Traumatic Lap Band Erosion
Long story short, my primary care provider was incapable of diagnosing that I was suffering from a severe (almost total) lap band erosion, on Saturday, January 24th I admitted myself to the ER. Within hours an almost total lap band erosion was diagnosed with complications due to severe abdominal infection. I was scheduled for emergency surgery by a licenced bariatric physican. The procedure took over 4 hours and I spent the next 15 days in the hospital. I have a nine inch incision from my belly button to my breast bone and am now at home where I feed myself through an abdominal tube 16 hours a day. I also empty an abdominal drainage bag (surgically attached below my right breast) and a stomach overflow pouch that is strapped to my leg and surgically inserted into my stomach. If all goes well I will return to work in about 3-4 weeks and then will have all of the drainage and feed tubes surgically removed in 6 weeks.
There is some questions about whether my insurance will pay for everything or not since the original surgery was optional. I don't have the final bill yet, but in addition to the 4 hour surgery, just the hospital stay was around $5000 per day (so I've been led to believe), I had 3 CT scans, 3 seperate series of x-rays, round the clock medical care, meds, dietician, home health care and weekly follow up visits for 6-8 weeks.
A quick history of how I think it could have gotton so bad...
Following my Tijuana Lapband in Jul07, I routinly lost about 5 lbs per month. A weight I was happy with since other medical conditions make it difficult to exersize. FEB/MAR08 I got a bad case of the flu followed by a severe cold. I think it might have been during this time that my band sutures came loose and the band began slipping. I did lose the constriction that I had, luckily I didn't gain any more weight, however I totally stopped losing any weight. I started to be short of breath expecially when undergoing any exertion (like stairs or even walking fast). 3 trips to the ER, followed by a complete heart work-up, including an angiogram revealed that my heart was in perfect condition and my artieries were fine (over $20k of procedures-). Thank goodness my insurance had no problem paying for most of this. AFTER the huge heart tests the DOC said that all of my symptoms could be caused by severe anemia, and yes, it turns out that all of my pre-angiogram blood work DID reveal that I was severelly anemic (caused by loss of blood OR malobsorbsion). We set about trying to find out the cause of the anemia.
I had a barium swallow test that was unable to identify for sure if there was anything wrong.
I had an endoscopy and colonoscopy just months before my trip to the ER and a non-bariatric-trained doctor gave me an Rx for nexium to treat heartburn.
From the time of my angiogram (APR08) until my ER surgery to remove the lapband (26JAN09). I had 3 massive abdominal attacks that left me bedridden for days. The quality of my life was so bad that the Army (i'm full time) actually placed me on written orders that I was not to participate in ANY type of exersize and that I wasn't medically eligible for deployment or retention and that I was going to be discharged following a medical review board.
The week before I went to the ER I had been running a fever for 2 weeks straight and had missed a whole week of work. I went to my PCP on Tuesday and had x-rays done. He "suspected" that I had a partial intestinal blockage, but offered no medical care or self-care suggestions. I was back in his office on Thursday (104 degree fever) and he agreed to schedule a CT scan for "sometime" the next week and agreed to send me to a surgical consult 9 days away. On this day he diagnosed me with probable gastric-interitus. I specifically asked him if it could be lap-band related and he said he didn't think so. I also asked him if I was experiencing a medical emergency and he said absolutly not. Thank God I didn't wait and I went to the ER that Saturday. The absess in my belly was almost the size of a football. Bariatric Surgeon Dr. "B" had to scrape pus off all the surrounding organs and all of the nooks and crannies of my abdomen.
I would NEVER replace the lap band that they removed. My physician in Mexico who I contacted this past week said that some people just tend to be sensitive to them, and it is quite likely that I would suffer errosion again.
If there is a bright side to this story, it's that I wasn't able to eat anything for 2 weeks and have lost 20 pounds since January 10th. I'm sure I'm in for some more weight loss since i will continue with my tube feedings for another week or two and then I get to slowly begin a liquid diet by mouth for another 2-4 weeks.
