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Ok I will post on this pain clinic subject for now... I had the same trouble, because I get my tail end handed back to me after I do any exercise. Who doesn't? We are not allowed NSAIDS after surgically altering our digestive anatomy. Fact deal with it get over it RIGHT? I know of 2 drugs that I am allowed to have... I am not saying any doctor or Nurse practitioner should prescribe to any patient, but I am allowed Tramadol and or Celebrex. Yes, Celebrex has had some bad feedback, but it was told to me that people with heart problems or other circulatory concerns should avoid Celebrex. It is up to you and your Doctor to make that call as any other prescription medicine. Tramadol took care of my mild to moderate aches and pains and that those helped me to sleep better at night. My pain clinic visits were horrible until I found the right one for me. You can't run around changing pain clinics every week or you WILL be labeled as a high liability and most Doctors and NP's oh sorry not to mention the good folks called physicians Assistants, who saw me for the most part when I was getting checked in the follow up visits. It is YOUR job to be very read up and Informed when making new specialty decisions. I probably sound like some drug commercial to you that read this thread, but it is really the patients job to rule things out, because who is going to back you up?? humph All I can say is hind sight is 20/20. *grins** If you love your primary as much as I love mine, I would have chosen the one she or he referred me to. I would have never known I should go into it further than what I did. I believe I went through 4 different pain doctors when I lived in Texas before I got the right doctor for me. Also you have to know how you feel and portray that feeling with confidence and you can practice that talking to one of your family members or close friends and get them to play devils advocate. Lay out history, when you had your pain start.. date time and how it progressed over the year(s) and what makes it worse and what helps even if it sounds silly or YOU THINK it MAY sound silly. They did not pass Med school by sitting on their thumbs. Heck, I am a nurse and I have been in the field for a very long time. The whole thing has been a education to me and I am thankful for every bit I went through so that I can apply it to my teaching when talking to my clients or friends. Most friends run when I start talking but I will save that for another forum. *Grins* Please do not let anyone intimidate your thoughts / questions / feelings. I have gone on and on and on at this Med student about my gut problems and it was a STUDENT that caught on that some of my pain was not gut related and I had some of my pain related illness cut down by almost half. (I have back problems) I hope I have helped in some way. I am always here for anyone that has questions about what I have been through and there is no such thing as a dumb question. If you get anything out of my ramblings please take that last thing I said to the bank. I have to fix dinner for the hungry animals.. *points at self* Hope you guys have a good night! I am on Alaska time btw. I no longer live in Texas. I saw my first baby twin moose yesterday. In my BACKKYARD! They are smaller than some horses that I seen in my days. Not sure how many of you folks know this but it is a state law that gives the moose more rights than anyone's pet dogs. *meaning you can shoot your neighbor's dogs and say they were risking the life of wildlife!
Milady,
You might find this hard to believe but I found your post on a search on Google by looking up dumping syndrome. I can't say what made me read your post when I was only trying to look up facts on dumping syndrome because of a laps in memory.
I want to follow the rules of the forum. So I will go back and read more so that I can post more in length to this subject matter.
I first would like to state that my WLS was done back in 2003 or 02.. I will lookup the rules of this forum, but my surgery was done in Dallas Texas @ Baylor Hospital. I too have been through the same experience and I will not down play your experience because I do not wish to cause you further stress, but I am an RN and did not want my colleagues to judge me by my need of pain medicines as well. I had a perforated ulcers and 3 small leaks around the pouch as well, and he stated my body had compensated over the 2 years, after he had performed emergency surgery and had run my bowl and saved my life by what he guessed to be by hours. I had MANY surgeries after that, exploratory laparoscopic surgeries, appendectomy, Cholecystectomy , and the final surgery that resolved 3 hernia when my plastic surgeon and my WLS went into me together, one to explore with me open and the other to remove all that loose skin from my weight loss! I thanked Jesus and everyone involved (except my ex) *laughs*
Bottom line is that I was 1 out of 200 statistically that have had problems with WLS that was cause by many different reasons that pop up with the human body. My first pain clinic experience was like yours, less than good, to put it lightly. My doc, I will give the name I have used to others when I talked highly of him, Dr. Joe Cool, I had my husband of latter draw a sketch of Snoopy and the look of Joe Cool, on that last surgery he did on me that as soon as I woke up I knew he had fixed me even after 8 hours after surgery. Something about having to go through so much for so long made me aware that everything was finally fixed. But the Doctors that make up the pain clinics have to work under the laws of State and Federal laws. They have to protect themselves from lawsuits, but most importantly insurance companies. If you have uncontrolled pain you need to have someone drive you to the closest emergency. Call his office or have nurse at the ER call them to inform them you are there. That is a part of that contract. Uncontrolled pain is your body's alarm saying something is wrong. Do not let what you think others think, stop you from listening to what body is telling you.
