Gallstone removal experience Experience of a long term gallstone patient

I tell you what a gallstone is, gallstone is a nasty rock that sits in your gallbladder and annoys you every day, every hour, every second of your life.

Hi, my name is Eugene from Estonia living in London, UK. Let me share my experience with gallstone.

Since childhood I had this problem, when I was running I suddenly had pain and was not aware of what was that, but I am pretty certain now that it was a growing little stone

Gallstone was discovered only recently maybe ten years ago first time it was 11mm then later it grew to 15mm and then to 18mm

And on day of operation it was a massive 24 mm that was unpleasant surprise

Exponential growth, more surface it gets faster it grows

I tried to use Ursodiol acid for months to dissolve my stone, but it did not work well, but maybe reduced speed of growth a little, also tried to drink special teas, apple juice and other home remedies like flushes and detoxes.

They do not work, you want to believe they do but they don’t, it a myth, no such thing.

Did you notice how none of the “cured” people present us with evidence?

Me on the other hand will show you every piece of evidence I have on my hands



If you want to try to soften up your gallstones with ursodiol, you can buy them from Andorra, contact these Spanish people at info@farmaciaandorra.es or visit website http://farmaciaandorra.es/

They speak mostly Spanish or English with Google translator. They sell URSOCHOL it is Spanish version of Ursodiol, average price would go like these ( at least for me on jueves, 10 de noviembre de 2011 12:08). Here is an example of their email to me (copy paste)

5 URSOCHOL 150 MGRS X 60 COMP… 9,71 €………………………..48.55€

TRANSPORT………………………………………………………………28.00€

TOTAL………………………………………………………………………76.55€

Need to make delivery address, whose name was, telephone.

If for payment by CREDIT CARD makes the number , expiry date and the three number behind the card.

If done by mail to the address of pharmacy:

FARMACIA FONT FREDA

CASA NOVA JOANET S/N

ORDINO AD 300.





Check out NHS review of my gallstone, this is a special medical software Sectra Image Viewer with all images of gallstone download it here
In year 29 October 2009 gallstone was smaller, then a little bigger in year 2011 8th march, and last time ( middle 2012 ) I did ultrasound scan it was relatively same size.

Almost every year I was thinking to cut my gallbladder out, pain was increasingly unpleasant, but I did not want to give up.

I was hoping for new technologies to come, I gambled and I won my bet

Googled for new technology almost every 2 months or so for many many years, and nothing came on radar, lots of false alarm… at some point this year 2012 I almost gave up and decided to cut my gallbladder out, was sick and tired of constant pain and burning sensation in my upper abdomen…





and only in September 2012 by random luck found this tiny article in med. journal http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22299994

Doctor Chiao (Qiao) Tie made an upgrade of old technology and invented some new techniques to extract gallstones from a gallbladder. Pretty sure after 5 years to the future he will invent liquid hungry nano robots, they will chew up gallstones in a week time after injection into gallbladder

This article was dated February 2012, how it slipped my attention is a mystery. Shame, I could have been treated much sooner than end of October 2012. In fact Dr. Tie Chiao had made this technology available to the public in year 2009! it was well tested and widely practiced in China Guangzhou for years, and I was suffering here in Europe UK and almost went along with local surgeons suggestion to cut my gallbladder loose. One surgeon said “Nobody is going to do you a favor and just take your stone out” … Indeed I am a future liability for NHS, I might come back some day again with new gallstones, and it is bad for Health Care System’s budget

But life without gallbladder is not that easy as life without appendix, that’s totally different game here. There are some serious consequences when gallbladder is taken out, like for example bile is dripping every minute to your intestines and you get a bad stool and you have to eat all the time in small portions, and stones are growing now in your bile duct and elsewhere…



Well, then went to odesk to find assistant to investigate this new treatment

Found Amanda https://www.odesk.com/users/~~928f3e34d11e4eba she did a great job investigating and arranging meeting with doctors in China
Her email is amanda9815 at gmail dot com, phone number is 0086-158-551-26719 (0086 is the code of mainland China.) Helped us a lot, great assistant, her fees roughly 15 USD per hour
My mistake I should have kept in touch with her when I was in China. I should have bought me Chinese SIM card right when I got to Hong Kong first, before entering China Guangzhou via speed ferry.

Bought 12000 Chinese Yuan from ICBC in City of London at a good price 10.6 CNY for 1 GBP. HSBC and Barclays were giving me bad rate ~9.4 CNY per GBP, ICBC was closest to the actual market rate.

Did Twinrix injections just in case Hep A + Hep B + some Asia vaccines before leaving to China. HEP A/B Injections need lots of time, so plan ahead.

