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HappilyEverAfter44

Pre Op
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Posts posted by HappilyEverAfter44

  4. Posted

    @@HappilyEverAfter44 so sorry to hear about all of these complications! What horrible luck! I sincerely hope these issues are resolved soon, and you are able to move forward without the pain and frustration you've had to deal with thus far. I'm honestly completely amazed and impressed with your positive attitude after all of this!

    As for the Patches, they are recommended at my bariatric center of excellence. I've been using them for... maybe 6 months? And my blood work has been perfect. That being said, I do drink 1 or 2 shakes a day and the shakes contain a ton of Vitamins and nutrients, so it's possible that the amount I'm absorbing from the Patches is small but enough to supplement the shakes. I'll be having blood work done again in a few weeks, and I'd be more than happy to check back in and let you know how it looks. When my center recommended them, they made sure to tell me to use them in an area with not a lot of subcutaneous fat, like an ankle, collar bone, shoulder, etc. I've never had any problems with them. Regardless, if they weren't working for you, I hope you find a suitable Multivitamin soon that does work. All that matters is your health and safety.

    Best of luck to you! You'll be in my thoughts. If there's anything I can do to help, or if you're just looking for someone to talk to, feel free to shoot me a message any time. :) Hope you feel better!

    Please do let me know how your blood work turns out. You could be absolutely correct, I was/am not taking in any other sources of nutrients since nothing goes down. I am now on 10 pills a day including thiamine, Vitamin A, B12, D, Multivitamin, protonix, Carafate, potassium, Iron and Calcium.

    Thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it.

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

  6. Posted

    @@Djmohr

    Thanks for your kind words. I admit I've been frustrated, mostly because my doctors didn't believe or weren't listening to me when I voiced my concerns. And maybe they thought I was exaggerating when I said "I'm not eating". I'm also a RN, but that didn't mean anything when I was telling them my issues either. Funny, when I was lying in the hospital bed with TPN running through my veins, these same Drs were practically tripping over each other with concern.

    Bottom line is that I think they will listen to me now. :)

    Oh, I had RNY. My surgery date was 3/28/16

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

  7. Posted

    @@James Marusek :

    Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. My NUT was so baffled when I showed him the box of Patches in the hospital. This doctor is world renowned, has written numerous books and has been in metabolic medicine for a long time and had NEVER heard of the Vitamin patch. I was surprised. I also don't need further proof other than my results and deficiencies to convince me. My NUT told me that if I had waited another week or two to go to the hospital, it would have had a much different outcome.

    On the box of Patches, it clearly states: *These statements have not been evaluated by the food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

    Thank you again for your response. I'll be interested to see if anyone has a different experience with them.

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

  10. Posted

    At my puréed stage,I began to have issues with the food going down. I had an endoscopy, and they found that some of my surgical staples had migrated and caused an ulcer, ultimately causing a structure. I was only 6 weeks out, so they weren't able to dilate me. The GI doc told me to come back in a month and he would attempt to dilate me when I was more healed. I contacted my bariatric surgeon who told me to just deal with the GI doc. The GI doc told me to come back in a month. I guess no one seemed to care that I was NOT eating ANYTHING. Water was the only thing that could go down. 4 weeks later, I had another endoscopy. The ulcer was unchanged and deep so they were not able to dilate me. Now I'm 10 weeks post op and still not eating. Drinking only water and again, no doctors seemed concerned. Month 3 post op, at work I began to have chest pain and palpitations. I ended up in the emergency department later that night. My potassium was critically low, my heart rate was in the 30's, my pre albumin (determines malnutrition) was dangerously low, as were all of my Vitamins. Also abnormal was my troponin, which shows damage done to the heart). (Critically low were thiamine and b12). I had been using the vitamin patches bought through the bariatric site and my NUT told me that I, essentially was without any victim and for 3 months!! He says that there is no way that vitamins absorb through the skin!) I was in the telemetry department for 8 days. They did yet another endoscopy which showed no changes to the ulcer, so -yup-you guessed it--they could not dilate me. So I finally asked them what their plan B was since if I couldn't be dilated, then I couldn't eat and it would be a continuous cycle. They decided to place a PICC line into my arm (a semi-permanent IV line that can stay in my arm for up to a year) and to give me TPN which is nutrition that is given through the PICC line. The first time they gave me the TPN, I had an anaphylactic reaction to it, so they had to modify it. The following day, I got TPN successfully. I was to be discharged on day 8 and would be getting TPN at home. On day 9 (my first day home) I developed severe pain in the arm where my picc line was. I went to the doctor who sent me for an ultrasound of that arm. I was diagnosed with 2 DVTs (blood clots in the vessel) in my upper arm. So out came the PICC line-and therefore no TPN. Week 14, I went for yet another endoscopy. Since I had been receiving the Protein my body needed to heal, my ulcer had healed! I was able to be dilated! I was on liquids for 3 days and on day 4, I ate soft food!!! It went down!!! No pain! No vomiting! I was fixed.....or so I thought. Two days ago, I began to have pain when I ate. Then vomiting. And the nausea is severe. So now I'm faced with my 5th endoscopy next week with placement of a stent to hold the opening open for 3 weeks and then I pray that this is the end of my complications. I know they tell you complications you can have. I just didn't expect to have ALL of them at the same time. And believe it or not, throughout this whole ordeal, I still do not regret my decision to have this surgery.

