Gallstones

Hi, I'm Sanjay Perkiaster. I'm a consultant general, upper GI, laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon. I'm based in central London and today I'm going to talk to you about gallstones, gallbladder problems and how we deal with them surgically. Gallstones are small stones that can form in your gallbladder, which is a small pear-shaped organ that lives underneath your liver. Often, people form gallstones after pregnancy, after rapid weight loss, or being unwell, or if they have high cholesterol, problems with their blood such as sickle cell anemia, or have a family history for this. If you have pain in the right side of your abdomen or underneath your ribs, or around the right side of your shoulder blade, this could be gallstones, especially if it's associated with eating rich or fatty foods. If you have this kind of symptom, please do get in touch as the gold standard for treatment for symptomatic gallstones or recurrent gallbladder problems that are benign is keyhole surgery to remove the gallbladder called laparoscopic polycystectomy. This is a very common elective or planned procedure in the United Kingdom and we are a high volume centre where we carry this out here at St Mary's in the Lindo Wing or in my private practice based in other hospitals in central London. The benefits of having the gallbladder removed with keyhole or laparoscopic surgery is that it is minimally invasive and mostly done as day case or one night stay. Most people need to take a few days off work as long as they are not doing any strenuous form of professional activities. Most people are back in the gym within 7-10 days after this sort of surgery and we do not need our gallbladders to live and work normally. Bile, which is made in the liver, still passes to our intestine to help us digest food, even when the gallbladder is removed. What are the risks of this sort of surgery? Well, those are few and far between. However, they do include the normal risks of any surgery such as bleeding, infection, pain, clots in the legs, clots in the lungs, all of which are very rare and we further minimise by the way we look after you and carry out your surgery. There's a small risk of diarrhea when you eat fatty food, which can continue for either the short or medium term, maybe a few weeks, but again, this is very rare. To find out more about gallstones, gallbladder problems, or laparoscopic cholecystectomy, which is keyhole surgery to remove your gallbladder, please do get in touch, either by phone, email, or through our website at the London General Surgical Clinic, and we'd be happy to answer any questions for you or see you about your potential or already discovered problem. Thank you for your time, I'm Sanjay Perkiasta, I'm a consultant surgeon.