I will have them post this, in hoping I am not breaking any rule and not let you be alone in this time of crisis. *clicks submit*
So, I decided to take another crack at a different pain clinic, this one recommended by my primary, who is wonderful, so I don't hold it against him at all. I was impressed right away, the staff was very friendly and caring, they had a whole wing of the hospital for their use for clinic appts and procedures, very professional looking, so I thought, surely they can help me with this pain until I get cured (of course I have to be diagnosed first). I was admittedly very emotional about being there, mostly because in my mind I had avoided going to the pain doc because I felt like I was waving the white flag of surrender. So, I was weepy, they provided the kleenex and reassurance, the doctor came in, he was very nice (and even after the whole episode, I can't say he wasn't nice- he's just nuts I guess) LOL I of course gave him all my info, very informative, nothing to hide, all my doc info, all my prescription history given to him. We talked about the issues of the pain, I told him that I don't take the pain meds during the day because I want to function, so I am willing to be in pain all day, but it would be nice to have relief at night so I can enjoy my time with my family and get a good night of sleep, maybe. I am not on high doses of anything at all. I also told him that having the pain meds at home, helps to keep me out of the ER when I have these "attacks" of pain/nausea after eating sometimes, although even though it is a liquid pain med, sometimes it is so bad I can't even get that to go down, and then off to the ER we go. After all this discussion, he explained to me how I am too young to be having to take these narcotic pain meds, and we need to get me off of them (which I was like, yes, let's get me something that works as well, yeah), but no...here was his plan: wean me off the pain meds, and then told me I can just take an ibuprofen or any other nsaid (Alleve) pain reliever
I was still polite, reminded him about my complicated GI history, and that I have an ulcer right now, that I was told by all of my docs to NEVER take Ibuprofen/Nsaid pain relievers because of the damage it will cause my GI tract/stomach, his response was, well better to have an ulcer than to be taking those narcotic pain meds!!! If Ibuprofen worked for my pain, I wouldn't be seeing any doctors. As a bonus to this lovely offering of "relief" that he was so graciously giving to me, HA!, I had to sign an opiate contract (anybody ever heard of/seen one of these before? I work in the ER and I never heard of it), which read more like an agreement to go into detox than an agreement to get help with pain relief, it basically outlined that while I was under their "care", and I use the term loosely, I was not allowed to seek pain treatment anywhere else, including the ER! Here was the kicker, he told me, you can go to the ER for nausea and they can give you Phenergan/Zofran, but he said, and I quote, "If you are going to the ER for pain relief, don't bother because under the terms of the agreement, they can't give you anything, so if it is pain, stay home, crawl in bed and deal with it until it passes." 
I was so vulnerable, and fried emotionally at this point, and thinking that I had no other options, I signed the stupid thing, weeping the whole time, they gave me a script for a reduced dose of the medicine I was taking, and I tried to explain to them that my tears were not the tears of an addict who was going to miss their drug, they were tears of shame and embarrassment, and wondering why am I being treated like a drug addict??? They tried to bru**** off as a formality, but in my mind I was thinking about my co-workers, people I work with, seeing this thing and wondering if I have a problem! I left there miserable, started sobbing as soon as the valet brought the car around, and continued to sob all the way down the road, my aunt tried to console me, she couldn't even understand me because I was hysterical. Well, there is a bright side to this, somewhat, when I got home I called that place, told them that I was coming back the next day, and they could have their prescription back, and I wanted my "contract" back so I could rip it up! I followed through with that yesterday, and I felt so empowered to hand that script back to them and tell them how they made me feel, and watched as she ripped the original contract up. The doctor had mentioned to me during the original visit that he only gives dying cancer patients narcotic pain meds, so when I went back I told the nurse that he should just open up a hospice unit and forget about treating the people who are truly suffering, but not dying- yet! I can imagine that others of you have had this experience, and if you haven't had it, I hope you don't, but remember that you are in charge of your body, don't be bullied by someone just because they had more years of school than you, or more initials after their name than you. Jules RNY 10/30/2007
Hi, I'm not sure what is causing your pain, but I have struggled a lot with this pain, so I just wanted you to know that you are not alone. Feel free to send me a message sometime if you want. Hang in there!
Jules RNY 10/30/2007
had RNY on 7/31/08 and everything was going great until October. They did an EDG the first of November and discovered I had an ulcer, was put on meds for that. But, the sharp pain still was there. Then they did a CT scan and determined I had Gall stones. I went into the hospital mid December with sharp pains and they couldn't figure out why my pain was on my left side if my Gall Bladder is on my right side.
