Dd may need gall bladder surgery :-(

[KpbS]

Well, she does have youth on her side. Kids bounce back from things faster than adults.

This was a ped surgeon, not a ped gi, correct?
If she has the surgery next week, how long until you guys fly out? Is there a lot of walking on your itinerary at the beginning of the trip? Do you think you will be able to feed DD mild, lowfat foods on your trip? Are you familiar with the town/s you will be visiting? The answers to these questions would help me decide if the trip was doable if I was in your shoes.

[JustMe]

This was a ped surgeon, not a ped gi, correct?
If she has the surgery next week, how long until you guys fly out? Is there a lot of walking on your itinerary at the beginning of the trip? Do you think you will be able to feed DD mild, lowfat foods on your trip? Are you familiar with the town/s you will be visiting? The answers to these questions would help me decide if the trip was doable if I was in your shoes.

Yes, it was a ped surgeon. As far as walking on trip, I don't have anything written in stone activity-wise do it can be avoided. I am familiar with where we are visiting for the majority of the time, with the exception of a 4 day lake visit. All are pretty tourist friendly. As far as low fat/mild food that is hard to say; there is certainly a way I could get them for her, but preventing her from eating cheese, guacamole, and spice in Guatemala is another story. I am not sure if it would be worse to have the surgery or not though....

[KpbS]

I am not a doctor, but I would err on the side of having the surgery based on her pain, the ultrasound findings, etc.

Being on a trip and limiting your diet and physical activity is much preferable than being on a trip and dealing with unpredictable, uncontrollable pain.

[dogmom]

I know it sounds confusing, but the Pediatric Surgeon is right. There are people with that kind of findings with their gallbladder that have no issues, and some have pain that eventually resolves on its own, and some need surgery. Some have surgery, the pain is still there after because something else was causing it. Abdominal pain is like passing out, there are so many causes and sometimes you never track it down. CT scans can sometimes muddy the picture, they are seldom definitive in their findings. This is all complicated by the artificial deadline of the trip. It has nothing to do with the diagnosis.

If it would me I would wait to do surgery a bit longer. I don’t want my kid in pain, but any simple surgery can turn problematic. Ethically it’s even more challenging because you are making decisions for someone who can make it themselves in a two years.

If it would me I would keep a strict food diary to see if certain foods trigger it. I would also consider a GI and Gyn consult. I think you also have to sit down and think hard if your DD might have an eating disorder. Eating disorders can cause gallbladder issues, ulcers and pancreatitis. I know it’s not fun to think about, but it’s not unusual for teens to multiple medical issues before someone puts the whole picture together of the root cause. If there is even a chance it’s something a parent has to consider.

Is it too late to get medical trip insurance? Even if you can’t get money back, if something came up on the trip and she would need to fly back that is a huge expense.

[JustMe]

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If it would me I would wait to do surgery a bit longer. I don’t want my kid in pain, but any simple surgery can turn problematic. Ethically it’s even more challenging because you are making decisions for someone who can make it themselves in a two years.

If it would me I would keep a strict food diary to see if certain foods trigger it. I would also consider a GI and Gyn consult. I think you also have to sit down and think hard if your DD might have an eating disorder. Eating disorders can cause gallbladder issues, ulcers and pancreatitis. I know it’s not fun to think about, but it’s not unusual for teens to multiple medical issues before someone puts the whole picture together of the root cause. If there is even a chance it’s something a parent has to consider.

Is it too late to get medical trip insurance? Even if you can’t get money back, if something came up on the trip and she would need to fly back that is a huge expense.

Thanks! I got an e- mail back from dd's pediatrician and she also said that ideally we would wait on the surgery as a lowfat diet sometimes gets things back to normal for teens. She says if a lowfat diet does not work after a couple of weeks, than the surgery would be indicated. We have not really given the lowfat diet a chance. The 2 times of the biggest flare ups were after she ate out, and they were greasy foods that I do not cook. I do use a lot of olive oil, etc, but not the the rich creamy foods or foods made with other oils that she hate.

I do want her to keep a food diary or at least track ourselves if she wont. It is pretty obvious when something triggers her. I am fairly certain it is gall bladder stuff after inadvertently speaking to several people who have had gall bladder issues. She does not have an eating disorder; she has other issues that I am not in denial about, but that's not it. From what the ped told me, the pediatric surgeons are our local GI specialists for anyone under 18, the GI specialists will not see someone dd's age. A gyn consult might be something to consider, but I do think it is related to diet and how that is effecting her gall bladder; that combined with a lot of stress.

I won't go too much into this, but I spoke with her school counselor today, who told me she also having gall bladder issues!

I had not considered that I might still be able to get trip insurance at this point. Does anyone know who I might even go through? I paid for different things with different credit cards.

[gymnbomb]

I had not considered that I might still be able to get trip insurance at this point. Does anyone know who I might even go through? I paid for different things with different credit cards.

You can probably still get trip insurance. But I would be very surprised if it covers this since it would be considered a pre-existing condition. Usually for those to be covered you have to buy the insurance with or soon after booking the trip. It is worth looking into, but you need to look carefully at the exclusions.


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[wendibird22]

Along the lines of looking at diet, one thing to track would be gluten intake and symptoms. There is some research correlating gluten intolerance to gall bladder issues and some that indicate that in some cases the problem wasn't gall bladder at all but undiagnosed gluten intolerance. I have a handful of GF friends who had their gall bladders removed in response to GI issues and major pain only to find the issues continued long after surgery and that resolved on a GF diet. For me personally, my pain/discomfort upon consuming gluten is just below my rib cage/diaphragm area, and is my primary symptom/response.

[ChicagoNDMom]

So, I am sorry you are not getting clearer medical direction. A surgeon is not a gastroenterologist. I agree she should see a pediatric gastroenterologist. Are you in a very small town/rural area? Any major metropolitan area should have a peds GI doc. If you took an u/s of 100 random kids, a fair # would have the u/s findings your daughter does. Many with no symptoms. Don’t be quick to rush to surgery, because it may not solve the problem. As others have said, need to rule out gynecological, psych, other causes as well.

[dogmom]

I also forgot to mention trying some mindfulness practice to help with pain. Pain is a very scary thing, especially for younger people who have not experienced as much of it as us old, broken ones. Anxiety makes the experience of pain so much worse. There is a lot of research out there about regular mediation decreasing pain med use post surgery. To be clear I’m not saying don’t treat or don’t follow up, just mediate. I think you can be very open with your plan to continue to work up this problem and suggest using an app (I like Calm, it has a teen section) to help practice techniques if she has pain so she won’t feel as helpless.

[lovingdenver10]

No experience with this and therefore have no advice. But so sorry you're dealing with this with such an terrible surgeon too. Hope things workout.