7 Days Post Op - Hiatal Hernia/Gerd Surgery

NurseBetty12, Dr Gee and his staff are very impressive. As a matter of fact they moved to Celebration with him from his previous site. Wait till you get in the hospital. You are treated like a super star. The hospital is in the middle of Disney, so it is beautiful. It makes your stay so much easier in such nice surroundiiings. I was up on the 9th floor and I could see the fireworks all over Disney. I wish you good luck. You will do great just like I did.

@nick, @Nurse, @Yellow -

Thanks to all of you for your additional posts yesterday/today. I will of course view that video and join the Facebook group (I already belong to several other related groups). It's terrific that there is a group for this procedure; 6 months ago there was nada on FB about it.

Re the weight loss, IMO that's the result of the liquid diet. There is no way around it. The Ensure brand comes in a high-protein version, but it's still only 165 calories. I wonder if ice cream is considered "liquid" or "soft food"? I presume applesauce is the latter. I sure wouldn't want to eat baby food for weeks!

The ppi's are a tough issue for me. I expect that this is advised after any of the LES surgeries, but all the more so probably with this procedure since the reconstruction is greater. I hope Dr. G will endorse a regimen of switching between ppi and h2 blocker every 2 weeks or so, along with carafate at lunch and bedtime. I think dosing the ppi before dinner is probably most effective, given the small meal diet and nighttime being the most acidic during the recovery. It sounds like he wants the esophagus to be at pH =>4, and while a ppi can achieve that for ~10-12 hours, with famotidine the patient is lucky to get 8 at that level.

@NurseBetty12, can't wait to see your other videos.

And again, thanks to all of you folks - you've really helped to make this process much easier and more effective.

@Pixie415,

From your description I can only imagine how distressed you must be. However, I am not even remotely qualified to offer any advice, to do so would be irresponsible of me. All I can suggest is that you continue to intently pursue your situation with Kaiser, as you appear to be doing, for as long as it takes. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.

3wwe1 said...
Hello,

I had the gastroesophageal valvuloplasty on September 19 and it has already been a week post op! I do have a question though. Dr. G told me that I would be a able to burp and vomit if needed without a problem after the surgery, however, its been a week and I still haven't burped. Every time I have a feeling that I want to burp, I end up almost doing a hiccup and then it goes away. Is this normal and do I have to wait, or were you able to burp right after surgery?

I haven't had the EV, so I would look to @Yellow for advice. That said, Dr. G indicates that short-term dysphagia is common, which is caused by swelling. That same swelling which impedes stuff doing down can also impede stuff coming up. I'd give it a few weeks to resolve, until the swelling goes down.

All, can someone throw up the FB link please? I'm not sure the valvuloplasty is working for me anymore to tell you the truth. I'm getting a lot of reflux again. Pretty frustrated about it. I'd like to join the FB group to discuss further.

@cnrage, *please* join the FB group and post your experience. As much detail as you are comfortable sharing, the more the better. We have limited experience to go by so every additional patient makes an important contribution. Thank you!