Hi, @barbaraspainhour. Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. So that you could talk with others who've talked about diarrhea after gallbladder removal, I've moved your post here:

- Uncontrolled diarrhea after gallbladder removal surgery: Any advice? https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/post-op-diarrhea/

Hoping you can connect with members like @gwenrn74 @isadora2021 @twinkie23 and others.

barbaraspainhour - what did your primary care doctor or the surgeon who performed your gallbladder removal say about the diarrhea and its connection with the surgery? Did they recommend something to treat the diarrhea and stomach pains and spasms?

@barbaraspainhour

I’m so so sorry to hear that. Such a long time to be struggling after gall bladder removal. I was very fortunate that mine resolved fairly quickly after removal on 9 May 2022 with a careful low fat, high fibre diet and eating between 4-6 small meals a day plus Imodium when needed.

I still need to be careful and if I get slack (eg had delicious fatty mutton chops the other day) I’ll get terrible diarrhea and need to revisit my diet and meal sizes.

I see there are medications your medical team may try.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cholecystectomy/expert-answers/gallbladder-removal/faq-20058481
I also wonder whether you might have some other digestive disorder. Such as c-diff or SIBO? Have you had any tests done?

I had mine taken out in 1988. Three weeks after I gave birth. A gallstone had came out and lodged in my pancreas, and I had pancreatitis and had emergency surgery. In 2006 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s. I already had the bile coming out all the time with my diarrhea. I finally told the doctor recently that I thought a lot of the diarrhea was having was not from Crohn’s, but because of my gallbladder. She gave me colestipol. It says on the bottle take twice a day for diarrhea. It is also a cholesterol lowering medication. It might work for you but for me it gave me constipation. I got so many bottles of that stuff. I can’t wait to get rid of it. What I do is if I get the really bad cramping and cannot get it to stop I take Imodium D. Just one. And that usually does it for me. Right now I am battling because I am going to have to have surgery with part of my small intestines taken out that is full of scar tissue from my Crohn’s. So I go back-and-forth between loose bowels and bowels not moving. The diarrhea started before that. Seems as soon as we move to Pensacola in 1985 the loose bowels started. He thought it was the water. I didn’t know it’s because I had Crohn’s. They know a lot more now about Crohn’s than they did even back then.

Try taking oxbile tablets. It is over the counter at the health food store.

I had my gallbladder removed in 2012 and had a similar problem. They put me on a medicine that removed cholesterol from my stomach acid, I think, and it helped until I be ame allergic to it. Then I had to be on a bland mushy diet. My IBS was triggered a lot. I have recently spoken with a holistic dr. who is recommending a digestive enzyme with ox bile, which makes sense to me. We don’t produce bile without our gallbladders. It sounds like your food isn’t getting digested. They put my mom on Nexium, which I would not recommend because both of her hips broke from it and she got a C. Diff. Infection from lack of stomach acid, which finally killed her. Have you been checked for a yeast infection? I think that’s what is causing my intermittent diarrhea. Just some ideas. We need our gallbladders and they’re too cavalier about removing them! I hope you can find something that helps. 💕