For successful fundoplication members.

Npoolstra. I'm betting we will see your future comments here.

Retired Seabee. Thanks for the update. Goodness that offers hope to so many. What a great Christmas present to your self.

Gewarn and Trotters. Look forward to your comments. It helps so many, especially in the area of deciding to proceed to surgery.

A big Thank You for all of you for posting your stories. You give hope! This is all very new to me as I was told two days ago to have the surgery so your comments are very enlightening. I hope to go in as well-prepared as possible and due to your input I think I will have a realistic idea of what to expect.

Hi all! I would love to be around more, but two puppies, full time work, full time school and lots of travel mean I have to pick and choose what few extras get my attention right now. Did I mention I am also house hunting? Whew!

So I had my nissen August of 2013, I was 29 years old. It was terrifying and recovery is still happening for me I think as I get back to the level of fitness and flexibility I enjoyed prior to the surgery. Shoveling snow still hurts and my wrap swells, and sometimes I eat chipotle and have heartburn and sometimes when I drink too much water too fast it doesn't go down properly, but my life is so much better now.

I can do yoga, I can sleep laying down, I don't take heartburn meds unless I abuse myself with foods that would take even an iron stomach down for the count, I can swallow steaks and breads and giant multivitamins.

I had an awesome surgeon, and awesome support group here and at home and it was a lot of learning how to treat my new body, but I have no regrets. My lasting symptoms are so minor and I only notice them when I am careless about how I eat, how hard I work out and all that jazz.

I hope everyone is well!
Stephanie

Bump

Age at surgery = 35
gender = male
date of surgery = 3/11/15
would you do it again = YES
would you recommend it = YES

pearls of wisdom = do your research including making sure that you qualify for the surgery with your insuarnce plan FIRST

how you arrived at your decision to have surgery = to many drawbacks with the medication long term and only partially worked anyway.

how long it took you to arrive at decision to proceed with surgery--scary thing. = It took me about 8 months to truly decide to go forward with the surgery. Thats mostly because I was concerned about being able to drink beer afterwards which seems silly now.

I would do this again 100 out of 100 times.

Hello everyone!

I haven't read through the entire thread so forgive me if this has already been brought up - but were any of you suffering from excessive belching before surgery (or after, I guess)?

My hernia is fairly small, but the extreme belching I suffer from is making me consider it. I'm not entirely certain whether surgery is effective for that particular symptom however.

Hey everyone! I haven't checked in for awhile, but as others have said it's important to share success stories so I wanted to lend my voice.

I had my surgery last August, so it's been almost 8 months now and so far things are going well! I still do have occasional flares where my wrap site or esophagus will get irritated, and I will have a temporary sensation of heartburn (but never any reflux back into my throat).

I'm 34 and fairly active, and within a couple months of surgery I was back to running and doing pretty much everything I used to do. My diet is almost completely back to normal, including alcohol and carbonated drinks. Every now and again I'll get a sensation of something getting stuck if I am eating something very dense like bread, or if I eat too quickly. I try to take much smaller bites and make sure I wash everything down thoroughly.

I can still burp, perhaps better than I could before! My scars are healing very nicely. They're still visible, but much less prominent than they were before. I have no residual pain or problems of note.

I'm still very happy that I made the decision to have the surgery. And thanks again to everyone here that shared their stories, good and bad, to help me prepare to make my decision!

Bump up for Fundrider

DanaR

Congratulations, glad to hear that you are doing so well just 2-weeks post-op! I also had the NF and hernia repair done via Davinci Robot, and I think that procedure really helped limit the amount of gas pain after surgery. As far as weight loss, some people do lose a lot of weight initially, and eventually gain some of it back, I've heard some people say that their weight didn't change. I had my surgery done last year, at age 53 and lost 35 pounds and have not put any of it back on. I needed to lose a little weight, but didn't think I would lose that much. I think it has a lot to do with my eating habits when I was experiencing stomach issues. Everyone is different, as far as weight loss and their recovery. I suffered from GERD most of my adult life, this surgery was definitely a life changer for me.

Sharon

Hello to all!
So glad to be able to post here with my success story. I had a full nissen fundoplication and hiatal hernia repair on March 23, 2015. I had a very large hernia that was about 1/2 way up my esophagus which was causing major regurgitation/burping with almost anything I ate or drank. I was a glutton for punishment as I lived with this for many years. I was prescribed and took all kinds of different medicines but found I wasn't responding positively to any of them. I went thru a few different doctors who would ignore my symptoms (hernia) and just write scripts for more medicine or procedures to tell them things they were already aware of (Hernia 9cm large). Each doctor would tell me the hernia wouldn't go away but wouldn't recommend fixing it because I had a "curvy" esophagus. I finally consulted with a doctor who recommended a very skilled surgeon that could help me. My gastro doctor and surgeon worked together and discussed all new test results ( endoscopy, manometry, barium swallow) and came up with a plan to fix my hernia and provide some relief. Most people with a large hernia get a partial wrap but they both felt a full wrap would benefit me the most. Based on my manometry results, I had great upper esophagus sphincter results but lower sphincter wasn't working so well. They believed the cause of the lower problem was because of the hernia and felt the full wrap was better for me to keep the hernia intact. I didn't want to use any mesh (biological or otherwise) so fixing the hernia with stitches and doing the full wrap was the best option for me. I discussed with the surgeon my concern of having a wrap that would be too tight and he assured me that he wouldn't do that. He's done over 1,000 surgeries of this kind and currently does about 3 a week. He said they would test different size "bogies" to ensure the proper size wrap. I did interview another surgeon but decided to go with the referred one because he answered all my questions, explained the process and went over all my test results and explained how the surgery would work to fix my problems. He was very informative and I liked his bedside manner. He was very reassuring that I would be okay. He had another doctor assisting him and they both provided me with information I hadn't thought of. They mentioned I wouldn't feel much pain in my internal abdominal area and the stitches and shoulder pain would be the worst. I was puzzled but they said the stomach area they would be working with didn't really have many nerves and therefore the healing around the site wouldn't be that painful- Bonus--- I thought with all the moving around of internal parts and internal stitches I'd be miserable. They were so right. Shoulder pain was a minor discomfort compared to what I set myself up for. I was able to walk the night of surgery, passed my swallow test the next day and went home. I took it easy for first week, starting eating more foods week two ,along with walking 2+ miles a day. After my two week checkup, my doctor asked me to start eating things I couldn't eat before surgery (tomato based sauces, breads) to see if I would experience any reflux. I've done just that and I can say I feel my surgery has been extremely successful, I can eat without things getting stuck or coming up (wrap is not too tight or too loose- just perfect) , I can burp (bonus) and I feel better than I have in years, all without medication.


As you read this post I hope you feel some comfort in knowing things will be okay. I'm one of many that have had great results from this surgery. The best advice I can give you is to be informed, prepared and follow doctors orders. I researched everything I could, interviewed my doctors with all the information I had gathered, and decided on the surgery despite all my FEARS. Being prepared really helped a lot.

This site is such a wonderful gift and I couldn't have even begun to know what I was getting into had I not "saturated" my mind with all these informative posts. I learned as much from the people posting concerns as I did from successful posts. It's all useful information.
Good luck to all that are on the fence about surgery and thanks to all that have posted.

teapot01,
Wow! I'm impressed! I'm 67 and will be having my LNF on July 7th. So glad you've bounced back so quickly! Gives me hope and encouragement. Keep up the good work!