mallory0405

I loved all these different replies and it just goes to show that we are all so different in the way we are made and in the way we react to the surgery. My son, who is 20 years younger than me, has not had any problems from day 1 post-surgery. I think he could eat the kitchen sink and not have a reaction (he has kept his weight off, too). I, however, have had many problems with different foods and medications and other complications (low iron, anemia, reactive hypoglycemia, nausea). I wonder if our age at the time we had the surgery comes into play here.

Hi Meg. I am 14 years out from gastric bypass. For at least the first 7 years, taking my vitamins (4) and other supplements made me extremely nauseous. I tried taking them in applesauce and it really worked (no nausea, no stick in the throat feeling, no bloated feeling). Now I am to the point where I can just take them with water.

I am 14 years post gastric bypass surgery. About a year after surgery, I started having episodes where my lips would go numb and then I would get confused and shaky and start sweating profusely. After about 30 minutes, symptoms would abate and I would return to normal. It only happened once or twice a year so I ignored it. Until this year. This year it began happening once or twice a week. After a severe episode, and at the urging of a friend, I ended up in the ER close to diabetic coma even though I do not have diabetes. My blood sugar was 34. I found out the cause: fluctuating hypoglycemia. It is caused by the surgery itself. Food empties too fast into the intestine and causes the pancreas to pour out insulin. This eventually causes a fast drop in blood sugar. THERE IS NO CURE. This is a fairly newly-recognized complication of gastric bypass surgery and no one has found any treatment for it - at least none I can find on the web. I just want to get the word out there so people will be aware of this potential side effect. Not everyone gets it. You can get additional details by searching the web.

You said it - it IS a moving target. That's why the glucometer drove me crazy. It would read 35 one time and an hour later it would read 275. Up and down like that all day long until I did not know what in the world to do. But your point is well taken. I will get the peanut butter packets for the car. I keep orange juice in the house at all times. By the way, a huge congratulations on meeting your goal! I did not notice that yesterday. Despite these problems, isn't it just the greatest, most freeing feeling in the world?

It's so good to find someone with a similar problem (though I am really sorry you are experiencing this). A friend gave me a glucometer but I drove myself crazy with it and finally gave it back. I can tell by my symptoms that I am about to have an "attack." I have discovered that the correct term is "reactive hypoglycemia" and it first started showing up around 2005. Then it started being reported at scientific conferences and being written up in peer-reviewed scientific journals starting about 2012 (all this discovered from a search on the web under "reactive hypoglycemia post gastric bypass surgery"). It's can also be called "late dumping" although diarrhea and stomach cramps don't seem to be associated with it. It is most prevalent in gastric bypass patients. I think I mentioned earlier in a post that I only had these episodes once or twice a year until this year. Then, after shopping with a girlfriend all day, we stopped at McDonald's and got a large mocha frappucinno. At her house my lips started going numb and then I didn't really know who I was and could not talk straight. Her husband was a diabetic and for some reason she decided to check my blood sugar which came in at a whopping 34. Off to the ER where the physician on call told me it was "fluctuating hypoglycemia." I am searching for an endocrinologist or gastroenterologist now to see if I can get some help for this. In the meantime I am reading everything I can about what foods to eat. "Protein first," all the articles say coupled with a food that has a low glycemic index (I still don't know what that means). Searching for the sweet spot in the management of this condition!! We can journey together. Thanks for sharing.

Well, Rick, you hit the nail on the head when you said it triggers hunger! I just seem to want to eat all the time because my stomach has that achy "feed me" feeling. Thanks for writing. This is the pits but I am slowly getting quite an education on this complication. No fun at all. BUT still glad I had the surgery. Wouldn't trade this freedom for anything!

I'm 14 years out from gastric bypass surgery (RNY) and still get nauseated when I eat meat and many other things that I won't bore you with. I still have a protein drink every single day to compensate for the loss of protein from meat products. A young woman stopped by my house the other day asking for advice. She was six months out from surgery and still experiencing nausea with most foods, especially meat. Why would your doctor think your throat had suddenly gotten too small when you have been eating all your life prior to surgery without this issue? I don't think so. My son had this surgery and he doesn't have any problems at all. Yet I have a lot of nausea, reactive hypoglycemia, trouble with low iron and a couple of other things. Each of us is different. Most doctors don't seem to know that!! Give it time. Take it slow. Very slow.

Try taking your pills in applesauce. I did that for years and years after my surgery because my vitamins and other supplements made me so nauseated. It worked. If that doesn't help, take famotidine about an hour before taking your pills and see if that makes a diff.

Matt, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. My doctor told me about dumping syndrome before he did the surgery, but he emphasized that it would be caused if I ate sugary products (which I don't). I did a search of this site AFTER I wrote the hypoglycemia post (duh, I'm a new person here and didn't know I could search this site) and found almost 700 issues of people talking about "reactive" hypoglycemia (not fluctuating - which is what the doctor in the ER called it). With that new terminology I searched the web and found many scientific articles written since 2014 about this "new phenomena in gastric bypass patients." I'm really scared at this point, but I now see that I have got to find a gastroenterologist or endocrinologist to get some serious advice. I can't manage this on my own. I moved to a small town about three years after surgery and at that point was no longer followed by the physician who did my surgery. So, do you really think reactive hypoglycemia and dumping syndrome are the same thing?