How long does the pain last?

Pain after gall bladder surgery, which lasts from a few days to a week, is considered normal. As a rule, the pain gets a little better every day until it has subsided completely. However, if the pain is still severe after a week or returns after a temporary improvement, a doctor should be consulted.

This also applies to the occurrence of other symptoms such as fever, nausea, vomiting, circulation problems or yellowing of the skin. You can either consult your family doctor or present yourself again at the hospital where the operation was performed. If pain in the upper abdomen only occurs after a few months or years, a connection with the bile operation is rather unlikely. Although it may be adhesions as a result of the operation (adhesions in the abdomen), other triggers such as radiating back pain or stomach complaints are much more common.

Pain with specific localization

The right upper abdomen is the part of the body where pain emanating from the gallbladder is most frequently felt. The organ is located in this part of the abdomen in direct proximity to the liver and is fused with it. Surgical removal of the gallbladder causes wounds in the abdomen, which must first heal.

This then leads to pain in the upper abdomen after the operation. These can also radiate into other areas of the right side of the body, especially into the right shoulder. It is not unusual for pain to occur after a gall bladder operation.

In most cases it is pain during the healing process after the operation – after all, tissue was cut and/or injured during the removal of the gallbladder. The pain is usually concentrated in the area of the right upper abdomen where the gallbladder was located under the liver before its removal. It is not uncommon for this right upper abdomen pain to radiate into the right shoulder, which is due to a special neural connection between the pain fibers of the liver/bile region and the skin in the area of the right shoulder.One should only become aware of this pain if it lasts longer or is accompanied by other symptoms such as fever, circulatory problems, nausea and vomiting, peritonitis or a yellowish discoloration of the skin.

If this is the case, it should always be taken into consideration that postoperative complications may be involved, such as infections in the area of the surgical site or the surgical wound, leaks from the severed bile duct or the gallbladder vessel with subsequent leakage of bile or blood into the abdominal cavity, and obstruction of the bile duct by gallstones from the liver. Back pain, which occurs soon after surgical removal of the gallbladder, can be caused, for example, by the positioning during the operation and the long time one has to lie in bed. As part of recovery and with careful resumption of daily activities, the pain usually subsides.

In addition, however, pain emanating from the area of the operation can radiate into the back. If the back pain is delayed for a few days or weeks, it can be a sign of a complication, such as an inflammation or a beginning adhesions. More common, however, are other causes of back pain such as muscular tension or nerve irritation.

Pain that is spasmodic and only occurs some time after a bile operation can, seen in connection with this operation, be an indication of adhesions. In the course of the operation, injuries to various structures in the hepatic gall bladder area inevitably occurred, which healed over time. Healing always means scarring, so that adhesions in the area of the right upper abdomen can also occur.

If an inflammatory change in the area of the gallbladder has occurred over a certain period of time, this may have further promoted adhesions. If such adhesions are present, there is always the danger of intestinal constriction, which can manifest itself as cramping abdominal pain. If these occur and cannot be clearly attributed to another cause, a doctor should be consulted as soon as possible to rule out this late complication or, in the worst case, to treat it in time.

As with any surgical procedure, pain can also occur after a bile operation. Patients often complain of pain, especially when breathing. When breathing in, the diaphragm in the body moves downwards and pushes the liver down.

The gallbladder is located in close proximity to the liver, so that after surgical removal of the organ during inhalation, the surgical site can be shifted and thus irritated. Many patients react with flattened breathing to avoid pain. In such a case, however, the pain medication should be temporarily increased by the doctor so that the patient can breathe deeply.

Another possible cause of pain after biliary surgery, which occurs especially during breathing, is a consequence of the minimal surgical operation method (laparoscopy) itself. During the operation, the abdomen is inflated with a gas, which is then released. However, some of the gas may remain in the abdomen temporarily and thus be responsible for the pain when breathing.

However, the gas is soon absorbed by the body without any consequences. To relate the pain specifically to the diaphragm as the triggering location is actually not possible. However, if you still feel that the pain after a bile operation is coming from this area, the liver, which is located directly under the diaphragm, is usually the cause: The liver is encased in a capsule that is supplied with sensitive nerve fibers.

Whenever the liver is injured or the capsule is under tension, we perceive it as pain in the right upper abdomen or even in the right shoulder. In the course of a biliary surgery, the gallbladder is peeled from its bed below the left lobe of the liver, separated from its supplying structures (bile duct and gallbladder blood vessel) and removed from the body. This always creates a wound in the liver bed, which is responsible for the pain until healing.

Especially when breathing, when the diaphragm moves and these movements are transmitted to the organs below (such as the liver), the pain can be provoked and/or aggravated, so that the impression can be created that the diaphragm itself is painful. Pain after a bile operation on the navel is not uncommon. A so-called minimally invasive surgical procedure (also called laparascopic) is often used to remove the gallbladder.Various small instruments are inserted through small incisions in the abdomen.

One of these accesses is usually via the navel. Finally, the extracted gallbladder is usually also recovered via this access route at the navel. Depending on the size of the organ, some pulling and stretching may be necessary.

This strain can explain the pain at the navel. However, these usually subside within a few days. If the pain persists or reoccurs after previous improvement, the treating physician or family doctor should be consulted.

If a little time has passed, the operation wounds have healed and the scarring is complete, then the pain in the area of the right upper abdomen should also disappear, as this was actually only an expression of the healing process. However, if pain reoccurs after a certain time, this can have various causes, which can be more or less severe. Even if the gallbladder, as a reservoir for bile and also gallstones, is no longer present, gallstones may still be formed, which can obstruct the bile ducts that are still present.

Gallstones can also form in the bile ducts of the liver, which can subsequently block ducts and lead to a bile stasis with pain in the right upper abdomen. During the healing process, adhesions can also occur in the abdomen, which can be accompanied by abdominal pain. If the pain occurs very soon after the operation, it must always be remembered that there may be a leak in the severed bile duct to the gallbladder and bile leaks into the abdominal cavity, which can then lead to peritonitis.