Hey everyone!

Going from the sleeve, to bypass Monday 2/6. I'm scared and excited. Due to GERD which is super common with the sleeve I am getting the revision. Also I am getting hernia repair as well. Tomorrow starts the liquids only. Nervous since I have has no luck finding vitamins in store and have to order them all. Anyone with advice with a revision from sleeve to bypass?

Sleeve in 2/28/19

Bypass on 2/6/23

No advice as I went straight to bypass! But best wishes with your surgery, you’ll do well, you know what is coming and how to deal with it.

My advice is go with the flow and enjoy the benefits. Living with minor gerd or none at all upped my quality of life 100-fold. For me, the recovery was easier, maybe because I knew what to expect this time around. Or maybe because my body reacted more strongly to having a large part of an organ removed versus the rny. Before you know it, it'll be over. My revision took less than a hour.

Afterwards, I was surprised at how I didn't feel any different physically than when I had the sleeve. But I definitely had a new learning curve on how to tell when I am at roughly 80% full, that is when I stop eating (lifetime rule for me). There are different cues for sure as well as well as different side effects if you go one bite too many, or don't chew enough, eat something that your stomach does not agree with... Etc.

Hope it goes well for you too.

I had a bypass & use the patch vitamins. I am almost 5 years out & haven’t had any problems with blood work.
I take enough meds/supplements as it is & don’t want to add another thing to swallow.
I know they are expensive but totally worth it to me.

I use the multivitamin with iron patch too for many years. Forgot to add that . No issues with blood tests.

I went from sleeve to bypass on 12/27 for the same reason. In my experience, the recovery is easier because you've gone through it before. I ate better and more varied foods during the liquid and pureed stages this time around.

Know how they tell sleeve patients they need to chew very thoroughly, but how you don't really need to? You definitely, definitely need to with bypass. Small bites chewed to a paste.

Cues for fullness change for sleeve, especially once you're 3-4 weeks out. Your sleeve has a valve that opens to release food into your intestine just like a normal stomach. A bypass pouch doesn't have that; as you heal, liquids and purees will move immediately through your pouch. That changes what fullness feels like. For me, I don't seem to have a setting between hungry and overfull anymore. My body isn't really telling me I'm full so I pay a lot of attention to portion size to know when my meal is over.

As for vitamins, I just ordered Barimelt brand from Amazon. Their calcium, B complex, and multivitamin+iron. They taste alright.

Best of luck with your revision surgery! I did the same thing for the same reasons a year ago. My biggest issue was a hiatal hernia that had caused great pain and difficulty eating. I also had pretty bad reflux.

It seemed like recovery was about the same the second time around, although I was seven years older. I did not lose as much weight after the bypass, but probably because I didn't have nearly as much to lose. As has been said, be careful to chew thoroughly and you still might find some foods that cause you challenges for a while. Just go slowly and if something causes issues wait a while before trying it again. The pouch does react differently than the sleeve and it takes a while to learn how to deal with it.

Two things that you may or may not experience after the bypass are dumping syndrome (your body reacting to sugars) or reactive hypoglycemia or late dumping (your body overproducing insulin in response to a meal). I was lucky not to experience dumping but do have issues with the reactive hypoglycemia.

I noticed that I lost weight for about 3 months after the revision, then stopped. One difference for me this time is that if I gain weight it seems to stay around, where often times with the sleeve I would gain a couple pounds then lose them easily. Not sure whether this means that my metabolism wants to be at a higher set point weight. I didn't really do the revision to lose weight, and I'm still 15-20 pounds lower than when I had the revision, but it is something I've noticed.

Also, my experience is that although the surgery helped tremendously with reflux, for me it's still not gone completely. I'm still taking omeprazole daily, and if I eat certain things in the evening I might still have a reflux issue late at night. I can completely control this by not snacking at night.

Edited February 6, 20233 yr by shriner37