Re: Need opinions...PLEASE!

I was very tired when I posted and I guess I messed it up somehow but it's just as well since while I was rereading your note I found some of the answers to questions I had asked.

Keep in mind I'm not a doc. I really couldn't tell which part was the bile duct on the sketch. And I don't really understand what happens to the old portion of the stomach that is cut off from the top.

Was there anything the surgeon or doc told her never to do again after the surgery? Would those things include eating a bunch of oil, a grapefruit and using a laxative? Did they move the actual bile duct? If she throws up is her operation area in any risk?

I wouldn't think passing stones would be difficult with it being upward except that she might consider lieing differently to facilitate them moving through. Then again every bend you put in a pipe changes the way things move through it. So if it's more bent now than before it might make it more uncomfortable or more likely to have a stuck stone. The stomach itself doesn't seem to contract unless you throw up so I wouldn't think the contractions would harm anything.

If I were her....

I would use either the gold coin grass or some other herbal to get things broken down smaller. I might consider reducing the oil and grapefruit in half. Someone else posted in the past that she had good results doing this. If you do it that way you may need to do it two days in a row. It might not produce spectacular results and take longer to get it all out but in the long run all the stones should get out.

I might also consider asking on here about the slow method that people talk about. I don't really understand it so that has to come from someone else.

I probably wouldn't do the Epsom Salts . It's pretty harsh on the system. I would do something like the Lemonade Diet for couple of days to make sure everything is cleaned out and possibly use a senna tea to relax things. I wouldn't worry as much afterwards about seeing things as about making sure it all went back to functioning right away.

I would definitly use a hot waterbottle or a heating pad to soften things the day of the flush.

If she is too frightened to do this then I would just start using herbals and drinking lots if fresh apple juice and grapefruit juice. The time I drank the apple juice was when I had stones that looked as though something had started breaking them up. It reminded me of when you put vinegar on chunks of calcified junk. The calcium deposits become breakable and crumble when you put pressure on them.

I wish you both luck. It's a very hard decision and she might want to just pass. You might consider asking your doctor who did the surgery what would happen if a gallstone did pass through the tube. You don't have to tell him what you are planning to do that unless you want to. Just a hey what would happen if some of the stones went through. I think it's a reasonable thing to want to know from a doc.

Take care,
Lisa Tweet