Pain in old gallbladder surgery site

It has been 7 years since my gall bladder surgery. Right under one of the incisions (lapriscopic) on my side I get horrible cramping when the muscle is strained in a certain position. When in a "crunch" position such as sitting on my office chair and having to bend down to pick up something that fell under my chair. Any kind of strain that would go beyond a regular situp for any sustained amount of time it feels like the muscles on that side, the closest muscle group name I could put a name to is the one in the title of this post, are twisting inside my body. The only relief I have once the flipping and twisting feeling has started (which is accompanied with extreme pain) is to straighten out as far as possible and stretch that muscle to the utmost, and even then, once the cramp has subsided, the muscle remains sore for days afterwards. I have spoken to my nurse practitioner (I am in the Canadian Military, we dont have regular doctors like they do in civi land. We dont have family doctors, we have nurses and then if you are deemed sick enough, you get to see a Medical Officer) about it and she thinks it is just scar tissue that attached to the muscle from the wall of the scar and there is nothing to do about it. I cant imagine living the rest of my life the way I have the last few years, terrified if I have to pick anything up, go to the bathroom, or have an orgasm (Yes, its happened then too, which adds yet another component of fear to it) that I'll be in crippling pain. Any help, or anyone who might be experiencing the same thing who might have some idea's would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.

I just had my gallbladder out 10 days ago and am having a painful muscle spasm under the incision at my rib cage. It just started, happens when I sit to drive, bend a certain way or if I touch the incision spot. Is this the normal healing process or something more? I have 4 incisions and am not having this issue with the other 3. I'm scared to even touch that spot. It's like the muscle cramps and is incredibly painful. I have to stretch my arm up over my head for relief. Even then it is still sore, but not spasms.

I had my gallbladder removed two years go and it was emergency surgery, also open surgery ( apparently I had tons of stones). Stayed in hospital for one long week. My problem is my tummy is extremely distended especially right below breasts and the long incision. Most of the time the scar area is very sensitive. I’ve had two cat scans with everything normal. Dr says I could go through another surgery to remove tissue but I don’t like that option. Just wondering if diet or exercise could help this problem. Or if anyone else has experienced this.
Thank you!

I might have had a similiar experience and I don't know that diet alone would help, but it might. I had kidney surgery, and my PCP says I have "reactive scars," meaning that the nerves are more sensitive to touch/temperature. I also learned from my pelvic PT that scar tissue doesn't have much discretion, it can build up and build up and build up and attach itself to other tissues, and that can cause some restrictions and reactivity. It can even contribute to slowed motility or SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), which can also cause bloating/distention.

I saw a pelvic physical therapist for help. It's something a regular PT might be aware of, and I'm not sure if you're familiar (I wasn't!), but pelvic PTs (sometimes referred to as "Women's Health PTs," but that's a misnomer because almost all of them treat both men and women) are specialists in abdominal pain (including abdominal surgeries), disorders of the pelvis (which can include abdominal pain, bloating, low back pain, bowel/bladder, and hip issues) and have the "regular" PT experience.

I've had two surgeries: The first, an open spinal fusion and a bone graft across my sacrum/pelvis to help graft the fusion, and second year's later, a kidney removed. The kidney surgery was a laparoscopic surgery, but there are 5 small incisions from the ports and one larger incision about 6 inches long below my belly where they removed the kidney.

I started having abdominal pain and distention over 10 years after the kidney surgery and was sent to GI, but everything screened normal, so I got diagnosed with "functional dyspepsia," which is basically like the upper GI version of IBS (so no bowel issues, mostly stomach pain and distention and difficulty eating).

The thing is that bloating and distention can be caused by a bunch of different things. Like with most things, they always say it's important to figure out the cause, but it can be almost impossible with things like this, which is annoying. I found the book "The Bloated Belly Whisperer" (corny name, but it's by a GI dietician), which helped me narrow things down. You could consider seeing a gastroenterologist, but that could take a really long time...

I worked with a GI dietician, and she was able to help me with some adjustments to help somewhat minimize the bloating and distention, but restrictive diets really didn't help me and only made me more susceptible to disordered thoughts about eating. But she did have some good ideas I still implement, like eating smaller meals and choosing things that are easier to digest.

But working with the pelvic PT helped the most because she was able to identify where my scars were more reactive and where the tissue was thickened and also teach me scar desensitization techniques and an abdominal massage I could do on my own to help with motility. This is just one of the first pages that came up when I Googled, but she taught me some things like this: https://myhealth.alberta.ca/breast-cancer-surgery/at-home/scar-massage

You may need to try to determine if what you're feeling is more physiological (like if it's the scar tissue) or biological (i.e. SIBO) or both. For me, it was both.

Hope that helps at least a little!

Thank you so much for taking the time to help educate me with your situation and I do intend to to see a PT. Actually, the PT that came to my home suggested I do massage the area but I thought all of the swelling would just go away and it didn’t.
This was my first surgery - ever, and I was probably a little naive thinking things would go back to normal.

It has been 7 years since my gall bladder surgery. Right under one of the incisions (lapriscopic) on my side I get horrible cramping when the muscle is strained in a certain position. When in a "crunch" position such as sitting on my office chair and having to bend down to pick up something that fell under my chair. Any kind of strain that would go beyond a regular situp for any sustained amount of time it feels like the muscles on that side, the closest muscle group name I could put a name to is the one in the title of this post, are twisting inside my body. The only relief I have once the flipping and twisting feeling has started (which is accompanied with extreme pain) is to straighten out as far as possible and stretch that muscle to the utmost, and even then, once the cramp has subsided, the muscle remains sore for days afterwards. I have spoken to my nurse practitioner (I am in the Canadian Military, we dont have regular doctors like they do in civi land. We dont have family doctors, we have nurses and then if you are deemed sick enough, you get to see a Medical Officer) about it and she thinks it is just scar tissue that attached to the muscle from the wall of the scar and there is nothing to do about it. I cant imagine living the rest of my life the way I have the last few years, terrified if I have to pick anything up, go to the bathroom, or have an orgasm (Yes, its happened then too, which adds yet another component of fear to it) that I'll be in crippling pain. Any help, or anyone who might be experiencing the same thing who might have some idea's would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.