Magnesium sulfate stimulates the gallbladder to contract. The grapefruit juice and the olive oil form a soap-like material. What you find in the toilet is "soap" colored green from the bile.

 

[Syncopated]

No, if that were the case, the entire toilet water would be floating with the same amount of green stones indefinitely. Like I mentioned, I can no longer get a single stone visible in the last couple flushes I have done.

Dissection of the green stones reveals a thick mush, sometimes quite rigid. It simply doesn't have enough calcification to show up on x-ray.

 

[michael94]

Magnesium sulfate stimulates the gallbladder to contract. The grapefruit juice and the olive oil form a soap-like material. What you find in the toilet is "soap" colored green from the bile.

I have a lot of experience in this area. While some of the stones can be formed in the intestines, there are indeed "stones" expelled from the liver/gallbladder during a liver flush.

I expelled "stones":
-with a calcium shell along with the usual green stones ( some stones are weird colors from bile pigment origin rather than cholesterol )
-with tubular shapes resembling a dilated bile duct
-covered in fungal candida that was stained bright yellow ( from bile ), yes I had intrahepatic candida. This was the 100% proof of legitimacy for me.
-from the epsom salt solution only before I even took the oil/citrus mixture ( others have expelled stones during coffee enemas )
-etc.

Evidence was posted regarding the existence of liver "stones" a few weeks ago on this forum: Liver "Gallstones" Explained And Proven

I have pictures saved if you would like to see them, including cutting open a tan colored stone with a green cholesterol center. I had low grade liver failure and relatively severe cholestasis that liver flushes saved me from. Not for everyone, but how they're described on quackwatch.com does not match reality.

 

[michael94]

O, also, I had a period where my stools had become very tan/light brown ( indicating very low bile flow ). Then during a flush I expelled a very large amount of bile to the point where it hurt pretty badly. Very solid circumstantial evidence that "something" had been blocking the bile from flowing and was dislodged during the liver flush.

 

[extremecheddar]

O, also, I had a period where my stools had become very tan/light brown ( indicating very low bile flow ). Then during a flush I expelled a very large amount of bile to the point where it hurt pretty badly. Very solid circumstantial evidence that "something" had been blocking the bile from flowing and was dislodged during the liver flush.

Can you post the procedure you used?

 

[aliciahere]

@extremecheddar hoping things are ok for you. I'm sure it's tough trying to get through this. A bit of a weird question, have you been checked for celiac/gluten intolerance? There is a link between gall bladder issues and celiac

 

[Forsythia]

Magnesium sulfate stimulates the gallbladder to contract. The grapefruit juice and the olive oil form a soap-like material. What you find in the toilet is "soap" colored green from the bile.

I laugh every time I hear someone say that grapefruit juice and olive oil can somehow magically form soap overnight in the intestines. When you have a packed gallbladder, even just eating a high fat meal can expel some stones/gravel/congestion (this is what a gallbladder attack is). Whatever is expelled travels through the bile ducts and goes into the intestines and is then mixed with poop and therefore may not be noticeable in the toilet.

The magnesium sulfate relaxes the bile ducts so that whatever is expelled from the gallbaldder can travel through the ducts without causing pain. It also acts as a laxative turning your bowels to liquid so that by the time the stones/gravel/congestion reaches the toilet, there is very little poop with it and therefore much easier to see the stones in the toilet.

The olive oil causes very strong contractions of the gallbladder (since no fat has been eaten in 24 hours) which causes stones/gravel/congestion to be released. The grapefruit juice (or orange or lemon juice) is just for taste to help the mixture go down.

I've done many flushes. I happy to say I haven't had a gallbladder attack in almost 2 years.

 

[Amazoniac]

This is not only for gurus that are dealing with gallstones, but also those that are trying to induce a protein deficiency by discarting the broth in which it was cooked;

Gallstones are usually accompanied by liver impairment and other problems, finding the best protocol to remove them should be secondary to addressing why they keep forming. Here's a quote that points angels in a better direction:
There were published studies in the middle... | Ray Peat Forum

Coconut Oil
"Since the 1930s, it has been clearly established that suppression of the thyroid raises serum cholesterol (while increasing mortality from infections, cancer, and heart disease), while restoring the thyroid hormone brings cholesterol down to normal. In this situation, however, thyroid isn't suppressing the synthesis of cholesterol, but rather is promoting its use to form hormones and bile salts."
I would be careful to not consume it in excess because of the usual liver impairment to metabolize and a tendency to accumulate fatty acids that often accompanies people with gallstones.

