I'm confused and I hope someone can help me out. I have read many times that Bypass surgery does not cause GERD and if you have it, the surgery will get rid of it. I have also read Possible Complications/Risks of the Gastric Bypass. in Bariatric Pal and it states: Gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, with severe heartburn as a complications/risk. I do not have any probems of this nature and really don't want to develop it due to surgery. Can anyone help me understand which statement is correct?

I had episodes of severe acid reflux (GERD) prior to surgery. I used Prilosec to treat the condition before surgery. For the first year after surgery, the surgeon had me take Omeprazole (over the counter Prilosec) to allow my stomach to heal properly. So during the first year I couldn't tell that this condition was placed into remission. But I am now 4 years post-op, I am off Prilosec and I do not experience GERD.

Other types of surgery such as sleeve will only make this condition worse. So there are several people who had sleeve surgery that had to have it revised to gastric bypass to correct this condition.

So from my own personal experience, I think the statement your read is incorrect.

bypass often (but not always) cures it. Sleeve often (but not always) makes it worse.

I believe I saw a statistic that GERD is not cured in about 5% of bypass patients. There wasn't a hypothesis as to why this is the case. So what you read is correct.

I went looking for a statistic about sleeves and GERD, and came across a revelatory article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4579881/

Basically my takeaway is sleeves that have a hiatal hernia (that isn't repaired) are much more likely to result in GERD postop. If the sleeve is malformed, that also increases GERD. If neither of these is the case, GERD occurs in 5% or fewer cases... similar to RNY.

This article is so important, in that the blanket statement we all make r.e. GERD = bypass may need some caveats.

Interest article: "...they observed a significant decrease in GERD, from 42.1%-3.1% when HH repair was added to the sleeve procedure".

On 10/28/2017 at 9:11 AM, James Marusek said:

I had episodes of severe acid reflux (GERD) prior to surgery. I used Prilosec to treat the condition before surgery. For the first year after surgery, the surgeon had me take Omeprazole (over the counter Prilosec) to allow my stomach to heal properly. So during the first year I couldn't tell that this condition was placed into remission. But I am now 4 years post-op, I am off Prilosec and I do not experience GERD.

Other types of surgery such as sleeve will only make this condition worse. So there are several people who had sleeve surgery that had to have it revised to gastric bypass to correct this condition.

So from my own personal experience, I think the statement your read is incorrect.

Thank you James. I'm glad your issue with GERD was resolved. I've never had that problem and hope I don't. I'm 3 months out from my proposed Feb. surgery and finding so much information in conflicted depending upon where you look.

On 10/28/2017 at 5:47 PM, catwoman7 said:

bypass often (but not always) cures it. Sleeve often (but not always) makes it worse.

Thank you.

On 10/29/2017 at 4:58 PM, Berry78 said:

I believe I saw a statistic that GERD is not cured in about 5% of bypass patients. There wasn't a hypothesis as to why this is the case. So what you read is correct.

I went looking for a statistic about sleeves and GERD, and came across a revelatory article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4579881/

Basically my takeaway is sleeves that have a hiatal hernia (that isn't repaired) are much more likely to result in GERD postop. If the sleeve is malformed, that also increases GERD. If neither of these is the case, GERD occurs in 5% or fewer cases... similar to RNY.

This article is so important, in that the blanket statement we all make r.e. GERD = bypass may need some caveats.

Thanks for the information. I have used NCBI resource before with success. Since I do not have any reflux problems at all now, I am hopeful that none will appear after my surgery.