Acute cholecystitis

Kim_kim

Went to the doctors yesterday & saw a senior one, he agreed my recurring gastric problem is gallstone related & diagnosed Acute cholecystitis.

I have a scan next week to access it & will then be referred for an op.
That's likely to be 3 months or so.

The doctor says I have to follow a zero fat diet in the meantime. Not low fat, zero fat.

Any ideas?

I'm thinking porridge made with water for breakfast, salad or homemade veg soup for lunch.
Dinner? Pasta with tinned tomatoes :-(

madmum33

Hello, I'm sorry you're going through this, it is one of the most painful experiences I ever had, apart from pancreatitis which was caused by a stone blocking the bile duct.

It is impossible to follow a zero fat diet, and you might even find that some things don't trigger attacks. One of the biggest triggers for many is dairy, so cut that out completely if you can.

I managed on chicken breast, baked white fish or salmon (it is oily, but it didn't upset my gallbladder), vegetables, potatoes, bread (no butter), salad etc. I made chips in the oven using frylight, and stir frys. There are sauces which are extremely low in fat.

Aim for a maximum 3g fat per meal, and keep a food diary to find your triggers... some find lettuce difficult to digest!

Hope you get your surgery quickly, mine took 11 months but I did need an endoscopy too.

Callie22

I had this myself and it's horrible - you have my sympathies. I think the best thing to do is as madmum33 says and eat as low fat as possible, and keep a food diary to find out what your triggers are. I personally found that big portions of 'stodge' triggered my pain - so I had to be careful with porridge, bread, potatoes, even lots of veg etc. In all honesty, I was so scared of triggering the pain I ended up with a small list of 'safe' foods and lived on them for a while until I had the endoscopy and then the surgery.

I also found the advice from the hospital to be rubbish - I remember once I was an in-patient and when I was allowed to eat, I was on a low-fat diet. For some reason, I wasn't allowed tuna salad for lunch but I could have the steak and kidney pie with suet pastry!

madmum33

Callie when I was in hospital I struggled to find anything low fat... I thought a tuna sandwich would be ok, but it was tuna mayo. I had to eat though, I had no choice! The last day of my first stay was awful, but I was starving so I ate what I was given. They sent me home and the following morning I woke up in agony... straight back to hospital with pancreatitis!

Eventually, on my second stay, I found a lady who arranged my food specially. Plain tuna sandwiches, steamed fish and veg, plain chicken breast, fresh fruit salad. She was the only person who listened to me, everyone else thought I was being fussy.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Whatever you do, don't do what my mother did - she compensated for cutting down on fat by massively increasing her refined carb and sugar intake. She still insists that the doctor 'gave her diabetes' as a result because 'he forced me to make do with sandwiches and sweets instead of sausages and mash'. Admittedly, her idea of being healthy was 'eating strawberries without sugar', conveniently forgetting the pot of single cream she'd drink with them and she then replaced the cream with a large pot of highly sugared 'diet' yoghurt, but the principle still stands for anybody less extreme.


It'll take some getting used to, but if you base your meals around vegetables and a protein source, it's actually very much like how a lot of people eat normally.

Rather than pasta all the time, I know it's supposed to be a trendy thing, but using a peeler to create courgette ribbons and then serving with a spicy tomato based sauce is very nice. If you use a good nonstick pan and a pinch of salt or microwave chopped onions beforehand, they're moist enough to begin to caramelise in the pan without oil before adding the tomato. You can do similar with broccoli as well. Adding steamed or poached chicken breast makes it a full meal when served with salad. Or tuna in water with sweetcorn. Allowing the tomato to cook right down gives a far more intense flavour than just opening a tin - spending a bit more on the more expensive brands usually means you get a nicer tasting sauce and you can get ones infused with basil, garlic or chilli.

If you miss cheese, nutritional yeast flakes add a slight cheesy tang if sprinkled on the top of meals. It's used by vegans for the B12 and the taste, it's in quite a few shops now, too.


Rather than making mince based dishes, red lentils cook down to a similar texture and flavour with the addition of a stock cube. Or use veggies again. Pulses are very nutritous and can give a sense of something substantial and a bit 'meaty' in texture. Again, you can get tins with flavours already added.

Jacket potatoes and jacket sweet potatoes are fine with 0% greek yoghurt or cottage cheese if you need/want that taste or texture. I prefer them with beans, chilli beans by themselves, though. Again, a huge salad with strong flavours makes them more of a meal than just a sad, slightly sweaty microwaved spud sitting alone on a plate; they still go crispy if you back them in the oven without oil - but the sweet juices of the sweet potato drip as well as caramelise, so put a tray underneath them if you usually put them on straight on the oven rack.

