Weight Loss Surgery - Post surgical complications

I had my Lap-Band sugery on Monday, April 30th. I came home from the hospital the next day, and started my daily routine of protein shakes, chicken broth and sugar-free jello. All was fine, besides the soreness from the procedure. And then it started...

On Friday, May 4th, right around 12 noon, I started getting pains in my stomach and my back. It kind of felt like something was stuck, or I was just incredibley full. It struck me as strange because I took almost an hour to drink my soup for lunch. I kept thinking maybe I drank too fast, and it would go away. Hours went by, and I was getting worse. Finally around 5pm I started heaving, and nothing came out. This continued with more and more pain, until I finally called the hospital around 8pm and asked if this was a "normal" reaction. They urged me to come in to the emergency room.

After I checked in they started me on a heavy dose of IV pain killers, and I was completely miserable. The pain just would not go away. I stayed overnight and they did a ton of tests the next day. I had a cat-scan, x-rays, blood work, they had me drink berium, they injected me with that stuff that makes your insides glow, and on and on. The pain stayed, and I spent another night.

After the doctor reviewed all the test results, it was not the band that was making me sick. They looked for slippage, lascerations, and didn't find anything. I was relieved in a way, especially since I had thrown up many times at the hospital, and I thought for sure that was going to mess the positioning up.

They finally did an ultrasound on my gall bladder, since I have gall stones but I haven't had an attack for months, and they are usually triggered by eating high-fat foods. Sure enough my gall bladder was inflamed. The doctor told me that the stone had changed positions and was blocking one of the ports, which is what was causing the sharp pains in my back. Even though I hadn't eaten anything high in fat, it was certainly nothing that could have been predicted. They had actually planned on taking it out some six months down the road after I was all healed up. Needless to say, they scheduled me for surgery immediately, and it is now out of my body.

The pains are now gone, but holy crap did that suck. I'm super sore now, with even more little laproscopic cuts in my belly, but glad to be home. 4 days at the hospital! Ugh! I am so tired of being on pain medication. I want a clear mind again, and I want to go back to work but I have to take another week off to recover. At least I can finally start on the road to recovery. Whew! What a crazy world! Good to be home! I look forward to healing my body, getting healthy and losing weight!

Happy to be home~

Melissa

Wow. As I was reading I could feel my stomach getting tighter and tighter just waiting for the awful whatever that must be coming up...weeew, what a relief. I'm so glad that it was gall stones and not complications from your surgery. Glad because they can take it out and no more problems. I hope the lap band works really well for you. I have a friend who wants to do it but can't seem to get up the courage. Good luck !!

oh my. there are many docs who automatically remove gall bladders during surgery, but apparently there wasn't any need to do that with you. but look what happened!

thank goodness it wasn't related to your lapband!

WOWEEE, glad your okay chickie...that musta been scary to say the least.

:hug: feel better

Wow!!!! Glad you came out of that without your band slipping or something super-scary directly from the surgery.
So, they knew you had large stones prior to performing a massive weight-loss inducing procedure on you............... Ok, I gotta let my inner sailor out.... What kind of freakin moron does that? I seriously hope you're thinking of filing a complaint or something. My apologies if I offended anyone. Did they say what duct was blocked?

Geez, I never really thought about it as neglect. The doctor told me that they could not do both procedures at once, because the band was a "clean" procedure and the gall bladder was a "dirty" procedure. They did not want to run the risk of infection on the band if the gall bladder leaked during the operation. If I had the full bypass done they could have done them both at once. He gave me the option to do one or the other first, and of course I opted to get the band first. After all, I had waited 6 months for the date and I didn't want to wait any longer. They were going to remove the gall bladder some time down the road. Now I hadn't had an attack in months, so it wasn't bothering me. I was even thinking that I may never have problems again since I had changed my eating habits, and that I might not even need it taken out. You definately have my wheels turning now.