Question:
How can I find out about pouch size?

I had surgery a little over 2 years ago, lost an initial maybe 50 lbs and then it stopped. I was always able to eat everything and in big amounts. I did go back to see Dr. Miles, finally, in August and he ordered an upper g.i. to check my pouch size. I only took one sip of contrast fluid during the upper g.i. and that was it. I asked the technician what he thought and he said, it was normal. So after missing calls to and from Dr. Miles, I finally got a lady at the office who pulled the report and told me it said "no stricture, or obstruction, normal post op view. Well I knew I had no stricture or obstruction, I wanted to know why I was able to eat so much and why I was regaining weight. She told me she didn't know. Can you tell from one sip of contrast liquid the size of the pouch? Am I just doomed?    — cleo718 (posted on January 19, 2005)

January 19, 2005
Its not the size you need to worry about... You need to find out how 'fast' the liquid passed thru. I had this problem to, no food restriction, the upper gi showed that there was no function that it was passing directly thru - then my doctor ordered an endocopy. What is possible is that you have stoma failure - where the stoma does not shrink up some after surgery, when this happens your food falls directly into your intestines which start to act as a 'new pouch' and will allow you to eat more than a normal RNY patient. It renders the pouch useless - most surgeons do not fix this problem and if they get a patient who has it they tell them to 'diet and excerise'. If it turns out you have this, you may want to consider an RNY to DS revision. I had the lapband put on - which does help with food restrictions on some foods only... so I think the DS maybe a better choice to fix it. But you still run the risk of the valve that regulates the food not to return working, if thats happens your still in the same boat, but then if it does happen you could always revert to the lapband then, which does work some.
   — star .