Did Anyone Have Complications Following Surgery

[Julie0108]

Hello to All! I am new to this forum. I had surgery on Oct 24, 2018 and had a very serious complication. It was done at an accredited weight loss clinic in Toronto. The surgery itself went well but approximately 4 to 5 hrs after recovery, the nurse noticed my blood pressure was a bit low. She notified the surgeon who came back to the clinic and made the decision to transfer me to ER. To be honest, at this point I felt fine and had initially been told that the surgery went well. A couple of hours after I arrived at ER, my abdomen started to feel a bit sore. Then, I started taking shallow painful breathes. I was coherent and cooperative the whole time until the end when the pain worsened and breathing on my back became agonizingly painful (side was much better but they kept making me lay on my back to examine my stomach). My situation started to worsen and I recall them saying my blood pressure was 84/44. My husband said they called a code blue in the hospital and there was a swarm of about 5 surgeons who were working on me (I was very much coherent but had difficulty opening my eyes yet I could hear and process most of the information). Btw I am a midwife and know alot about hemorrhage all too well. In a morbid sense the whole situation was quite interesting lol! They pushed through 3 bags of blood then immediately rushed me into surgery. After more than 2 hrs they repaired a small bleeding artery along the sleeve suture line and drained 5 L of blood and blood clots from my abdomen cavity. I received an additional 2 more bags of blood while in surgery. By all account, the surgeons saved my life. The surgeon told my husband that I had 80% of my blood volume in my abdomen. I should have died based on what I have read and know about hemorrhage.

About 5 hrs after surgery, they tested my blood again and said that my hemoglobin had dropped 25 points in the last 5 hrs so I was still bleeding! Once again, I felt fine and had been visiting with family. I received another 2 bags of blood and was informed that I would have to undergo a second exploratory surgery if my hemo dropped again. Thankfully it didn't dropped!!

This whole experience 11 days ago has left me feeling lucky to be alive. I don't take things for granted. I am 45 years old and a mother of 5 children (6 - 21 years old). My only regret if I had passed would have been leaving my beloved babies so soon. However, I know they would have been well cared for by my husband and parents.

The odd thing is...I can't figure out why I had this complication? I am fairly young (45), healthy with no medical conditions at all and a BMI of 31.6 approximately (5'4" and 182 lbs). I didn't have to do the optishake because of my relatively low BMI. I chose to have this surgery because I am a binge eater. I eat reasonably during the day then binge around 1 am consuming around 2500 calories in 1 hour. I do this most nights. I have tried therapy and even Vyvanse prior to the surgery. Nothing worked. I am not bulimic and by most people's opinions have an extremely fast metabolism consuming a daily average of 4000 cal/day for much of my life. I am very active in a busy hyperactive way (I have ADHD) but not a gym way lol!

Has anyone almost bled together during surgery or had a serious complication? Thanks for listening. Just trying to process what happened.

[Sandra3]

Hello Julie,

I'm so sorry to read about your surgery and complication. I hope you will feel better very soon!! take care of yourself!!

Unfortunately, when we decide to have a surgery, we do have risks. Not one surgery is risk-less.
I did experience many complication after a surgery in July, it was tumor removal but also arm lift since the tumors were there and it was easier to combine both. I must say I did regret the lift and think now I should have gone with several incisions instead...but it's done.

One thing I always check before surgery, is make sure they have an ICU and can do cardiac surgery if necessary, because a heart attack during or after a sleeve is one of the highest risk for a morbidly obese patient.
I wonder how that artery was damaged because...that really rare!! but bad things happen...it's just unlucky..

That brings me to one observation (please don't take any offense here) guidelines in many countries do require for the patients to have a BMI of 40 or 35 minimum with comorbidities. Also in most protocols a psychiatric eval and approval is compulsory. And with eating issues, that would be denied unless treatment show improvement.

So if I had to deal myself with a 31 BMI and no other issues, I must say I wouldn't have chosen to have the surgery. Or may be try something less invasive like the balloon.
I do feel for example for my surgery in July (which was a necessity because of the pre cancerous tumors...but yet could have been smaller, and I didn't know before the surgery it was pre-cancerous, biopsies came back normal) than I should have gone an other way. We learn from our mistakes..

