Google is getting me nowhere. I had VSG and a hiatal hernia repair in April 2018. I got through post op liquids & purées just fine, but when I moved to soft solids, I started having issues with throwing up my food & getting the slimies. This was happening multiple times a day. My surgeon passed it off as me eating too fast, not chewing enough, or eating too many bites.

Fast forward to now. I’m a year & a half out from VSG, and while I initially lost 80 lbs, I’ve had regain. This is mostly because I’m still vomiting after least once a day, so I keep choosing foods that are easier to get down (carbs). My fault on the regain. But I’m still throwing up. Proteins, solids, etc they come up with lots of slime mid meal or sometimes even an hour after I eat if I keep fighting the urge to puke. Give me crackers, and I’m good though.

My surgeon moved out of the country before my 1 year follow up. I know I need to find a new surgeon, and as soon as my dad gets through a major surgery, I will. In the meantime, anyone else have this issue? I feel like there’s got to be more than eating too fast, not chewing enough, or eating too much. I can throw up after 3 grilled nuggets from Chick-fil-A...

No help but I have to say this concerns me as I am scheduled for VSG in two weeks and it is one of my worries.

What you are describing is what my life was like for 5 years with the lap band.

I will be watching this thread to see what advice you get.

I hope you get answers and relief soon!

40 minutes ago, pssk said:

No help but I have to say this concerns me as I am scheduled for VSG in two weeks and it is one of my worries.

What you are describing is what my life was like for 5 years with the lap band.

I will be watching this thread to see what advice you get.

I hope you get answers and relief soon!

Thanks. Please don’t let this cause you concern. I am not a typical case. I know that for sure. What did they say caused it with your lap band?

1 hour ago, pssk said:

No help but I have to say this concerns me as I am scheduled for VSG in two weeks and it is one of my worries.

What you are describing is what my life was like for 5 years with the lap band.

I will be watching this thread to see what advice you get.

I hope you get answers and relief soon!

I was a former Bander too and know the problems you had. I am 2 months out and I've had no problem at all. Now I did go through the post-surgery diet and stayed on high protein soft foods for several weeks longer and I've just added chicken and a few others lately. I'm a bit timid but eating healthy.

They never knew why I had issues with the band. I had zero fill and still got stuck all the time.

I used to say that the healthy things I wanted to eat would make me puke. Slippery, fattening foods did not. Salads were impossible. Protein that wasn’t “wet” was a nightmare.

From the constant barfing they said I had esophagitis and gerd. Yet I didn’t have heartburn or anything of the sort.

I will probably go super slowly with regular foods, also.

Maybe go back to basics and reset your sleeve? Idk

That sounds rough, I drank a lot of protein drinks, soups nearly the entire time I had it. I never knew what would go down and what wouldn't. I had issues then at about 5 years I quit losing and the tubing was hitting my vagus nerve and cause heart issues. The port always hurt as it was where my jeans hit. I'm so happy it is gone and I'm happy with the sleeve surgery. Just impatient and want to lose all the weight right away.

Don't wait until your dad's surgery. That means either the problem doesn't bother you enough, or it satisfies something inside of you (ie allows you to rationalize eating crackers and slider crap, allows your excuse for regain, allows you some semblance of satisfaction that at least you are throwing up some of your daily calories to control your wait, allows you to "fill-in-the-blank". It's pretty textbook rationalization behavior. There has to be some payout as to why you continue to deal with this irregularity and dangerous condition.).

We all know it will take you at least a month or so to find a replacement surgeon and from there it could take as long as 3 months to get a new patient consultation.

So start the process now. What you are describing is not normal. You NEED to look at your diet. Go back to purees and see if you can handle them. Protein forward. Ditch the crap and sliders. Go back to protein drinks. Add omeprazole and see if that helps at all? Change it up. Sometimes, if you don't make your new anatomy adjust to solid foods, recovery stops and you get locked into eating at the current stage.

Try eating foiled baked fish, foil shrimp, poached chicken, ground turkey simmered in broths. Or puree stuff as I said previously.

Sorry you are struggling.

