I am curious if the leak test most surgeons seem to do the day after the surgery actually finds leaks or if most leaks are actually found later based on patient symptoms?

Good question! I think most leaks actually do occur in the few weeks following surgery. There was a girl in my WLS support group that developed a leak due to terrible wretching and vomitting post op. Her test the day after was fine.

Mine was found by accident - they symptom I had was blamed on something else. My Dr doesn't do a leak test the day after. My leak actually showed up probably around 4-6 weeks when the swelling went down and it opened. I was diagnosed with it at about 3 months, that's the first time it showed.

My doc told me that it is believed that pretty much all leaks actually happen in the first 14 days, even if they are caught later.

What I was wondering is this - it seems like almost everybody does that leak test the day after surgery and it never catches leaks, perhaps because the swelling hasn't gone down. I was just curious if anybody on here that had a leak, actually found it in the one day post op leak test that so many surgeons perform before you are allowed to have anything by mouth..

I didn't have a leak test until 8 days post-op, unless the surgeon did one in the operating room. Obviously, I came through with flying colors...or, no color, as the case may be.

I really tried to baby my sleeve as much as possible. The thought of more surgery really scares/scared me because I had surgery before and after to install/remove a filter. The filter caught two clots, so I'm grateful that my doc insisted on it, but I wasn't too thrilled at the time.