Is there any way to dissolve gallstones with tablets or a strict low-fat diet so I can skip the operation altogether?

Some of you might remember me from a while back, I'm the one who found three stones on a scan I had for something else and got told to watch and wait. Well they've started making themselves known, a couple of proper attacks now, so the watch and wait era is quietly ending and surgery is creeping up the list of things I'm going to have to think about.

And I'll be honest, I really, REALLY do not want an operation. So before I resign myself to it I want to properly understand the alternatives, not the wishful thinking version, the real one. Is there actually a tablet that dissolves gallstones? I've read about some bile acid thing you take for months. Does a really strict low-fat diet shrink them or at least stop them growing? What about the ultrasound shockwave thing I read they use for kidney stones, do they do that for gallstones? Basically is there ANY route where I keep my gallbladder and just deal with the stones, or is everyone about to tell me that's a fantasy and surgery is the only real fix. Be straight with me, I can take it.

I went down every one of these rabbit holes too so no judgement. Short honest version from someone on the other side: the tablets are real but they're slow and fussy and the stones tend to come back once you stop, and the diet stuff is about calming attacks, not melting the stones away. I gave mine a good long watch and wait but once they were genuinely attacking, surgery was what actually ended it.

Low fat diet didn't dissolve a single one of mine, it just meant fewer meals set them off. The stones sat there regardless. Once you're getting attacks the diet is damage limitation, not a cure. Sorry.

threestones, I'm the one who runs the board, and I want to answer this properly because I asked my surgeon the exact same hopeful question. I did not want the operation either, and I spent a good while looking for the door marked "any other way", so here is the plain version, checked against what the surgeon signs off.

The tablets are real. They are bile acid tablets, and they can very slowly dissolve certain small cholesterol stones in people whose gallbladder is still working well. But the caveats are the whole story: they take many months to a couple of years, they only suit a narrow group of people and stone types, and here is the killer, once you stop taking them the stones very commonly come back, because the tablet never fixed the reason your bile makes stones in the first place. Shockwave lithotripsy exists but is barely used for gallstones now for the same reason, you shatter the stone and the gallbladder just makes more. And diet, as everyone's said, is about having fewer attacks, not dissolving anything. So the honest headline is that none of the non-surgical routes is a reliable escape once stones are actually attacking, which is why removing the gallbladder stays the definitive treatment. The site's piece on whether you can avoid gallbladder surgery lays all three routes out with why they so rarely work.

Where the real decision sits is not "tablets versus surgery", it's "are my stones now genuinely symptomatic", because that's the thing that tips the scales toward operating at all, and whether you actually need your gallbladder out walks through that line. From a couple of proper attacks, it sounds like yours have crossed it, but that judgement, and whether you happen to be one of the few the tablets could ever suit, is a conversation for a surgeon with your scan, not for me. I dragged my feet for exactly the reason you're describing, and I'd gently say the fear of the operation was worse than the operation.

I'll add the view from just after. I put mine off for two years hoping something would change and it never did, the attacks just kept coming until I had it done, and honestly my main feeling afterwards was why did I wait so long being miserable. Not saying rush, just saying the "keep the gallbladder somehow" plan cost me two rough years and the stones didn't care.

Ok. That's the straight answer I asked for even if it's not the one I wanted. Sounds like the dissolve-it-and-keep-it plan is basically a fantasy for stones that are already kicking off, which is where I'm at. I've booked a proper surgical clinic appointment instead of continuing to google miracle cures at midnight. Thanks for not sugar coating it, that actually helped more than false hope would have.