2 minutes ago, FluffyChix said:

Don't wait until your dad's surgery. That means either the problem doesn't bother you enough, or it satisfies something inside of you (ie allows you to rationalize eating crackers and slider crap, allows your excuse for regain, allows you some semblance of satisfaction that at least you are throwing up some of your daily calories to control your wait, allows you to "fill-in-the-blank". It's pretty textbook rationalization behavior. There has to be some payout as to why you continue to deal with this irregularity and dangerous condition.).

We all know it will take you at least a month or so to find a replacement surgeon and from there it could take as long as 3 months to get a new patient consultation.

So start the process now. What you are describing is not normal. You NEED to look at your diet. Go back to purees and see if you can handle them. Protein forward. Ditch the crap and sliders. Go back to Protein Drinks. Add omeprazole and see if that helps at all? Change it up. Sometimes, if you don't make your new anatomy adjust to solid foods, recovery stops and you get locked into eating at the current stage.

Try eating foiled baked fish, foil shrimp, poached chicken, ground turkey simmered in broths. Or puree stuff as I said previously.

Sorry you are struggling.

My father’s surgery is next week & major. I will be out of state for over a week helping my parents. This problem is bothering me a ton, and I’m making a dr appt about it today. However, no matter my struggles, my father’s cancer comes first in my time and mind.

I am aware this is an issue. I kept thinking it was just a small sleeve or something I was doing wrong. It’s finally hit home that it’s an actual problem beyond that. I appreciate your “tough love” approach, but it’s not what I’m needing right now. We don’t all know it will take 3 months for me to see a new surgeon...

I have gone back to shakes. On them, I don’t vomit. I am good. When I start adding soft proteins again, I start vomiting again.

Like I said earlier - curious if anyone else has had this issue. Looking for support. I googled & can’t find anyone else quite like me.

I'm sorry to hear of your dad's looming surgery.

Glad you are calling a doc today. In my personal experience, it takes weeks or months to see a specialist. You can't find anything, cuz your situation is pretty abnormal. Most people who throw up that often and regularly know to get it checked out. You most likely have stricture, but only medical tests and imaging is gonna show what condition you're dealing with.

If you have to go back to protein drinks and thinned down yogurt, you will quickly lose any regain, but it isn't a fun type of eating for sure. I'd also try pureeing soups and stews and keep it very liquidy to see if you can handle any meat proteins. Try blending egg drop soup and see how it goes down. That's the texture you should aim for. But you have to be sure you are getting all of your protein in, so make sure to have protein drinks.

What you are describing is a serious situation. I am not being tough-love. I'm being pragmatic. Letting a problem of this magnitude continue for 1.5 years+ is not normal. There must be a payout for that behavior. In 1.5 years of daily throwing up sometimes multiple times a day, you could have done crap tons of damage to your anatomy (Barret's Esophagus, Esophagitis, pre-cancerous cells, esophageal erosion, ulcers, hernias, strictures, webbing, esophageal spasms, and more fun.) At that point I would say your behavior is bulimic in nature. There is always a payout with aberrant behaviors.

@SparklyInNOutHave you had any memory loss?

Edited September 30, 20196 yr by november11

2 minutes ago, FluffyChix said:

I'm sorry to hear of your dad's looming surgery.

Glad you are calling a doc today. In my personal experience, it takes weeks or months to see a specialist. You can't find anything, cuz your situation is pretty abnormal. Most people who throw up that often and regularly know to get it checked out. You most likely have stricture, but only medical tests and imaging is gonna show what condition you're dealing with.

If you have to go back to Protein Drinks and thinned down yogurt, you will quickly lose any regain, but it isn't a fun type of eating for sure. I'd also try pureeing Soups and stews and keep it very liquidy to see if you can handle any meat Proteins. Try blending egg drop Soup and see how it goes down. That's the texture you should aim for. But you have to be sure you are getting all of your Protein in, so make sure to have protein drinks.

What you are describing is a serious situation. I am not being tough-love. I'm being pragmatic. Letting a problem of this magnitude continue for 1.5 years+ is not normal. There must be a payout for that behavior. In 1.5 years of daily throwing up sometimes multiple times a day, you could have done crap tons of damage to your anatomy (Barret's Esophagus, Esophagitis, pre-cancerous cells, esophageal erosion, ulcers, hernias, strictures, webbing, esophageal spasms, and more fun.) At that point I would say your behavior is bulimic in nature. There is always a payout with aberrant behaviors.

