Hi, I have not had the surgery yet, I'm in the very first stage. I do have some questions though, and one of them is about acid reflux. I have heard you can get really bad acid reflux or even GERD after surgery. Is that true? And if so, what can be done about it? Just medication, or something else? Thanks for any and all info!

GERD can be a possible side-effect of sleeve surgery, but not bypass. Medications like omeprazole work for some people, but severe GERD can lead to revision surgery. Typically these patients are converted to gastric bypass to relieve their issues. There are a few people here that have been through this, so hopefully they'll chime in.

Yeah, acid reflux can happen after surgery. Meds like PPIs help, but lifestyle changes like smaller meals and elevating your bed can also make a big difference.

Talk to your medical provider. Yes, GERD occurs in some SG patients, in some others it improves. There are too many factors to have hard and fast simple rules. I’m pre operative and totally geeked out researching, and the more I learn the more I understand our knowledge is evolving and the best we can do is get as much information and make the best choice with the information at hand. Find a good program that does multiple surgeries and talk to them about your concerns l.

I had bypass surgery and have always had GERD. Treated with omaprazole and lifestyle. Surgery was still the best thing I ever did for myself. Gerd is nothing compared to being 100 pounds overweight.

I had bypass 10 years ago. It cured my GERD. For most people, bypass improves if not cures it.

I had Gerd for over 10 years, and not to scare anyone, but PPIs have been linked to Alzheimer's; you can look up the study. So, I plus 4 other factors, I got the gastric bypass on 4/21/25 and have not taken any medications after.

Edited May 17, 20251 yr by mrred88

On 5/17/2025 at 7:17 AM, mrred88 said:

I had Gerd for over 10 years, and not to scare anyone, but PPIs have been linked to Alzheimer's; you can look up the study. So, I plus 4 other factors, I got the gastric bypass on 4/21/25 and have not taken any medications after.

How are you doing now? Still off of meds?

On 5/17/2025 at 9:17 AM, mrred88 said:

not to scare anyone, but PPIs have been linked to Alzheimer's; you can look up the study.

I'd be careful here. While there have been a couple of studies now that showed a small association between PPI use and dementia, I'm not aware of any linking PPI's to Alzheimer's disease. Dementia and Alzheimer's are not the same thing.

Further, the studies mentioned are observational studies, meaning they simply tallied up the number of older people in a population that developed dementia symptoms and looked to see how many of those had at some point been long term users of PPIs. There was a small, but statistically significant increase among the PPI users vs. non-users.

The problem here is that these studies didn't control for other confounding factors such as diet, depression, b12 levels, socioeconomic factors, etc. Since there are studies that have linked these and a multitude of other issues to dementia, we just can't really know what the real cause of the increased dementia rate was.

It's also worth noting that there have also been recent studies that have concluded there is no association between PPI use and dementia risk. I think it's reasonable to conclude that at this point the science is far from determined and it would be unwise for someone to stop using PPIs simply because they are worried about developing dementia later in life.

19 hours ago, tinyforks said:

How are you doing now? Still off of meds?

Yes have not had to take any meds so far and loving it.