How many of you have ever experienced a bowel obstruction

Hi, I am about to sign papers with my surgeon to have the DS surgery. One of my biggest worries is an obstruction. Can anyone tell me if they have had obstructions and what happened? Thanks.

I'm 4 years out and never had a problem like that. I'm not sure it should be a large worry unless you have had problems in the past. I'm aware that any stomach surgery can increase the chances I just haven't seen that many posts about this as a problem post-op.

Pete

That's good to hear, for some reason, I was thinking that from other things I had read that it was a more common but serious complication due to re re-routing of the intestines and the chance of scar tissue forming there where it is more narrow than if they just work on the stomach as in my VSG.

12.5 years out - no problems here, either

10.5 Years out and no problem.

14 years post-op and no obstruction. I've only personally known one DS patient (from my local surgeon) that had an obstruction and everything turned out just fine for him.

Hello, I had my DS done in May 2004, in June 2015 I had a bowel obstruction that sent me to the emergency room. I couldn't stop throwing up. I thought I had the stomach flu! I had to have emergency surgery to have it cleared out and the surgeon did say that it was due to old scar tissue from my open DS surgery. Six weeks almost to the day from that first surgery I ended up at the ER again because new adhisions had formed and blocked off the intestines again and I had to be opened back up. Please don't worry about this though it just depends on the individual and this can happen with ANY open abdominal surgery. It's been over two years since that incident but not for one minute did I regret having the DS! Good luck :)

I had an obstruction a year post op....so 2006....had ds in 2005. But mine was from my small intestine twisting..had to have 18 inches removed as it was nearly dead. And it caused me other problems.... severe pancreantitis and I cant remember what all else. I was in the hospital for near a month, ICU for 7 days of that.

We still dont know why it happened As #1 I barely scar, there was no scar tissue to cause it. #2 I didnt have "extra space" or voids in my abdominal cavity from weight loss. #3 no hiatal hernia or hernias (but got inscional hernias in 2007, but that is because of lack of enough scar tissue and not enough new tissue to support what I was doing), I have a large chunk of mesh on my abdomen wall now. Yet not a problem since.

I still dont regret my DS in the slightest

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. I signed off on my surgery yesterday and will be having the DS done in July or August!