I've decided gall bladder attacks are for the birds! lol :) Quite honestly, after having morning sickness from 5 weeks till 18 weeks, and feeling miserable even though I was on anti-nausea medication, I didn't think it could be much worse. Apparently little did I know, that a few months after feeling much better and not having morning sickness I would be battling the next thing.
At first it was unknowingly, I had 2 gall bladder attacks, and figured hey whatever it's just the flu and a super bad stomach ache etc. Then I had my 3rd gall bladder attack, and started trying to figure it out.. between talking to my mom, and my mother-in-law, and my mom talking to someone who is into Holistic health we finally figured out what might possibly be going on. So at my next Dr's appointment I mentioned it. Right away they sent me for an ultrasound to get it checked out. In the mean time I'm already about 29 weeks pregnant. The ultrasound showed multiple small stones, but at least the rest of my gall bladder looked healthy!
Looking back I've figured out that my first attack was probably sometime around the time I was 4 1/2-5 months pregnant. Since the attacks were so sporadic and as long as I vomited it was over in about an hour or so it didn't seem like a huge deal...so I never really mentioned it to my Dr. either. BIG MISTAKE! Not that it would have changed anything, but I would have started trying different things to "cleanse" my liver and gall bladder sooner!
The problem is the sporadic-ness is kind of a thing of the past. In the past two weeks alone I've had 4 attacks. That is out of the total of 8 I've had now. Some of the attacks I've definitely been able to say it's diet related so I've cut out a lot of different foods. Makes eating kind of lame at times lol. Then like my attack this past Monday, I've got no idea why. At 5:30 in the morning when I haven't eaten since 6:00 the evening before... totally frustrating! One bonus is that because this attack happened on a week day I could get in to my Dr's office and now at least I have pain meds for when the attack gets really bad. Before I had nothing, and it was an emergency room trip, a shot of some narcotic of some sort in the hip/butt. Definitely not a fun shot, my butt was sore for almost 4 days after that, nevermind it makes you so drowsy! UGH! Which we experienced once already.
So in the mean time between tons of research I've been doing and my mom going through her books I've started trying things. Also sometimes things call for desperate measures. So here is what I've been doing (honestly if you are a Dr. I respect what you do and you don't have to agree with anything I'm doing either, but as long as it's safe for me and baby I'm doing it).
First of all it means a complete change in diet. Some things don't matter so much for everyone, but you need to figure out what triggers the attacks - John tells me I need to start keeping a food diary lol :)
Food that is out - for me anyway:
Onions
Eggs
Fried foods
Greasy foods - includes all greasy meats etc.
Tomato's
Coffee
Citrus Fruits - Pineapple
Cheese
Peppers
corn
cabbages - includes cauliflower and broccoli
spicy foods
Pork
What I've also done is changed what I eat together - No starches with protein, and if I have starches that means I'm eating only veggies with it.
Any meat that I eat is very low in fat content. Comes down to fish, turkey/chicken and then the poultry is usually boiled in water. I've been trying to find somewhere to get lamb and try that because lamb is also low in fat. So we'll see how that goes.
I eat a lot of veggie/lettuce salads with carrots/cucumbers/celery and almonds for dinner with some meat.
Other than food changes to my diet, I've also been taking different herbs etc. to try see if I can get the stones to break up and pass (yes, anyone in the medical field who doesn't believe me can criticize me I'm okay with that, but like I said earlier I do what I know is safe for me and baby).
So I've been taking:
Vitamin C
Magnesium
Milk Thistle
Enzymes - w/every animal product I eat
Apple cider vinegar
as well as from the Dr.
Ursodiol
and then I just ordered (from the homeopath)
Chelidonium - which is for the liver and gall bladder
I'm to the point I'm willing to try anything.. trust me gall bladder attacks are no joke, and since nothing else can be done at this point I'm doing everything I can to see if something doesn't help. At this point I've got nothing to loose, and believe you me since the only thing I can do is take pain meds when the attacks get bad I'll try everything else to try minimize the attacks as well. So far not successful, but then again it doesn't happen over night!
So that's the story of my life!
