Question:
Has anyone had problems at the Emergency Room, or with other Internists?

After having adominal pain for more than 24 hours in the upper left quadrant of my abdomen I called a friend and we went to the local Emergency Room. I did not have my surgery in this city (I live in the "sticks") and the surgery was performed in a major city about 2 hours away. The ER doctor would not even examine me normally for having an abdominal complaint. Instead he gave me a shot of "something" that knocked me out for 24 hours--his diagnosis (even though I told him I had no vomitting or nausea--just pain) was "The Stomach Flu." He told me to also go to my own doctor. I went to my own doctor and he said that most doctors would NOT touch me since I have had this surgery! No doctors in this area are familiar with it. So I am wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and what they did. It's scary to hear that doctors are afraid to treat patients who have had gastric bypass surgery. I had a lap RNY 3 months ago. The pain today (3 days later) is not nearly as bad as it was when I went to the ER, but it's still there a little.    — Susan B. (posted on February 16, 2002)

February 16, 2002
We had an incident when I took my husband to the ER because he swallowed too big of a piece of chicken. It got stuck in the opening and caused him to vomit and had terrible pain. The stupid, know-it-all who was no more informed about bariatric surgeries than the Man-In-The-Moon told me that he was only going to tolerate him throwing up one more time and then he was going to intubate him. I told him that would be over my dead body and I had no plans of checking out anytime soon. He got the message and had the general surgeon come in and look at him. He admitted him and just kept giving him morphine for the pain and stuff to control the nausea until it passed.
   — livnliter

February 16, 2002
6 days ago I went to the ER at my local hospital for Kidney Stones!! I was in MAJOR PAIN!!! I showed my surgeon's card stating what kind of surgery I had and my surgeon's name. No ER doctor are to treat me until they call my surgeon first. Nothing for the pain for almost 3 hours!!!
   — Laura G.

February 16, 2002
I think that it is absolutely absurd that any dr. would be so stupid as to not investigate the problem someone was having. It should be required for training.
   — Michelle H.

February 16, 2002
I think that this question has so much merit. So many of us have to see internists who have no clue as to the inner workings after these surgeries. Luckily most are willing to learn but, they just don't know enough usually. I have a diarrhea problem (severe). Have talked to the original surgeon who said "nothing" showed up on the fecal tests, then my internist called and said I have a yeast infection in the fecal matter and put me on Diflucan, and it's still not better so now wants me to go to a gastroenterologist. Why hesitate? Because this doctor will have no clue about the BPD/DS that I had. He too, will have to study up on it "if" he feels like it. My brother is a doctor in AZ. He does the RNY surgeries. I asked him about all this with the BPD/DS and even he has to study up on the BPD/DS before telling me anything. It's not something "normal" docs are studied up on and that's scary. I now have to go out of state to go to another BPD/DS doc because, obviously, I don't want to go to the one I had. Docs would make alot of money if they specialized in just postop bariatric patients. There just aren't any docs like that.
   — Barbara H.

February 18, 2002
I too had to go to the ER for stomach pain/cramping after a pill I took got stuck and the pain wasn't going away after about 6 hours. Now the ER doc also didn't have a clue about my surgery, and I was there longer than I would've been had I not had this surgery. But the doc was very nice and asked me a lot of questions and left to go read up and talk to other docs that were more familiar with it. I did feel a little bit like a bug under microscope though...but it wasn't a bad experience. I figured that this will actually be kind of common since although this surgery has been around for a while, I would imagine that not a lot of regular MDs or surgeons have patients that have had WLS.
   — [Deactivated Member]

June 1, 2002
I have not had that problem yet, but I became concerned about having to go to an ER and not being able to talk. I wear a medic alert bracelet that says "Gastric Bypass, Do not blindly insert NG Tube, Use Endoscopy.
   — Louise M.