Had mine out in 2000. Try to eat healthy, but do end up with soft long, skinny poop most of the time anyway. Recently had a run of really bad colds. Three weeks in July, 1 week in Oct. and am just getting over a 2 week doozy of a bug now. Finally went to a doc who is a regular md, but also does naturopathic stuff. I complained that I thought my immune system was not working well. This does tie in with gall bladders, trust me. He asked if I had dry skin. I’ve never had dry skin in my life but in the last several months it has been unbelievable. He said that my adrenals might be stressed and gave me hydrocortisone to give them a boost. They are the largest store of vitamin C in the body. I’d been taking a lypo-spheric vitamin c that supposedly allows you to take larger amounts with better bowel tolerance. Problem is, because of the oil base, I was shitting it out anyway. Add to that a high stress period in my life and therefore, a greater need for vitamin c and there goes my adrenals. The cortisone made a HUGE difference. The bronchitis is finally moving on and I feel like I’m finally gtting completely over the first bug I got in July. The doc asked if I was taking bile salts. I’d tried ox bile, but it wants to come up as soon as I get it down. He said not to take it then. My body doesn’t want it. He did say that if my stool wasn’t mahogany or dark colored I probably wasn’t making enough bile and that we could either test for pancreatic enzymes in the stool or I could just start taking the enzymes. I have gained 30 pounds over the course of the 9 years since my gall bladder was taken out. The doc says that when you can’t process fats, you may not be processing the the essential fatty acids that we need. For those to be assimilated stomach acid has to be adequate, bile juices are important and pancreatic enzymes are essential. Symptons that you aren’t making what you need to process these are weight gain, (check) dry skin,(check) joint problems (carpel tunnel syndrome both wrists-check) etc. Talk to your own doctors if any of this resonates, but I was glad to have found someone ready to treat the cause, not just the symptons. I really felt like I was just going down hill and was almost to where I just didn’t care. I’m going to work with this doc and see if we can get things right for me. Once you upset the body’s balance you really have to look at the interdependence of all the parts and how their interaction can affect you. Hope this helps someone like it did me.