My sleeve was done in January 2016, was not a walk in the park, I was vomiting non stop for 3 days, had strong nausea for more than a year, and many minor issues.
It did help me get to a "normal but heavy" weight. It did helm me to be more mobile and painless. It did help me balance my weight which was slowly killing me, because any cortisone treatment make me gain weight like crazy, and unfortunately I need cortisone periodically.
I had many health issues that got much much better with the sleeve.
Do I have regrets??? not one.
Do I regret the surgery I had in July?? yes...a lot.
But we can't change the past. We just learn from it.

You are lucky to be alive, so enjoy your babies, and give them lots of kisses!
Take care

[Julie0108]

Thanks for the response Sandra! I kissed my kids many many times once I got home. The clinic where I had the surgery offers sleeve surgery for BMI's as low as 30. It was a highly respected and accredited facility with excellent doctors. In no way do I feel I received suboptimal care. The Dr was very competent and caring and managed the emergency extremely well. I guess I just drew the wrong straw!

I was a bit surprised that I qualified but research is now showing that offering sleeve surgery has positive outcomes for lower BMI patients. Let's face it, I highly doubt I would have successfully been able to keep weight off longterm. It is highly likely that I would have gained weight each year like most people do. The thinking is why wait to gain more weight and to develop health complications when I can prevent them? I have a history of yo yo dieting and binge eating. I am also on antidepressants which I believe directly contributed and correlated exactly with the weight gain. I am a "lifer" on the medication and have stopped them in the past only because of the dramatic weight gain (60 lbs in one year) just to have a emotional crisis which made me go back on them. The weight peeled off when I discontinued the medication then came right back on once I restarted them. I have had therapy and even tried Vyvanse which is the only drug approved in Canada for binge eating disorder. Nothing worked!

Despite the near death experience, I am happy that I had the surgery because for the first time in my life I have been able to eat reasonably! I know gastric surgery is often contraindicated for patients with eating disorders. However, I felt this was my best option but I will keep everyone updated on my progress in terms of how it affects my binge eating disorder.

[SAMom]

Thank God you are ok! Praying for complete and total healing! Wishing you much success with your new way of life!

[sraebaer]

My first thought was wow, that's a low BMI for major surgery. I don't think anyone would have operated on you in the states. But I'm sorry about your major complications and hope you heal quickly! So scary.

[Christie13]

I am so sorry to hear of all your complications. That is scary. I am glad you are doing better.

[Sandra3]

Thanks for the response Sandra! I kissed my kids many many times once I got home. The clinic where I had the surgery offers sleeve surgery for BMI's as low as 30. It was a highly respected and accredited facility with excellent doctors. In no way do I feel I received suboptimal care. The Dr was very competent and caring and managed the emergency extremely well. I guess I just drew the wrong straw!

I was a bit surprised that I qualified but research is now showing that offering sleeve surgery has positive outcomes for lower BMI patients. Let's face it, I highly doubt I would have successfully been able to keep weight off longterm. It is highly likely that I would have gained weight each year like most people do. The thinking is why wait to gain more weight and to develop health complications when I can prevent them? I have a history of yo yo dieting and binge eating. I am also on antidepressants which I believe directly contributed and correlated exactly with the weight gain. I am a "lifer" on the medication and have stopped them in the past only because of the dramatic weight gain (60 lbs in one year) just to have a emotional crisis which made me go back on them. The weight peeled off when I discontinued the medication then came right back on once I restarted them. I have had therapy and even tried Vyvanse which is the only drug approved in Canada for binge eating disorder. Nothing worked!

Despite the near death experience, I am happy that I had the surgery because for the first time in my life I have been able to eat reasonably! I know gastric surgery is often contraindicated for patients with eating disorders. However, I felt this was my best option but I will keep everyone updated on my progress in terms of how it affects my binge eating disorder.

Your very welcome Julie!

But for sure we do have different experiences and point of view
And the research I've been reading about low BMI's do apply but to people with comorbidities. Does binge eating is a comorbidity? not sure?

But do I believe in prevention? yes indeed and understand perfectly where you are coming from. Much better to address an issue before it's too late. But is it the right way to address binge eating??
I did study nutrition....but I'm no shrink....

