Problems with Gastric Bypass

Hi All:

I would like to hear from any one that has had a gastric bypass and had any complications?  Any ulcers, scar tissue, bowel obstructions.  I want to hear what it was that you had and how it was treated. 

Thanks!

Hi there.

I had my surgery at a hospital in Cedar Falls Iowa on 12/23/05.....and Im four years out.

I had only ONE complication and it was from a silly thing.

I didnt know that you can get a BOWEL obstructiion (think gallstone in your colon) and I have this really PRIMO calcium citrate that tastes radially good.

So... at 4 monts after surgery I got this calcium citrate....... (recommended dose 1-2 daily)

took 1.
mmmmmmmmm good stuff
Took another.

well 30 hours later realized that hmmmmmmmmmmmmm chocolate flavor might be good but 9 tablets in 30 hours....

Is a little much.
and thus went nearly 10 days without being able to go to the bathroom .
I recovered but Confucious say:   Man who take excessive Calcium No Go .....Whoa.

Sorry I dont have any other complications to share...........
Laproscopic is (my opinion) the only way to go...... but RNY surgery itself is a blessing........ a tool.........and even the people I know in the Toms River and Lakewood groups that HAVE had complications........

Still would do it again if given the choice?
Hope that helps.

As Always
Radically
Timmy Ray S

dah Maine guy.


PS  as for scars I have six little ***bullet hole** style scars......part of reason I am blessed to have it Laproscopic.    My Iowa surgeon did it for me and I was 600 pounds day of surgery.

Wow!

That was something!  Now tell me any problems after that?  Do you think that Bowel Obstructions(in your opinion) are caused by what you eat?

Thanks

Hello : )
Nope no problems after that.

Actually bowel obstructions are fairly **rare* as far as I personnally know?

Mine was because I took nearly 1000 percent of the recommended dose.
In developing **Kidney stones*** they are made of excess calcium.

I took and made my own **kidney stone** in my digestion system and put a huge plug in myself.

It hurt, but I learned.... it was silly to take that much but I warn people I know in the weight loss community because.......hey someone had to be stupid enough (me) to take sooooooooo much calcium I dont want anyone else to suffer same.

Stone eventually passed but it was............lets say painful?

:)
Timmy Ray

I had my lap RNY on a Friday morning. By the afternoon, I was running a fever, and my heart rate was elevated. They were concerned that I had a leak, and I wasn't able to drink while they tried to find out what was going on. They did a couple of tests: the first involved drinking water colored with green food coloring. (I was so grateful to be drinking water!) Then they checked the JP drain at intervals to see if the color was appearing in the fluid. There was no evidence that it was, but that didn't satisfy them.

They did an xray with contrast. The most disgusting thing I've ever tasted, but again I welcomed being able to drink a bit. Again, they weren't able to tell for sure that I didn't have a leak, and the symptoms persisted throughout the next day.

Saturday night, I was back in the OR. They re-opened all my incisions, and checked around inside. There was no leak. (I do have a very vague, dream-like memory of coming to while they were removing the breathing tube! Then I went back under.)

I spent that night in a step-down unit, sort of like ICU. The care there was excellent, since it was late at night and I was the only patient being attended to by two nurses.

The next day I was moved to a regular room. I was put on IV antibiotics, and given nebulizer (inhaled medication) treatments. The consensus was that I had picked up a touch of pneumonia during the first surgery. I was also using a spirometer, which is a tube you inhale air through every so often to improve lung function.

My diet was actually advanced more quiclky than I had expected. I was given soft foods and tablets to swallow while still in the hospital. I was sent home on Tuesday, and told to advance to other foods "as tolerated." Many people spend several weeks on liquids post op.

Its been one week short of a year. Since coming home, I have not had a moment's problems. No dumping, no intolerances, no constipation, no diarrhea, no vomiting. My recovery was much less painful than I had expected; I took nothing stronger than tylenol. The worst part of it all was the tiredness, which lasted almost six weeks.

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions....

Thanks, big ideas for sharing that with me...glad that you are feeling better!

You asked for it...lol....from my blog:


Unfortunately I'm one of the lucky ones that did have SEVERE complications and nearly died as a result of my RNY surgery. I had laparoscopic gastric bypass on Jan 07, 2008 by Dr. Earl Noyan at Robert Wood Johnson Hamilton Hospital and a few hours later starting vomiting blood violently and experienced strong pain in my left shoulder, indicative of a leak. I was brought back in for emergency surgery and was opened from chest to belly button... Gastric juices had spilled inside me causing an infection. I was cleaned out and then given an antibiotic that I was allergic to.  For 2 weeks I was in kidney and respiratory failure and on a ventilator, in a medicinally induced coma. After multiple attempts daily by staff to remove me from the vent I was finally able to breathe on my own after about 2 weeks. Then the real "fun" began. I was in heavy withdrawal from all the sedatives and I was hallucinating terribly and extremely paranoid, thinking everyone was trying to kill me. After swinging and kicking at anyone in the room including my loving family I was eventually strapped to the $30,000 bariatric bed but I still managed to break it. I was given a medication called "Haldol", an anti-psychotic to calm me down and help bring me down from all the drugs that were used to keep me sedated. Unfortunately I experienced a terrible and common side-effect called EPS. EPS causes Parkinson-like symptoms, or dystonia. Dystonia is the prolonged abnormal contractions and spasms of the neck muscles, tightness of the throat, difficulty swallowing, breathing and talking. All of which I experienced...and this was EXTREMELY painful. After a few days of this, combined with the continual hallucinations and paranoia, I starting coming around and venturing back into reality. Still extremely weak I could not even stand on my own. With a lot of hard work and physical therapy I started standing, then walking a bit with a walker. Wanting to get the hell out of this hospital ASAP I left after a few more days (3+ weeks total), complete with terrible bed sores, an injured shoulder and a huge open wound on my abdomen.

oh and i should also say that the rewards more than make up for the absolute hell I went through for those first few months...the only other complications I've had is a ventral hernia which was repaired in november and probably going to have to be fixed again.

I have to say that you are one lucky man to be sharing this story with me....now tell me how did you know that you had a hernia?  What where your symptoms?

yes i am....well the hernia was kinda hard to miss since it was enormous, the defect was the size of my entire abdomen and it was like one of those mini basketballs was poking out of my belly....