Hannah Lee

Before surgery I used to chug Water. Big water drinker. But now post-surgery, I can drink anything under the sun with no problems. But with water, taking small sips, regardless of the water temp (I'm not a big ice water person, so it's usually room temp), and regardless of whether I had any food earlier or not, I tend to get stomach pain. It's pretty annoying, because drinking water is the one thing I've always been good at. Now I'm sometimes reluctant to drink it because of the stomachache. Anyone have any words or wisdom or experience? I am about three weeks out, btw. Hopefully, and presumably, this will pass. It's frustrating how we all can have such drastically different experiences with this surgery in, for example, what we can or can't eat and tolerate. Makes it difficult to get a straight answer sometimes, you know what I mean? One person says one thing, then someone else comes along and says the opposite. But, that's a totally different topic.

Thank you all so much for your feedback, suggestions, and support! I will experiment with different temps, and also Smart Water (which used to be my preferred bottle brand anyhow, I just have been at home a lot so not been out buying bottled water), and have been making sure not to take too big of sips. I mentioned it to my surgeon at my 2 week post-op, but he didn't really have any thoughts, except to say maybe I was drinking too fast. *shrug* I hope/believe it will eventually go away regardless.

I had (apparently) a stomach bug around Christmas, and anytime I would go to throw up, this is all that would happen. It was just like normal vomiting, with the muscle spasming and all, but nothing would come up except some saliva/spit that normally accumulates in the mouth when you vomit. (no disrespect to the previous commentor's surgeon, but this saliva clearly is originating in my mouth, it's not coming up from my stomach.) Even the two times I tried to make myself ill just to get some relief, no food came up. And yet, I did feel better afterwards. Someone on this board said that it's not uncommon for post-bypass people to not be able to vomit.. I had never heard this, so we'll see if I ever can vomit again lol. But to sum up, I have been there, but I don't have the answers.

Hi everyone, I'm very new here (first post).. I had been meaning to find a good forum for support/info, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. Now I am really needing advice, and it's of course Christmas so I can't reach out to my surgical team. I had RXY two weeks ago tomorrow, my recovery has been totally great to this point, a breeze. But as of about 3am yesterday I've been having bouts of "vomiting" every 4-5 hours. However, when I vomit, absolutely nothing is coming up. Not a morsel of food (and yes I was eating bits of things throughout the day--watermelon, a few banana slices, 2 T of mashed potato) or liquid, nor even any kind of stomach juices or bile. Normally, even if your stomach is totally empty and you're dry heaving, you at least get some of that super gross, yellow stomach acid. In every other respect, my vomiting episodes are normal, with the heaving and retching, and muscles seizing up. But I literally just get the pre-pukinh saliva in my mouth that I spit out. I feel fine in between these bouts of vomiting, until about 5 minutes before when I know it's coming. I may have a fever, but can't find my thermometer. Now, at this point I will add that three days prior to my getting ill, my mother has what she says is the same thing. 24 hours of vomiting with nothing coming up, no stomach acid, no food or liquid. (Incidentally she also had a gastric bypass 8 years ago.) My last instance of "throwing up" was around 3:30am this morning, so not sure if it's going to happen again. I had a few sips of Protein drink, and lots of Water so far today. May or may not be related, but I do feel constipated, and my last BM was diarrhea about three days ago. SO. I'm not sure if this is just a normal, poorly-timed case of a contagious stomach bug. It seems weird that I have not vomited up ANYTHING at all at any time though. Or, is there something wrong with my stomach? A fistula? A leak? I haven't had any abdominal pain to speak of. I also worry that if it IS just a stomach bug, all the vomiting may do some kind of damage inside as well. Does anyone have any thoughts for me, or any similar experiences? I would be really grateful for any ideas or words of wisdom. It's terrible timing, since it's a holiday weekend and I can't reach my surgeon's office or the program RN. All I could do would be to go into Emergency... I just don't know. Hannah in Oregon

Thanks for all the suggestions and info. Sorry it took me so long to reply, holidays and all... We did go in to ED, they did a CT so at least we could rule out and leaks or blockages. There wasn't anything like that going on. They didn't really give me a diagnosis. I assume it was just a stomach bug, it did stop a day or two after, and I haven't had any vomiting like that since. *knock on wood*

That's really interesting Odie! I had never heard this before. It does make me feel a little better. I was just about to come on to ETA, my mom has talked me into going up to ED though, just to be on the safe side. Had another retching incident a few minutes ago, so...

Sorry to hear that Avarine. I have Kaiser in the Northwest (Oregon/Washington), I actually work for them, but here in our region, it is covered. I just had my $5 copays for office visits. I wish you luck in figuring this out! You will find a way, don't give up!