Hi. I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced vomiting old blood (dark, rust colored)? My other symptoms are: severe constipation, in ability to hold down food or water that only last a few days and then I can eat and drink normally again. When I can't hold anything down I have mild to moderate abdominal pain on the right side. Also, even sipping water causes bile to come up. I have only vomited the blood 4 times in 2 1/2 months. It feels nothing like the sensation of food becoming stuck and feels more like the flu without the other symptoms. None of this makes sense to the surgeon who did my lap band surgery but the general surgeon I've been seeing wants to blame the band. I really think I have a bleeding ulcer. Most recently I couldn't hold anything down for 3 days and the pain was becoming worse so I went to ER. The next day I ate fairly normally, although I took it easy and I was back to drinking my 8-10 glasses of water a day while just the day before water made me vomit? I have been unable to find anybody with my symptoms on here. If we ignore the presence of the band it all points to ulcer. I should also mention my band has been in for 1 year and 9 months, I have just over 5cc's. The nurse at the Bariatric surgeons took out 2 cc's tonight so we can rule that out. I'm not very happy about it because I was finally starting to make some progress. My surgeon will only allow very small fills each visit and it took more then a year of monthly fills to finally see some progress. I feel like I've gone back a year of this weight loss journey with the removal of fluid.

I am not a doctor and I had a different weight loss surgery than lap-band. So take anything I say with a grain of salt.

The fact that you are vomiting blood and when you drink water you vomit bile seems very abnormal and these problems must be driven to ground.

Many years ago, one of my daughters woke up after vomiting a lot of blood. We rushed her to the emergency ward of the hospital. They said the cause was a nose bleed. When the air becomes extremely dry such as during the wintertime, the fine blood vessels in the nose can break producing a nose bleed. When she was sleeping the blood pooled in her stomach. When she woke up, she coughed blood and quite a bit of blood to clean her lungs. The solution in her case was to use vaseline and put a small coat inside her nose to coat the area with the fine blood vessels. In her case this worked quite well.

My mother became anemic due to loss of blood which appeared in her stool. We took her to the hospital and they gave her a transfusion. In her case she used Excedrin as a pain reliever and would pop several pills a day for years. Excedrin contains aspirin and she was taking about 10 times the aspirin recommended. We took her off the over the counter medicine and her blood loss cleared up.

According to the internet: Green or yellow vomit, also known as bile, is produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. The release of bile occurs when an individual is vomiting on an empty stomach or is suffering from bile reflux.

Bile reflux may be caused by:

Surgery complications. Gastric surgery, including total removal of the stomach (gastrectomy) and gastric bypass surgery for weight loss, is responsible for most bile reflux.

Peptic ulcers. A peptic ulcer can block the pyloric valve so that it doesn't open enough to allow the stomach to empty as quickly as it should. Stagnant food in the stomach can lead to increased gastric pressure and allow bile and stomach acid to back up into the esophagus.

Gallbladder surgery (cholecystectomy). People who have had their gallbladders removed have significantly more bile reflux than do people who haven't had this surgery.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bile-reflux/symptoms-causes/syc-20370115

Here are some other threads that might be of help.

https://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/112336-bile-reflux-or-too-tight-of-restriction/

https://www.obesitycoverage.com/weight-loss-surgeries/lap-bands/lap-band-complications

One other thought that crossed my mind is Helicobacter pylori infection. Many people have this infection and do not even know it. This infection can produce bile reflux. So if you haven't already been tested for this condition, it is probably worth doing. According to http://www.naturallivingcenter.net/ns/DisplayMonograph.asp?StoreID=B571DEWXVCS92JJ200AKHMCCQA7W8V75&DocID=condition-bilereflux

• Helicobacter pylori infection of the stomach: It has been reported that patients with esophageal bile reflux had a higher likelihood of also having Helicobacter pylori infection of the stomach than patients without bile reflux.