I saw a photo here in the Liver Flush Image Gallery with a ruler to provide a reference to the size. But I didn't have a ruler so figured why not just print a ruler out.

As difficult as it is to believe, your liver/gallbladder DOES have that many stones. There is a picture on this website of a surgically removed gallbladder that had been cut open to reveal the same stones I just saw in your pictures and the gallbladder was full of stones.

Another thing.....The second picture you posted, the stone on the left looked like it had a dead parasite on it. Check it out.

You take such great pictures, I wish I could hire you to take our family shots!

Paulette

Southern Belle

You've got a sharp eye to notice that strange stringy like thing protruding from the clump. When I first noticed that, it looked like it might be the leg of an insect or something with the segmented joint in between. But on closer inspection and prodding and thinking about what I ate, it is in fact just an end of a bean sprout. That's right. A bean sprout tail. What a relief that was!?!

It can be so hard to tell parasites apart from food stuff. I had a fecal examination done at a lab to search for parasites and it came back clean. I called the lab up and one of the doctor there tells me that parasites are rare in North America (I'm in Canada). Often parasites are picked up when travellors vacation abroad.

Thank you for the complement on the pics. I'm a bit of a photog buff and am just learning how to take good pics. [FYI - The 2nd photo, was taken on a G5 set to wide angle macro mode, ISO 200 (room lighting was not enough but a flash would overexpose the picture) noise cleaned up with 'neat image', slightly sharpened, shutter 1/50 (min to avoid camera shake), aperture at 2.2 (which is a compromise since it limits the depth of field).]

Thanks again for your input.

I did ultrasound scans in December 2003 and the lab was kind enough to put it on CD for me. I don't know if its the same as CT scans, but I can see the image of the liver and it is rather large I suppose. The gallbladder is much smaller. I suspect that much of these bile clumps probably were released from the gallbladder. I find it hard to believe that these large clumps could come from the liver whose biliary ducts I don't think are that large. But what do I know?!?

Bile is only one component. Another big component is cholesterol. 80% of the body's cholesterol is manufactured by the liver - much in response to the over consumption of simple sugars (carbs). Just as vegetarians have high cholesterol and diabetes, I suspect they also have stones. Although they may have less attacks due to the lower fat diet.

I think you raise an excellent point that most cholesterol is made in the liver. I have also read some research somewhere that dietary cholesterol has little impact on systemic cholesterol. But I wonder if dietary cholesterol although may have little impact on systemic cholesterol may have some detrimental effect perhaps straining the liver in some way thus compromising the liver's efficacy in detoxing other stuff.

I've read and tried various diets. I don't have a weight mgmt issue, quite the opposite actually but suffer from numerous dermatological ailments. So I tried Dr. Cordain's Paleo diet (similar to Atkins except lower fat) for 6 months but did not work for me. I tried to follow Dr. Mercola's diet suggestions (mercola.com - he suggests no grains, raw eggs, etc.) but I couldn't handle it. I then tried vegetarian with shrimp for 6 months which worked better but still not happy. And just last week I started all vegetarian following guidelines of Dr. McDougall (drmcdougall.com)

I've read the Metabolic Type Diet and based on the book's questionnaire I would be typed as mixed diet but I feel I do better on vegetarian. I do take a high potenancy GNC multi so am not deficient in any vitamins. My last blood test revealed very high levels of B12 but that was after 6 months of all veggies with shrimp only. Prior to this for the last 10+ years I have had an extremely shockingly poor diet eating all the wrong foods and have unknowingly ingested high amounts of hydrogenated / trans fatty foods. Coincidentally this was when all my problems started. I wonder if all these 'stones' were cumulative from before.

Anyways just my 2c worth.