Nissen Fundoplication

I can't answer your questions about swimming, but I can tell you that this surgery has certainly made my life a whole lot better. I did feel back to normal at about the one year mark, but I have to tell you that everyone's recovery is different - have a list of questions for your surgeon, that's a big help. Your outlook on eating will need to change, gobbling without chewing as much will need to be adjusted especially in the beginning stages of recovery. You need to be serious about following the post-surgery diet that you are provided. You will lose weight, but most people gain it back when their diet returns to normal. There is a pinned thread at the top of this forum that offers diet tips, people's personal experiences, and a lot of helpful tips - that's a good place to start. Also, there are a few tests that you need to go through to determine if you are even eligible for surgery.

Sharon

I also had a Bravo pH test to measure my reflux, and also a manomotry to measure my swallowing pressure. If your swallowing is compromised, you would need to have a floppy (partial) Nissen or potentially not be a candidate for surgery at all. It is really important to have thorough testing and make sure that the endoscopy is current. I strongly suggest that you also get a second opinion before surgery because it's always a good idea. I feel pretty close to normal, although I still continue to chew thoroughly. I still have some issues with things like steak and really yeasty breads and rolls. I don't drink carbonation or alcohol, but that's my choice. I'm sure your doctor told you that you won't be able to belch the same way as you did prior to surgery. I also lost the ability to vomit, but I was told that prior to surgery and I was fine with it. I still have the side effect of nausea that comes about for no reason, but I always carry Zofran with me and that takes care of it. Make sure you check your health insurance so you are aware of any deductibles or copays that you may have, it can be shocking if you don't know upfront.

Sharon

I absolutely am glad I had the surgery, just wish I would have had it sooner. I'm sure if you had food poisoning, you would be able to vomit, i was told to go to the emergency room if necessary. I've never had any cause for concern. A part of your stomach is used as a wrap around your lower sphincter for reinforcement. I tell everyone that surgery should be an absolute last resort. If you can manage through diet and medication, maybe the surgery isn't right for you at the moment. I had severe reflux, causing asthma, most of my adult life. I finally had the surgery in my mid-50s. My reflux had nothing to do with ear, nose or throat infections. Have you been seeing a gastro doctor or ENT? Do yourself a favor and talk to a surgeon who specializes in this type of surgery. It may help with your decision-making. I had my surgery done robotically. (DaVinci).

Sharon

Gosh, I just wrote a long response and it was erased by a phone call, grrr! I’m sorry. I’ll try to remember what I wrote. I thanked you for responding, and I was saying that my main concern right now is the surgery’s recovery time and how it will affect my competitive swim training. I have an important competition in October. My surgeon won’t respond to my questions because he’s literally on vacation until the day before the surgery. Really frustrating! I’m worried about growing weak, not swallowing normally, and otherwise not swimming up to my normal standard by October, and how this will affect my teammates too who count on me. I could also wait until the swim season is over in November to have this surgery, just that if this is a normal procedure with great and speedy results, then maybe I should not wait any longer. I read that GERD is very bad for the esophagus. My surgeon told me I am “a great candidate for Nissen Fundoplication” and that I would be “very happy with the results.” That said I’m still scared. When I was a child, my belly looked boated to me, even though my limbs were skinny. I had chronic ENT infections that made me almost miss 4th grade entirely. We lived at high altitude, and at the time they said this was the cause. Then I was on asthma meds, inhalers, and nebulizer s for so many years as a young adult, until one fine day my internist family doctor said to me, “you know, I really don’t think you have asthma. I think you have allergies and become asthmatic seasonally.” Then I was taken off all the asthma medications. I don’t have the best breathing in the world, but I am a strong swimmer and singer, so I can’t be that bad. I just don’t think about it. Usually I notice that I get asthmatic when I get sick, and then I use my inhaler and take prednisone. Then one year I coughed as if I had tuberculosis for two years straight. This alarmed my choir director and was very embarrassing. Eventually I got better, but I noticed that singing with my choir have me laryngitis after practices. Then one day I work up in the morning unable to speak at all. I had acute laryngitis with a severe head cold and whooping cough. I was very sick for three weeks. I thought I had Covid. My music coaches told me they preferred not to give me singing lessons until my GERD were under control. Now I am prone to headaches, nausea, and coughing, and I wake up through the night and don’t ever get enough sleep. I am down to just eating a small very clean meal for breakfast, followed by one larger very nutritious GERD friendly meal later in the day around 2-3 pm. After this I don’t eat anymore, otherwise I feel sick and cough all night like a whooping cough, even with my head elevated. I take Pantoprazole and Famotidine, as well as Pepcid Complete and Pepto Bismol. I read that these medications can elevate the stomach’s calcium content dangerously, altering the acidity if one’s stomach juices, and that people need good acid in the stomach to digest food well. I have for years been telling people that I didn’t think I digested food well. Most foods give me a stomach ache. I also have degenerative disk disease, so I’ve been on pain killers in one form or another for 33 years. I read in an article that pain killers also alter the acidity of the stomach juices and contribute to GERD. So now I don’t even take Tylenol. When I get a headache, I just suffer it. When my muscles ache, I get a massage. I’m staying away from pain killers now. At one point my gastrointestinologist told me that Advil had given me a pin sized ulcer in my stomach. Several years before that, the same gastrointestinologist told me I had H Pylori after a routine endoscopy and colonoscopy. I had to take so many rounds of antibiotics to kill that bug. It wasn’t until last year that a routine endoscopy suddenly saw a hiatal hernia, and then the link to chronic GERD was established. So, all this seems to have been going on for a long time. If I could self diagnose, I’d say years of anti acids and pain killers have rendered my stomach juices not fit to digest foods well. Now, if I do not take the anti acids, I feel sick, as though I were coughing up lemon juice every few minutes. I think you may agree that I am “a good candidate for this surgery.” I just do not really understand the recovery process. Did you go completely back to normal life after one year? Do you feel great, free from GERD and other eating disorders, like over-eating or “feeding the GERD,” and can you swallow and eat normally like you did prior to surgery? No one can seem to give me a straight answer. There is always the “yes” in combination with “but.” But what?! Regarding am I getting into?!!!

