Seeking help - maybe stuck food?

EDIT TO ADD: I meant to post this on the RNY forum, but I will leave it here too just incase anyone here has some advice too...  Sorry for the double post!

My mom had RNY last year.  She has done pretty well with it, although sometimes she calls me for help and I don't always know how to help her.  She posts on the boards some and reads more than she posts but with the lack of ability to search these boards I just thought I would ask for help even if this has been asked before.

Tonight she called me crying, I could tell right away something was really wrong.  She said she had spaghetti for dinner, something that she had eaten before.  She did say she was on the phone when she ate and probably didn't chew well enough or maybe ate to fast. 

She was sick for over 2 hours, throwing up, well foamies I think they are called, nothing actually came up.  She was begging for me to help her, but I felt so helpless I didn't know what to do. Finally I told her to drink some water and that made it worse!  I felt horrible.

I told her to just go lay down and then I started talking to her about random stuff to just try to take her mind off of it.  After a bit more than 2 hours of her being sick, she finally started to feel better.  I don't think she was dumping because she said she didn't feel hot or shaky (I think that is what happens), just a horrible pain in her chest/pouch area.  (Sorry I am not great at explaining it and I cannot relate being I had the DS, but I am trying to explain as she did)

So my question is this... what can I do to help her when this happens?  Is there a list of things that can go wrong and what to do to fix them fast?  For example what to do if you eat to fast, or don't chew well enough, what to do if you have to much sugar, ect.?  Something I can bookmark and access so that when she calls me I have the answers?

I would really appreciate any help you can give.  My mom is 70 and although she does read the boards, she forgets and especially forgets in the moment, she didn't know what to do, and neither did I and I hated that feeling.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

 I hope your Mom is doing better.

I had my original RNY in 2001.  To this day there are certain foods that do not sit well with my pouch and spaghetti is one of them.  I can handle other pasta's but spaghetti has this effect the majority of the time.  She more then likely ate to fast or to much.  Eating or drinking more in these types of situations will almost always make it worse.  She can either try to wait it out when this happens or she will vomit to get some relief.  One thing for sure is RNY definitely can teach what foods to avoid.

How long ago did she have her RNY?  Sometimes if you are early out you can experience this condition more frequently.  I seldom experience it any more but some of this is because I have learned to know what my system can handle.

Good luck to you and your Mom.

Hi...

I too have a major problem eating spaghetti and my 1st RNY Revision was done in 1989....I don't think you can really chew spaghetti up enough and it gets in a big ball in your pouch and it takes a while to breakdown...I don't have as big of problem anymore as my stoma has streched so it drops through easily but in your Mother's case since she had RNY last year she probably still has a very tight stoma which means the food just sits there. It is possible to dump on spaghetti it has lots of sugar and you don't always get the shakes and diarhea when you dump. I never had that kind of reaction when I dumped I would just feel absolutely horrible, sick, sick, beyond sick actually and it would usually subside in about 2 hours.

Hope this helps.

Janie