Let me ask you something… Have you ever heard someone say “I just need to go pick up my gallbladder prescription” or “Hang on, I just need to take my gallbladder pill.”? No, you haven’t. Because the medical “solution” to a wonky gallbladder is not to try and get it to work properly again, they just take it out – like a gallbladder doesn’t matter. Let me tell you GALLBLADDERS MATTER!
First, let’s talk about what a gallbladder is and does. Your gallbladder is a little sack attached to your liver that holds bile that is made by the liver. After eating fat, your stomach sends out a signal to tell the gallbladder that there is fat present and to please send in some bile into the small intestine. The role of bile is to emulsify fats to make them digestible. If not enough bile is released (sometimes due to blockages or gall stones), diarrhea and malabsorption often results.
Without a gallbladder, your ability to digest fats is permanently impaired. After gallbladder surgery, rather than having your gallbladder supply bile when needed to digest fat, bile just drip, drip, drips all the time. It’s important to be able to properly digest fat – if for no other reason than not to get diarrhea when you eat fats – because fats play a key role in cell membrane, brain, and hormonal health.
“Forty, fat and female” is the standard for gallbladder surgery, but we see this at any age, and in both men and women. The most common sign of a gallbladder imbalances is often a “gallbladder attack” which may result in surgical removal of the gallbladder. But, if you are in tune with your body and paying attention you may notice a few warning lights including:
- Greasy foods go right through you
- Pain in the right shoulder
- Pain between the shoulder blades
- A dull or sharp ache on your right side, just below the rib cage
- Pale colored stool or yellow flecks in stool
- Headaches – worse around menstrual period
- Loose stools
Non-surgical options: If you are at the point where you have warning lights, but are not in a medical emergency, surgery may be able to be avoided by detoxing the gallbladder and liver. It is important that the colon in functioning optimally, otherwise a detox/retox cycle may ensue. This is why I recommend working with a wellness professional. Utilizing herbs like black radish, hydrangea, milk thistle, and dandelion, combined with homeopathic remedies like GB-tone, you may be able to squeegee out the gallbladder and see normal function returned.
I’m of the belief that you have no spare parts and just because you “can live without it” doesn’t mean cutting it off/out and throwing it away is the best solution. You can live without lots of external parts, but they usually try to fix arms, legs, and eyes before just removing them. Arms matter. Legs matter. Eyes matter. Gallbladders matter.
The information presented here is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prescribe for any disease or condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider when making wellness choices.