SUGAR......EVER????

my surgeon tells me that if i eat sugar it will make me feel very sick and more than likely dump.  is this forever???

Hi Elizabeth, I have 2 close friends who have had RNY, both eat sugar with no dumping problems.  Everyone will be individual and different types of sugar will effect you differently!  Good luck, sweetie!

Elizabeth: I refuse to try sugar to find out! I want to live in fear of it becauseI'm addicted. Why are you so concerned about getting back to sugar, if I may ask? Hugs, Karen

I try to avoid it; because I can never tell how my body will react. Some times just a little will have me in the bathroom for hours !!!!!!! Donna open rny mar 18 2003 282/145/140

If you had the RNY, yes sugar will always make you sick. especially in the beginning right after surgery. However, some people can have more sugar than others. Do not step put and test the waters because if you find out that you can eat volumes of sugar without getting sick, you will be tigh back where you started and possibly gain weight.  It had been difficult for me because I can tolerate large quantities of sugar. Therefore, I can eat candy, cakes etc. It's been hard. So stay away from high amounts of sugar altogether.

From what I know, the RNY is done to 3 different extents. The proximal, medial and distal. This means how much of your intestines they decide to bypass, which i decided based on your weight/BMI. I think those that get the proximal, which means a lesser extent of their intestines are bypassed, are able t ohandle sugar better since they have more of their intestine to tolerate and asborb it. Of course I could be totally wrong though.

Elizabeth... You will likely hear many diferent answers to any question you pose. Sometimes this is because people get conflcting info in different bariatric prorams, sometimes it is just passed on info thaat may or may not be corect kindof like how urban legends keep going LOL, sometimes it is due to the fact that as individuals tere is no one answer  there are many I always say there is TyPICAL and a range of answers usually. Where one will fall is anyones GUESS. So the MAJORITY of RNYers may dump, especially EARY ON when the body is not used to sugar going into the small intestines undigested....The dumping reaction severity, frequency, intensity differs. What makes one person dump my not make another. Some NEVER dump not even early on...Its abot quantity sometims, frequency of eating sugar, even natural sugar in say watermelon can make some sick. So is it forever we may alk hope so on some level but when the body adapts and one 'desensitizes' to sugar eating slowly more and more quantity and variety of it sadly the response typically goes away. There is a rare few who dump longterm ....This is my answer based on my experience of being online in these groups 5 yrs, what I have read in the obesity/bariatric literature as well as experiences from hundreds of wlsers who have come through the doors of my support groups locally. As Karen says she uses the FEAR of dumping as a tool as well as the fear of NOT dumping as a tool, this is the philosophy that works for me as well. Others are ok w/ small amounts and do not feel deprived do what works for you and your individual body ok! Remmber sugar is NEVER malabsorbed digestion of it starts in the mouth w/ amylase in your saliva. So if someone says they didn't lose what they hope or regain sometimes that is a place to look, here is my info on dumping. Accrding to literature less than 50% RNYERS DUMO EARLY ON... Those are not great odds either way...REFERENCE: Deital in UPDATE: SURGERY FOR THE MORBIDLY OBESE PATIENT JUNE 2000 http://www.obesitysurgery.com/book.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DUMPING SYNDROME DEFINED, EXPLAINED, AND AVOIDABLE!

 

http://www.sabariatric.com/effects.php *** note thi is a non functioning link now from 5/8/2004***

 

 