Insulin resistance is associated with both gallstone formation and non-alcoholic liver disease:
Vitamin D And The Theory Of Human Hibernation
I think the low level of vitamin D and calcium... | Ray Peat Forum

You probably can't solve it without addressing many important deficiencies:
“Besides fasting, or chronic protein... | Ray Peat Forum

Calcium and Disease: Hypertension, organ calcification, & shock, vs. respiratory energy
"Protein deficiency is an important cause of deranged calcium metabolism. Vitamins K, E, and A are important in regulating calcium metabolism, and preventing osteoporosis. Aspirin (with antiestrogenic and vitamin E-like actions) is protective against bone resorption and hypercalcemia."
"Much of the intracellular magnesium is complexed with ATP, and helps to stabilize that molecule. If cellular energy production is low, as in hypothyroidism, cells tend to lose their magnesium very easily, shifting the balance toward the lower energy molecule, ADP, with the release of phosphate. ADP complexes with calcium, rather than magnesium, increasing the cells calcium content."
As a coincidence, I gave some magnesium some time ago to someone that had problems with gallstones and the guru reported relief.

In a variety of cell types, vitamin A... | Ray Peat Forum (gallstones are more frequent in older women, and many toxins including excess estrogen are excreted in bile)
Since copper tends to increase in tissues along with excess estrogen, it might be good to make sure that you're ingesting it balanced with enough zinc and not in excess.

Selenium, zinc and copper plasma levels in intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy, in normal pregnancies and in healthy individuals, in Chile. - PubMed - NCBI

Cholesterol, longevity, intelligence, and health.
"The supply of cholesterol, thyroid and vitamin A must always be adequate for the production of steroid hormones and bile salts."
http://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/3677919/08_diss.pdf

Transdermal/Topicals: Best Practices? (because absorption of fat-soluble vitamins in the intestines is probably impaired)

Red light is not passed through parts of the body that need them: bile acids absorb it. In fact, if I recall correctly, there was a team of doctors that was identifying bile ducts (for surgery) using red light due to the remainings of bile acids present there. So, it's probably beneficial to shine an incandescent light on the liver area.
Some manimals advocate flat panels to hold the lights, but since incandescent lights are fairly inefficient, it's best to have each of them freely to direct them perpendicular to the body surface that you want, having isolated tripods (also known as various Suchs) allows you to do that.
Relevant:
Light therapy improves hypothyroidism - Red Light Man
Light Therapy Improves Arthritis Dramatically - Red Light Man

Casein and choline are extremely liver-protective, dairy protein and egg yolks are a good combination:
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease/

B-vits are also involved:
Effect of bile on vitamin B12 absorption.
B12 Deficiency And Hypothyroidism
Vitamins B1 & B2 Are Required For Estrogen Inactivation By Liver

Vitamin C assists bile acid conjugation:
Gallbladder

Glycine and taurine (also lysine) were mentioned by haidut some time ago, which are bile constituents:
The biochemical basis for the conjugation of bile acids with either glycine or taurine
Taurine Content of Selected Foods: Taurine Deficiency Very Unlikely on a Normal Diet - SuppVersity: Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Foods that have a tendency to acidify if fermented in the intestines can be helpful, because ideally they shouldn't ferment, but if they do, they happen to modulate bacteria to a better profile anyway. Dairy carbs and fruits: since bacterias act faster than yeasts, it usually becomes acidic before alcoholic, just like kefir. And this temporary acidification can compensate for the lack of bile, which happens to act as a sterilizer for the small intestine.
How Bile Acids Confer Gut Mucosal Protection Against Bacteria
Bile Salt Biotransformations By Human Intestinal Bacteria (as it was mentioned there, low-dose antibiotics can also help to improve the situation)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1786299/pdf/brmedj02224-0045.pdf (exemplifying some of the complex interactions)

Finally, movement/exercise is known help:
http://jap.physiology.org/content/jap/early/2008/01/10/japplphysiol.01292.2007.full.pdf
One such difference is known to everybody:... | Ray Peat Forum

 

[Giraffe]

I laugh every time I hear someone say that grapefruit juice and olive oil can somehow magically form soap overnight in the intestines.

This was on German TV. Fast-forward to 18:00. First they show gallstones, and next what was expelled after the Moritz protocol. They say that they have tested the stuff that was expelled after the "gallbladder flush": it mainly consisted of fatty acids; substances you typically find in gallstones were missing.

The magnesium sulfate relaxes the bile ducts so that whatever is expelled from the gallbaldder can travel through the ducts without causing pain. It also acts as a laxative turning your bowels to liquid so that by the time the stones/gravel/congestion reaches the toilet, there is very little poop with it and therefore much easier to see the stones in the toilet.

The olive oil causes very strong contractions of the gallbladder (since no fat has been eaten in 24 hours) which causes stones/gravel/congestion to be released. The grapefruit juice (or orange or lemon juice) is just for taste to help the mixture go down.

Magnesium sulfate also causes the gallbladder to contract.

