NEVER 2 LATE 4 YOUR 1ST DUMPING EPISODE!!!

 TRUE CONFESSION:
I'm 6 1/2 yrs post-op RNY & holding steady for about 5 years as a size 8 AND I'd never experienced the dreaded "dumping" syndrome.

Reading descriptions of the experience on my surgeon's message board put the fear of dumping into me big time! So I never played the cat-and-mouse game of seeing what I might be able to "get away with," in food & beverage choices.

Two nights ago, however, I was taken down by a full-blown dumping episode; AND, it wasn't from eating "forbidden" foods! It snuck up on me like an army of NINJA. 

What I realized as the episode began was that the fruit salad I'd made with fresh-but-over-ripe kiwi & bananas, had made portion control hard for me to gauge; that I'd probably eaten the equivalent of 1 kiwi+ 1 banana; and the level of fructose, possibly fermented!, was more than my intestinal tract could manage.

My heart was racing, my head was fizzy, I felt dizzy, I found myself panting, gas cramps followed, I staggered upstairs to where my husband was dead asleep, yelling his name in what sounded to my ears as slurred speech. If I'd been in public, I think most folks would've thought I was falling-down-drunk.

I tried lying down. Bad Idea.
I tried standing bent over our bed. Another Bad Idea.
Something told me my only hope was to walk it off, hanging onto Jim's arm. For 30 min. I walked around our upstairs until I was able to support myself with my sturdy walking stick.
Jim went downstairs & came up with a 32 oz. bottle of filtered water with sugar-free Propel lemon powder diluted 50%. I started drinking the water through a straw & walking.

I asked Jim to go  online to OBESITY HELP to see what they said to do for dumping & was told nothing was gonna get better til things got through my small intestines. So I figured the walking & water would force the issuel

It did & I fell into bed at midnight, propped up on my back - about 100 min. after it began. It wasn't over, but it was at a level where my fatigue could overpower everything else & I fell asleep.

So what have I learned?

I have to be as careful around fresh fruit salads as any salad bar or buffet banquet. Fructose is sugar. My intestinal tract did not deduct calories for fructose vs. high fructose corn syrup.

It has been an exhausting, frightening and educational experience. Sunday, I felt like a limp dishrag.  Jim & I took a walk through the Chattahoochee Nature Center to enjoy our first gloriously sunny day in weeks; but I was walking slowly and still feeling mentally fuzzy.  Today, I felt normal.

My hope is that by sharing it with you, I can prevent some other long-time post-op from going through the dreaded dumping syndrome!

Blessings,
Lauralyn

Been there and done that many times Lauralyn.  It is truly an experience.  Good luck.

"Many times," Elle. OMG. Did you ever figure out what was triggering it?

Lauralyn, sometimes what triggers it will not trigger it other times.  It's a day by day thing.  I ALWAY dump on ANYTHING with milk in it.  Sometimes (after 7 years it's easy to forget) even though sugar free things will make me dump.  I made a wonderful chocolate trifle a couple of weeks ago.....I used skim milk in it and only ate a small bit and dumped so badly.  And yes, fruits will make me dump sometimes too.  I just never know when or what's going to make me dump.

Good grief, Elle! I'm wondering if it would be helpful to be tested for food allergies? Given how fatigued I felt the next day, I imagine the kind of fullblown dumping syndrome I experienced is a serious stress on the body. Going through repeated incidents would, I think, be risky.

Also, the kind of upchucking we do when undigestible food gets stuck in our pouches can be as likely to ulcerate our esophagus' as it would be if we were bullemics.

I hope that anyone who has frequent bouts of either/both will talk to their bariatric surgeons ASAP!

Best, always!
Lauralyn

Lauralyn...this is an awful experience.  My first and worse experience was with fruit.  It was blueberries.  I learned my lesson with fruits.  I do them, but like you...not overly ripe and not many. 

I'm not alone!! It's amazing how many stories involve fresh fruit!! It's so easy to forget about portion control around healthy foods!Thanks for sharing.

I rarely eat fruit, and have never even tried sugar yet because I am deathly afraid of the dreaded dumping syndrome!  One of the ladies at my office is an RNY patient and she has had them at work a few times and it looks positively frightening!  I am scared to death to go through it......you've scared me straight-I hope forever!

Kim

There's something to be said for being "scared straight!"
For me, it was a post on our surgeon's message board by an EMT who was about 8-9 months post-op and thought he was having a heart attack & drove himself to the ER. Once they ruled out a heart attack, they questioned what he'd eaten that caused the dumping. At first he was dumbfounded. Then he volunteered he'd had 2 beers with lunch (it was Sat., his day off) and.... That's what had done it. I figured if it was awful enough to fool an EMT into driving himself to the ER thinking his heart was giving out, I wasn't gonna take any chances.

Your co-worker must be either eating the wrong foods, eating too much, not eating correctly (chewing, chewing, chewing), or her stoma may have scarred over and needs to be stretched back to its original pencil-tip size.

Stay conscious around food and beverages, follow your docs post-op protocol and you'll do fine.

Best,
Lauralyn