Daughter's Gastric Bypass Horror Story Continues
Our older DD had Gastric Bypass surgery over 2 years ago now, and her health problems from it continue to show up. All last year she battled with Peripheral Neuropathy so bad that she was almost not able to walk at all. She was in and out of the hospital something like 50 or 60 days last year, while they tried to bring her nutrition level up to a point that her body could recover. She thought she was over all that, even though it meant she had to gain back a lot of the weight she had lost.
During that same time period, she was having constant problems with crumbling teeth and abscesses. Now, the dentist tells her that the real problem is that the jaw bone is deteriorating, so the roots of the teeth are not stable. He is planning on pulling them all and putting her in dentures.
And, now, on top of that news she received this week, her eye exam showed serious problems, which they thought at the time was weak muscles from the Neuropathy. So, she went to an ophthalmologist, who says she has holes in her retina. She now has an appointment with a retina specialist.
To say the least, she is overwhelmed. We spent a long time on the phone last night with her sobbing away, and understandably so. When she decided to have the bypass surgery, we did all kinds of research, and at the time it seemed like the best way to improve her quality of life. Obviously, that was not the case.
I realize there are people out there who are so morbidly obese that they are existing, not living, in their present condition. DD's health was such that she was in serious danger. But now, it's hard to think that she (we) made the right decision.
If you know anyone who is considering this surgery, please let them know that there are people who have major regrets about it.
During that same time period, she was having constant problems with crumbling teeth and abscesses. Now, the dentist tells her that the real problem is that the jaw bone is deteriorating, so the roots of the teeth are not stable. He is planning on pulling them all and putting her in dentures.
And, now, on top of that news she received this week, her eye exam showed serious problems, which they thought at the time was weak muscles from the Neuropathy. So, she went to an ophthalmologist, who says she has holes in her retina. She now has an appointment with a retina specialist.
To say the least, she is overwhelmed. We spent a long time on the phone last night with her sobbing away, and understandably so. When she decided to have the bypass surgery, we did all kinds of research, and at the time it seemed like the best way to improve her quality of life. Obviously, that was not the case.
I realize there are people out there who are so morbidly obese that they are existing, not living, in their present condition. DD's health was such that she was in serious danger. But now, it's hard to think that she (we) made the right decision.
If you know anyone who is considering this surgery, please let them know that there are people who have major regrets about it.
Labels: Gastric Bypass Surgery, nutrition, peripheral neuropathy, Quality of Life, retina, weight loss
posted by Dirty Butter @ 5:49 AM
4 Comments:
At 5/07/2008 8:31 AM ,
valerie said...
There definitely needs to be more posts like this. My older sister had the surgery almost two years ago. As a result of the ensuing health problems she recently received a prognosis of 6 months to 2 years. She just turned 28. It is too scary to think of 30 as someone's life expectancy.
At 5/07/2008 8:59 AM ,
Dirty Butter said...
I am so sorry to hear about your sister! I just try to remind myself that our daughter was shortening her life already, due to the severe obesity, and we made the best decision we could at the time.
Our daughter is over weight again, tiny stomach and all, but at least she is walking!!
We got lots of extra opinions from surgeons, neurologists, and gastroenterologists while we dealt with all her problems. Have you been to Mayo, or some such site? It was a Mayo study that showed the danger of Peripheral Neuropathy long after the bypass surgery had been completed. Of course, they published it after our daughter had already had her stomach altered.
At 7/15/2008 10:49 AM ,
Anonymous said...
Heather said...
I have been out of gastric bypas for almost three years now. Almost one year later I developed a brain tumor, that was removed cause it was causing seizures, hurrnea reipair, gallbladder removed, severe abdominal pain and left back flank pain, d deficiancy k deficiancy b deficiancy high iron binding low ferritonwhich is stored iron anemia high white blood cell count depression and neurapathy of hands mouth and feet so awful that none of the drugs given to me were effective. I have given up all meds accept xanex to sleep because I have such high anxiety from the pain. I hate the surgeon that did this to me because reversing this surgery is far more deadly than having it to begin with and my body is not able to absorb any of the nutrients I give it. Apparently neurapathy was a known side effect that my surgeon failed to tell me and he has failed to get me help for what he caused. His ofice treated me like I was crazy when in fact I am suffering severely. Too late to change the choice I made but it was the worst decision I have ever made.
At 7/15/2008 12:10 PM ,
Dirty Butter said...
I am so sorry that you have also had such horrible consequences to your surgery, Heather. The Mayo study that showed the Neuropathy problems that sometimes accompany Gastric Bypass Surgery came out in October of 2006, and she had the surgery before that. It sounds like you did, too.
So maybe you can cut your doctor some slack for that, but he should certainly have been aware that these sorts of problems were happening to people since late 2006.
We went to several Neurologists to get second opinions about what was wrong and the right way to help her, plus explored the possibility of undoing the Bypass. She had a Groshung catheter and was receiving nutrients through that for about a year, until her walking improved greatly.
She also tried a PEG feeding tube in the pouch of the old stomach that was stapled off from the working small stomach. She did not get good results from that, but it's something you probably need to discuss with a top notch Gastrologist.
This is not an easy procedure, because the other part of the stomach is "floating" in the abdominal cavity. They have to go in and find it, attach it to the peritoneum, and then insert the tube.
If you haven't already, you might want to look at all the tags that have Gastric Bypass in them here on my blog to get a better idea of how things went for her from the beginning.
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