Question:
What is a stricture & interia hernia? & what does it feel like? HELP!

Im 6 weeks out I dont eat anything almost everything makes me want to gag. Maybe I'm not chewing enough or eating slowly i don't know what it is. I'm always spitting && I have bad breath help, doctor say drink more water..how??? IM FULL!!! but then theres times where I think Im hungry.. Im so confused. So I was wondering what are the symptoms or how a stricture or inertia hernia is? help me! thank you OH family!    — samanthajo (posted on March 12, 2010)

March 12, 2010
Hi Samantha... I had a stricture at 6 weeks out. I actually started having trouble at about 4 weeks out, and it slowly became worse until I talked to my Physician's Assistant about it. The symptoms were pretty easy to diagnose - even I knew what was wrong, I just wanted confirmation. It started with eating small meals of soft food, chewed very well. When I went on to more solid foods, like the scrambled Eggbeaters, I found that it didn't go "down" quite as easily. I actually felt like the food was "stuck"... and to this day (I just had my one year surgiversary), I will get "stuck" if I swallow too big a bite, or eat too much. So.... you feel stuck, and suddenly, you're salivating a lot, and swallowing the saliva, and the more you swallow, the worse you feel. Finally, you realize that the only way you're going to feel any better is to bring it all back up. The first stuff that comes up is all the saliva that you swallowed, and that's why thowing up is called getting the "foamies". The fix is really simple. You go to a gastroenterologist, and they put a small tube down your throat into your stomach, and direct it to the opening of the stoma where the scar tissue is growing and making the opening smaller, and then they inflate a balloon on the end of the tube for a few minutes, stretching the scar tissue and making the opening of the stoma a more normal size. They usually do it in an outpatient facility, and it is usually done with conscious sedation (but I suffer from anxiety attacks, and I told them that first of all, I have a massive gag reflex, and second, if I felt like something was obstructing my airway, I WOULD fight them, sedated or not...so I wanted them to put me all the way out. They said "no problem".)...and it literally took them all of 15 minutes from start to finish. Including pre-op preparation and post-op observation, I think I was at the surgical center for about 90 minutes. As to your question about inertia hernia, I'm not sure if you mean hiatal hernia or not, but that is where part of the stomach encroaches into the esophagus, and if there is one present - your surgeon will generally fix it during your RNY surgery. As for the bad breath, that usually indicates that you are in Ketosis... not necessarily a bad thing right after surgery. It just means that you are burning the calories that are stored in your fat, and the byproduct (ketones) is being expelled from the body in your breath and your urine - you can buy a bottle of "KetoStix" at any pharmacy and test your urine. When you're in ketosis, the test patch at the end of the stick will varying shades of purple, depending on how deeply into ketosis you are. Most surgeon's don't worry about it. I hear you when you say you're FULL.... but this is how I kept up with my water input....I did better with WARM to HOT water or tea, so I made my Crystal Light with hot tap water and sipped on it all day. I also drank fruit-flavored herbal tea with half of a New Whey protein bullet in a big cup....it gave it a nice tangy taste. I tried to sip on my bottle of Crystal Light at least every five minutes, and take a drink from my tea cup at about the same intervals. You can mix unflavored protein into your sugar-free pudding (people on here recommend Unjury all the time, so it must be good - I used Any Whey). You can mix protein powder into oatmeal or cream of rice or cream of wheat or malto meal hot cereal. You NEED to get your protein in, in addition to your liquids. You can email me privately if you like.... my email is womyn42 at tde dot com. You can do it!
   — Erica Alikchihoo

March 12, 2010
Samantha, Erica sized it up in a nutshell for you, she is good! I had a stricture too and after they dilated me it was better, but I have had a lot of problems with barfing, still do I am sorry to say. I can't tolerate a lot of protein. At six weeks out I was on pureed food missy, you need to check with your Dr to see if you should be too.
   — FSUMom

March 12, 2010
It is so worth it, I forgot to say that in my email.
   — FSUMom

March 12, 2010
well I'm on pureed foods right now til next week but I have a doctors appointment on Wednesday. So your still barfing how far out are you??? I barf a lot too I hate it!
   — samanthajo

March 15, 2010
Of course I am not a doctor, but a hernia generally doesn't happen till you've lost quite a bit and everything settles inside, but when I did have my internal hernia after 15 months post op, the pain was so bad that I told my husband, this is it, I'm gonna die, and I really believed it. I didn't know what it was, but the pain was so bad especially after I ate, there was no guessing for me. A doubling over pain in your stomach that for me radiated to my back as well. The pain would take hours to go away and if I ate, it started again. I'm not the expert, probably different for alot of folks. I hope you get to feeling better soon.
   — foxbt0