Dealing with symptoms after Gallbladder surgery

Ask about bile acid malabsorption; it’s not uncommon after gallbladder surgery and can be treated with colestipol tsblets. Start with 1 at night; you might need more—it’s tricky as everyone is different. Yes—it’s a prescription drug.

I’m going to my PCP today and will ask him to prescribe it for me. Thanks!

Here's what I just learned with my research. Back history: I had gallbladder removed 2 yrs ago and still dealing with "IBS". Went thru lots of supplements after GI Mapping to get dysbiosis in digestive system back to some normalcy. Did elimination of foods gluten, eggs, dairy, etc etc. ntohing seemed to match up and really reduce the diarrhea. Went to gastro to see if it was BAM (bile acid malapsorption) she refuses to do the blood and stool testing to prove it and just prescribed colitopol. I refuse to take it without the tests. So am on my own, she was no help as far as doing anything natural.

Everything indicates in research that reducing fat and increasing fiber helps a lot! getting fiber up to 25-35 grams per day helps soak up the bile exactly like any of the drugs do. Decreasing the fat grams to about 40 per day keeps too much bile from being in your instestines which act like a laxative. Our liver will produce bile according to how much fat we eat, so the more fat we eat the more bile it produces and this is true whether we have a gallbladder or not. It's just when we had a gallbladder it got stored iin there and concetrated so when we needed it with a meal it would do it's thing. Without a gallbladder the liver still puts out the same amount of bile it just goes directly into the small intestine.

The reduction of grams of fat will help because we won't have as much bile being produced. Consistency and amount with taking fiber and reducing fat will help. Doesn't matter when we take the fiber as long as we take it daily and learn how much is too much before it gives us constipation or increases diarrhea. It should be a soluble fiber. Can be gaur gum or psyllium husk. They say psyllium is the better but both work. Inulin fiber not so much.

We won't always have diarrhea right after eating high fat. I never do especially when i eat it for evening meal. My diarrhea usually is in the mornings after a nice #4 solid poop. Why? I researched it...because sometimes it just takes a while for it to affect us. So that meal may cause issues the next day. Our digestive system is the most active in the morning as it tends to slow way down for the evening sleep time so other more important things go into affect.

Over the past 21 days I reduced my fat from god only knows how much to aaveraging about 70 grams per day and increased my fiber to sometimes below 10. to averaging around 20 and have been able to reduce diarrehha from well over averagaing 50% to 35% per day.

Now I am working on increasing more fiber and reducing more fat. I use the guar gum fiber but may try switching to psyllium fiber since I learned it's better for BAM/IBS. Guar Gum is supposed to be gentler on your system if you have lots of other issues going on such as sibo/hpylori or other bacterial dysbiosis in your gut.

Fodmaps are another route to look into and i've learned after eating a banana that they don't agree with me...spent an hour shooting water out 8 times in an hour. It's a high fodmap food if not green enough. green or ripe never eating one again! But wont' get into testing other foods until i see how my testing of fiber/fat work out for me. If i've gotten the grams for each were I'd like them to be and still have some issues then i will look into any foods that may be causing the problem. I keep a good record of everything i eat the time of day and when and what bristol # it is and what time i poop. So will have good records if I have to look at a particular food causing the problem. For me trying to elmininate and do the fiber/fat grams is too overwhelming. the Fiber/fat grams seems the most logical route right now for me.

It's a game....we are each different and react differently and you may be ok with taking drugs. All we can do is advocate for ourselves and test things to see what works for our unique guts.

Hope this helps others in their journey.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6301937/ Good article (some heavy reading) on reducing fat in diet for BAM etc.

Hi! I had my gall bladder removed at the end of August. I've had problems for years at the beginning of Covid I was diagnosed with Gastroparesis medical professionals stopped looking as to why I was having such pain,nausea feeling horrible and extreme weight loss. I felt it was my gall bladder but what did I know. I continued to have pain, nausea etc. and I was diagnosed as a diabetic. Type 2 but ended up type 1 insulin dependent. Eat small meals avoid this and that.
Fast forward to summer 2025 started having severe aching pain,nausea ended up in ER couple of times going to ER was worthless no clue how to help me. I found an awesome medical provider and together we figured out it had to be the gall bladder and I was sent to a surgeon and he confirmed yes it was my gallbladder and he removed it in August. Now my nightmare was just getting started the morning after surgery I was in in horrible pain it felt like the gallbladder never left . The surgeon said it should get better I still have pain, nausea feeling horrible sometimes it feels like someone is in my stomach with little daggers stabbing me,nausea is horrible but my bowels are good . I also have a cough.. I've had CT scan and Ultra sound and had a endoscope upper and a hiatus hernia was found which may explain my problems. I also had the gastric emptying test and that was interesting it showed my stomach is normal and I don't have Gastroparesis. Finally good news I was wondering if at the hospital where it was done the first time that my results went to another person and I got the result of another person. Wouldn't be the first time that has happened to someone.
The surgeon told be he wasn't going to abandon me going to figure it out. Talked about Hernia surgery but the one he mention the hernia is located near the aorta and I was not thrilled with that but going to find out Tif endoscope transoral incisionless fundoplication would work or me. I want my life back not this nightmare.
Has anyone had similar problems and what was done. I'm taking nexum but doesn't stop the food back up into my mouth and that horrible burning acid taste. I don't do well on drugs I seem to have a drug sensitivity too them. Thank you