The weight loss that is achieved through the RNY appears to be primarily dependent upon the removal of the pyloric valve, leaving the individual without a regulator of food movement into the small intestine. This results in the well-known phenomena called "dumping syndrome" which can cause an individual to feel sick or even faint. Rapid gastric emptying, or dumping syndrome, happens when the lower end of the small intestine (jejunum) fills too quickly with undigested food from the stomach. "Early" dumping begins during or right after a meal. Symptoms of early dumping include nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, and shortness of breath.  "Late" dumping happens 1 to 3 hours after eating. Symptoms of late dumping include weakness, sweating, and dizziness. Many people have both types. Stomach surgery is the main cause of dumping syndrome because surgery may damage the system that controls digestion. Treatment includes changes in eating habits and medication. People who have dumping syndrome need to eat several small meals a day that are low in carbohydrates and should drink liquids between meals, not with them. It is imperative to the Roux En Y or other procedural gastric bypass patient that they follow their diet plan to reduce the risk factor of Dumping Syndrome. Many people equate the term solely to be spasmodic fits of diarrhea, when that is merely one of the symptoms of a more intensified unpleasant experience. Dumping syndrome is usually divided into "early" and "late" phases - the two phases have separate physiologic causes and shall be described separately. In practical fact, a patient usually experiences a combination of these events and there is no clear-cut division between them. Early dumping is caused by the high osmolarity of simple carbohydrates in the bowel. The various types of sugar all have small molecules, so that a gram of (for example) sucrose has MANY more molecules than a gram of protein, creating a higher concentration (number of molecules per cc) from simple sugars than from other foods. This matters because, inside the body, fluid shifts will generally go toward the higher concentration of molecules. So, if a patient consumes a bite of milk chocolate (lots of sugar), when it gets to the Roux limb it will quickly "suck" a significant amount of fluid into the bowel. This rapid filling of the small bowel causes it to be stretched (which causes cramping pain). This also causes the activation of hormonal and nerve responses that cause the heart to race (palpitations) and cause the individual to become clammy and sweaty. Vomiting or diarrhea may follow as the intestine tries to quickly rid itself of this "irritant." Late dumping has to do with the blood sugar level. The small bowel is very effective in absorbing sugar, so that the rapid absorption of a relatively small amount of sugar can cause the glucose level in the blood to "spike" upward. The pancreas responds to this glucose challenge by "cranking up" its output of insulin. Unfortunately, the sugar that started the whole cycle was such a small amount that it does not sustain the increase in blood glucose, which tends to fall back down at about the time the insulin surge really gets going. These factors combine to produce hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which causes the individual to feel weak, sleepy, and profoundly fatigued. Late dumping is the mechanism by which sugar intake can create low blood sugar, and it is also a way for gastric bypass patients to get into a vicious cycle of eating. If the patient takes in sugar or a food that is closely related to sugar (simple carbohydrates like rice, pasta, potatoes) they will experience some degree of hypoglycemia in the hour or two after eating. The hypoglycemia stimulates appetite, and it's easy to see where that is going...The reason that sugar does not cause dumping in non-operated people is that the stomach, pancreas, and liver work together to prepare nutrients (or sugar) before they reach the small intestine for absorption. The stomach serves as a reservoir that releases food downstream only at a controlled rate, avoiding sudden large influxes of sugar that can occur after a Roux En Y. The released food is also mixed with stomach acid, bile, and pancreatic juice to control the chemical makeup of the stuff that goes downstream and avoid all the effects outlined above. Obviously, surgeons consider dumping syndrome to be a beneficial effect of gastric bypass - it seems to be important to provide quick and reliable negative feedback for intake of the "wrong" foods. In practice, most patients do NOT experience full-blown dumping more than once or twice. Most simply say that they have "lost their taste" for sweets. Of course, this is always a great topic to ask patients about directly, so you may want to ask about it at our support group in person, or in a support group online. It is an unpleasant side effect of this surgical procedure, experiencing it means one simple thing; you are not following your prescribed diet, and unless you do, dumping syndrome is going to become a major part of your life. Do yourself, and your body a favor and follow doctor’s orders, to the letter.

 

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic589.htm link about dumping that does work....

Even now at almost 4 years out sometimes it will bother me sometimes it won't. Sometimes I can get very sick and others just queasy very sleepy. Also remember not only sugar can make you dump, greasy foods can have the same effect. And for me anything greasy causes more dumping than sugared items.