Bought Chinese visa for 56 quid also, took 4 days to get it

NHS Sectra Image Viewer Gallstone Report, costs 15 GBP to get CD from them, not always they record images and videos into the database

Doctors greeting new patient from abroad. Surgeon & Inventor Dr. Tie Chiao, first right, holding one kilo of British chocolate, a token of appreciation from me. Most left is Dr. Wang surgeon also performs operations, most right is good assistant of doctor Wang, helped me with making initial tests like X-Ray, UltraSound, Cardio tests, and stuff ( costs 1300 CNY by the way, about 130 GBP), he speaks some basic English. Second left is anesthesia master if not mistaken, and second right somebody also important in surgery.




Here is video of fetching gallstone out. One big rock size of 24 mm, weighs about 4 grams. Great relief getting it out
details of the operation: cut a small right subcostal incision(about 1-3cm) under the monitoring of laparoscopy which entered through umbilicus and grasped gallbladder with forceps and extracted it outside of the abdominal wall, then cut off the gallbladder on the bottom (less than 6mm), explored in it, then drained the bile with a sterile ventricular drainage tube. When the bile drained out, gallbladder was explored with CHiAO cholecystoscope
(Chinese National Patent Number: ZL200820188856.6, China).
The large stones (Φ≥0.5cm) were removed by the various stone extracted basket, while the small stones (Φ<0.5cm), the bile sludge and sand-like stones were removed by the sand–like stones absorbing box using negative pressure. At last, double interlocking sutured the incision of the gallbladder bottom with absorbable catgut, made sure the suture was tight and then sutured the abdominal wall layer by layer.


Testing my gallstone in hospital

Me right after operation, not amused I might say:) Felt massive pain everywhere	After 4 days from operation, time to checkout from hospital

This is my room view in hospital where I spent my best 6 days of my life




Hospital view outside


Hospital bill for gallstone removal, roughly should be about 10 000 CNY or 1000 GBP (see current exchange rate here)but got some discounts from free meals. Meals are on average 10 CNY per meal.


Bills in details, first bill was for initial check up on me: xray, ultrasound, cardio, blood and stuff, 130 GBP cost, in total ~9300 CNY ~ 930 GBP



Hospital crew & me & my beloved girlfriend before leaving hospital for good


Crystal (mail: 710672705 at qq dot com ) the best nurse in China, understands and speaks English, helped us a lot with everything. Mad respects to her


Measuring gallstone size in cm and inches, pretty big one

Weighing gallstone, about 3 grams with cut off section, and probably 4 grams full size

Gallstone water tests


These are photos from their lab, under microscope we can see structure of my gallstone, under direct light it shines and sparkles, definitely there are lots of crystals in it








My scar on abdomen left from surgery, in belly button scar is almost invisible



Oh, also don’t forget to feed the hungry fish just across the road from the hospital, there is a small lake and lots of hungry golden fish


Questions and Answers:

 The Chinese name of Dr. Tie Chiao is 乔铁. According to the Baidu (the no.1 search engine around Chinese community), searching result, he is the president of the Second People’s Hospital of Panyu District and also an expert in the area of removing gallstones while leaving the gallbladder intact).

 From the “Online Inquiring” page of the hospital’s website, I found a reservation hotline of gallstone surgery. It is 020-34935551. I called this number several times and finally reached a doctor named 王兴强（Xing-Qiang Wang）. The information below are from him:

1. The endoscope in this surgery was created by their hospital.
2. Wan-Chao Huang is their engineer，who was involving in the creation of the endoscope. He is not able to do the gallstones operation.
3. Xiao-Bing Luo works in their clinical laboratory. He was involving in the project, but he is not able to do this operation too.
4. President Dr. Tie Qiao and he himself (Xing-Qiang Wang) can do this operation, but he recommended President Qiao as Qiao is by far the best doctor in this area. He often traveled around China and overseas to show this operation. For example, he will go to Ukraine etc. to do this operation during the first half of Oct.
5. Doctor xing-Qiang Wang said that the whole process needs about one week and the cost for it is approximately
CNY10,000. Generally, they can arrange the operation within about 2 days after you have some necessary examinations in their hospital.
6. Doctor Xing-Qiang Wang said that it is better to tell them some basic information about the patient, for example, the age. If it is possible, please fax them the B-ultrasonography examination results. Their fax number is 020-34935551. You should write “To: 王兴强 医生”。 If it is not convenient for you to do that, you can email it to me and I will fax it to them.
7. The phone number of Xing-Qing Wang is 133-1629-5262. President Tie Qiao’s number is 133-1629-5988. I haven’t called president Qiao yet because I think it is better to call him after you tell me some basic information about the patient.

