Just when I think I've made up my mind....geesh!!!

 Where are you located? Are any of the surgeons in the office you've visited on the vetted list on dsfacts.com?

I seldom post on either of the two forums but felt I needed to respond to your post.

I had a terrible consult with Dr. O'Malley before my surgery.  He was rude, condescending and told me horror stories about the DS all in an effort to steer me to the GB.  I was quite shaken and went home and sobbed, thinking I needed to switch surgeons.  He had agreed to do my DS but not before insulting me, lying to me and using all sorts of tactics to force me into the GB.  I decided to stick with him as I knew his reputation as a great cutter.  All I have to say is beware that love of reputation - he is even less friendly if you have any problem that might endanger that reputation.  

Here is the post I made a year after my surgery.  If you have any questions, just PM me and I'd be happy to discuss.  Several people urged me to name my doctor (I took his name off my profile when I posted the update) so others would have all the info, but I was afraid I would need his help (?) again and was reluctant.  I feel more secure now so pfffft to worrying about his name.  It's factual info so...

Here it is:

Post Date 3/6/11 9:53 pm 
Topic: Warning - LONG! Been gone since my surgery 1/26/10

 I don't know if anyone remembers me at all, but I used to post prior to my surgery.  While I've lurked and read just about every post from June till now, I haven't posted at all since my surgery.  I really want to participate again but have felt awkward about just picking up so I've decided to just dive back in and start by telling you my story.  

I had my surgery at the end of last January and wasn't doing too well from the get-go.  I was never able to eat, really, or keep anything down.  I kept in constant contact with my surgeon's office, going in every week and calling every couple of days.  I was in and out of the hospital a few times and my surgeon and his fellows were absolutely worse than useless.  They were basically telling me that there was nothing wrong with me and it was all in my head.  They did an endoscopy and my surgeon told me all they found was an itty-bitty ulcer blah-blah.  I just got worse and worse and still was able to get nothing down.  I finally made an appointment on my own with the gastroenterologist who had done the endo and he went ballistic when I told him what my surgeon had said.  He excused himself and came back with pictures from the endo and showed me the problem.  There were very long tails (we're talking inch or longer) from the sutures in my duodenum that hadn't been trimmed.  This was so irritating that it had caused a fairly sizeable ulcer (not an itty-bitty one at all!) and the gastro had told my surgeon that the tails needed to be taken care of and the ulcer needed to be healed up.  He had recommended a course of antibiotics and carafate (a medication for duodenal ulcers which protects the mucosa and helps to prevent strictures) and had also recommended some form of either tube feedings or TPN.  He was furious when he found out my surgeon had totally disregarded any of this and that I had been given no antibiotics at all.  He immediately prescribed the carafate, two antibiotics, doubled my reglan dosage and told me to keep on taking both of my acid inhibitors,  both anti-nausea meds and the anti-emetic.  This was at the end of March.  This was on a Wednesday and I drove myself home, threw myself on the sofa without changing my clothes and never got up again.  On Sunday I summoned the strength to pick up my phone and call my daughter in Virginia who called an ambulance for me.  It was a month and a half before I saw my home again.  Turns out that my body had tried to fix the suture tails and the ulcer by creating a large granuloma which had pretty much closed off my duodenum.  Which means it most definitely was NOT all in my head.  I was very close to dying between not having eaten or really even drunk anything for two full months and the constant heaving and trying to throw up my stomach kept doing.  My electrolytes were so out of balance.  They just kept forcing bag after bag of potassium into my IV because they couldn't get the test to register ANY potassium.  How my heart kept on beating I have no idea.  The surgeon's rationale for not taking any action was that my labs up to then were coming back pretty good so I HAD to be eating something and he thought I must be lying.  Uh-huh.  That's the thanks I got for making sure my labs were all so good and high before my surgery - he made sure they all ended up in the toilet!  While he was making sure I just got sicker and sicker.  I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital and then over a month in a nursing home. When I left the hospital I couldn't even stand up or walk.  It was six months before I began to have any feeling in my arms and in my lower body - everything was numb from just below my breasts down.  I suffered some problems along the way with bad interactions from all the drugs they had me on.  Don't EVER let anyone give you reglan for any reason whatsoever.

I returned to my surgeon's office for a follow-up visit at the end of May and was absolutely thunderstruck when the PA there smiled at me and said that she hadn't heard from me in a couple of months and she was so glad that I'd been doing so much better that I hadn't had to call or come in the office.  LOL  At least I finally understood part of the problem - the whole time I'd been calling and visiting the office telling the PA about all of my problems and begging for help, she wasn't passing any of it on to the doctor and she had no idea that I'd been in the hospital and nursing home for rehab for all that time.  I haven't been back or spoken with the surgeon's office since.  It's sort of akin to the old saying that with friends like that, who needs enemies? 

But the important thing is that I managed to survive.  I was able to go back to work and I'm feeling very well at this point.  Very normal.  And have been for several months now.  It DID mess with my weight loss, of course, though.  So I'm down to just above normal BMI and that makes me happy enough.  It's not as low as I thought I'd be and I haven't lost anything in months so I may be done?  I would have liked to be about 20-25 pounds less than I am but maybe that will happen.  Funny thing is that even knowing that I'd have to go through what I did, I'd do it all over again.  Because I feel like myself again.  No more diabetes.  No more high blood pressure.  No more high cholesterol.  No more high triglycerides.  No more cane - I still have knee pain but as long as I have the twice yearly injections of Synvisc I'm hoping I can stave off the knee replacement.  Then there's this - as annoying as it may be, I get treated better by others and I even treat MYSELF better.  Sad that we even discriminate against ourselves...

Anyway, you have all been my friends through all of this and have brought me great joy and solace even if you weren't aware.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 


Good Luck, Traveling Mom!

Vivimolly, are you still around?  I would like to talk to you, if so.

I'm just checking in as another post-op DSer who has never experienced diarrhea. If anything, I trend toward constipation if I don't get in sufficient fat.

It can certainly happen, but it is in no way a guarantee. My understanding from those for whom that has been an issue, is that diet and other measures are generally successful at getting it under control, with a few outlying exceptions.