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So far bafflement... still undergoing tests but nothing conclusive so far... has anyone else experienced post-op complications several years out? Surgery July 2016. Only lost 100lbs (I know, I know, "only"), but I'm still about 100lbs overweight. I'm not unhappy w/the amount lost at all and feel much better overall so I do not regret the surgery. First, not sure any or all of these symptoms are related at all but since they're all (potentially) GI-related, I can't help but think (especially now) that they are. So here goes: I can't remember exactly when the first one occurred, but it was after "healing" for sure but the first time it happened, it was definitely after surgery: a charlie-horse in my abdomen. These occur very suddenly and occur when I'm bending, reaching or twisting my abdomen--but always forward, not backward. For example, I might just tuck my belly in to look down at my feet and whammo, charlie horse. I reach forward to pick up a kitten... whammo. They can happen at any time and are excruciatingly painful and I just jerk backwards in reaction and take diaphragmatic breaths and they'll ease up. About 4 months ago, I had a sudden pain "attack" after eating a relatively fatty meal... I'm talking waves of pain in the gut so intense that I actually called 911. Since I still have my gallbladder, I assumed gallbladder problems. Pain lasted about 7 hours or so, even through narcotics given in the ambulance and at the hospital. Worst pain I've ever felt in my life. Multiple tests run... no gallstones, so they basically sent me home after the pain finally subsided with a ridiculous "gastritis" diagnosis. Sorry, was crapola. About 6 weeks after that, I started to have diarrhea... for over two weeks straight, every single day. Didn't respond to OTC anti-diarrheals. Saw walk-in doc (my doc was on vacation) who ran a bunch of tests and nothing positive except blood in the stool. Diarrhea eventually cleared. PCP ordered endoscopy and colonoscopy--both normal. About 6 weeks ago, another pain attack--but not after fatty meal... just yogurt. This time I remembered I had meds at home--took anti-spasmodics (hyoscyamine) and oxycodone... took 3x regular dose to make pain tolerable. Faded again after about 7 hours. PCP suspects gallbladder function is to blame, even though no stones, so HIDA test this Thursday. In the timeline, this pain attack was about a week after the diarrhea cleared up... about a month ago. But here's the deal: I can physically (i.e. with my hands) feel that under that trocar scar is a hardening of tissue... it makes sense that it's scar tissue of course, but I feel like it's getting bigger? (as in, over a wider area, not deeper). It's not painful when pressure is applied, just uncomfortable? I have not yet brought this part up to PCP, but she has palpated my abdomen before and didn't call out anything as unusual. So I'm at a loss as to what's going on but something definitely is. Anyone experience anything at all like this? Especially those who are years out from surgery? So confused and tired of taking tests that aren't leading anywhere... thank goodness I have excellent insurance. Michelle

So far bafflement... still undergoing tests but nothing conclusive so far... has anyone else experienced post-op complications several years out? Surgery July 2016. Only lost 100lbs (I know, I know, "only"), but I'm still about 100lbs overweight. I'm not unhappy w/the amount lost at all and feel much better overall so I do not regret the surgery. First, not sure any or all of these symptoms are related at all but since they're all (potentially) GI-related, I can't help but think (especially now) that they are. So here goes: I can't remember exactly when the first one occurred, but it was after "healing" for sure but the first time it happened, it was definitely after surgery: a charlie-horse in my abdomen. These occur very suddenly and occur when I'm bending, reaching or twisting my abdomen--but always forward, not backward. For example, I might just tuck my belly in to look down at my feet and whammo, charlie horse. I reach forward to pick up a kitten... whammo. They can happen at any time and are excruciatingly painful and I just jerk backwards in reaction and take diaphragmatic breaths and they'll ease up. About 4 months ago, I had a sudden pain "attack" after eating a relatively fatty meal... I'm talking waves of pain in the gut so intense that I actually called 911. Since I still have my gallbladder, I assumed gallbladder problems. Pain lasted about 7 hours or so, even through narcotics given in the ambulance and at the hospital. Worst pain I've ever felt in my life. Multiple tests run... no gallstones, so they basically sent me home after the pain finally subsided with a ridiculous "gastritis" diagnosis. Sorry, was crapola. About 6 weeks after that, I started to have diarrhea... for over two weeks straight, every single day. Didn't respond to OTC anti-diarrheals. Saw walk-in doc (my doc was on vacation) who ran a bunch of tests and nothing positive except blood in the stool. Diarrhea eventually cleared. PCP ordered endoscopy and colonoscopy--both normal. About 6 weeks ago, another pain attack--but not after fatty meal... just yogurt. This time I remembered I had meds at home--took anti-spasmodics (hyoscyamine) and oxycodone... took 3x regular dose to make pain tolerable. Faded again after about 7 hours. PCP suspects gallbladder function is to blame, even though no stones, so HIDA test this Thursday. In the timeline, this pain attack was about a week after the diarrhea cleared up... about a month ago. But here's the deal: I can physically (i.e. with my hands) feel that under that trocar scar is a hardening of tissue... it makes sense that it's scar tissue of course, but I feel like it's getting bigger? (as in, over a wider area, not deeper). It's not painful when pressure is applied, just uncomfortable? I have not yet brought this part up to PCP, but she has palpated my abdomen before and didn't call out anything as unusual. So I'm at a loss as to what's going on but something definitely is. Anyone experience anything at all like this? Especially those who are years out from surgery? So confused and tired of taking tests that aren't leading anywhere... thank goodness I have excellent insurance. Michelle

