PLEASE READ!! Bowel Obstruction During Pregnancy!!

All of you (especially those who are within 2 years of your Bypass)  please read these articles:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/452759_5

http://wlsvitagarten.com/2010/04/01/management-and-outcomes-of-pregnancy-following-bariatric-surgery/



I am copying this from my response to Divathick's post.  I need to tell you all my story so you know I'm not trying to be a fear monger. I WISH TO GOD I knew this when I first got pregnant!!  It might have saved me from the most horrific year of my life.

 I got pregnant 11 months after my RNY.  At 26 weeks I started having horrible back pain. Nothing reduced it and, after a week I had to go to the ER. After that i have no memory until I woke up a week later in Seattle. My son was 28 weeks and 3 pounds. He had to be intubated for the first 22 hours and fed with a tube for 2 months. I found out that my condition had been misdiagnosed for a wee****il I became necrotic and had to be rushed for and emergency c-section and a bowel resection. I almost lost my life and, more importantly, my son's life. He was in the NICU for 3 months and I was in the hospital for 6! They ended up removing about 20 inches of bowel, reversing my RNY (they needed the intestine), and stenting a blood clot in my mesenteric vein. After the initial surgery I developed multiple strictures they tried to repair with over a dozen endoscopies but ended up having to go back in and take more bowel to fix it. I also could not eat or drink the whole 6 months....anything! I got everything Via IV. To top it off I developed a VRE infection and was placed on contact procautions. My son was 6 months old by the time I got home and pretty much a stranger. It took months more to bond with him though thank God it did finally happen.
     I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just trying to say that you need to be steadfastly aware of your body over the next several months. Don't let the doctors blow off your concerns and make sure they are communicating!! The hospitalist who was taking care of me for the first week never even called my OB (who worked right upstairs) or my surgeon. He never rand the tests to diagnose the obstruction even after we asked about it specifically. He simply assumed it was pregnancy related and left me to slip into delirium then septic shock over the next 5 days. I have no memory of any of it. Side note....I was a NURSE AT THIS HOSPITAL!!!!! It was my co-workers who finally saw what was happening and got me transferred to the ICU and then to a hospital in the city capable of dealing with me and my baby. The surgeon who worked on me was one of the best in the country and he said I was the worst case bar none he'd ever seen. His exact words were "like sewing wet tissue paper with steel cable" Once again I am not trying to scare you I just don't ever want ANYONE going through what I did. My son just turned 1 last week and, by the grace of God, he seems to be a normal healthy boy. I am finally well enough to take care of him without help for a few hours at a time. But the dream of our first child definitely became a nightmare. I still don't know if there will be long term effects for him and I know this experience has shortened my life significantly. Worst of all is that it ALL could have been avoided. If the doctor had done his job and called my OB and my surgeon, this probably would have been caught early enough to do a laproscopic surgery repairing the obstruction and maintaining the pregnancy. So stay aware and take care of yourself please!! Watch for pain...any pain!! and report it immediately. Also watch for changes in your bowel patterns and vomiting. God bless you and keep you safe. Most of all, after this baby is born GET ON SOME BC (two kinds if you need to) for at least 2 years before trying again. Don't risk leaving your baby without a mother please. I know I sound kind of fanatic but if you can imagine what I've been through you can understand where I'm coming from.

Please take this post to heart and spread the news around. I was so worried about my nutritional intake that I got completely blindsided by this. If you are not pregnant yet I HIGHLY advise waiting the 2 years they suggest. I still have bouts of diarrhea 3-4 times a day and I get tired so easily....especially hard with a 1 year old!! My period still hasn't returned and I'm afraid there will be no more children in my future. If so then fine. I have my beautiful son and my loving husband and my life. That is enough. God Bless you all. 

 Thank you for sharing your story... you may be preventing another mom from having to suffer through a similar ordeal. I am 2 yrs 4mos out from a Duodenal Switch, but I still worry about the possibility of obstructions if I get pregnant (had my first 2 kids pre-WLS) so I will definitely be on high-alert for any symptoms of obstruction if/when I am pregnant with my 3rd! I bookmarked your link- very helpful!
I wish you and your family happiness and good health,

Violet 

Interesting that you should post this! I am currently going through this. I am a few days shy of 33 weeks and a few weeks ago I started having horrible pain in my right side. My OB sent me over to my WL surgeon. They conferred and scheduled me for an emergency CT. Nothing was seen on the CT. After looking at statistics, there are only about 64% of actual cases that are seen doing a CT. Approximately 33% of the other cases are missed. These studies were performed on non-OB patients too. My OB believes that there is a gastrointestinal issue. 87% of abdominal surgeries in the third trimester end in preterm labor so they are trying to avoid surgery. In the interim I have been given pain meds that I don't feel comfortable taking. My OB also feels that the baby will be here sooner than 40 weeks. She is thinking he'll be here around 37 weeks or so. I am hoping as well so that I can get the surgery "show on the road" to fix whatever is causing this pain without compromising the baby's health. As a side note, I've had my gallbladder removed so this isn't an issue either. Interestingly, my initial OB blamed the pain on round ligament pain although the area is in my upper quadrant which isn't an area plagued by round ligament discomfort.  After the dx of round ligament pain I was also told it may just be adhesions. Again, my OB feels otherwise now.

My ultimate hope is that after he is born that I will get enough relief to postpone surgery until he is a little older. They are monitoring me pretty closely throughout for right now though.

I'm glad that everything turned out well for you. How scary that must have been.  

Thanks for the heads up! At the initial aspect of all this I thought that I was going crazy or that I was just a hypochondriac. I wish I was, cause it sure would beat this!!!

I'm so sorry you had such a hard time after the baby is born.  I also had a misdiagnosed obstruction during my first pregancy due to an internal hernia.  Luckily it would fix itself and I didn't end up in the shape you did.  My surgeon was angry when he saw me the first time after and I told him about it.  No one would call my surgeon even though I gave them his number.  I was in the hospital and in pain so I couldn't do it myself.  One minor lap surgery later and the hernia has never given me another problem. Thanks for sharing the info.  If it saves one person from the agony you and your family went through it is worth it.

Thank you for sharing your story!  My bariatric surgeon had no concerns or dire warnings about my post-op pregnancy other than to stress the importance of knowing the symptoms of obstruction and going to the correct provider for treatment.  I am so sorry you have had such a rough road, and I hope your future is brighter.

I started having pains in my upper left side when I was pregnant, then it went away, then I had them again at the end of my second pregnancy...then after I had the baby I was fine for about 3 or 4 months, then I started having the pains really bad.  My PCP told me I had reflux...I knew I didn't that it was something wrong..finally got special permission to see my WLS Dr because he was out of network.  Just had my hernia fix...that's right internal hernia- which had my whole intestine "wrapped up like a garden hose on a reel".  The pain dropped me to my knees while I was at work one day- I just knew I had to find the answer or I would die-(turns out I was probably right if I had not fixed it soon)I was very lucky.  I am so sorry you went through this and thankful that you and your son are both moving on healthy!  This is definitely something that isn't often talked about.  My pain was all in my left side at ribs, no other major signs and it would come and go.  I could go weeks without an episode and then just turn in my chair and feel like I was dying.  Horrible!  We all have to listen to our bodies!