My health is in the toilet, and I desperately need help and advice. RNY summer 2019, goal met in 2020, happy, maintained/healthy/active for a long while. I'm 51F btw.

But since roughly March of this year I've unintentionally lost at least 50lbs while eating exact same nutrients/calories/macros/etc as my maintenance diet. I even started adding calories to try to stop it, bc my face looked awful/old. My BMI is now underweight and I look awful and ill. Also in March, the pain started. I had NO pain or issues from surgery 2019 all the way until March this year. It started as occasional lower right side abdominal pain, like a burning, hot coal sensation. Maybe 1 x a week. As the months have gone by, it increased and increased until now it's a daily agony. I wake up okay, but as the day goes on it gets worse and worse, until I go to bed with an Ambien at 7pm to escape it. (Mornings okay, it worsens as the day goes on)

For many months it was bad but not so bad as to affect my calories/nutrition/appetite/etc. It's only in the past month it's gotten unbearable. (I still eat and get all my required protein/calories, I just do it earlier in the day). Trying different elimination plans didn't help btw.

Then, 2 mos ago my hemoglobin went down to 8.5 despite my taking daily iron and I required 2 iron infusions to bring it up. I never had anemia since surgery until then, out of nowhere, with the same diet plan, all my vitamins, iron, etc.

So here's the deal: FULL GI workup, normal, normal, NORMAL (CT, colonoscopy, upper endoscopy, CT enterography). Finally the GI doctor was like "I have no answers for your problems. Some things are just par for the course with a post bariatric patient." Verbatim (message in patient portal). No more follow-up or more testing offered.

I felt slapped, I was LIVID at that message, I feel totally dismissed. This kind of suffering and drastic symptoms should NOT be "par for the course" for a 2 1/2 year post-RNY patient right? I know 2 others personally that had RNY years ago and they've never experienced anything like this. I just can't imagine this being normal!

Has anyone here gone through anything like this and gotten answers and help? Or does anyone just have any ideas at all? (FYI I did see my bariatric surgeon first, a couple of months ago, he said my issues were NOT normal - this is before the GI doc. My surgeon ordered a CT but insurance denied it, which is why I went to that GI doc instead). So now I'm sitting here, suffering, deteriorating, with no answers or help in sight. :(

Please please if anyone has any ideas, I'd be so grateful for some guidance here!

your surgeon is right - that isn't normal. I'm not sure what to tell you - usually a CT scan will find things that are amiss. Maybe get an opinion from another G/I specialist? Wow - I am so sorry you're going through this.

Go to another GI doctor. Just seeing it as par for the course / living with it isn’t a viable (or responsible) treatment plan and you deserve better.

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by Hopeful_Gal

Would the scan be covered by insurance if it was ordered by an ER doc? Sometimes the rules are different in an emergency??

I second the ER. They can get MRI's and CT's much easier/faster than having to go to the GI and then make an appt for the scan(s).

Can your surgeon look at the scan results? He looks at them differently then the GI.

Have you had your hormones checked?
And what everyone said above!

Please be persistent in demanding additional assessment. Ask your bariatric surgeon to refer you to a general surgeon for further evaluation. You may have developed adhesions (scarring), malrotation (twisting of a segment of bowel), or an internal hernia, and your pain could certainly be of other than gastrointestinal origin. I am a former gynecological surgeon, and your complaints are absolutely NOT “par for the course”. You should consider seeing a gynecologist and having an ultrasound to evaluate your ovaries. You absolutely must get the weight loss under control.
Best to you, Newbie. Keep us posted