Part 3 of POST OP LAP NISSEN...Please continue to post!!!

OH my I meant to say 1 1/2 INCH of banana....You all must of thought I was nuts!

I love my ice packs....they make the incisions and my whole stomach area feel so much better!!! (at least for me). When I woke up from surgery they had an ice pack on me and I've tried to keep one on most of the time. I had the respiratory therapist show up late the night I was at the hospital and do the breathing thing and wanted me to do the exercises with that plastic thing 10-20 time each hour...yeah, that is not happening - it hurts too much and I think she was nuts anyway. I just do deep breathing every hour and play with the plastic thing every few hours...and only for about 10 times. I do cough here and there, more than I did before the surgery, it just happens and I hold a pillow over my tummy.

Of course it helps that my Mom is staying with me because my husband had to work his regular shifts this week. She is an ICU nurse at the same hospital I had surgery at - so the nurses I had were "extra" attentive I think. She said the coughing is probably irritation of the lungs from the anesthesia, the gases they used and being intubated.

I haven't had the super "full" feeling my doc said I would have after eating small amounts. Of course the largest thing I've had over 20 minutes was some runny cream of wheat. I have had some little esophageal spasms out of the blue but I imagine those will go away eventually.

I was going to go back and re-read your post but it won't let me with out loosing this one so I hope I shed some light on anything you had questions on :)

I think pain is very varied with these. They sent me home wiht a giant bottle of hydrocodone/acetominophen. I havent touched it, and only had morphine once after surgery. I'm very sensitive to medications.
I found that the spirometer (funny plastic thing) helped me clear the congestion faster, so do try and use it as often as possible. It works. The hardest day for me was definately 2 days after surgery. The ice packs do help. My favorite juice to drink has been white grape juice. Its not too acidic.

Oops...I had my first boo boo and it was totally my fault. I found out what it feels like to get something stuck in your esophagus and just have to kinda wait for it to make it's way down. I'll be paying much more attention to that because it wasn't fun! I've also had some little spasms that I believe are related to eating something that was just a little to cold for me to handle at this time so I let my jello, pudding, juice etc...warm up bit from the fridge before eating them.

At this point I don't feel like I fill up easily like a lot people say they do. I can eat a full serving of cream of wheat or whatever. I eat it slowly but I can eat it and not feel sick. I also must be weird in the fact that I feel like I'm hungry every couple of hours. I feel like I just keep thinking about food. I just told myself it's because I'm used to eating "real" food like chicken and turkey and not soft stuff.

Tomorrow I will be almost 5 days out and I still feel like I need some sort of pain meds, I can just go longer between doses. They refilled my liquid hydrocodone, thank goodness, but I would have been happy with pills (I have an awesome pill crusher). My tummy is sooo swollen all the way around to my back it's comical looking.

Time to find dinner...perhaps a milkshake....

I have diaphragm/chest pain when I breath deep and I have some pain around my incisions- if I move a certain way my stomach area screams at me! My torso has bruising in different areas scattered around and in between the incisions and I'm still really swollen. The last two days though my shoulders and mid back hurt worse than anything. I'm guessing either referred pain from the surgery or it's from the gas they pumped me up with.

Speaking of gas..:D I have had more but I think some of it may be from my diet because I am able to burp a little bit. I've only taken gasX a couple of times and it has helped.

I'm not sure on the reflux part, I do know that I've been having little spasms in my esophagus. Sometimes it's when I eat/drink something too cold and sometimes it's totally random.

Oh -and pain medication makes me hyper instead of tired so the most I've slept at night since I've gotten home from the hospital is 6 hours in a row...glad I don't have to go to work right now :) I expect to crash one of these days reallll sooooon!

Post Edited (doghouse) : 2/2/2008 2:13:54 PM (GMT-7)

Doghouse,
I never had any anti-nausea medication, so I can't answer that. For pain medication, it was IV morphine every 4 hours in the hospital. Due to being overly sensitive to many medications, I went home with no prescription pain med - I was instructed to get liquid Tylenol and liquid ibuprofen and take them alternately. Ibuprofen sometimes irritates the stomach, but is an anti-inflammatory (to help reduce swelling in the wrap area). Tylenol worked well - it took enough of the edge off so I was mostly comfortable and what little discomfort was left I could deal with. I used it for about 2 weeks post op.

You mentioned having a pill crusher - vicodin is beyond vile to swallow no matter what you disguise it in.