Try couscous, bulgar wheat, quinoa and any other grain with loads of herbs, juices (lemon, lime, grapefruit), pomegranate seeds, etc. Experiment with lots of spices and seasonings - a curry made without fat is different, but lovely - onions, garlic, ginger softened in a pan with a splash of water, add spices and a little more water, then tomatoes or passata, a tin of chickpeas, potatoes boiled with a little tumeric and a big handful of spinach, coriander leaf and lemon juice towards the end - to add sweetness without a huge dollop of chutney, you could add some drained tinned pineapple in juice or some mango, and you have a large meal to serve with chapattis.

You can make something approaching a fritter by slicing veggies (onions are particularly good) and coating in a batter made of chickpea flour (besan), some spice if you like, and water. Put on parchment paper and bake in the oven.

Boiled eggs need something to dip in them. I use asparagus spears and a little sea salt. Poached eggs are also a great, quick way of getting a meal together, and a good non stick pan means that omelettes are still an option - mushrooms and coriander, cooked potato and peas with parsley, microwaved red peppers, broccoli and basil, a pack of green veg (eg, broccoli, sugarsnap peas and asparagus, etc) makes a good meal, again on a deep bed of leaves, spinach is great with eggs of all kinds.


Salads don't have to be boring. Try having fewer ingredients in each but a wider variety - different leaves have different flavours, add fruits, pickles (try putting cucumber, carrot and cooked beetroot in rice vinegar in the fridge for a day with a tiny pinch of sugar, perhaps a little soy sauce and a small pinch of sesame seeds).

Broth soups can be surprisingly filling; celery soup with stock, thyme and a potato, whizzed up with celery salt and served with a flatbread made from flour, bicarb, herbs and 0% fat plain yoghurt, toasted in a non stick pan, is nice. Beetroot soup needs a potato for texture, plus some thyme or lovage or dill and maybe some grated horseradish. Leeks can be steamed or microwaved and then blended with a cooked potato and stock (use dried mixed herbs).

You can bake your own bread - that doesn't require any oil, unlike white sliced.


Look on Pinterest for recipe ideas - the vegan suggestions can often be made without oil.


If you don't love veggies, I won't lie to you, it will be harder for you to adapt, but there are so many hundreds of thousands of meals you can make without fat and without relying entirely on dairy or refined carbs, it's not as difficult as you might believe.


I hope I could help.


PS: porridge made with water is just as creamy if you cook it gently and beat it with a wooden spoon. Check the labels, but Oat milk is delicious if you can have it. If time is of the essence, just put the oats in water and leave to soak over night, then add some hot water and stir well in the morning. Add dried fruit the night before (cherries?) if that's something you like, or stir in raspberries/sliced banana/peaches for some extra Vitamins or a change of taste.

madmum33

I know you're trying to help Jojo, but I would have been in agony if I'd eaten an egg, the yolks are high in fat.

All your other ideas are great for a low fat diet, however gallbladder triggers are sneaky, the strangest foods can cause problems in some people.

A food diary is essential, start with a few foods and add more gradually so you can pinpoint triggers.

Kim_kim

madmum33 wrote: »

I know you're trying to help Jojo, but I would have been in agony if I'd eaten an egg, the yolks are high in fat.

All your other ideas are great for a low fat diet, however gallbladder triggers are sneaky, the strangest foods can cause problems in some people.

A food diary is essential, start with a few foods and add more gradually so you can pinpoint triggers.

I can't have eggs. The doctor said zero fat, but I'm wondering if I confused his message, maybe he said zero fat until the inflammation calms down.
It's not possible to do zero fat for 3 or 4 months.

madmum33

Kim_kim wrote: »

I can't have eggs. The doctor said zero fat, but I'm wondering if I confused his message, maybe he said zero fat until the inflammation calms down.
It's not possible to do zero fat for 3 or 4 months.

I think it's impossible to do no fat at all. There is a good group on facebook where you can get support and advice from others with gallstones, it's called gallstone sufferers (pro surgical).

I'm afraid that you might have a much longer wait for surgery, depending on where you live. First step is just seeing a surgeon, even that can take time.

Even on the very low fat diet I found that my skin was extremely dry and flaky. Since surgery I have been able to eat normally and my skin is fine.

Kim_kim

Thank you JoJo for taking the time to give me so much info & so many ideas.

Mrs_Ryan

I was fortunate, I only waited two weeks for surgery. As I was already following Slimming World the doctors told me just to carry on what I was doing in that short time. I really hope all goes well for you, it's the nastiest thing to have! Hope you get your surgery soon!

lantanna

I was waiting 6 months for my op and mine was chronic, I had bouts of it over along period of time until it became constant. Oh my eggs used to kill me!! To be honest in the 6 months pre op I was in pain all the time and lived off co - codomal and bread. : ( Hope you get sorted soon!