 Yang-De Zhang (张阳德) is the director of the “National Ministry of Heal Hepatobiliary and Enteric Surgery Research Center” and also the Doctor of the Xiang Ya Hospital, Central South University.

Here is the website of the research center: http://www.nhec.net.cn/, but it seemed that this website is not that professional as many pages don’t work.

Also I found a doctor named Jian Li (李坚)， who is the professor and archiater of Xiang Ya Hospital of Central South University. He has a personal website (http://lijian869.haodf.com/), in which many people left messages asking about the operation of removing gallstones while leaving the gallbladder intact.

 There are no contact information of the two doctors in their website. I haven’t contact with Yang-De Zhang and Jian Li from Xiang Ya Hospital of Central South University. Do you want me to try to contact with them?



2 The cost of about CNY10,000 includes the fees for the operation and other fees during your stay in the hospital. They don’t charge any fee to your girlfriend for stay with you in the hospital.
3 The hospital provides three meals a day. The cost for one meal, one person is about CNY 7-10.(Both of you and your girlfriend need to pay for meals.). Please tell your taboos on diet if you have.
4 He would like to do the operation for you. You’d better make a reservation at least 3 to 5 days in advance. (I suggest you to make the reservation one month in advance because he seemed is very busy.)
5 If you go there in December, after December 20th, it’s Ok.(“After December” is not very clear, I suggest you to tell a specific time as much as possible. As far as I know, the President of a hospital are usually very busy.)
6 For the details and reservation, please contact with doctor Wang.(Number:13316295262 020-34935551)
7 It is better to have a translator with you, but it is Ok if you don’t. They have people who can use English to do the daily communications with you.
8 It’s better to bring your previous medical materials, like examination results etc.
9 You need to pay in RMB (CNY) and must be pay in cash.
10 Notes: if you have an acute cholecystitis attacks, you need to firstly accept anti-inflammatory treatment and then have the operation two weeks after that.



English Chinese
Name
名称 The Second People’s Hospital Panyu Guangzhou

http://www.dgrmyy.com/index.html

番禺第二人民医院

http://www.dgrmyy.com/index.html

Address
地址 Address: No.7 Xingye Road, Dagang Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong.
Post Code: 511470
地址：广东省广州市番禺区大岗镇兴业路7号
邮政编码：511470

Contacts联系人 Qiao Tie：133-1629-5988 020-34994386
乔铁：133-1629-5988 020-34994386

Doctor Wang：133-1629-5262 020-34935551
Fax: 34935551
王兴强：133-1629-5262 020-34935551
Fax: 34935551

Google Map http://maps.google.com.hk/maps?hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=active&q=The+Second+Peoples+Hospital+Panyu+Guangzhou&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1284&bih=619&wrapid=tlif135011937028110&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ei=2S95UI2gA8ndigfg7IDwDw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg

(In this page, “A” refers to the hospital)
Baidu
Map http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&ie=utf-8&s=s%26wd%3D%E5%B9%BF%E4%B8%9C%E7%9C%81%E5%B9%BF%E5%B7%9E%E5%B8%82%E7%95%AA%E7%A6%BA%E5%8C%BA%E5%A4%A7%E5%B2%97%E9%95%87%E5%85%B4%E4%B8%9A%E8%B7%AF7%E5%8F%B7

(In this page, “B” refers to the hospital)
How to get to the Hospital:

Doctor Wang said that you can go to the hospital from Hongkong to Panyu Hotel by “Direct Bus” (直通巴士). He knew that there is the bus station at Hongkong airport and other stations in Honkong, but he don’t know where they are.

Since you would live in Hongkong for one night, maybe you can ask hotel where the “Direct Bus” stations are. I will also do some research about this and will tell you once I got the details.

If you take the bus, please get off at “Panyu Hotel” (番禺宾馆). They will pick you up there.

Doctor Wang suggested you to call him twice. One is a day before you arrive Panyu, the other is before you get on the “Direct Bus”. (You can buy a special cell phone card, so that you can make phone calls from Hongkong to mainland China. In Hongkong, you can find the card in many stores, like Seven Eleven. This card can only use to call from Hongkong to mainland China. If you arrived mainland China, it would not work. So you’d better call doctor Wang before you leave Hongkong.)



More detailed info about this technology and doctors involved see here http://www.zgbdw.com/ and http://www.qpnj.net



PS. Don’t forget to mention that I, EUGENE GOOGLE, referred you to this hospital, you will get VIP treatment then