Hi everyone, I'm now one week post op. Knock on wood, I'm doing well-MINUS the bronchitus. My doctor today told me not to cough...yeah, tell my lungs that!!! I've already finished a Zpack and now am on some anti cough pill and albuteral. He wants to see me back in 2 weeks. We will see. I've been doing pretty well, had a few miss haps, too big a bite, too gasy.....I still don't burp, But, I was never able to make myself burp, I didn't think there would be a problem....NOW, I know why everyone WANTS to burp!!!! Oh well, gas X here I come!!! I might just buy stock in it!
I have to say, my 3 year old has been doing really well, with the whole, Mommy has a boo boo and she can't pick you up. But After I have a coughing fit, she looks at me and says, "mommy you better?" OH I love her. Of course it's ONLY been ONE week. One thing I didn't expect was the emptiness I feel not being able to pick Stella up, swing her around, squeeze her and just have tickle wars.....I never realized how hands ON I was....OH I MISS IT!!!!!

Just general INFO:

My doctor told me to try to stay away from meats....He said the stomach has to contract harder to digest them.....It makes sense to me, since I trid very fine ground meat, and my stomach hurt....UGH.

Hello,

I am copy/pasting my previous post from part 2 so you know where I'm starting: 

Hello,

I've read through all of part 1 and 2 and can't seem to find the answer to my question.  My history....today is my post op day 12 after my lap nissen.  I was on 80 mg of omeprazole without long term success, I had an EGD, and Barium Swallow that were both positive for reflux.  I then had the dreaded manometry and finally my gallbladder was cleared with a hyda (sp) scan.

My symptoms were constant sore throat and nausea/stomach ache. 

The first 8 days after the nissen were very painful, but I made it okay.  Biggest concern was how I was going to keep weight on as I'm small to start with.

Here's the problem.  2 days ago my symptoms returned.  Throat irritation with that feeling that there's something in there, and stomach ache. I feel good when I wake up and as soon as I eat or drink it's back with a vengeance.

I see my surgeon for my post op visit tomorrow and I'm afraid he's going to think I'm nuts. Everyone keeps telling me not to jump to conclusions but I'm very familiar with my symptoms before the surgery and they are the same.   I'm feeling very emotional and depressed.  This has been very expensive and I can't bear the thought of doing it again in the new year, starting over with deductible and out of pocket costs.

Has anyone else had these symptoms post op?  If so, did your nissen fail?

 

Okay, today I'm 10 weeks post op.  I continued to have the same reflux symptoms and surgeon ordered a barium swallow which was negative for reflux and the wrap was intact.  He can't imagine I'm still refluxing.  Frustration.  I opted for the "old way" ph probe vs the 10 times more expensive Bravo capsule.  I got the results today and I'm still refluxing.  And most interesting is that every episode (a little over once an hour) was while upright, zero while prone.  And all but two episodes reached my UES.....so laryngopharangeal reflux.  I'm so disappointed.  And back on PPI's.  My hope is that after 2 months we can reduce the dose and get control. I do realize there is a percentage of people that the nissen doesn't work for, but I don't know why.. Not sure what options I have.

Has anyone else had this happen after the nissen?

I'm officially day ten post op and I officially feel like crap and I'm freaking out because I have to go back to work monday even though my boss knows I'm coming back 1/2 time the first couple of days. I don't know what my problem is...if it's just all the meds working their way out of my system or my body telling me it does NOT like surgery. I feel foggy, sluggish, tired...every time I try to sleep or nap I wake up in a cold sweat and have chills. I haven't had a fever for a couple of days now. I can eat whatever solid foods I want but I should wait for fresh veggies and tough meats. I've stuck with very benign plain things in very small portions and have done okay but I'm still sticking with mostly a soft diet. My incisional pain is a lot less and I so is my internal pain from the surgery so that's good. I guess it's actually the rest of me that feels off. I guess I keep trying to tell myself it hasn't even been two weeks and to mellow out.

Does anyone remember how long it is post op until you can swallow a capsule? I can swallow some small pills I'm just not sure about capsules...right now I empty the contents in pudding or applesauce and take it that way.

Post Edited (doghouse) : 2/8/2008 8:22:54 PM (GMT-7)

ha. We're all different. I've felt pretty good since about day 9, but now, even at day 18, I'm eating nothing thicker than mashed potatoes, and even liquids sometimes get hung up. I've had 2 nausea episodes, and 2 days of extreme intestinal gas pain and constipation. Thats all seemed to pass, but I long for solid foods.

Anyone have chills two weeks out from surgery? No fever, more just annoying chills and sweats when I try sleeping. I swear it's my body going "don't you ever do this to me again!!!!" I've had a little bit of spaghetti for dinner last night, that went okay and I had some eggs and toast for breakfast and that went fine until I tried to drink some milk to fast....spasm..oops.