Beckyyb93

Hey guys, sorry I haven't given you an update in a while. I'm struggling pretty badly, I use the word struggling a lot lately because I think it sounds better than dying which is honestly what I feel like is happening. As you guys know from my previous post, the spasms are back and I've been hospitalized SO many times since the bypass 8/1. I was taking an extremely difficult science class that I need to start clinicals and I had to drop it because I missed so many of the labs that I wouldn't be able to keep up, luckily the rest of my classes were online because that was only the start to the difficult times. It's now almost Christmas which means I'm almost at my 2 year sleeve surgiversary and I'm in pretty bad shape. I just had another manometry which is where they put the tube down your nose and measure your swallowing pressure, I saw the surgeon and he said we have improved since the bypass but still have a long way to go. Before the bypass I had 10% normal swallows and 90% abnormal, now I had 45% normal swallows and 55% abnormal but my swallow is getting weaker which means my achalasia is getting worse. The next step is a Botox injection to my esophagus where the spasms are taking place but he wants to do one last endoscopy before scheduling that to check for ulcers/strictures. That's scheduled for Monday the 22nd but at this point I'm not sure if I'm going to make it that long before being hospitalized. I'm really really struggling with the pain right now and I'm not getting enough fluids much less Protein down to be safe or hydrated. I'm on Norco pills 4x daily to help with the pain and it helps but isn't nearly enough to feel normal. So, I'll probably end up heading to the ER tomorrow sometime if I don't feel any better soon because I'm 99% sure I have an ulcer on top of the spasms which is causing pain with the medicine I take for spasms so the two issues are working against each other. I'm usually hospitalized 2x a month for fluids, potassium, and pain medicine then they send me home and I struggle until I give in and go back to the hospital. I'm on so much medicine that it's just sad, I take more than 6 different medications for just my stomach alone and that doesn't account for my kidney problems that I've always had but are becoming more severe since surgery because of my Fluid intake. I'm also struggling with depression because the pain just wears me down, I sometimes wonder how I'm ever going to get through this and if it will ever stop. I try to tell myself that the Botox injection will help but some days my optimism waivers By the grace of God I managed to pull off B's across the board in school this semester which is pretty impressive considering how much I have been in the hospital and how sick I have been. I've finally resigned to taking the next semester off to hopefully heal because I can't keep putting myself through this, it kills me to do it but I feel like I need to focus on my health and feeling better before I can really take on school again. I don't know what else to tell you guys except please pray for me, I'm trying my best to stay strong but it's extremely difficult. I'm still fighting but it's getting harder to do as the bad days keep coming, I try to focus on the good parts of life like my family, my fiance, and my friends which helps but like I said at the beginning I'm really struggling and I feel like I'm getting worse which frightens me for my future.

Hey guys, sorry I haven't given you an update in a while. I'm struggling pretty badly, I use the word struggling a lot lately because I think it sounds better than dying which is honestly what I feel like is happening. As you guys know from my previous post, the spasms are back and I've been hospitalized SO many times since the bypass 8/1. I was taking an extremely difficult science class that I need to start clinicals and I had to drop it because I missed so many of the labs that I wouldn't be able to keep up, luckily the rest of my classes were online because that was only the start to the difficult times. It's now almost Christmas which means I'm almost at my 2 year sleeve surgiversary and I'm in pretty bad shape. I just had another manometry which is where they put the tube down your nose and measure your swallowing pressure, I saw the surgeon and he said we have improved since the bypass but still have a long way to go. Before the bypass I had 10% normal swallows and 90% abnormal, now I had 45% normal swallows and 55% abnormal but my swallow is getting weaker which means my achalasia is getting worse. The next step is a Botox injection to my esophagus where the spasms are taking place but he wants to do one last endoscopy before scheduling that to check for ulcers/strictures. That's scheduled for Monday the 22nd but at this point I'm not sure if I'm going to make it that long before being hospitalized. I'm really really struggling with the pain right now and I'm not getting enough fluids much less Protein down to be safe or hydrated. I'm on Norco pills 4x daily to help with the pain and it helps but isn't nearly enough to feel normal. So, I'll probably end up heading to the ER tomorrow sometime if I don't feel any better soon because I'm 99% sure I have an ulcer on top of the spasms which is causing pain with the medicine I take for spasms so the two issues are working against each other. I'm usually hospitalized 2x a month for fluids, potassium, and pain medicine then they send me home and I struggle until I give in and go back to the hospital. I'm on so much medicine that it's just sad, I take more than 6 different medications for just my stomach alone and that doesn't account for my kidney problems that I've always had but are becoming more severe since surgery because of my Fluid intake. I'm also struggling with depression because the pain just wears me down, I sometimes wonder how I'm ever going to get through this and if it will ever stop. I try to tell myself that the Botox injection will help but some days my optimism waivers By the grace of God I managed to pull off B's across the board in school this semester which is pretty impressive considering how much I have been in the hospital and how sick I have been. I've finally resigned to taking the next semester off to hopefully heal because I can't keep putting myself through this, it kills me to do it but I feel like I need to focus on my health and feeling better before I can really take on school again. I don't know what else to tell you guys except please pray for me, I'm trying my best to stay strong but it's extremely difficult. I'm still fighting but it's getting harder to do as the bad days keep coming, I try to focus on the good parts of life like my family, my fiance, and my friends which helps but like I said at the beginning I'm really struggling and I feel like I'm getting worse which frightens me for my future.

