Trying to decide whether to have Gallbladder Surgery: What next?

Welcome @drlori76
You may find the helpful comments by @astaingegerdm @davosmarsh @jhmontrose @deern9 in this related discussion to be useful:
- 58 year old woman, Level 10 pain that Cholecystectomy didn't cure https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/58-year-old-woman-level-10-pain-that-cholecystectomy-didnt-cure/

Lori, have you considered getting a second opinion?

Did they figure out the cause of pain? I had a terrible year in 2021. Went to ER 4 - 5 times for pain. They could never see anything with scans. Finally, a surgeon i met with said that sometimes MRIs or scans do not pick up everything & suggested the GB be removed. I had it removed & no more pain. However, it took my body 3 months to acclimate to not having a GB so I lost 15 lbs.

@drlori76
I had my gallbladder removed 32 years ago. For quite a long time I had experienced abdominal pain, I thought it was gastritis, but my internist had me evaluated for gallbladder disease and I went through with the surgery. I was fine in general but realized I still had to avoid fatty foods. A few years after surgery I had more persistent episodes of pain and went through MRCP where they saw sludge in the common bile duct. ERCP followed and the opening was slightly enlarged. I felt much better- for a while. The same symptoms returned and I had a second ERCP. This time they opened the bile duct opening even more.
I didn’t have any serious pain events after that. However, I can still get a crampy pain if I eat certain foods. Forget cheese cake! The pain lasts about 8 hours and is not worrisome.
I did have an episode of pancreatitis after indulging in fatty foods. I’m now fairly disciplined with my diet and rarely have discomfort.
My mother also had gallbladder surgery as well as my daughter- she was only 19. She also has learned what not to eat.
The risk of not removing a ”bad” gallbladder is having to have emergency surgery if it causes infection of the biliary system. When this happens, one is not as good a surgical candidate as if you have it removed when you are healthy. You could bring this up with the surgeon and get their opinion.

Thanks for your helpful feedback. Mayo Clinic sent me some info on another patient who had MALS which can mimic Gallbladder attacks. Since I have a repeat MRCP and HIDA will wait for results. I just don’t want to remove the Gallbladder if it’s something else. That would be tough to have another ERCP since the first caused severe Pancreatitis. However, yours helped you. I may inquire about that too.

Thanks so much 🙏

So sorry. I’ve lost some weight too. I read about MALS which can imitate Gallbladder pain on Mayo Clinic May ask my GI about that. It seems like it’s not always clear and the worst would be getting surgery without pain relief

I hope you tolerate ERCP this time.
By the way, I’m now suffering from recent, extreme MALS pain again. Tomorrow I’ll have a procedure to blow the celiac artery open again. The artery had a bad kink in it from the beginning, even after the ligament pressing on it was removed. A stent at the kink has worked for 6 years now.
Looking forward to less or no pain.
It is sometimes difficult to pinpoint origin of abdominal pain since the nerves are not as specific as for example the pain you have when you sprain your wrist.