It took me one year to decide where I would have surgery, because of work I was living overseas and so I got infos from surgeons in the US, Mexico, France and Taipei (where I was going to be posted mainly for the three years post-op).
While it was too complicated to have the surgery in France because of all the exams pre-op and I couldn't stay that long to get everything done, I decided to do the surgery in Taipei and found a really great surgeon, with (at the time of our first meeting) more than 2000 surgeries under his belt, he was fluent in English (my Chinese is weak) and his department was dedicated to weight loss, so I could see a nutritionist and find support on many other ways (even sport).

Here is what I learned from my long process. It was worth it to do all the steps. My surgery was mostly paid by my French insurance, and I could have gone private and pay for it myself in full in France or Mexico, but I would have been on my own and those post-op visits did help me on many ways.
So if you paid for your surgery, your surgeon doesn't have to follow the guidelines. Of course your money qualify! And unfortunately, many doctors look at their incomes first. Canada has a health system really similar to what we have in France. I saw people in France going private, and having almost no follow up and ending up with really bad health issues, mostly related to deficiencies and malnutrition.And those people started with a low BMI, lost too much, and good sick from malnutrition in less than a year.

The most important here, is to make sure you do all your post op.And get help as soon as something is going wrong.
Of course two weeks after the surgery you can eat nothing. But I will reach my third year in January, and what I eat today is much much more than what I was able to eat two weeks after surgery (going from two spoons to half a plate in 3 years).
Since I had many medical issues since July, medication is making it very hard to manage my weight today, because I can eat more and my strong anemia was making me starving for months, I had to be extra careful.

But I learned many important things during my long journey as a morbidly obese patient.
Post-ops and regular blood work keep you on your toes, can show your deficiencies and prevent you from getting sick.

For most, mental issues like depression are linked to chemical unbalance in the brain. You for sure need your medication. I have a dear friend who's on her meds for almost 30 years now, she only stopped when she was pregnant and to stop it was really hard on her.
Like I said I don't know much about binge eating, but during one of the interview I had with the hospital psychiatrist, I did ask about food compulsion, and I did explain to the shrink that dealing with losses (for ex when my father passed away in a car accident) I could eat a full bar of chocolate (200gr) per day for like two weeks.
The shrink did dismiss that episode I was describing as "food compulsion" because it was too short in time, he said I was just grieving, but told me about that Canadian study (made about 5 years ago) that was showing that for bariatric patients who had food addiction/compulsion, going with a surgery was risky. They could switch from one dependence to an other, going from food to alcohol for most of them, and then the conclusion of that study was showing that surgery in those cases increased the risk of suicide.

So here is my 2 cents.
I was lucky not to have depression or mental health issues before the sleeve (I have my already heavy load of many health issues...couldn't have it all!) and felt the first year was sometimes challenging on many ways. My body changed a lot. I was sometimes feeling down when the weight loss stopped for months. Nausea for one year did make me tired and moody, deficiencies too (and when my iron is too low, I have cravings, even with the sleeve....and I don't crave broccoli, I crave chocolate). Took me two years to reach my surgeons' prediction, and I haven't reach my own goal yet. I'm still dealing with dismorphia once in a while, even if it got much better when my weight stabilized.
But at least, now when I gain weight because of the cortisone, it's less than before the sleeve, and it takes me less time lo lose it.

Deficiencies seem to be here for life, iron being the worth, followed by D vitamin. I've been having blood test every two weeks since July, to make sure to address each issue as soon as it shows. It was useful to be careful.

So if you feel that your mood is changing or feeling worth than usual, go see your doctor right away. Because the sleeve might help temporary with the binge eating but you don't want to compromise your mental health.
And I hope that like me, you will gain less now when taking your medication.

take care!

[denzel]

I am nearly 4 years post VSG, and I have developed mild to moderate oesophageal dysmobility with variable hold up at the gastro-oesophageal junction but no fixed stricture/obstruction. Along with a small hiatus hernia and severe ulcerative reflux oesophagitis.
I've been started on a PPI twice a day for 2/52, and am going back to see my Bariatric Surgeon in January.
The odd thing is that I didn't become symptomatic until early November, and the first symptoms were oesophageal spasm when I swallowed something. Had very little heart burn after that!