You have to be more careful girlie! You need to baby your tummy and your incisions while they are still this fresh. No getting down on the floor because like you said getting up is nearly impossible! I support the pillow idea, I actually slept in a reclining chair for the first three weeks because the bed wasn't comfortable, it pulled on my tummy and I didn't want to flip over so the chair was perfect. You don't want to end up back in the hospitals with ripped incisions so please please be careful!! Your kids will understand if you have to rest for a little bit and like everyone else has told you, it will be worth it in the end!

Yeah, I did! I wasn't paying close enough attention when I responded to this and didn't see it was you..woops! I know we talked a little before surgery and have nursing in common. I'm so sorry you are having a rough time, to me it sounds like a stricture because they normally come on quick and have the symptoms that you are describing. I'd give it a few more days and if it's not any better I'd call the doc again and tell them that something is wrong and they need to do some tests. They can usually tell from a Barium swallow if you have a stricture and then they can go in through an EGD and dilate. Hopefully that's not what it is and you are just having a rough couple of days but it will get better one way or another! Hang in there and keep us updated

Thank you guys so much for all the responses, you are the best! I'll have to try some of your suggestions, I like chai tea hot with a little bit of splenda but I haven't had it in a while so I may try to alternate with a cup of that. I also have some Crystal Light so I can try some different flavors and see what works, I really used to like their regular tea flavors so I may try that again too. I've never had any hot tea other than the cinnamon chai I get from Teavanna which is a total comfort drink that I used a lot right after surgery. I have found very hot liquids and very cold liquids go down easiest for me and I really like chewing on crushed ice in my cold drinks. I'll have to venture out and try some new things, all the suggestions are great!

This is where I'm having the most trouble, I've had to be on fluids a lot longer due to complications and am/was just getting so tired of plain Water. I started drinking juice which I know is bad because of the empty calories but the most important thing for me right now is to drink drink drink to stay hydrated otherwise they will admit me back to the hospital again. I've spent a lot of the last few weeks there because I just can't get enough down to stay hydrated so I'm trying really really hard. I used to drink Vitamin Water Zero in the Lemonade flavor but it's just not tasting right to me right now. I've done the little concentrated bottles that you squeeze into water and that's helped a little. I've tried a little bit of tea but it's not usually my favorite thing to drink. So, what are you guys drinking? I have to stop drinking all this juice but I'm struggling with anything sounding good because everything hurts and this sounds silly but if it doesn't taste good it's hard to convince myself to drink it because it hurts so much. My doctor and I are working on fixing the pain with swallowing but I'm just trying to get some other ideas in the meantime.

Yeah, staying hydrated is EXTREMELY important when you are doing liquids. If you get dehydrated, the headaches will get worse so push push push those fluids! It also helps you stay a little more full which is an added bonus. It will get easier as you go along and you will lose a lot of weight pretty quickly but remember to not stress about the scale at all until you are at least one week post op because you gain in the hospital and that's totally normal so it's better to not even look at the beginning.

