Truth

Now that you have FINALLY posted your son's surgeon's name, Dr. Schlesinger in Arizona, all has become clear. Make sure you post this story in the Arizona forum--you'll help lots of people there avoid the hell your child is going through. We have had several of his patients come through with many, many problems on this board. If you had answered this question in the first place, people could have been more helpful and understanding.

You may want to send a private message to Joyce in Arizona--she had to have her "DS" (notice the quotes) by Dr. S revised by a real DS surgeon recently. She saw Dr. Keshishian in CA.

Best of luck to you and your son.

Nicolle

I don't usually get involved in this type of thread, but would like to help if I can. Here are a few thoughts:

1. We've seen serious problems with at least one other person with your son's surgeon who turned out to have too short of a common channel. I understand that you aren't a medical person and are trying to help your son as best you can, so I'll try to explain everything as I go, with no insult to your present level of knowledge intended. The common channel is the part of the small intestine where the food meets with the digestive juices. It's where most of our absorption occurs. Too short a common channel can cause problems with excessive malabsorption (the word excessive is important, as the DS is designed to cause malabsorption and thats a GOOD thing, as it helps us lose weight and keep it off. But too much malabsorption can cause nutritional problems and diarrhea).  So it would be helpful for your son to get a copy of his operative report from his DS, and also to have an upper GI study to see how long his common channel is. The operative report can be obtained either from his surgeon or from the hospital where the surgery was done.

2. If your son is deficient in protein, he'll never get better until this is corrected. Any other deficiencies will also be difficult or impossible to correct until protein is corrected. Since we don't know his labs, or even if all the right lab work has been done (it often isn't) that's about all I can say about labs.

3. The gall bladder - it's a shame that this wasn't removed at the time of his DS. And if he wasn't given Actigal as a preventative measure, it's no surprise that he developed gallstones with his massive weight loss. It's a further shame that stones got into the bile duct, but it's a good thing that someone did operate to fix these problems, which could have killed your son. The bile bag that he has now is very important not only to drain bile from the bile duct, but also, just in case any stones were missed at surgery, a tract (pathway) along the course of the drain develops after about 6 weeks, and if necessary, more stones can be extracted through that tract without further surgery. I hope this won't be necessary. It is also possible to check the duct for stones after a couple weeks by injecting contrast through the drain, and if there are no stones, the drain can be removed (which is not painful or dangerous), but it's important to wait a certain amount of time before doing this.

    I don't know you or your son, so I won't speculate about your relationship, but I agree completely with everyone who said that your son needs to get on this forum himself and take charge of his health. It's great that he has a mother who is supportive and wants to help, but there is only so much you can do. He is more than old enough to step up to the plate and take responsibility for his health and his life.

Larra

Thank you sooo much!
I have talked to him about this forum and I dont think it will be long for him to be on.

If your son can make it to see Dr. Keshishian at Joyce's conference in Phoenix, he definitely should.  If he has the same problems as Joyce he's gonna need to be fixed surgically.  And Dr. Keshishian is a brilliant revisionist.  Just talking to him about his problems wouldn't hurt.

That is excellent...but we're going to ask him all these questions, too...not because we're nosy...well, someitmes we are...but because we can't help at all if we don't have some info.  Tell him not to panic when he starts getting questions.

Good, we'll look forward to seeing him here. Let him know that he's going to have to provide all the information we've been asking you for.

Hi friend!
I didn't read this entire thread....just enough to get that you are very concerned for your son!  As you should be!!!!  PLEASE contact me.  I am aware of a growing number of Dr. S post-ops who are in trouble medically!  I was one of  them and just (May 12th) was blessed to have Dr. K in CA literally re-do and save me!!!!  Prior to my surgery....I assisted another gent from Phx (also a Dr. S post-op) into getting hooked up with Dr. K.  Dr. K took him as an emergency and literally saved his life.

While it is absolutely amazing that someone can lose 200 ++ pounds in a healthy fashion....Even losing 10 pounds, and having seriously malnutrition associated with it is dangerous!

Having Dr. S move across town should be the least of your worries.  I"m sure that if Dr. S was running appropriate tests and checking in that you wouldn't care about driving a few more miles!  In fact, I not only drove further than across town, I drove out of state for help!

I'm so glad that your son has an advocate and that you are pro-active in getting him help!  .....  As other posters pointed out, taking appropriate amounts of vitamin supplements is a personal responsibilitity that can truly make a difference in all of our health!  But, I also understand that when you sink to the pits of malnutrition and sucky labs that you arn't even thinking clearly!!!!  Often that puts us past the point of helping ourselves.

You can contact me at [email protected] or send me a pm on here and I'll check.

I'm still in the recovery mode of my own "fix" surgery so my bender body parts are not wanting to be at the  computer much!  LOL!

Best wishes!  I sincerely hope your son can get to a specialist for some type of intervention!

(BTW)  Dr. Keshishian will be in Phoenix on June 5th and will be doing private mini consultations.  Perhaps that will be perfect for you & your son.  I posted the details on a thread a bit ago!

Take care!

Way to pay it forward, Joyce. I knew if you could be on this thread, you'd be able to help this family.

So glad you are on the mend. It should NOT have had to happen this way for you, honey. Dr. K is amazing! I hope they go and see him when he is in Arizona.

Thanks!

Nicolle

Today we are going to Paradise Valley where his surgery was done and having All his paper work transfered to MAYO/ My son is suffering! Surfing the web last night until wee hours in the morning has me only to believe my son's channel was cut toooo short by Dr Schleslinger.