Thankfully it’s not every time I eat or with everything I eat. It’s once or twice a day which is less than it used to be. The throwing up an hour after I’ve eaten lately has given me definite pause. I let it go so long because for two appointments after surgery, my surgeon told me this was completely normal. I’m suspecting something didn’t go right with the hiatal hernia repair.

Just now, SparklyInNOut said:

Thankfully it’s not every time I eat or with everything I eat. It’s once or twice a day which is less than it used to be. The throwing up an hour after I’ve eaten lately has given me definite pause. I let it go so long because for two appointments after surgery, my surgeon told me this was completely normal. I’m suspecting something didn’t go right with the hiatal hernia repair.

In no one's reality is throwing up daily or twice daily normal--not even in recovery. You're surgeon was cray and wrong. I'm glad it's less, but daily is NOT normal and it IS damaging.

14 minutes ago, november11 said:

@SparklyInNOutHave you had any memory loss?

No. I had some brain fog a while back, but my regular doctor adjusted my antidepressants. It’s most throwing up slime, but most days food comes up with it eventually.

14 minutes ago, FluffyChix said:

In no one's reality is throwing up daily or twice daily normal--not even in recovery. You're surgeon was cray and wrong. I'm glad it's less, but daily is NOT normal and it IS damaging.

That’s what I thought! I was so confused as to why she didn’t want to run tests. I’m not confident that she didn’t more or less leave the country to avoid lawsuits...

If you are throwing up every day, something is wrong. Need to get in to a doc ASAP

I always see posts without an update, so I wanted to be sure to come back & five one!

we were all correct. The daily regurgitation was not normal. I went to a new surgeon in October. He was skeptical & wanted to blame it on too big of bites or overeating. I kept insisting I would have a feeling of being overly full eating less than one chicken finger, and I would still regurgitate it even an hour later. He decided to run some tests while giving me some food counseling. He was not a fan of the fact that I had little to no aftercare post surgery with my old surgeon.

I went back on purées. Basically every time you vomit, it causes swelling & takes about 3 days for the swelling to go down. We needed to get the swelling down for many reasons. Getting it under control helped me move back onto solid foods with small bites & portions.

We did the barium swallow test which showed liquids were going through fine, but I have a twist in my esophagus. Going in for my EGD scope, my surgeon was still claiming it was all bite size. He walked in after my scope & said, “yeah. So your anatomy is screwed up!”

Along with the twist in my esophagus (which basically means if I need to be tubed, it could be “more difficult”), I have a major kink in my stomach from scar tissue on the outside of it. Instead of being sleeve shaped, as it should be, it is like a capital N or S. In the middle there is a kink that he had a hard time even finding the opening of. Basically if it’s not liquid, it has to sit to digest to go down. This explains why I resorted to drinking my calories & eating easy carbs. He said it could have happened when I threw up right after surgery (a staple could have caught on something) or anytime in the initial healing.

So where does that leave me? I’m going in for a laparoscopic surgery to remove scar tissue January 13th. He can see the shape of my stomach from the scope, but he can’t know what the scar tissue is attached to or how bad it is til he gets in there. It could be attached to my liver. Yikes. So surgery could be half an hour, it could be 3. He may have to revise my sleeve to a bypass. I don’t want that because I have ulcerative colitis, so that’s very much so not recommended. However, I want to have the ability to eat without losing it.

I’ll be on a 2 week pre-surgery liquid diet, and then after surgery, it will be the post sleeve progression. I have about 30 lbs of regain. He expects I’ll lose that fairly easily by the time I’m on solid foods again. That’s good news.

Knowing I actually have something wrong with me, and I’m not crazy has been HUGE for me. I knew something was wrong, but I kept being told “bite size bite size bite size.” I have multiple friends with sleeves, and what I was experiencing was nothing like them. The eye opener was looking online & finding no one like me. So if you’re here because you’re searching, go for answers! :)