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Hi, Miss Kay,
I almost never come here anymore but just popped on because of this very issue so thought i would reply as I recently consulted Dr. Jossart about my hiatal hernia/reflux/gerd. I had my sleeve surgery a long time ago....coming up on 14 years this summer, wow! Dr. Jossart did my original sleeve surgery. I developed a hiatal hernia after that. He performed a laparascopic surgery to repair it about a year after my sleeve, but, to be honest, it didn't really ever give me any relief, and I just lived with it. A few years passed. Dr. Jossart left LapSF and my GERD got worse, so I consulted Dr. Paul Cirangle, who was Dr. Jossart's former partner, still at Lap SF. He performed a 2nd surgery to repair what was a large hiatal hernia and used a biologic mesh. This repair worked VERY well...for a while...but after a few more years, it recurred. I have just been living with it, but I need to take a double dose of a PPI...I have borderline osteoporosis (which was the cause of my mother's death and my younger sister has it as well)...so it's obviously a concern. Finally I decided to go back to Dr. Jossart. I should say that Dr. Cirangle had told me that if the GERD recurred, I would have to convert to the RnY, and that was what I was expecting Dr. J to say. But he won't (or almost never) convert to RnY because he believes it is such a flawed surgery. He felt that even taking a double dose of PPIs and living with GERD is a lesser health risk than converting to RnY. He also told me that he knows of other sleeve patients who have had 3 surgical repairs of hernias and the 3rd one finally worked...but I am just really at the beginning of looking at options with him. I had had some regain which he wanted me to lose before we discussed things further, and I have done that, so I am reopening the conversation with him. Not at all sure what to do, especially since the first time he tried to fix the hernia, it was not at all successful. But I know of other people who have had them repaired quite successfully post VSG. I just seem to have a weak wall and/or a weak esophageal sphincter. Anyway, I hope that answers your question. There are DEFINITELY options other than RnY and I am an outlier--I think most of the repairs are pretty successful.
Lizanne
I'm guessing from your post that you're worried about two main things:
Have I hurt my stomach?
At 4 weeks out, your stomach is probably mostly healed. Eating a bite or two of a food that you're not ready for can cause pain and nausea, but probably not permanent damage. Of course, I'm not a doctor, and this is not medical advice, but personally I would wait 1-2 hours, and if I didn't feel better then I would call my medical team. Even if your doctor is not in the office, surely their phone is redirected to an answering service that can either get a message to your doctor, or to someone who is on call for this sort of problem.
Is this the start of a spiral of failure for me?
I think it's quite common for people to make a mistake and try a bit or two of something that they shouldn't. I would take this event seriously (it sounds like you're doing that!) but I wouldn't read too much into it because it's still early days, and you are still learning what works for you. You're facing an extra challenge at the moment because you're so limited in what you can eat. If a couple of months from now, when you're on solid food, you had another panic attack, and your fridge was stocked with appropriate food, I have a feeling you would have made a better choice, perhaps eating a little more that you should, but not going totally overboard.
I occasionally get hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). When it hits I get a panicky feeling -- nowhere near as bad as an anxiety attack, of course -- but enough that I'm not thinking clearly when I grab something to eat. But my fridge is full of healthy choices, so the worst that could happen is that I eat a little more than I should. Since the hypoglycemia only happens 5-6 times a year, it's not really an issue.
I am almost 4 weeks out from my surgery and is up to the puree stage of my diet.
But today for some reason I had a very bad anxiety attack, which I am medicated for, and believed I was going to die of I didn't eat something solid. So I went to my fridge and took out a cold piece of KFC wing and bit down on it 3 times before I could snap myself out and threw it out.
Now I'm fighting the urge to panic because I had not only eaten solid food, it was also deep fried and I barely chewed it. I tried to throw it back up but the more I tried the more pain I felt in my gut, like I was trying to squeeze my gut too much.
It's too late to call my doctor now and he won't be open till Monday, am I in a lot of trouble? Should I call the hospital?
Right now I'm just feeling nauseous and nothing else. I can feel my stomach rumbling alot but nothing has happened yet and it doesn't hurt.
Has anyone cheated like me before? Did it cause a lot of complications?
Good morning!
I wrote this blog post for people who would like to know how smoking affects their Gastric Sleeve Surgery.
Check it out here:
https://youtu.be/eML317P0Elc
Regards
Dr. Alvarez
Thank you, a good read and quite a timely and relevant blog.
Good morning!
I wrote this blog post to help out anyone that can't stop comparing their weight loss journey to others.
Check it out here: https://www.endobariatric.com/weblog/2021/03/10/the-dangers- of-comparing-yourself-to-other-gastric-sleeve-surgery-patien ts/
Regards
Dr. Alvarez
I have started a low calorie diet recently and I'm keeping track in a journal. I hope I'll be able to scale down faster by keeping an account of all calories on a daily basis.
on 3/8/21 5:21 pm
Hello, if you're still alive after those years, do you still have dry lips and if no, do you know what the cause was?
Here is a video I found of a surgeon performing the procedure if anyone wants to see it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_SbDqhueRU
I desperately want to avoid getting an RNY (if I could go back in time, I never would have had bariatric surgery at all to avoid the risk of ending up with an RNY), so I am hoping that this is actually a viable option.
I just recently found out that there is a surgical procedure that might be helpful for those of us who have a hiatal hernia and GERD after the sleeve to repair the problem without having to convert to an RNY. It is called "Cardiopexy with Ligamentum Teres" (basically they wrap part of a ligament from your liver around the esophagus to reinforce the lower esophageal sphincter)
Here is a recent article that discusses this technique if any of you want to show it to your doctor and get their thoughts.
https://www.americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-9610(20)30814-X/fulltext#gr2
Have any of you had this done, or at least been able to talk to your surgeon about it? It seems like this is not yet being done widely, so I would welcome any info any of you have about it. Thanks!