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

  11. Posted

    At my puréed stage,I began to have issues with the food going down. I had an endoscopy, and they found that some of my surgical staples had migrated and caused an ulcer, ultimately causing a structure. I was only 6 weeks out, so they weren't able to dilate me. The GI doc told me to come back in a month and he would attempt to dilate me when I was more healed. I contacted my bariatric surgeon who told me to just deal with the GI doc. The GI doc told me to come back in a month. I guess no one seemed to care that I was NOT eating ANYTHING. Water was the only thing that could go down. 4 weeks later, I had another endoscopy. The ulcer was unchanged and deep so they were not able to dilate me. Now I'm 10 weeks post op and still not eating. Drinking only water and again, no doctors seemed concerned. Month 3 post op, at work I began to have chest pain and palpitations. I ended up in the emergency department later that night. My potassium was critically low, my heart rate was in the 30's, my pre albumin (determines malnutrition) was dangerously low, as were all of my Vitamins. Also abnormal was my troponin, which shows damage done to the heart). (Critically low were thiamine and b12). I had been using the vitamin patches bought through the bariatric site and my NUT told me that I, essentially was without any victim and for 3 months!! He says that there is no way that vitamins absorb through the skin!) I was in the telemetry department for 8 days. They did yet another endoscopy which showed no changes to the ulcer, so -yup-you guessed it--they could not dilate me. So I finally asked them what their plan B was since if I couldn't be dilated, then I couldn't eat and it would be a continuous cycle. They decided to place a PICC line into my arm (a semi-permanent IV line that can stay in my arm for up to a year) and to give me TPN which is nutrition that is given through the PICC line. The first time they gave me the TPN, I had an anaphylactic reaction to it, so they had to modify it. The following day, I got TPN successfully. I was to be discharged on day 8 and would be getting TPN at home. On day 9 (my first day home) I developed severe pain in the arm where my picc line was. I went to the doctor who sent me for an ultrasound of that arm. I was diagnosed with 2 DVTs (blood clots in the vessel) in my upper arm. So out came the PICC line-and therefore no TPN. Week 14, I went for yet another endoscopy. Since I had been receiving the Protein my body needed to heal, my ulcer had healed! I was able to be dilated! I was on liquids for 3 days and on day 4, I ate soft food!!! It went down!!! No pain! No vomiting! I was fixed.....or so I thought. Two days ago, I began to have pain when I ate. Then vomiting. And the nausea is severe. So now I'm faced with my 5th endoscopy next week with placement of a stent to hold the opening open for 3 weeks and then I pray that this is the end of my complications. I know they tell you complications you can have. I just didn't expect to have ALL of them at the same time. And believe it or not, throughout this whole ordeal, I still do not regret my decision to have this surgery.

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

  13. Posted

    I am also getting married in May, 2017. I had my bypass surgery in March and, although in down 54lbs, I'm not ready to even think about wedding dress shopping. I'm hoping to lose another 50 by my wedding day, so I'm not sure when to start shopping for a dress. It's not like they can keep altering it 3 or 4 sizes down, but I know I have to order my dress at least 8 mo before the wedding.

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

  20. Posted

    I'm 6 weeks out and have been having issues since week 3. food and liquids seem to have a hard time going down. First pain in my upper abdomen and then some times it resolves and sometime I have to vomit. This is not every time I eat or drink. Some times what goes down easily one day, refuses to go down the next. I am not drinking while eating, I am eating slowly, and I am chewing the crap out of each bite. I went to my surgeon and told him all of this. I could tell he was rolling his eyes at me and probably thinking I was eating too fast or not chewing enough. I asked for an endoscopy to rule out a structure.

    Well....I had my endoscopy yesterday. The results were--my tissue had been rejecting the staples placed on the day of surgery. One of which was lodged in the opening to my new stomach. (Food was getting hung up on it) 11 more staples were also removed since they migrated away from where they originally were. I developed an ulcer (erosion from the staple sitting where it didn't belong) and therefore developed a structure. (The opening, according to my gastro, should be between 13-15 mm and mine is 8mm.). Since I'm only 6 weeks out, my gastro didn't want to balloon the opening yet. He placed me on carafate to help heal the ulcer, put me back on liquids (not like I could eat much more than that anyway) and will dilate the opening in "a few more weeks" when I'm more healed. If that doesn't work, he will place a stent and hopefully that will keep it opened. UGH! (If all else fails, I will be looking at a revision

    The lesson here is this. Listen to your body. You know it best. Be your own advocate especially when you KNOW something is wrong

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

  21. Posted

    I'm 6 weeks out and have been having issues since week 3. food and liquids seem to have a hard time going down. First pain in my upper abdomen and then some times it resolves and sometime I have to vomit. This is not every time I eat or drink. Some times what goes down easily one day, refuses to go down the next. I am not drinking while eating, I am eating slowly, and I am chewing the crap out of each bite. I went to my surgeon and told him all of this. I could tell he was rolling his eyes at me and probably thinking I was eating too fast or not chewing enough. I asked for an endoscopy to rule out a structure.

    Well....I had my endoscopy yesterday. The results were--my tissue had been rejecting the staples placed on the day of surgery. One of which was lodged in the opening to my new stomach. (Food was getting hung up on it) 11 more staples were also removed since they migrated away from where they originally were. I developed an ulcer (erosion from the staple sitting where it didn't belong) and therefore developed a structure. (The opening, according to my gastro, should be between 13-15 mm and mine is 8mm.). Since I'm only 6 weeks out, my gastro didn't want to balloon the opening yet. He placed me on carafate to help heal the ulcer, put me back on liquids (not like I could eat much more than that anyway) and will dilate the opening in "a few more weeks" when I'm more healed. If that doesn't work, he will place a stent and hopefully that will keep it opened. UGH! (If all else fails, I will be looking at a revision

    The lesson here is this. Listen to your body. You know it best. Be your own advocate especially when you KNOW something is wrong.

    Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

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