The liquid diet is hard but you will get through it! Make sure to take medicine for the symptoms, I know as a fellow nursing student and from nurses all throughout my family that sometimes we just "deal with it" as far as pain goes and that isn't the right thing to do here. If you have heartburn take Tums or Zantac, take Tylenol for the headache, and if you are having a lot of trouble with nausea, let your surgeon know and ask for medicine to help with that. My two favorites (I've had a lot of experience with nausea as you probably know from reading my thread) are sublingual Zofran and Phenergen suppositories, the Phenergen is far more effective but it makes you sleepy and usually isn't used unless your nausea is pretty bad. (Okay I wrote this and then remembered you are a nurse so I really don't have to explain these medications lol!) I did my due diligence in researching and I'm sure you have as well since that's what us nurses as patients do so I know you are going to do great! As far as your heartburn, it will be 100% magically gone when you wake up from surgery..totally amazing. There are a dozen different hypothesized reasons for the spasms we get and for some if they are from bile reflux, the surgery significantly reduces them. I didn't have spasms at all before I had the sleeve though so they were brought on by that surgery and are still causing me grief even after revising to the bypass which we thought would help because we thought they were due to bile reflux. Since you bypass the portion of the stomach that has the bile ducts, you have no bile or acid reflux coming up your throat which significantly helps the pain. I'm hoping that your Nutcracker Esophagus will get better with surgery but it's hard to tell. Try not to think about the OR too much because you will work yourself up over nothing. As you know, we nurses and even the doctors don't judge people too harshly on being on full display in the OR because we realize that they are doing something drastic to get healthy and we can respect that. Hopefully you aren't having this done at the hospital you work at because that just seems like it may be a little awkward but as I said before it's really no big deal unless you let it bother you. You will get through this and become more healthy on the other end and just think, you have an edge over others being a nurse because you know exactly what to do to win. Plus, you have all of us now!! I'm rooting for you and you will be in my thoughts throughout this pre-op diet and throughout your whole post-op journey!

I agree that you need to contact your surgeon, it's probably nothing but I always prefer to be on the safe side! Let us know what they say and good luck

I'm a revision from a sleeve to a bypass and haven't been able to eat solid food in over two years without throwing up so I definitely know what you are feeling. First off, it will get better..what's going on with me is a freak accident and it's perfectly normal to have some difficulty tolerating things in the beginning. Second, you need to get on some better meds. Zofran isn't meant to last for more than 4-6 hours so I'm not exactly sure why they aren't letting you have it more often. I swore by Zofran until I took Phenergen and now I won't use anything else. I'd call your surgeon or if you did surgery in Mexico, I'd call your primary care physician and tell them what's going on and stress to them that you need something that will control your nausea more effectively. If you want to keep taking Zofran, I'd get the ones that dissolve under your tongue because they work a little quicker and you are less likely to throw them up. I take suppository Phenergen and while it's odd, it's so much more effective for me because I can't throw it up before it starts working! You just need to find something that controls your nausea for now and in no time you will feel better! I'd also ask your surgeon about the possibility of a stricture because that can cause some of these symptoms and is relatively easy to fix. Hang in there and make the doctors help you..that's their job!!

Well, I'm still on the Nitro cream and it wasn't doing a whole lot so they put me on Levsin as needed and Levbid twice a day for spasms as well. I'm getting soft food and Fluid down with taking all these medications but they make me really sleepy and I know there is no way I can stay on all of this long term. I went to see the surgeon last Friday and he said we are going to do another manometry and then do a botox injection to the place that is spasming which will hopefully paralyze the are so it can't spasm. After that he wants to look at doing a heller manotomy. It's all a little scary but I'm glad he isn't giving up on me quite yet. I'll know more after my manometry which will probably be early next week and in the meantime I'm just going to keep taking all these medications and keep trying to get in fluids and some Protein in between all of my medically induced naps! He doesn't think the manometry will be much different than the last time where is was extremely abnormal and if that is the case we will go about getting the insurance to cover the botox injection which he doesn't think will be too hard. I'll try to keep you all updated! And @@layknee the manometry is a pretty nasty test, it's just extremely uncomfortable and it's so hard not to swallow constantly which is what your body wants to do to get the tube out of your throat but as you probably know, they have to start over if you swallow at the wrong time..yuck!

Yes, especially the low thyroid can keep you from losing. You need to see your PCP and go to your surgeon for follow up blood work because there can be other things that a Cardiologist wouldn't check for that could be causing you to have trouble losing weight. When you go on medicine for your thyroid, you will see a huge improvement in the weight loss. Good luck!