Thanks everyone for the responses... especially you, Introversion--makes me feel a little better knowing that it's possibly temporary... I gotta tell ya, I have been fretting over this pretty much all weekend. And for everyone commenting on the "rate" comment--maybe it's not slow, but it feels slow, and the odd thing is, I'm not in any hurry at all. It's just that I look at posts online that folks starting at weights similar to mine seems to lose at such a rapid pace and a friend had a RNY on literally the same day as my sleeve and he's lost almost 140lbs (I know, it's also a malabsorptive procedure too). And before anyone mentions it, I know it's not a race, and I seriously am not treating it as a competition in ANY way--I'm just plugging away and not even getting on the scale that often; it just feels slow---plus my med team mentioned that I was going a little slower than many do at my first follow-up. And, it really only equates to just over 10lbs/month which can theoretically be done w/regular diet and exercise w/o surgery for those folks for whom that would work (and I don't count myself among those). Plus I've been at the same weight for about two months now so that contributes to how I feel about the pace too. I guess I'm also saying it's slow because to me it doesn't seem like a very dramatic loss... I don't see it, but I didn't see myself (then or now) at my actual size anyway... I don't see myself as thin by any means, but if I were to see a lineup of folks at various weights and my height, I'd probably "match" my size to someone who weighs a lot less than I do. My pre-op therapist told me that it's actually a fairly common phenomenon; I read somewhere it's called fatorexia or something like that, where the image you see in the mirror is thinner than in reality. I really wasn't unhappy at my previous weight either; it's not like I was loving being at 340lbs, but I didn't dislike myself at that size either (I spent way too many years hating my fat and blaming it in truth or in fiction for every ill that befell me before I turned a corner a started liking me for me no matter what size I was). It took a lot of years to get my head on straight about that, I tell you. Anyway, I'm not unhappy w/my loss so far, and technically, my primary goal in getting surgery was to get to a point where I could have my knees fixed (whether it's right or wrong, the ortho surgical team wouldn't think about doing it until my BMI dropped to a certain point) and I'm there now and the first replacement is now (finally) scheduled so I'm pleased w/that at least. I've just had a rough time of it and I'm not an acolyte as almost everyone else on these boards seems to be so I don't want to be the Debbie Downer. But I'm very glad you're here, especially for learning stuff like "transient hyperlipidemia," so thanks for being an ear and a much-needed source of information for folks for whom the surgery goes like clockwork, and for those with the occasional complication too. Michelle

Sooooo.... it's been 9 months since my sleeve. I'm down just over 100 lbs (slow loser) and I'm 48YO female. For my whole adult life, although morbidly (and then super) obese, my lipids have been pretty darned good... low total cholesterol numbers, high HDLs, low LDLs, low triglycerides, good ratios, etc. Each new doctor I would see would be almost shocked when seeing them, like I defied everything thing they had been taught--as in, how in the world could someone so big be so "healthy" on paper, if that makes any sense. Anyway, I got my first lipids panel done since surgery on Friday and the results are back. I'm in the normal range on everything, so my doc will probably be fine w/the results, but for me, they're seriously alarming since they're obviously headed in the wrong direction. My ratio went from 2.32 to 4.14; total chol from 143 to 174; HDL from 62 to 42; LDL from 69 to 119; triglycerides from 37 to 64. Has anyone else seen this w/their own bloodwork? If so, did it ever stabilize without medications? One of the reasons I had the surgery was to supposedly make it less likely I'd get heart disease--now it's looking like not so much. Thoughts? Michelle

Hello All: Hoping to find someone here to help me understand this? I've got a call in to my surgeon's office but no reply yet so I though I would reach out here instead. I was sleeved 72 hours or so ago. For two weeks prior to surgery, I was on the all-shake liver shrink diet (and the three weeks before that were 2 shakes + 1 meal per day). So I've been starving for about six weeks now. And I was telling myself all along that it'll all be over after the surgery--just hang on until the surgery--you can do this until surgery because it's a limited time frame, etc. So I can't explain how devastated I am right now because I'm STARVING... this was supposed to subside after the surgery, and it hasn't. And I'm about as depressed about it as I guess I could get. It sounds silly but this could "break" me... I told myself I could last until surgery, just last that long and you'll be free of the hunger beast (I know, only temporarily), but the beast is stronger than ever. Whatever could this mean? Does this mean the surgery will be less beneficial to me? My metabolism is so screwed up that I'm already worried that it may not be as successful as it is for most people and I can't help but think that this hunger is a sign of more bad things to come. I'm certainly not an awful-izer, not by a long shot, but my morale isn't exactly at its highest right now. Any advice? HW: 342, CW: 315, GW: Knee replacement weight