Well, aside from not losing much weight, the truly sucky part of my sleeve recovery has begun. As I wrote about the other day, I decided to discontinue taking Prilosec because I didn’t like the long list of issues that can arise with long term use. I was expecting some acid rebound, so I had Pepcid, Tums and Zantac on hand.
I had a couple of days with no acid after I discoed the Prilosec. Then it hit me hard. I beat it back with Zantac and it was mostly OK (pain level 3-4) for a few days. THEN, day before yesterday, the acid started really hurting, like 7-8 with spikes to 9. I took Zantac and Pepcid, but didn’t get much sleep that night. Then yesterday the acid was terrible all day, despite the Zantac. I even took a Prilosec before dinner, to no effect. The pain kept me up most of the night last night. I took a Zantac around midnight when I got up and went to the couch to sit up for a while. I dunno about YOU, but I cannot sleep sitting up. So all together, yesterday I took Zantac, many tums, Prilosec and another Zantac. FINALLY at around 4-5am, the pain eased off and I slept a little. I moved to the bed around 7am and slept until 11am. No pain today, but my stomach feels weird. And I feel like little bitty RAT TURDS.
I took a Zantac this morning and I’ll take another before bed. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep tonite.
I talked to Amy and she is still having reflux at 7 months. She takes Zantac twice a day and still wakes up with reflux every morning. Which tells me that I’ll probably have reflux for the rest of my life. Great. I never had any issues before VSG.
YES, I have buyers remorse. I have horrible reflux, I can’t eat anything, I can’t drink anything alcoholic (reflux and I can’t get drunk at all) and I’m very depressed that I’ve only lost 17# in TWO MONTHS. Overall, VSG has been mostly negatives for me.
I know intellectually that this is all just the Period Of Suck that everyone goes through, but it just doesn’t matter, I still feel crappy and depressed. Ugh.
I have a theory that the reflux (that is VERY common) with this surgery is partially due to the design of the sleeve itself. Let’s think about this. They make a narrow tube from the esophagus down to a pouch at the bottom. What do tubes do well? THEY SIPHON. I think sleeve patients get reflux because the tube siphons the stomach acid right up to the esophagus and VOILÀ! REFLUX. I hope someone who designs these bariatric surgeries reads this and will rethink the shape of the sleeve. Why not mimic the original shape of the stomach, just smaller?
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the HORRIBLE reflux that I and many other sleeve patients suffer with. Maybe in the future, they can do something about it by changing the shape of the sleeve. All I can say is that Prilosec forever is NOT the answer. Zantac is not much better, but it appears that I’ll have to take something for the foreseeable future. Which makes me SAD.