Well I think, finally, after over a year of pain and frustration, the doctors have finally figured out what has been causing all my pain in my upper left abdomen area.

To give a short synopsis of the last week... I started having agonizing pain in the same area as normal, on Wednesday, Deember 2nd.  Taking massive doses of my Oxycodone and hydromorph contin wasn't touching it.  I managed to make it to the end of the day at work (thank god my boss didn't mind me sitting by the cash and only getting up to wait on customers lol)  I figured maybe I was constipated, since it had been almost 2 weeks since my last bowel movement.  I stopped at the pharmacy on the way home from work, and picked up a bunch of things that would help with that.  I loaded up (way too much of everything) and took some more pain meds and laid down with my heating pad on high.  I was able to sleep for about 3 hours off and on.  I woke up and was actually able to make a trip to the bathroom, but didn't move much.  I did, however feel better.  The next day I was back to normalish pain, so didn't think anymore of it...

Friday morning I woke up at 4am in agony.  I took some pain meds, and more laxitives and even resorted to an enema (ughhh).  Nothing moved : /

I called in sick to work that day, and headed down the doctor.  He recommended a couple other things to try for constipation, said come to the emerg on Saturday if it was still bad.  I suffered through Friday, didn't sleep that night, and headed into the emergency dept at 6am on Saturday.

My regular doctor was on call, thank god.  He had the nurses try an enema, which proved futile, did an X-Ray and an ultrasound, which showed a large "pocket" in the area I was having pain.

They admitted me to the hospital, so they could fly me out the next morning.  I flew into Thunder Bay at 8am on Sunday, they did a CT scan, which proved useless.  A surgeon came to check me over and started prodding around.  After slapping his hands away everytime he got near my pain area, he says "AHA!!!!... I think I know what this is"  He left and came back with a syringe of Xylocaine.  He told me I couldn't move at all cause he needed to do a test to be sure of what he was thinking.  He prodded the pain area, then injected the xylocaine into the most painful spot.  Within a few minutes I started feeling some relief...

It turns out what this pain is is a form of Neuropathy.  Nerves that are being aggravated by scar tissue.  The solution to the pain is having Cortisone injected into the nerves to deaden them.  I'm unsure yet how long this will last, or how often it will need to be done, but I was almost in tears because finally I had a real reason behind all this damn pain I've been having.

I did some reading online once I got home last night, and found that this is actually something that does happen with gastric bypass.  It seems to stem from malnutrition, lots of trouble with vomiting and lost weight very rapidly.  I fall into all those categories.  I was never told of such a risk before surgery (not that it would have changed my decision to have it), but knowing could have saved me over a year of terrible pain and way too much in the way of pain meds.

This is a link to one of the articles I found online www.endonurse.com/hotnews/4ah1413038.html

(Holy smokes, "short synopsis" wasn't so short lol)

Has anyone else heard of this condition, either before or after surgery?  Has anyone else gone through it?  Anyone have anything to add on the condition or the treatment.  I'd be most interested to find out.  I'm having my first cortisone shots tomorrow morning (Tuesday, Dec. 8th)

I am sorry you are going through this.  The good news is, you may be able to have a revision to a DS if you are having complications such as you describe.  Please read this paper (http://www.dssurgery.com/aboutus/Research/safeoperation.pdf), and then contact Dr. Keshishian (www.dssurgery.com) -- he is one of the best revision surgeons, and he operates out of both Delano (25 miles north of Bakersfield) and Glendale -- both are a ways from Lake Elsinor, but he is worth it.

You will NOT dump with the DS -- I don't know where you got that idea.  Since you don't need to lose any more weight, I assume your stomach could be put back together and a reasonably large sleeve constructed, and you could be given a longish (maybe 200 cm) common channel to maintain the weight loss.

Good luck -- nobody should have to live like this, and I hope you can get the relief and the life you deserve.

So how are you doing these days?  Still have pain?

There Dr. Rabkin in SF. He has taken 2 of my most train-wrecked ppl and made them working/functional ppl again.

I know there is a "program fee", not too sure about the details, but sorta, when all hope is gone.......

BTW, one of my ppl was from GA, one from here (WA)

 I am 4 years out now and for awhile my surgery worked great, but as life went on, it got worse. I always called the surgery my life saver, thought it was what helped me from getting diabetes and high blood pressure and high cholesterol, all that stuff they tell you. Well, I never got any of those, but I still can't sleep, I am still tired all the time, i have horrible diarrhea all the dang time and I can't enjoy a meal with family without getting up and going to the bathroom a few times. Forget going anywhere, I go to the fair and I can't eat the food so I am miserable and if I do eat something I am in the bathroom all night and can't enjoy the rides I lost all this weight to go on. Yes, I am thankful for losing the weight, I tried many times to lose it the good old fashioned way with no avail, but I often wonder if my life would have just been better without having this. At least I'd be able to eat and not get up and have my horribly smelly (and embarassing) diarrhea. I am extremely pale and I never got my hair back so I truely look like a cancer patient and I frequently get asked if I am. It's embarassing. I look bloated a lot, mainly probably because my gas is so smelly I don't want to pass any, plus the worry it might really just be dumping or something will leak out, which I have often. I am always hungry still too. I also crave foods of course I am not supposed to have. I just feel sometimes like my doctor gave me this story of a perfect life and I never got any of it. I know I have to work at it, but for some reason it's not working as well as everyone else. I am thinking about a revision because I don't want to go back to before I had the surgery, I can't gain all that weight back because that would make me more unhappy. I wonder if the DS might be a better option, but then I look into it and I will still dump and I know that is a lot of my problem. I do not want to cook for my family and then make something different for me because they want "normal" (has fat, calories and carbs) food and I am stuck eating lunch meat and some cheese or peanut butter or something while they are having mac n cheese. I get asked a lot from my bf why I did this and looking back all I can say is because nothing else worked, but look at me now. I am skinny and my insides don't work right and I think he is worried about that too. Wants to make sure if we have kids they will be ok since I am not and make sure I am not going to get really sick and die early. I've already had a PICC line and blood transfusion. Been hospitalized for lack of protein. Now that I moved I can't go to my surgeon, not that I want to, so now what do I do? I heard most surgeons won't usually see another surgeon's patient. I am scared now. I am worried I am going to be like this forever. I just want to be able to eat with my family, play games with them, go to the movies, watch a movie at home, go to an amusement park and not have to go to the bathroom literally every 5 - 10 minutes. Going around 10 times a day is just not normal, then when they smell and make the house smelly, it's even worse. I'm just wondering what my options are, what can I do? I'm only 28, I don't want to live like this forever, I want a normal life.