I absolutely would not have surgery without 24-hour monitoring test (or Bravo), manometry, as well as recent endoscopy. I wouldn't put a timeline on your recovery, as this is major abdominal surgery (as JD Michael mentioned). If you are worried about swimming season, I would cancel the surgery and take the time to get a second opinion. Everyone's recovery and limitations are different with this surgery. We aren't medical professionals on this Forum, and can only comment on our own experiences. Post surgery, I didn't work for three months. Some have shorter recovery periods, others longer. This is why you need a second opinion before having surgery. You need to do some research as to how many surgeries he has done, what his aftercare consists of, how available he and his staff will be while you are recovering. When you met with the surgeon, did he answer all of your questions? Did he mention about belching/vomiting? Are you having a full wrap or floppy? Will you be on PPIs for a short period of time after surgery? Is the surgery being done robotically? You ask about swallowing, if you don't have a manometry to measure your swallowing function - you don't know if you have swallowing dysfunction and could experience swallowing difficulty after. If you have eating difficulties such as overeating, this could be a serious roadblock for this type of surgery. Your surgeon should provide you with a diet to follow, which is initially just liquids, prior to surgery.

Sharon

Dear Everyone, Thank you again for all your comments and replies! I’m here to update you now on me: I had the surgery last Friday, on Good Friday. According to the surgeon and all the hospital nurses, “I’m fine,” meaning that I’m doing super well, and well above average. The hospital nurses told me they had never met anyone of any age as stable as me after surgery. What a complement. My surgeon said that my swimming kept me fit, which helped my recovery process. I guess I’m fit with all the swimming that I do, but I am 62 years old, and I have weight to lose. At the hospital, I was able to eat soft food straight away. Swallowing felt the same as prior to surgery. I almost felt like I had had no surgery at all. Of course, at the hospital, I was under very strong painkillers through my IV. I felt happy and stunned with how GREAT I felt after surgery. I could walk on my own to the bathroom. I slept well. I ate very well. And I felt pretty much pain-free. I was told I could just go home the following day, so I only stayed one night at the hospital. When it came time to leave, I had no patience to wait for a wheelchair escorted hospital exist, so I simply walked out on my own with my suitcase on wheels. No problems. Once I got home, though, I saw that my surgeon had prescribed not only the wrong painkiller medication for me, but also sent it to a pharmacy far away from me that was even closed due to the Easter holiday! I think he should have asked me where I wanted the medication sent. I had some left over unexpired pain killer meds from previous surgeries still in my home medicine cabinet, so I had to use those until he corrected my prescribed after surgery medication. Crazy. I finally got his corrected prescription, but found that he had prescribed not only too few amount of pills, but also his dosage was ridiculous. Pain had kicked in around the six abdominal incisions, and there was just no way I could survive on one Norco ever six hours, and I cannot take Advil because they give me ulcers, plus I tried that once and it did nothing for me. I spent days on end trying to reach my elusive surgeon to no avail. By nightfall of the second painful day, I finally reached my pharmacist instead, and got call backs from two of my other doctors. They all agreed that I should be taking two Norco pills every six hours, so I began to do that and felt like my pain was finally “managed.” However, since the surgeon gave me so few pills, I quickly ran out!!! Then I found other unexpired Norco tablets around my house and used those while I tried to reach my surgeon over Easter weekend. . . to no avail whatsoever. My surgeon never called me back. I would have absolutely died of pain had I not had my own unexpired Norco pills at home. How irresponsible of my surgeon! Absolutely insane. Then Monday thru Thursday came, completely unable to reach him. Oh wait, on Tuesday I went into his office to SEE him. He even saw me! He couldn’t stop