Looks like I need to seek help from another RNY surgeon

Long story short since I can feel the Percocet kicking in...

I had a long talk with my PCP and he is concerend that it may take seeing MANY more surgeons to find one that I have never previously seen who is willing to do exploratory surgery on a NEW patient   with mysterious intermitent pain that shows nothing on any of the tests and who has had a RNY.   I knew when I had the RNY that it meant I might have to rely on myRNY surgeon for any additioan surgeries becuase of the reluctance of general surgeons to take on RNY patients, but I never thought I would be in a position of having my surgeon be unwillign to help with such horrible pain.

Last summer, when my RNY surgeon initially refused to do anything and told me I would just have to live with the pain, I had talked to the office of the top WLS surgeon here in town to see if he would be willing to see me. (He was, if I would transfer my care to him entirely and have my full record sent to his office.)  It looks like he (or the one associate of his whom I would also trust) is going to be my best hope of getting help.

So, assuming that the surgeon who bailed on me yesetrday has nothing useful to tell me tomorrow, I guess I have no choice but to do that.  It just makes me very sad that both my RNY surgeon and this other surgeon (whom I have used several times for various things) -- both people that I thought I had very good relationships with -- don't care enough about my suffering to help me.

Lora

Lora,

It is sad, but if you can get some relief it will be well worth it.  Hoping all goes well.

Timeka

I don't understand why, if you are in so much pain, your RNY would not want to find out what is causing it.  Sounds like they need to re-read their hippocratic oath!  Hopefully you get some help/answers soon!!

Because, in the absence of anything showing up on a CT, she believes my problem is probably adhesion related and she will NOT do surgery for anything adhesion-related unless it is causing bowel obstruction.  She believes that the process of removing existing adhesions just causes new ones to form in their place and the additional surgery just causes even MORE adhesions and might not address the problem anyway.  I'm sure the additional surgery DOES cause more adhesions, but I cannot "just live with" this kind of pain (physically or psychologically/emotionally).

Lora

With a best friend going through something very similiar I agree wholeheartedly that it's ridiculous that people "just live with" the pain.  She has painful fatty lipomas ALL over her body and her PCP will not prescribe pain meds, and now she's hard-pressed to find a Dr. to remove them :-(  Hang in there!!

I am so, so sorry.  I really feel for you.

At this point, it seems to me that finding a new surgeon would be a good idea.  Not only to find someone that will address your pain (important as that is), but you need a doctor that takes your problems seriously.  If your current surgeon won't address this pain, what will happen down the road if you develop some other type of problem?  And it sounds like you don't trust your surgeon anymore and I can certainly understand why, but I think we need to have doctors we can trust and rely on.

It really puzzles me how some doctors will just dismiss our symptoms if the tests don't show anything.  Well, sometimes they don't even want to order the tests.  I had to argue and argue with my surgeon in order to get an order for an ultrasound back when I had gall stones.  He wanted me to just live with nausea.  Once I got the ultrasound and he saw how full of stones my gall bladder was, he wanted to take it out as soon as possible.  Yet he hadn't even wanted to order that ultrasound.

Do what you need to do in order to get help.  If that means you have to see a bunch of doctors before one addresses the problem and takes it seriously, then do that.  I really do understand how tiring and depressing that is.  But don't give up.  Hang in there.

Laura,

First, I am sorry to hear you are going through this.

My surgeon is WONDERFUL -- a former coworker was a patient of a Nashville practice and was left with no options and he took her on and helped her out. I know it's a long haul and you're probably not looking to travel, but his name is Dr. Stephen Boyce - New Life Center for Bariatric Surgery - 865-694-9676.

Hope this helps!

I agree. Dr. Boyce is also my surgeon and he is absolutely wonderful and the aftercare is amazing.

In this day and age, when health care professionals are always preaching how much they care about patient pain levels and how they was to treat and resolve that pain, I find it neglectful that your surgeons won't help you. I feel terrible that you need to go through this and live with this intense pain. Don't give up. Keep looking until you find a surgeon willing to go in and take a look. Good luck Lora.

If this particular other surgeon will not help, I will have to go out of town for help because the other WLS surgeons in the area I either do not trust or have already indicated that -- for a variety of reasons, some "on the record" and some "off the record" -- they will not take on someone from another RNY surgeon.  I already ran into that (in an attempt to utilize a surgeon within the same hospital network where all my records are from everything).

Lora