Dr Fang???Arizona!
Bella, I sent you a pm about a week ago, and deliberately waited to reply on this thread so as not to influence anyone else's response. As you can see, many people have added their voices of concern. No one here has heard of this surgeon as a DS surgeon, much less as someone with the experience needed to do a RNY to DS revision. No one. So I'll repeat what I already said - it's a huge and difficult and high risk operation. It should be done only by a surgeon with extensive experience with the DS and with revisions of the DS. You are likely to either end up with no revision or with revision to something other than the DS such as ERNY, or with serious, even life threatening complications.
Please, please, please reconsider. Plans can be changed. Get yourself to a surgeon experienced with this specific and very challenging revision surgery. The postponement and extra effort and travel will be worth it. This is your life we're talking about here. There is a reason you can't find anyone who has had the Ds with this surgeon, let alone a RNY to DS revision. Not saying he's never done a DS, but clearly he isn't one of the experienced DS surgeons that YOU, as a revision patient, need.
Larra
ERNY stands for extended RNY, with RNY being a frequently used shorthand for gastric bypass (based on its anatomic configuaration, I'll skip that here). So what happens is that the surgeon does nothing with the pouch you already have, and just takes apart the small intestine to bypass a lot more of it. Some surgeons will tell you this is "just like the DS" or "just as good as the DS". Not true!
You keep all the problems of your pouch - dumping, difficulty consuming protein, B vitamin malabsorption, iron malabsorption reactive hypoglycemia - and add to that the issues of the shorter common channel, whi*****lude protein malabsorption, malabsorption of the fat soluble vitamins. For those of us with the DS, we have the use of our pyloric valve ( the valve at the end of the stomach) to regulate how food inters the small intestine. With ERNY you get the combination of no regulation of food emptying from the pouch combined with significant malabsorption. This is a bad combination.
The ERNY is certainly easier and quicker for the surgeon to do and doesn't require the skill level of converting your present RNY to a true DS. There is less surgical risk, but also less advantage to you, and also more nutritional risk.
I'm going to send you another pm with more info.
Larra
