Gallstones & Gallbladder Update – #Eatclean plan

GallBladder Panic

Last week I posted in a bit of a panic about being advised to have my gallbladder removed. I have taken some further advice from a trusted expert and friend and we have come up with a plan, I love a plan!

I met Helena during my third pregnancy she was my wonderful calming yoga guru and helped to make my third pregnancy amazing. Those of you reading this who worked with me at EE in 2012 will know I was motivated, happy and well, all through my pregnancy. A very different story to pregnancy 1 & 2.

Helena and I have stayed in touch over the years as she holds a super yoga class in Letchworth every couple of months and she helps with my nutrition whenever I need it. Last time she helped was after Jack was born and he would not stop crying. I suspected it was because of my diet and what I was feeding him through my breast milk. We changed a few things in my diet and the crying stopped!

Assessing the Problem

We arranged a Skype chat last Saturday morning as I wasn’t 100% happy with the diagnosis of gallbladder removal from the doctor. I filled in a very long health questionnaire, which started off the healing process as it made me realise what the issues were.

We spoke at length about my medical issues and eating issues, what has potentially caused the problems. We dealt with that with some tears. And then moved on to how to sort out my problems.

I have always had a bad relationship with food. I have addressed many of the issues through my hypnotherapy treatment with Heather Hall so the binge eating issues left me 1 year ago. This didn’t deal with the binge alcohol issues I had. I have spent the past 25 years’ binge eating and drinking, generally treating my body badly. Now my body is saying no more. It cannot cope any longer. I am extremely lucky that it’s just the gallbladder that has given up.

My Lifestyle and my Dedication

We talked about balance and the fact that I don’t have much balance in life. Much of what I do is all or nothing, summer is everything, winter is nothing from a mental health point of view. Drinking was all or nothing, Thursday nights were a classic night for lots of wine & cocktails, particularly with the amount of social events and networking I do with Mrs Mummypenny. My old job at EE involved lots of overnight stays and lots of drinking. My best friend drinks a lot.

We talked about how serious I was about sorting out my diet. I am deadly serious. I say deadly because let’s be honest I am afraid of dying. My mum died when she was just 58, when I was 16. This was too early and the consequences on my life of losing my mum at 16 were huge. So I really want to do everything I can to be around for my children as long as possible.

I am scared of having my gallbladder removed. It’s an operation, key hole I know, but I have low platelets so there is increased risk for me. Maybe a 20-30% chance of the operation not going to plan and me being opened up. If this happened, it would be 6 weeks of full rest. I can’t take 6 weeks off Mrs Mummypenny at the moment. And I don’t have private health care or insurance to cover my lost earnings.

The biology comes into play as well. We have a gallbladder for a reason, otherwise why include it in our make-up. Being without a gall bladder means your body is unable to process fat properly and it becomes more reliant on the liver and kidneys. We can survive without a gallbladder, but we live better with one.

So yes I am serious and I am doing this. So last Saturday was my last drink. I had a glass of prosecco and a small bottle or organic cider. So very restrained for me. From Sunday I was eating clean. Eating clean for 5 weeks until 1^st August.

Eating Clean

Week 1 was the hard-core week. The detox. All I was allowed was chicken and fish, preferably steamed. Brown rice, rice noodles, green veg, papaya, pear and blueberries. Drinks allowed were water, green tea, coconut water for sweet cravings and pear juice from the farm (no sugar, additives etc.). So that meant no booze, sugar, gluten, dairy, red meat, caffeine (except green tea). To the left is chicken, leek, corgette & rice noodles. It was yummy..I promise. The peri peri spices added the zing.

I spent a lot of money on supplements to help with my constipation and inflammation issues. I am also taking things like aloe vera, probiotics and milk thistle. The lovely team at Natural Health in Welwyn Garden City were most helpful.

Week 1 was hard mainly because I had 1 business lunch, 1 wedding, 1 barbeque party. The food choice was quite easy as I could get fish or chicken at all of these events. I explained what I was doing and all places were extremely accommodating. So the Hermitage in Hitchin and Friern Manor in Brentwood, thank you for helping me out and giving me lovely food. This picture shows my food on the left and hubbies food on the right.

I didn’t miss the booze at all, but I did struggle seeing nice food. The buffet was hard at the wedding in the evening, all I could eat was chicken skewers and the salmon from inside the bagels!! I just wanted to go home at that point!

So I am now on day 8 of #eatclean and I am doing great. I am going to weigh myself tomorrow to see if I have hit 1) target from #40thingsb440.

Week 2 onwards means I don’t have to be so strict. I can slowly introduce healthy stuff from the week 1 banned list. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get a nice bit of chicken from Trussells my local butchers.

The aim of this healthy eating plan is to repair my gallbladder and reduce the size of the gallstones until they disappear. Healthy balanced eating for the rest of my life should mean no further complaints.

Negative side effects

• I am tired…and am needing to go to bed at 9pm/10pm.
• I got a few mouth ulcers from day 4 to 6.
• I got headaches for 2 nights. Cured with going to sleep.
• I ended up eating too much chicken which has caused constipation again!

Positive side effects

• I had been constipated for 6 days prior to changing my foods, that was all cleared out. 3lbs weight loss after 3 days 😉
• My skin feels more alive.
• I am getting solid 7-8 hours’ sleep a night.
• Weight loss to be confirmed!

So there you have it, let me know your thoughts. Do you eat clean and or detox? Can you share any tips with me? Have you avoided the gallbladder removal operation? If you are interested in learning more about #eatclean drop me an email lynn@mrsmummypenny.co.uk. I post my journey on Instagram and Twitter so please give me a follow @mrsmummypennyuk.

The next post in this series is here, did I end up having the operation?

This is post 3/7 in my week of blog posts to celebrate my 1 year of leaving EE and launching Mrs Mummypenny.

• My first post 1/7 is My first year in business as Mrs Mummypenny. It’s a great read:-)
• My second post 2/7 is 40 things before turning forty. Amazing number of reads of that, posted at 7am today!