 

[Amazoniac]

Gallstones are usually accompanied by liver impairment

What's New About K2, By C.Masterjohn

"While all K vitamins are fat-soluble, they are not all equally soluble in fat. Those with longer tails are more fat-soluble than those with shorter tails; for tails of equal length, saturated tails are more fat-soluble than unsaturated tails. K vitamins that are more fat-soluble are carried deeper in the core of chylomicrons, while those that are less fat-soluble are carried more toward the edges. Let’s take the three forms most commonly found in supplements as examples: K1, MK-4, and MK-7. We would expect to find MK-7 in the center of the chylomicron, MK-4 closer to the edges, and K1 in between the two (Schurgers and Vermeer, 2002).

Chylomicrons move in and out of the bloodstream rapidly, with a half-life of 15-20 minutes (César, 2006). This means that once we eat a meal, 95% of the chylomicrons that enter our blood are fully cleared in the first hour. Very few tissues actually take up the whole chylomicron. Instead, most tissues use the enzyme lipoprotein lipase (LPL) to siphon off its nutrients bit by bit. While LPL is best known for feeding the heart, skeletal muscle, and adipose tissue, it also feeds other tissues such as the lungs, kidneys, mammary glands, and brain (Kersten, 2014). LPL spreads across the capillary beds that feed our great diversity of tissues, allowing widespread access to the fat-soluble nutrients we ingest in a meal. Presumably, these tissues all have greater access to the nutrients carried closer to the edges of the chylomicrons, such as MK-4.

As these many tissues feast on the chylomicrons, the chylomicrons get smaller and smaller until they become chylomicron remnants. A small handful of tissues donate apolipoprotein E (ApoE) to the chylomicron remnants, and then use the LDL receptor and other related receptors to bind to the ApoE and take up the whole remnant. This allows them to score everything left in the particle right down to its chewy center. In this sense, ApoE is like the bait on a fishing line, and the receptor is like the hook. While the liver is best known for fishing out chylomicron remnants in this manner, our bones and spleen do as well. Our bones primarily derive nutrients through the uptake of whole lipoprotein particles, and take up about a fifth as many chylomicron remnants as our liver (Shearer, 2008). Thus, we should expect bone and liver to primarily have access to nutrients carried in the center of chylomicrons, including K1, but especially the MKs with longer tails, such as MK-7."

"If we compare the results of the 2012 study to the earlier 2002 study, we can surmise that the dose of MK-4 in the 2012 study was low enough that the initial LPL feast in the first hour fully distributed it to a variety of tissues so that it was all gone by two hours, and that MK-7 circulated for such a long time because, like MK-9, it was redistributed in LDL particles. We should expect from this that MK-4 is good at nourishing most tissues, but not very good at nourishing liver or bone. By contrast, we should expect that MK-7 is good at nourishing the liver and even better at nourishing bone.

At the present time, there is no direct support for this, but there are hints that it may be the case. Sato (2012) cited a Japanese paper as finding that 1.5 milligrams of MK-4, but not 500 μg, improved the carboxylation of osteocalcin. Not even the abstract seems to be available in English, so it is difficult to evaluate the study. Later, Nakamura (2014) showed that only 600 μg of MK-4 is needed, but in this study the researchers simply gave the same people higher and higher doses each week and waited for osteocalcin carboxylation to improve. For all we know, their lowest dose, 300 μg, would have worked if they had given it longer than a week. In seeming contrast to MK-4, MK-7 improves osteocalcin carboxylation with as little as 100 μg (Knapen, 2012; Inaba, 2015).

Placing these studies side by side, they seem to suggest that improvements in osteocalcin carboxylation require much lower doses of MK-7 than of MK-4. However, the studies had different designs and were conducted in different populations that may have had different nutritional needs and different responses to vitamin K supplementation. In fact, Inaba (2015) fed MK-7 for four weeks while Nakamura (2014) only fed each dose of MK-4 for one week. This alone could explain the difference. To date, no one has compared the osteocalcin response to MK-4 and MK-7 head-to-head."

As a coincidence with what haidut has mentioned before, I came accross two similar studies a long time ago on vitamin A, making it clear that topically applied behaved differently than what occurs when ingested, other tissues are preferentially nourished.
Pediatric Research - TRANSDERMAL ABSORPTION OF VITAMIN A IN NEWBORN RAT PUPS [dagger] 1427
Transcutaneous Absorption of Vitamin A in Newborn Rats - Abstract - Biology of the Neonate 2000, Vol. 78, No. 4 - Karger Publishers

I suppose that the same thing goes for b-vits.
If dealing with gallstones or other problems related to the liver, I would consider ingesting the supplement rather than using topically, especially if it's reliable.

--
Magnesium malate has the advantage of providing the malic acid that some people even recommend it plain for gallstones.

--
Conjugation of bile acids in patients with hypothyroidism (bile acids and steroids, 105) - ScienceDirect