Partial bowel blockage

[MassMom 103]

Hi, Pals. I want to share something so that hopefully it does not happen to anyone else. I am 2 week’s post op- gastric bypass. Everything was going very well. I wasn’t losing yet, but the surgery had gone well and I wasn’t in any pain.

I did the post-surgery diet for a week and a few days. My nutritionist cleared me for puréed food. I was happy to be off just Protein Shakes. I thought that as long as I was not throwing the food back up- everything was ok. I had experienced a couple bad reactions to food- eggs mainly- where as soon as I ate it- they came back up within 15 minutes. Since things were moving along ok, I added some soft food- mostly when I had to eat out- and chewed it up to a fine grain before swallowing- again, I thought if it wasn’t coming back up- all was ok. After doing this maybe 2-3 times, about 2 hours after dinner, I started having very sharp stomach pains and was vomiting about every hour. This went on all night. I have not been that miserable since childbirth. At 5:00 am I called the on-call doctor and they sent me straight to ER. They ran a CT scan and I had a partial bowel blockage. I was in the hospital 2.5 days. My diet was reset to nothing, Clear Liquids, then eventually Protein shakes. I am now back to this stage for at least another week or so.

Moral of the story- don’t advance your diet too quickly. And, call the on-call doctor if something seems wrong. All night I thought I was just having a bad reaction to something I ate and it would resolve itself. But a small part of me knew something wasn’t right and I’m glad I trusted my gut. Full bowel blockages can be fatal.

Thanks and best wishes.

[Orchids&Dragons 9,047]

That sounds awful. Thank you for sharing your experience and I hope you get well soon.

[J San 1,071]

Sounds horrible. Glad you got through it with no major issues. Sucks you had to go through it though. Happy healing from here on out.

[Frustr8 7,886]

This is frightening, I am hearing this often now.

[Crump408 2]

Thanks, I’m experiencing this now. I’m in the ER.

[MassMom 103]

30 minutes ago, Crump408 said:

Thanks, I’m experiencing this now. I’m in the ER.

I'm so sorry you are in the midst of this. Wishing you a very rapid recovery. If it helps- after that incident was resolved- my weight loss started to pick up (about 3 pounds per week) and while I still have problems keeping food down- it has been MUCH better. Get well soon.