Beating the Side Effects of DS

Before I had my surgery I read lots of horror stories from various places about the side effects of the DS.  People told me they had constant uncontrollable diarrhea (as in couldn't leave the house), poop and gas so stinky that their family members actually moved out, taking dozens of supplements per day, everything.  It was actually pretty daunting and nearly made me change my mind (also, a lot of people told me that being veg there was no way I could manage a DS).

I have to say that the first two months or so were a bit rough as I was trying to figure out how to eat and what I could tolerate.  I never really had a huge problem with loose stools, and I managed to get myself trained so I could manage at work (I'll go a couple of times before I leave to go to work and unless I've eaten something weird, I won't go again til I get home.  The iron supplements make a big difference in this.)  The gas was a bigger problem until I started figuring out the things that made it worse and cutting those out of my diet.  I took simethicone for a while, tried to find charcoal tablets (and couldn't) and then I got into the Beano, which changed my life completely.  Gas?  Gone.  I mean GONE.  Even things I couldn't tolerate before, no problems whatsoever.  I had some issues because Beano isn't veg, but I found a substitute called Bean-Zyme that I'm testing out today and if it works as well as I've heard it does, I'll be switching over.

So at this point six months postop I have virtually no side effects from the surgery, unless I eat too much, and throw up, which has happened only twice. 

I think a big part of it is that I eat pretty much the same way I did before.  I don't eat a lot of fat.  I never did, but deep-fried things and stuff I will only eat in really REALLY small portions.  The whole oil-slick thing grosses me out to no end.  I know the calories aren't being absorbed, but that oil slick is just purely nasty.  Plus, all that lubrication in my gut makes me have to go more.  This doesn't mean I eat no fat; I eat full-fat cheese, raw milk (which is higher fat than even whole milk), regular sour cream, yogurt made from the raw milk, a little ice cream now and then, full-fat salad dressings and if I want butter on my potato I'm having it.  But I cook with just a little olive oil and like I said, I'll only eat a very little bit of anything deep-fried.

I learned that all the fat that doesn't digest is a big part of the stinky poop thing.  I can say honestly that I'm not any more stinky than I was before, and maybe less.

I think yogurt is a part of it too.  This is one of the things I try to eat every day and I'm very careful to either eat my homemade yogurt or Dannon Greek yogurt (no fat, no ingredients except cultured milk) so that I have that good bacteria in the gut all the time.  I know I've heard several people in group and stuff tell me that they take a lot of probiotics and I guess that's just the same thing.. except yogurt tastes better :)

I do eat A LOT of dairy: cottage cheese, cheeses in general, milk, yogurt.  These things have pretty much always been a big part of my diet.  I eat a lot of soy stuff; tofu, burgers, that kind of thing.  I can't eat like roasted soynuts though because they're hard to digest even if you have all your parts intact.

I've kind of backed off the salads some and reduced them to very tiny portions.  I found that raw tomato skins tend to shoot through me like a cannon.  If I skin them they're better, but cooked tomatoes don't bother me.  Same with green peppers; if they're skinned they're okay.  I'm guessing this is some kind of fiber issue, but on the other hand I ate that super-high-fiber flaxseed cereal yesterday and nothing happened.  I don't always understand why different foods affect me differently.  I have no problem at all with nuts of all kinds.

I eat a lot of beans too, which have always been a big meat substitute for me.  And that's high fiber, so again, I don't get it.

So far I've only found two foods I cannot tolerate: broccoli and asparagus.  I've tried them a bunch of different ways because I'm stubborn but no, I can't do it.  

It's been almost exactly six months since my surgery and finally I'm feeling completely normal without any of the gas pain I had been having and without having to worry about running to the bathroom 40 times when I'm at work.  I did have some hypoglycemia for a few weeks right in the beginning, but that passed like the doctor said it would.  Ever since then, though, I make sure I have something to eat about every two hours.  It's usually something small like a piece of string cheese or a little yogurt.  I just feel better that way.  And everyone at my job is totally supportive and it's almost become like a group thing; it seems like everyone's really involved in watching the changes in how I look and asking me how I eat and things like that.  Two of the other nurses I work with are considering a DS now after seeing how things are going.

Probably I'm not losing weight as fast as I should be, but I feel great, I'm working out every day, my cholesterol is kicking butt, my husband says there's no more snoring and my biggest problem right now is that I have virtually no clothes anymore that fit me properly and I refuse to buy a whole new wardrobe when I still have so far to go.  I even have had to move my wedding rings to my other hand because they're too big on the left. 

I'm not complaining!

All those horror stories and awful things that people told me would definitely without a doubt happen to me after my DS turned out (with a little work) not to be true and I can say that having the surgery was one of the top 3 decisions in my life.  I almost changed my mind about it because people scared me so much but I researched everything so carefully and I was just sure that this surgery was the one that for me was going to give me the best quality of life, and I would (and have) recommended it to anyone.  This is a completely and literal life changing experience and I'm just so happy and so glad I didn't listen to all the people with the list of horrible things that were 'definitely without a doubt' going to happen.

Dear Satyavati,

I'm so glad that you came back and posted this. I have several friends that have had DS with similar experiences to what you have described. I'm so sorry to hear that people tried to 'scare' you and dissuade you from the DS, but I'm glad that you did the research to decide what was best for you and that you found it to be so very successful for you.

Congratulations and wishing you continued success

 I too am so glad I saw through all the myths of this surgery and did my research.  Having the DS is fabulous and I feel my quality of life is better than if I had had any other surgery.  If anyone ever has questions about the DS feel free to come over the the Duodenal Switch forum here on OH.

Merry Christmas y'all!   ~GG