Serious stories on after care,risks of death

 I hate to write this but  us newbies and those of us already scheduled need to talk about the good and the bad and the ugly. I received an auto email from a gal on here that had her procedure done recent,  then 2 weeks later it leaked and she went into a coma and the hospital for 3 weeks.   So lets  share stories here on what their doctors say about after care,  bending, lifting etc...The gal had a baby that turned 2 just 3-4 weeks after surgery, so I wanted to know if her picking her baby up during first 2 weeks caused her to leak, breaking a stitch, interupting the healing. Lets  share our advice here, so we can all have a  healthy  healing time. Cheri   VSG may 10 , 08 Alverez TO SEE THE ENTIRE STORY go to   KARLIJ  profile, she is OH member.                                                                   karlij  

leaks are rare, but they do happen.. aftercare is the same with any surgery that involves the abdomen...no lifting or bending.. but also the eating and drinking.....keeping to the post op diet is very important bc stretching the tummy with food/drink will stretch those stitches and staples...and can cause a leak to start up.. after my surgery...for about a month, i didnt do anything...i didnt even drive... i didnt want any stress put on my tummy than needed....i was pretty careful with what i ate, but i wasnt perfect...and that was scary...everytime i would mess up I would be realy scared that i would get a leak... luckily i didnt get one... but there have been some that have gotten them....u dont hear about them on this board much... theres another board that talks about complications, etc....u might learn more there about this

Who was her Dr?  I know that doesn't necessarily mean anything...Anyone can get a leak for various reasons....But leaks don't seem to be very common.  I'm planning on babying my new tummy as much as possible, and I want to stretch the time on when we can eat regular food.  I intend to stay on the soft foods stage longer, hoping that goes in my favor. 

That might be the problem, this  board does not have too many posts about  any of major complications that might happen.   The post that was mentioned is what got me really anxious. Any advice from the all timers on what to avoid or not do after surgery would be appreciated. Lisa which website are thinking of that deals with VSG complications?

My surgical group has had only 2 leaks.  One they found in the OR when thet did the dye test.  The other they found before the patient left the hospital.  Neither one was serious because they were found so quickly.

I haven't heard about anyone having complications like that.  Is the story hear in one of the posts?  Can you direct me to it??

Karlij is  member name used her at  OH. I will write her, or someone does and needs to find out if she strained herself lifting her children, etc, cheri

That was karlij.  You can read all about it on her blog page.

Thanks.  Not sure how I missed hearing about that.  Very, very scary!

Sometimes the reason a leak develops may be from the tissue integrity, or lack of, in any particular patient. Also, not following the diet progression rules really taxes your new staple line and puts it at great risk for leaks. My surgeon checked for leaks 3 times .... in the OR, followed by a Gastrografin swallow the next morning after surgery, and then that was followed by a blue ice test. Also, having a drain in place can help detect any leak problems very quickly. Generally, unless there was some large tears from inappropriate diet or something, the leak is usually left to heal on it's own with a drain in place and antibiotics given until all is healed. If it is a small leak and a surgeon tries to repair it surgically, it can many times make the situation much worse. Thankfully, if we follow the rules and our surgeons are cautious with us, the odds are greatly in our favor that a leak  will not happen.