Does everyone know what a stricture is...Repost
This is a repost...but it usually helps one or two people going through it.
What is a stricture? This question comes up weekly, if not daily on OH. Below is a copy and paste from Wikipedia. If you are a few weeks out post op from RNY and have problems keeping well chewed food (even water) down, you might have a stricture. Very common and very treatable (about 5% of RNY patients get them). Also do not freak out if you have to go back a second or third time to get treated for one. The Gastroenterologist will go just below the pouch and air up the "balloon" . It is an outpatient procedure and you will be sedated.
As the anastomosis heals, it forms scar tissue, which naturally tends to shrink ("contract") over time, making the opening smaller. This is called a "stricture". Usually, the passage of food through an anastomosis will keep it stretched open, but if the inflammation and healing process outpaces the stretching process, scarring may make the opening so small that even liquids can no longer pass through it. The solution is a procedure called gastroendoscopy, and stretching of the connection by inflating a balloon inside it. Sometimes this manipulation may have to be performed more than once to achieve lasting correction.
Others feel free to add your own input. It's in all the paperwork they give you, but new people may not remember them talking about it...Thinking they must have done something wrong.
PS Anastomosis...A connection made surgically between adjacent blood vessels, parts of the intestine, or other channels of the body, or the operation in which this is constructed. Example, connection between the pouch and the small intestine.
