GERD with sleeve a problem?

[Jessica9190 127]

Ok I'm posting this in the post surgery so I can get answers from ones who've had experience.

Is the sleeve not the right choice for people with bad GERD?

I never knew that but I read it in another post on here. Now I'm wondering if I need to switch.

[SeriouslyChange 319]

I will say that I have never experienced heartburn in my life until I got the sleeve. Now certain things make me "burn"

Ask your surgeon as he would know best. Usually they prescribe something to help with that though. Plus the weight loss helps with the symptoms.

[softwsolu1 8]

I have had unusually bad problems with GERD post-surgery. Please note that I'm still happy that I did the sleeve, however.

I was always a GERD patient, but 2x Prilosec a day would take care of it for me. However post-sleeve the acid become intolerable, and I was vomiting stomach acid repeatedly 3-4 days after coming home.

I can't say this has totally resolved for me, but it's calmed down to a level that for now is manageable, particularly when I got past the liquid phase of the diet and could get some food in my stomach to absorb the acid. Since getting sleeved my GP has informed me that stomach acid is the single most common reason for people getting the sleeve revised.

Things that helped:

* When I got to full liquids, I added low-sodium V8 to my liquids list. For some reason this helped to quiet down my stomach a bit, which led to my belief that I might have been suffering from low acid instead of high. I'm still puzzled about this; if you do some Google searching you will find that they have quite similar symptoms. Part of me thinks the increased acidity of the V8 just helped activate the Prilosec.

* An old household remedy - a shot of apple cider vinegar right before bed, followed by a teaspoon of honey to soothe the flavor a bit. Please note there is, so far as I know, absolutely no scientific evidence that this does anything at all. But I started doing it the day I started feeling better, and superstition or not, I feel not desire to wake up choking again, so I keep doing it.

* Once I got to mushies, eat every 2 hours. This means my calorie intake is higher than most peoples' around here (I get about 1500 calories a day), but given my weight this actually still allows for great weight loss - in 4 weeks I have lost 41 lbs. Eating small amounts regularly - which is not what's recommended by many nutritionists - has helped keep my stomach calm.

My doctor promises that, as the inflammation goes down and time passes, my stomach will reduce its production of acid and this will get better. I remain hopeful. But as I said at the outset, even with the acid, I'm glad I did this.

Don't disregard it as a factor though - it's a real issue that impacts many sleevers and could cause you to need a revision, so it's something you should discuss with your doctors.