Some people can have gallstones and never have symptoms. But if you're having frequent gallbladder attacks, especially if you have severe pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms, your doctor likely will recommend you have surgery to remove your gallbladder, according to the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. You'll need to take some steps to protect your digestive system immediately following the surgery, but you'll eventually be able to return to your normal diet.
Function
Your gallbladder, located under your liver in your upper right abdomen, stores bile produced by your liver, according to the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. When you eat a fatty meal, your gallbladder releases the bile to help digest fats. If you have gallbladder disease, small stones can accumulate in your gallbladder, potentially blocking your bile duct and causing inflammation that requires gallbladder removal surgery.
Time Frame
Gallbladder surgery represents one of the most common operations performed in the United States, and usually can be performed laparoscopically, or through tiny slits in your abdomen, according to the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. You may stay in the hospital one night, or go home that evening. Right after your surgery, you'll require a very bland diet of toast, bananas, rice and broth or soup, and you shouldn't eat any fat, according to the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
Types
Once you've passed the initial recovery period and you're feeling better, you can start to eat a more normal diet, but you still should avoid most fats, according to the University of California-San Diego. Since the bile stored in your gallbladder helped your body handle the fat in your food, your body will need some time to adjust. Consuming a very fatty meal fairly soon after your gallbladder surgery can lead to bloating and diarrhea, since your body simply can't handle that much fat.
Considerations
Ultimately, you'll just need to give your body some time to adjust, and ramp up your fat intake slowly, according to the University of California-San Diego, which recommends a nonfat diet for the first two to three weeks following surgery, and then a very gradual increase in fat consumption. Although you may experience unpleasant symptoms after eating more fat than your body can handle, doing so won't affect your overall recovery from the surgery.
Prevention/Solution
According to Columbia University, you'll eventually be able to consume a normal diet with a normal amount of fat in it. So don't be discouraged if you down an entire plate of French fries a month after your surgery and wind up paying for it -- after another couple of months, those same French fries probably won't be a problem for you.
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