My hubby's strange anatomy!

My husband had his VSG yesterday. It went really well and he's home already, but when the surgeon came to talk to me afterwards, he was blown away by how abnormally large my husband's stomach was. He said it was 1.5 to 2 times normal size and length! I asked the doc what would have caused that, and he said it wasn't from years of overeating or anything, just "from being a big guy." (He's only 6' 1" but has a huge frame.) He's always made really good food choices but is a volume eater, which definitely makes sense now. I think the VSG was definitely the right surgery choice for him!

Today at my own 2-week follow-up, the doc gave me a printout of the pic he took yesterday (with my hubby's permission of course). Check it out! That thing's bigger than a newborn!  

I thought from the post title, this was going to be an adult topic.

I know how to draw in the page views.  

It's a different surgery. VSG is removal of about 80-90% of the stomach leaving a banana or bean, tube like stomach in place, preserving the full function of a 'normal' stomach with the pyloric valve intact. There is also no intestinal bypass like with the RNY. You can have a look at diagrams of both surgeries to see the difference. 

They do, in the RNY. It's that huge, blind, remnant stomach that makes it more risky to take NSAIDs after the RNY.

That is some pic... I guess he is going to feel a huge difference...

Is that for real?  No wonder the guy ate so much.

I had a sleeve in 2002 (as part of my first WLS) and back then they barely removed anything.  I read the pathology report and the part they took out was 19 cm in length (about 7.5 inches) and 3 cm in diameter (about 1.2 inches).

I never felt restriction.

Yep, that's the pic the surgeon took! I'm sorry you never felt any restriction after your sleeve, but that certainly makes sense since they tend to be very conservative when procedures are new. I remember when I was preparing for VSG in 2012 (which ultimately fell through), a 40F bougie was the standard. Now it's 32, although the op report for my husband says they used a 36, which was probably a wise move for the size of his stomach!

They didn't even use bougies back when I had my surgery.  I was told he would remove 50% of my stomach.

Well, unless my stomach was about 3 inches in diameter I think they removed a hell of a lot less.

Since my revision I have had restriction, and my hunger has improved, making it a lot easy to stick with a better way of eating.  Makes all the difference in the world.