Posted 5/12/2015 6:13 AM (GMT 0)
Hello,
In 2013 I had a Dor fundoplication to stop a 2-year chronic reflux disease. Gradually, things went back to how they were before, and just 4 days ago I had my 2nd, a full Nissen.
Immediately after waking up, I had the most torturous 6 hours of my life. I have had 5 surgeries - this counted - during my lifetime and I knew I had bad reaction to anesthesic. Despite warning the doctors about this, and it seems, without knowing that the tranquilizer was adding to it, I went into the worst sickness of my life. I was shaking and sweatting for 6 hours from intoxication, and trying all the time to hold back from vomitting. Despite this, I had 3 violent retching episodes. There was some pain.
1.) How worried should I be about wrap damage from this, and if there is any, is there any way to know or feel it? Does it result in immediate weakening of the wrap or a shortening of its lifespan in the long term? Does the damage push the wrap upwards or undo the stitches? I should mention something like this happened with my Dor fundo too, but it seemed undamaged at the time.
After the intoxication went away, my recovery went quite well. Within 3 days - that is yesterday - I was back home. I can walk and drink. Having some gas problems but nothing different from what I'd experienced 2 years before.
Then I had a meal. Mashed potatoes with salmon, it was very soft and ground into a paste, and the fish was carefully checked for bones beforehand. Nevertheless, with one of the gulps, I felt a tiny bone. Elastic but slightly stingy. As the gulp went down, I felt the usual discomfort associated with food going down a tight, still-swollen freshly-operated esophagus. There was occasional stinging from the bone.
Then, when it got to somewhere where I felt it in my lower back, it stopped there and stayed as pressure. I could feel stinging, as if the bone got stuck there. It didn't go away as the minutes passed and the pain made it difficult to breathe. The sensation of having food stuck in my tract soon began to make it immensely difficult to breathe, I was panting, sweatting, and afraid I would suffocate. I was taken by ambulance to the emergency ward where I had an X-ray that found no fishbone stuck anywhere.
Gradually, the pain went away. It was assumed that the incident was over and I was to go home. But just before that, I decided to make a test to be safe. I drank ONE BOTTLE CAP'S WORTH of water. And it all started over again. This time it was less like a sting, more like a bloat, a bubble of gas. By then I found the solution, lying down caused it to go away within ~10 minutes, not without some hiccups and pain, on the already strained wrap from my post-op retching.
I had an ultrasound, and both the X-ray and ultrasound saw the same thing: A LOT of air in the stomach.
I went home, exhausted, 2 days unslept due to a restless patient in hospital, having eaten and drank little, and enough tranquilizer to get me hallucinating. I don't remember half of what I was told there.
This morning I am drinking water and it all seems fine. I force myself to burp whenever swallowing liquid, to get the gas out and make room for the water. I took a pill for gas. I am with my back pressed against the chair in a position I found the liquid to go down more easily.
I am afraid of going back to pureed foods.
2.) Does ANYONE have any idea what this episode could have been? The doctor was clueless. And I'm afraid of going back to food. If I can't get fed I'll end up getting IV back at the hospital. How could I prevent this from happening again?
Thank you.