Good Bad and Ugly

Hello.

I am in the process of trying to get revision from Gastric Plication to RNY. I had 10 years of success keeping the weight off (normal ups and downs in weight during that time) but over last several years all plus some has returned. Let me say, 100% due to MY poor choices!!

So I began the process of getting a revision surgery. I do have GERD but it is controlled by medications. It did lead to Barretts Esophaus, but so far it is not bad AT ALL. Surgeon says all he would do is RNY "IF" that can even be done as Gastric Plication is not very well known so he is researching how to go about it while I am going through the insurance requirements.

My concerns are: I NEVER wanted RNY just due to the extreme 'side effects' you often here about from this surgery! So many people have issues for life that are a constant battle for them! I am older, and have other (enough) health issues already I REALLY do not want to add more! My other main concern is that I hear many people do not really lose weight after revision surgeries! When I do diet to try and lose on my own, I lose maybe 1 pound a week. That is what is considered 'normal' and healthy. Question: Is that what I can expect after revision surgery to RNY? I'm told yes by many due to the body can not be 'shocked' as it was the first time with WLS.

Any information, thoughts and comments are more than welcome!

Thank you!

I think extreme side effects were true years ago, but they do the surgeries so differently now that those side effects are pretty rare nowadays. I don't know if that's true given your type of revision, though - you might want to find Rocky313 on here and ask her. She had an older surgery many years ago - might have been gastric plication, but I'm not sure - she had it revised to RNY at the Mayo Clinic several years ago and was very happy with the results.

and yes - from what I've read here, people typically don't lose a ton of weight after revisions. Around 20 lbs or so - although I'm sure there are exceptions to that.

Thank you for your response. The side effects I'm hearing about are things like, nausea and or vomiting, dumping, constipation, or the opposite (not being near a rest room fast enough), low vitamin levels, dehydrations issues and pain when eating and or drinking. Are these not common?

I also did hear about the 20 pound loss as average and worry if that is a lot of pre surgery loss from the liquid diet you are put on before surgery!

Again, thank you for your input. It seems I have a lot of thinking to do before deciding to go through with it.

nausea and vomiting aren't that common after the first few weeks when you're healing and just figuring out your food intolerances. You learn pretty quickly what sets it off. I don't think I vomit any more now than I did before I had surgery. I will if I eat too much or too quickly - but then again, you learn your limits pretty quickly after going through that a couple of times!

dumping happens to about 30% of us. I've never dumped and many of us on here never have, either. If you're one of the unfortunate ones who dumps (although some people would consider that "fortunate", since it keeps them from binging on sweets), you can avoid it by limiting your sugar intake (which we all should be doing regardless)

Low vitamin levels aren't very common if you keep on top of your supplements (and you HAVE to keep on top of your supplements if you have RNY). The one exception to that is iron. Some people (a minority, but still) don't absorb iron well from oral supplements, so they have to get occasional infusions. Most of us can absorb it from tablets just fine, though.

diarrhea isn't common with RNY - but constipation is. It's very common with sleeve, too. It's due to the high protein diet plus the iron and calcium supplements. Many of us take a capful of Miralax every day to stay on top of it.

I only hear about dehydration issues from people who are recently out of surgery. That's why they really stress meeting your fluids requirement - even moreso than meeting your protein requirement - during those first few weeks post-op. Dehydration can land you back in the hospital. From people further out, though - I don't remember seeing any posts on that. It seems to be an issue for people who are very recently out of surgery (not all people - but whenever I've seen posts on that issue, it's always from people who are very recently out of surgery).

Thank you so much for this information! I do realize the groups I follow on Facebook are filled mostly with people who are very early along in the process so it is nice to come here and get some insight from people who are much further out!!

I've heard horror stories about some of the Facebook bariatric groups, so I've never joined them. I've heard there's a lot of bad advice posted on some of them that never gets corrected, and there are a lot of people who seem to like to push the envelope and get cheered on from some of the others. No thanks. I've always found Obesity Help to be full of helpful info, and there are a lot of vets on here who are good about correcting misinformation. I wi**** was more active than it was a few years ago (I think a lot of people are doing the FB groups now instead of traditional internet forums), but I still find it really helpful.

I am finding it to be true for sure! I do agree also that it is sad that Obesity Help isn't as active as Facebook groups but it's better to get accurate information than misinformation as you said.