Question:
Anyone have drainage from their incision past 5 months out from Open RNY?

Hi all! Can anyone tell me if their open RNY incision still drained after 5 months? Can you tell me if there is a trick to get the drainage to stop for good. My drainage had stopped 2 weeks ago ( at 4 1/2 months out) and my incision healed up nicely, but low and behold I got a terrible build up of drainage this past weekend and I treated it as you would a seroma and my incision opened back up at the very bottom to drain it out, but my surgeon says he has seen patients that have drained as long as 8 months. It is not infected either. I do take albuteral inhailer as needed (everyday) and ursodiol for my gallbadder to keep from getting gallstones, but that is about it for meds. Please, I would love to hear from people who had this problem only from their original Open RNY, but all suggestions and input are greatly appreciated. Thanks, and God Bless You all no matter where you are in your journey.:) Open RNY 4/21/03~278/191/...128?    — wildchild (posted on September 24, 2003)

September 24, 2003
Colleen, I'm going to guess here but I bet you are running into the problem I did - that you have a stitch in the fascia that won't dissolve and it keeps irritating the area and producing the fluid so it won't heal up. I originally had three small areas along my incision that drained. Two healed up by around 4 weeks. The third one would not heal out. The top skin would heal closed and I kept having to have it cut open - not fun. However, it would not heal in depth at all - a good 4-5" deep. An outpatient procedure at about 3 months PO found the stitches, removed them, left me with a huge hole but it healed up within 5 weeks after that and has been closed since. I also was able to not end up with any infections, but it is a pain to have to keep packing it due to the drainage. I would talk to the surgeon about this possibility as it would make sense. Making you wait for many more months when a quick procedure to remove the bugger would solve it, seems unacceptable to me. Good Luck and I hope it can get resolved soon!
   — zoedogcbr