Sleeve5676

Nope. I am the fussiest fat guy you will ever meet. Not many foods that i like or WILL eat.

What is this ricotta bake???

Surgery was October 10th 2017. August 2019 my weight was 150.0. I. Lost a total of about 179.0 pounds.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I never had any reflux until I got pregnant 4 years ago. I had hyperemesis and was hospitalized for 2 weeks and I’ve had severe reflux ever since. So idk how surgery will affect it

I had reflux (gerd) before surgery. I had random attacks which were aggravated by stress & diet. Plus I had a very acidic stomach. I made a lot of dietary changes after I was diagnosed - no spicy food, no rich creamy food, avoided a lot of carbonated drinks which helped a lot. I also slept with the top of my bed on bricks for a few years. I was prescribed nexium but used it only when I’d get the hiccups (got really bad, painful attacks).
After sleeve, I take nexium every day. Yes, I still have reflux but it’s different & possibly better - can’t explain how it’s different though. My hiccups are nowhere near as severe (thank gracious). I get some burning in my throat at night but my doctor suggested I not eat solid Protein 2 hours before bed. Liquid Protein was fine. I changed to when I ate my yoghurt to after dinner (to get the last of my daily protein in) & no more burning yet. Fingers crossed.

I’m just basing that statement on what my doctor said. That was his reason for wanting to do the sleeve over the RNY. I’ll probably get a second opinion. Thanks!

Thanks for your input. I've decided on Dec 8, to just repair my hiatal hernia and not the LINX placement. I do not want a RNY at this time. Hoping by putting my sleeve back where it should be will fix reflux. It has only been in the last 2 mos that reflux has bothered me. Some days feeling real nauseous or just burping a lot. I do not have any burning. I'm 6 yrs post op and I now do think I've had some reflux over the last few years. Hasn't been bad and just took OTC antacids. I've just had a Upper Endoscopy with a BRAVO placement to check on reflux. Numbers were high. Have Esophagitis. GI doctor gave me a med called DEXILANT. It is working very well. I for sure will keep Dr. Keshishian for future reference. Thanks again.

If you haven't run into this in your research, I found this to be an interesting point/counterpoint discussion of the LINX (the "Yes" vote is linked at the bottom).
http://agaperspectives.gastro.org/is-linx-the-way-to-go-for-gerd-surgery-no/#.X7K6SWhKiUk
I also found another source that indicated that LINX was not appropriate for bariatric patients, but didn't explain why (possibly simply because that group didn't have much experience with bariatric patients?) The "No" vote above did lift out the prospect of erosion from the foreign body, and given the history of the lapband, that is probably a good point of caution.
I would suggest getting a second (and possibly third) opinion on this. I am a fan of second opinions, particularly when it comes to revisions and complications, as both the causes and solutions are often more varied than the original surgery, and hence the opinions as to the best way to go often vary more widely - what one doc is comfortable doing to solve the problem may not be the ideal for you, while another doc may have different experiences that allows him to offer something better for your need. Or maybe not - but as patients it is hard for us to evaluate, but one solution may make more sense to us than another.
I have found that with the sleeve, being a relatively new procedure to most of the bariatric world, the solutions to problems that may crop up are often limited - some docs are limited to simply revising to a bypass as they don't have much experience with anything else. Most bariatric surgeons here in the States are fairly well experienced with the sleeve by now (as opposed to 6-10 years ago) but may not yet have that much experience in correcting problems with them, which is why it can pay to seek out alternate opinions. Sometimes there are shape issues with the sleeve, stemming from either the original surgery or from subsequent evolutions, and surgeons can vary widely on their ability to address these. Some can do fundoplications to address the hiatal hernia, while others can't (there isn't that much fundus to plicate after our VSG.)
I would suggest a second opinion from Dr. Ara Keshishian, who does a lot of complex revisions (people come from across the country to see him, particularly as he is one of the few who can do the RNY/DS revision) and if anyone can get things working better without a major revision or devices, it is him. If one can avoid an RNY or an implanted device, that would be ideal. Conveniently, he is right around the corner from you in the Glendale/Pasadena area.
I do have a hiatal hernia, though a fundoplication is inappropriate for my case, and as GERD is mild and well controlled with moderate OTC meds, and EGD shows nothing exciting happening, it is a wait and see thing for me at this point.
Hope yours comes out well, whatever path you take,

hi everyone, im very new here, decided to join because i had the gastric sleeve about a year ago, September 17th, 2019, and since i left the hospital and went back home to Europe, im not from the states, i started losing weight pretty quickly. the constant not feeling a 100 wasn't a problem for me since i had decided before hand to give myself time and dedicate my time to only this, losing the weight and get myself back to normal. i ever quit my job since i have the possibility of being self sustained for a while. so i just went on, eating very little, resting whenever i could.
everything was going fine, since at the time of the surgery i was 310 lbs and now i am 160 lbs, so 150 lbs are down in a year. however a couple of weeks ago i started feeling faint,couldn't concentrate and i was on vacation at the time and had collapsed a couple of times before that, but i didn't think much of it. drove back home barely with no energy at all, did some house work when i got back ( always resting whenever i could always lying down whenever i could, mostly how spent the last year since the surgery, always saving energy but always aware, always conscious ) until i got a call from my ex boss that wanted me back to work 2 weeks ago. i didn't sleep that night because i started panicking about my future and wondering how i was ever gonna be able to work feeling as shitty as i did, and then i went to the meeting with him, had a coffee, declined his offer because i already decided that i needed to find some place new to work at, since that one was too toxic, and after an hour i felt how my brain felt before it wanted to collapse. so i panicked not wanting to faint in a public place and rushed to my car, got home, as soon as i laid down i haven't been the same since.
i have felt absent, any conversation feels difficult to me, like i am floating, but i am conscious , however not totally present. any physical activity is hell, even though i worked out three times a week before this and walked with no problems. so i went and got my blood work done and hormonal work done, i even got an MRI of my head because i had such bad episodes of feeling like i was literally gonna die, i thought i had a brain tumor. but everything turned out great, everything is normal. the doctors keep on insisting i lost too much weight in one year and that i need to find a balance now, a classic case of malnutrition and starvation. however my brain is still not letting me feel like i am healthy because all the time i am feeling like i am not present. the doctors say that now i am in a state of catabolism, where the body has drained all its resources and it will take time to recover, psychically and mentally. i started seeing a nutritionist that claims that she will help me. it remains to be seen. one thing is for sure i cant live and function like this. its hard for me to tell myself you are healthy , nothing is wrong when i can barely get through the day with ease. i wake up feeling like this, there is always a panic in my chest that i may never recover from this. the doctors even say i need psychiatric help, but i know that's not the case since i need to solve mt psychical state first. i need to tart feeling like myself again asap.

has anyone else ever experienced problems like these? sorry for the long post, i am very desperate for any good advise i may get. god bless you all. here is a pic of me exactly a year apart from surgery and this September, just before i started feeling like this.