hi

surgery is in 2 1/2 weeks

i keep reading about leaking but not what happens if it happens

also, how do we even know if it is happening?

is it bleeding? leaking food/liquids we ingest?

i'm not even surre i know what it is and what do we do about it?

I am goingto Mexico for surgery..across country

what does one do if they get home and have complications?

Hi Jeffrey,

You should definitely discuss your concerns about leaks with your surgeon. He or she can give you all the info. I know you are going to Mexico but my understanding is that the surgeons there are available to consult and answer your questions before you head down.

Here is a brief summary from a lay person's perspective, based on what my surgeon told me and what I've gathered from hanging around here for a while:

--a leak is when the staple line in your sleeved stomach doesn't close properly. This allows gastric juices and anything else from the stomach to leak into the peritoneal cavity.

--typical symptoms include excruciating abdominal pain, fever, nausea, and rapid heartbeat.

--surgeons will perform leak tests in the OR and some will do additional tests within a few days after surgery. However, because the stomach is so swollen immediately after surgery, it is possible to have a leak situation develop later, when the swelling subsides.

--leak rate varies from surgeon to surgeon, but the average seems to be about 2%. You may want to ask your surgeon what his or her leak rate is.

--treatment will vary depending on how big the leak is and where it is located. Some people will have surgery to attempt to close it, others may be in the hospital for several weeks -- but the common theme seems to be staying NPO for a long time, and either at home or in the hospital for a long time. Leaks are nothing to mess around with. But the treatment is impossible to predict until a leak is detected.

--if you have serious complications when you get home, you should probably go to the ER, and preferably an ER of a hospital that has a bariatric surgery practice. You should speak to your surgeon and get a list of symptoms that are serious enough to warrant going to the ER as well as a contact person to ask questions for follow up, i.e., if you are having symptoms and you are not sure what is going on. But IMO it is better to be safe than sorry - if you can't reach your contact person or are not comfortable with the advice they are giving, I would get in touch with my PCP for her advice or go to an ER if I felt it was necessary.

Good luck!

Bufflehead pretty much covered it. I would also encourage you to go to the main / home page of this site and go the "Gastric Sleeve Complications Support Group"; there you will be able to read first-hand experiences of people with complications - the main one being leaks.

Ditto. To both....check out the complications forum and talk to your surgeon. It's also a good idea to have a backup plan in place when you return from Mexico. Someone you can go to with postop concerns, routine followup bloodwork, etc. my PCP agreed to take care of everything postop, but my surgeon's office in Mexico is also available via phone and email when I have questions. In fact, I'm 11 months out and just consulted with them last weekend over a treatment plan I've started for an unrelated medical problem to make sure the medication was OK to take with my sleeve. Check with your doctor and/or local bariatric surgeons before going down to find out what to do or where to go in the event of any complications. It's not something you just want to "wing" if it happens.