If you get your gallbladder removed and your surgeon says it could cause diarrhea for a while but your discharge papers say take stool softener because of the pain medication? Listen to the surgeon.

It hasn't been a fun couple of days.

Thank you for reading my very short rant. Back to the bathroom!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] frogfruit@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's because the trapped gas puts pressure on nerves that radiate to the shoulder.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But not nerves that go to other places? Is there something specific about those nerves?

[–] plantedworld@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's similar to how men often feel pain down the left arm with heart damage. The theory is that in utero, as we develop, the tissues that the nerves going to your gall bladder area and your shoulder may have started as the same batch of tissue. As you develop things branch off and move away from the starting point in different directions. But your brain still has a little bit of holdover from when the structures were the same clump of cells.

Gall bladder can refer pain to the right shoulder sometimes. Is that the side you had symptoms on?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. My case was unusual. I had no pain... I've gone into it elsewhere in the thread and I don't want to annoy people by repeating it over and over again, but suffice it to say, I didn't have the typical symptoms of someone with gallbladder issues.