I had surgery on Dec. 15 where they removed my Gall Bladder and also repaired a hernia and removed scar tissue on my left side (the site of my pain). Bingo! We thought my pain problem was solved. No such luck. I have the pain on a continuous basis since. I have had an upper GI where they also looked at the small bowel. That was normal. I had a colonoscopy and another EDG and they were normal. I had another CT scan about 3 weeks ago and that was normal. I have been on Carafate, Prilosec, Citotec, Flagyl and was prescribed Valium (which I did not take because I hate the way it makes me feel.)
I really feel my doc is taking good care of me but just does not know what else to do. I have to call his office again tomorrow to check in and see what they want me to do next.
At 7 1/2 months out I still am not able to eat much. I have been getting nauseous when I eat, so I am wondering if I have another ulcer. I have lost 85 pounds and am 5 pounds over my goal. They don't want me to loose any more, but I just can't eat much without having pain.
Has anyone here gone through anything like this, or every heard of such a thing? I am so frustrated with feeling bad all the time, and being afraid to eat. I would love to hear from any of you.
Thanks!
Kathryn
This is a symptom of pernicious anemia and can be a nueropothy problem.
The site link is: http://s1.webstarts.com/ozobesitysurgery-info/
Some of the conditions you may want to get your doc's to explore are pernicious anemia, chronic fatigue, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, nueropathy's and cealiacs. I am not a medical professional and I can only offer advice as someone who is travelling the same journey. My heart goes out to you.
Vicki from Oz
Hi Karen ... I understand what you are going through. I am 30 years post op ... yes a bit of a veteran. I had what is called horizontal gastric stapling in 1980 when I was only 18 years old. Back then there were no pre op tests, vitamin therapy, after care or long term information. Of coarse I suffered for many years with all the annoying post op problems, vomiting, getting food stuck in my throat ... and I only ever lost 28 pounds from the surgery and could not move any more weight even though I was eating very little. In the past 10 years my health has been gradually declining and in the last 12 - 18 months it has taken a very big decline. I only had access to information in the last 10 months that has aloowed me to realise that I am suffering with the long term complications of weight loss surgery. I am at present travelling on a frustrating journey of trying to get tested, diagnosed and treated ... it's a nightmare. So I know where you are coming from. I have found that most doctors here in Australia acknowledge the fact that there is long term side effect from this kind of surgery, but they don't want to accept that this is your problem. I have had quite a few doctors who have tried to tell me that my only problem is stress. Getting a referral to a gastro doc has been difficult but I now have an appointment with one in April ... hoping that this will make a difference. Have they tested you for gallstones honey? The pain you are describing sounds very much like gallstone pain. I had to have surgery approx 6 months after my WLS for gallstones and ruptured appendix. I also wasn't told that this was an after effect. If it is gallstones, then every time you eat some kind of dairy product, this will trigger the pain.
I know what you mean about not being taken seriously ... it's very frustrating ... but with the shape my health is now in and the damage that has been done to my body ... I do regret having my surgery ... but I have no hope of having a revrsal ... too far post op. Hope things get better for you.
Hugs Vicki from Oz xxx
If you want more information, go to www.celiac.com for articles and links to other resources about Celiac Disease - there is a wealth of information on that website. Please feel free to contact me, as I have done a lot of personal research on CD due to my youngest daughter's diagnosis (with no symptoms.....).
Teresa Koch
Fort Worth, Texas
I haven't had WLS, but my youngest daughter and I both have CD. For the best information, go to www.celiac.com - they have a wealth of information that will help you. Please feel free to e-mail me as well - I have done a lot of personal research and I am always happy to help anyone who has questions about CD. I am starting to wonder if more people should be tested for CD before they ever undergo WLS, as CD is horribly underdiagnosed. Unfortunately, a lot of the symptoms that people describe having had before their surgeries are textbook CD or Gluten Sensitivity. What most doctors don't realize is that 40% of people with CD are overweight, with 17% of that number being MO. That flies in the face of the "typical" symptoms of CD. The current thinking is that 1-out-of-133 people in the US currently have CD, yet only 3% of them know that they have it.
The only reason that our daughter was tested is that she has Down syndrome (they have a 1-in-8 chance of developing CD), and her pediatrician took it upon himself to test ALL of the kids with DS in his practice (he has over 30) for CD, since it is such a "silent" disease in most people. Our daughter - with no outward symptoms, mind you - had bloodwork numbers off the charts, and she had Borderline Stage IV intestinal damage. I found out that I have the skin manifestation of CD, which explains why my bloodwork came back negative, but the rash started clearing up when I went on a GF diet.
I hope that I will be able to help you in any way possible. If you test positive for CD, BE SURE and have ALL of your family members tested as well, since they are at a significantly increased risk of also having CD.
Sincerely,
Teresa Koch
Fort Worth, Texas
