FrankieP_AU

Hi all,
Thanks for having me in this forum.
I'm Frankie from Perth and I had my gastric sleeve 2 days ago.
Everything seems to be fine except that I can't swallow anything. Except the smallest sip of Water and that's concerning as they dont want to discharge me until I'm able to drink 1.5 litres of water.
The problem is that I feel the water stuck in my chest. I have mentioned to the Doc and he said I should try smaller sups which I'm doing.
Anyone walked this path already?
Thanks very much.

Congrats on your surgery.
Yep, it’s swelling post surgery. I had the same problem. I was spitting up salvia & anything that was barely a sip. Carried a sick bag with me continuously. And don’t get me started on trying to swallow my meds in hospital. It does ease after a couple of days but as Jaelzion said if it persists contact your surgeon.

Yep, what Jaelzion said. I found that at first I couldn't tolerate cold Water - it would make my stomach do that weird crampy thing. Try room temp and warm water and see if that goes down any easier.
As for swallowing, that's probably normal swelling from the surgery. I'm sure your team will keep an eye on it to make sure it resolves in a few days/weeks. Best of luck to you!

Yes indeed. I had a really hard time swallowing at first. In fact, I didn't eat anything for the first two weeks. I drank tiny ships of clear Protein Drinks (not shakes) and that was all the nutrition I took in during that period. Like you, it felt like everything got stuck and shortly after swallowing, I would feel a painful crampy feeling in my tummy. My doctor said it was normal and that we would only need to check it out if it didn't go away (because then it might signal a larger problem). It lasted until the 3rd week and then got better. Keep an eye on it, but you're probably fine.

Hi Frankie! Congrats on your surgery. I was sleeved 2/10 and I was literally only able to take more than one tiny sip every 30 minutes yesterday. I say and slept upright for over a week because of the “pooling in my chest.” Surgeon said some people just get really really swollen post -op and it makes the restriction even worse!! Just try and take in as much Fluid as you can in any way that you can. You can stick it out a few more days! You’ll wake up one day and feel WAY better. Trust me I didn’t believe anyone who told me that when I was miserable the first 6 days!!! I wish you the best of luck! It does get better, hang in there!