My daughter got it removed at age 20. She suffered from it for years, but her pediatrician misdiagnosed it as costochondritis. Probably because teenagers don’t normally get gallstones. It would hit at random times, and finally got to a point where the pain was trip-to-the-ER excruciating. Scary shit. Finally she went to a grownup doctor, her current PCP, and she said after about five minutes, “Gallstones/gallbladder/bile duct inflammation.” They recommended surgery..

The surgeon was saying things before the surgery like, “It acts like gallstones, but we don’t see it on ultrasound or x-ray. Guess we’ll take it out if it’s in there.” Nice. They did it laparoscopically, which is painful, but not nearly as painful as surgery with a scalpel. When he came back after the surgery he said, “One of the biggest gallstones I’ve ever seen.” I guess they have a little tool that takes bites out of it, so you don’t get the ginormous gallstone as a souvenir.

IIRC, she was out after two days. Had to stay the day of, and the next.

Recovery was a couple of weeks of her lounging about doing nothing. Which isn’t all that different from her normal state of being. Swear to god, I’ve never seen that girl lift anything heavier than money.

(I’m joking; she’s a good kid. No lazier than your average college kid. I just really like that “heavier than money” crack.)

From everyone I’ve talked to, laparoscopic surgery feels like crap for a few days. Headaches and stomach aches until your body flushes out the CO2 that they pump you full of so they can get room to work. Not as painful as a scalpel incision though.

Afterwards they recommended a rest-of-your-life prescription that you drink once a day to help smooth out excess/insufficient levels of bile, since you don’t have a bile reservoir anymore. She took it for a year, then figured it wasn’t effective enough to offset the PITA of drinking a gatorade spiked with a pouch of powder every day. Now she just makes sure she doesn’t stray too far from a john if she eats greasy food.