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

Morristown

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App