After surgery I prefer everything as cold as possible. I even dilute juice by chewing on ice..it just helps me have less pain and can help soothe the inflammation you have post op. I haven't tried EAS, I have tried Premier Protein and I didn't like it..I'm the odd man out on that one I know! A friend suggested Six Star shakes from Walmart (it's their own brand) and the chocolate is so good, tastes like chocolate milk and occasionally if I'm having trouble tolerating something, I'll mix it with a little bit of milk or chocolate syrup just to change it up a bit. Those by far have been the best tasting pre-mades I have ever had. Also, I HATE Isopure..ick!

I agree that the bypass completely gets rid of GERD and if you understand the anatomy you would know that in theory there would be no way to have acid after the RNY so everyone who has the surgery should have zero reflux. I had the surgery to also get rid of my esophageal spasms and it didn't work for that but I have had no trouble at all with reflux since I had surgery 8/1.

Alright guys, I have some really bad news I went in on Friday morning to get a Barium swallow test and as I watched the contrast go down I saw it..spasms! I felt it and saw it and just couldn't believe it because the whole point of the bypass was to stop the powerful spasms that were giving me so much pain and not allowing me to eat solid food for 2 years. I almost cried, my doc wanted to do another EGD to make sure there was no stricture so he sent me straight to the endoscopy center and took a look. After, I just expected to go home since I just came in for a visit but he directly admitted me to the med/surg floor which was surprising for me. I had my fiance bring me some clothes from home and awaited the reason for the admit. A GI came in later that afternoon and we talked for a while, I gave him my whole long story and he was really nice. He said since I had been and am still on a calcium channel blocker (Cartia) for spasms that we should try something else and his suggestion was Nitroglycerin cream which is better known as "heart cream" it is a vasodilator and is used for spasms and lowers blood pressure. They had admitted me so they could monitor me on that medication and make sure my blood pressure didn't drop too low since it isn't high to begin with and make sure I didn't have headaches which are the most common side effect. We are slowly raising the dose and I'm not having any adverse reactions to it which is great. I'm not up to the full dose yet so am not positive how it is working yet although with the Lortab, Phenergen and the Nitro cream I've been tolerating soft food and Fluid pretty well which is good! I'm sad because I feel like we are starting over with the spasms and I wonder if doing the bypass was the right move but then I remember how bad the acid reflux was and how it's gone now and that has tremendously helped with the pain so I'm trying to tell myself it was worth it because now I'm not at a risk for Barrets which is good too. Now we have to do another manometry to check the function of my esophagus because last time we did this test it was extremely abnormal and we were in the beginning stages of achalysia which is bad and contributed to the surgeon's decision to do the bypass. If it is still abnormal which the surgeon is worried about, we will have to treat that along with the spasms so it doesn't get any worse. I'm crossing my fingers that it got better with surgery but somehow doubt it since I still have the spasms. He doesn't have any idea why the spasms came back but now the only option is to play with different medications to try to treat the symptoms of the regurgitation, nausea, and major pain. He has a few more ideas for different medications to try if the Nitro doesn't help enough but it's very depressing to look forward to the future of only soft foods again I'm trying to stay as positive as possible and try to let the medications do their job and hope that they will control it well going forward and allow me to eat more normal food. It's so hard to be patient but that's my only option right now so I'm doing my best. Obviously I won't be able to rely on the Lortab and the Phenergen forever so we will have to tweak the medications enough to get off of those on a regular basis although there is no problem using Phenergen on an as needed basis. That's about all for now, I'm trying so hard to keep my head up but each time I feel the spasms and throw up I just cry because I just want all of this pain to stop and I'm just so young. Also, if the achalysia gets bad I'm at a risk for other problems and it just seems like I'm too young and was too healthy to be worrying about the long term health of my esophagus. This surgery ruined my life and I'm attempting to put the pieces back together but it's so hard. The GI said my esophageal anatomy is just so abnormal and the surgery put the icing on the cake for the spasms and trouble swallowing. I'll try to keep you guys updated, I need to catch up in my classes since I've been hospitalized 3 times in the last 2 weeks. I have a lot of work to do and it's all a little daunting especially with only being able to tolerate a little bit of food and Water and being on two medications that lower blood pressure for spasms which just makes me a little light headed and groggy along with the pain meds and the Phenergen which are both known for that as well. I'm hoping I can get everything together this semester so I can finally start clinicals, I know you guys are all praying for me and I know I'll get through this somehow. Thank you for all the kind words and positive thoughts during this hard time for me, I really do appreciate each and every one of you who have helped me through this whole journey!