Am I just not seeing it, or are there really that few VSGers that have complications?

Either you're brave, crazy, or both to ask about complications the day before surgery.  I'm still dealing with complications but I'm not going to share them with you because you have to have your mind in a good and positive place.  My situation is unique and hopefully temporary.

Best wishes!

Stephanie

Hello Stronger,
I am 2 days out and feeling great, no regrets! It is a very dramatic life chang so mental preparaton helped me more than anything. I went in the morning of the 29th my surgey lasted about two hours because I had a hiatal hernia repaired. My pain was very well controlled (ask before you need it). I had an upper GI yesterday morning the 30th and was able to come home yesterday afternoon, so I spent less than 36 hours in the hospital. My surgeon prescribed Lortab elixer for pain and I have been taking half doses ATC and a full dose before bed and/or naps, I figure why experience pain if you don't have to. I'm just getting used to sipping constantly, you have to to get your fluids in but thats it. I realize this is a bit rambley but hope it helps. Good Luck to you and welcome to the bench!

I would agree that this is accurate.  Without rerouting the intestines like in RNY this is a less complicated surgery.  Not so say that there are no risks, especially when operating on people with health risks already, but it is lower risk than some of the other WLS.  I did have a small complication.  During surgery when moving my spleen away from my stomach they knicked one of the gastric arteries on the spleen, and I lost the tip of my blood supply (less than 1%).  They controlled bleeding, I stayed in the hospital another day and and was fine after that. 

I didn't have any complications at all and pain was very minimal. I  only used the pain pump at the hospital to help me sleep and not for pain. After coming home no pain meds at all and no complications. Good luck to you on your surgery.

There REALLY are very few complications from this surgery, so long as it is done by an experienced surgeon.

The majority of the "complications" are not really complications, they are well know aftereffects of most kinds of weight loss surgery.  Things like vitamin deficiencies, which are very common, but are easily taken care of by taking vitamins.

Nine time out of ten, when a MAJOR complication happens, it is the doctors fault, or the hospitals fault for NOT following appropriate surgical standards.  Among these are:

1.  Leaks, which SHOULD be tested for before the patient ever leaves the operating room.  There is absolutely NO excuse for ANY patient leaving the hospital and developing a leak (and I don't care how "wonderful" your surgeon was, if he/she told you otyherwise, they are lying through their teeth).

2.  Post operative infections, which are almost always because of either poor practice by the surgeon, or because of poor cleaning by the hospital.

3.  Operative failure of the patient, which is most often a result of NOT properly determining if the patient is a decent surgical risk prior to surgery.  Rarely, it is because of a mistake in anesthesia, which is 100% the fault of whoever was doing that.

There are other things that can happen after ANY surgery, even the most minor (including having your tonsils out, etc.)    But, the vast majority of the time, patients come through this just fine.

This IS MAJOR SURGERY, A VERY MAJOR SURGERY!  Every surgery carries a risk, including a risk of death.  BUT, if you have an experienced surgeon, in any major hospital, the odds of an accident happening are very, very low.