Diabetics and Healing ?

 

Hi: Diabetics may have a problem with healing if they get cut, the wound may take longer to heal. My question is, when a diabetic has WLS is that person at risk of stomach leakage, do to fact that healing is an issue with them? Some surgeons not only staple the site of surgery, but use sutures to insure there are no leaks. I'm a diabetic and this concerns me about having WLS. If anyone has information on this subject, your input will be appreciated.

Tenacious 88

My 2 cents...Not a doctor.  If you get the DS or RNY (not sure about the VSG) within days, if not hours your diabetic symtoms will go away...for most people.  There are acceptions, but that is one of the greatest things about these surgeries.  So you may have discomfort and poor healing for a few days...but then the diabetics is controlled.  It doesn't really go away...Just the symptoms.  I didn't have diabetics so I'm not an expert.  Brian 

A good number of WLS people have diabetes, so any experienced surgeon will know how to care for these people. Diabetics daily have spine surgery, gall bladders remeoved, open heart surgery etc. Factors that really effect healing is the control of your diabetes before surgery, the closer you maintain a blood sugar to 100, the better you will heal. (I would think that the pre-op diet will help with this)

One warning, within days of my RNY, I had my blood pressure go very low and had to stop my meds. Watch your blood sugar carefully after surgery, it will be easy to take to much of you diabetic medications.

Good Luck

Jim

During my pre-op surgery consult with the surgeon she said " do not take your Metformin (oral diabetes meds=1000mg. daily for me) on the day of your surgery, you will not need them anymore.  The surgery causes a metabolic change and we are not sure  why it happens, but it causes the pancreas to deliver a normal amount of insulin to your blood . And it did. I did a lab follow up 6 weeks later and my blood glucose level was 95 -normal parameters, with no meds.

Like Brian said, your diabetes should go away within days (for really slow people a couple of weeks) of your surgery. That is one of the many reasons to get it. I am not diabetic, but when you look at the research, you will see that most folks who have the more common comorbities will see drastic reductions if not complete remission of them shortly after surgery. That includes sleep apnea, high blood pressure, diabetes, and even high cholesterol.

The only one I had was high cholesterol and it was gone and I was off my meds within a month of surgery. According to my surgeon, almost all of his diabetic patients (with VSG) are instructed to not take their meds the day of surgery, and will never take them again after.

As far as the bleeding and leakage related to your new stomach (no matter which surgery you choose) your surgeon should be quite familiar with patients with diabetes and will know how to deal with that. That is just one of the reasons to make sure you have a very experienced surgeon.

Best of luck and happy new year my friend.

Check out this article from the American Diabetes Association. They try to explain how weight loss surgery sends Type 2 Diabetes into remission and may lead to a "Cure". Very interesting article:
http://forecast.diabetes.org/magazine/features/weight-loss-s urgery-and-type-2-diabetes?page=0%2C0

Well there's actually two different issues here.

first, these guys are correct that the surgery seems to cure most adult onset diabetes.
Second is the question at hand of tissue healing.
Diabetes, over a period of many years, damages tiny arteries. This means that blood supply is cut off and tissue healing is impaired, It really depends on how long you have had diabetes and how well it have been controlled during that time.

WLS removes the diabetes going forward, but cannot repair any damage done to arteries up till that time.

That being said, it is true that these surgeries are done on horrible diabetics all the time with good outcomes. It just increases the risk, but must be weighed (sorry for the necessary pun) against the benefits of dropping a lot of weight.

Hi: This is one of the many benefits that has drawn me to WLS, the fact that I can get free from diabetes. Weight reduction is the other (big) one. I agree with you, any damage done to the arteries is done and can not be reversed. My concern is the actual healing of the stapled area around the stomach, if you are getting a VSG or any other type of gastric surgery. As with any surgery there are risk, I remember having a tooth extracted and almost bled to death, the blood would not stop draining out. Finally the surgeon put some sutures in and stopped the bleeding. I feel a lot more comfortable asking these question, because it puts my mind at eases about WLS.
How are you doing? hadn't heard from you in a while. Hoping 2012 brings you health, happiness and wealth, to you and your family.
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