praising how well I looked and was. He said I would have no scars and was recovering well. I complained about my painkiller problem, and to that he just responded that I should be off of them by now! WHAAA??!!!! What craziness. I told him that I could assure him that I was in terrible pain, unable to stand or sit for long, and totally unable to walk my dog normally. He just repeated that I should be off the pain medication by now. I was so angry at his attitude. I clearly was in pain, and the pain had not been properly “managed” since I left the hospital!!! No wonder I was still in pain. I had had six abdominal incisions etc. Instead of refilling my pain med prescription, he told me to go off the meds and that I could even start swimming again. WHAAA??!!! I was so upset that when I left, I realized he had still not refilled my prescription! I quickly called his office and told his Secretary that I had left without confirmation about my refill! It took the surgeon another day to finally respond to me, now Wednesday, but he didn’t actually fill the prescription for me until Thursday after midnight, after my pharmacy was already closed!!!! OMG. I was down to just one pill left from my own home Norco stash. At 7 am on now Thursday, five days after surgery, my husband finally picked up the new prescription for me, because I was in agony and could barely move! When he got home, I realized the surgeon ORDERED THE WRONG MEDICINE AGAIN!!!! He gave me Percocet, which gives me a bad reaction. I was in so much pain that I tried half a pill. This half pill gave in an instant loopy headache, and zero abdominal relief. I spent the rest of Thursday trying to reach the surgeon again. I was so angry. When I heard he was in surgery, I feared he would not get back to me. He didn’t. After taking my very last Norco pill on Thursday early morning, I was in excruciating pain the rest of the day. I finally got my regular pain management doctor to refill my Norco prescription, one I keep at home in case I’m in too much pain from degenerative disk disease. HE refilled my prescription, not the surgeon. I was in absolute tears, in bed, when my husband finally arrived at home with the correct prescription at around 5 pm. I called the surgeon’s office to tell them I had to get my medication from another doctor, since it was impossible to reach the surgeon. Moral of the story? Do not leave the hospital after surgery without the correct pain medication!!!! Absolutely awful. So now it is Friday, exactly one week after surgery, and my pain finally feels managed. Out of desperation, I also started to ice my bellybutton, because I had a hernia there too that he corrected. All of last night I had fresh ice over my belly button. By morning, today, the pain was GONE. The ice had done all the work. It is clear to me that the terrible pain I felt stemmed from the belly button surgery and not the Nissen Fundoplication whose incisions are all healed now. I’ve used my jacuzzi, got into my pool, and showered. I am feeling hopeful and happy again now. I’m icing whenever I can, taking it easy, and I’m down to one Norco pill every six or so hours as needed, instead of two pills. Anyway, it’s too soon to tell how quickly I’ll recover, because I won’t feel normalized until I no longer need the pain pills or ice. However, it’s good that I can get wet, my pain is currently managed, and good old ice is helping me so much with my belly button. Apparently the surgeon also found no hiatal hernia inside my body either. How strange is that? So he didn’t stitch anything closed. He just performed the Nissen Fundoplication. This could be why I’ve been able to eat so well, and I can also burp without any problems. It’s fun that I can even eat shrimp with cooked onions, and I get no gerd. Yesterday without the pain pills or ice was misery, and in that state I felt like a knot at the surgery site when I breathed hard, so I just tried to lie as still as possible. Today I no longer have that sensation, and for lunch I had TWO BOWLS of capellini pasta with tomato vodka sauce and parmegiano! Crazy! I must have been starving. I just listen to my body, and I eat slowly until I feel full. If I eat too much too fast, I just get this “no more please” sensation. So all in all, I’m really happy with everything, except for my surgeon’s general apathy regarding home pain meds, which is truly unforgivable, I think. I feel safe now because I now have the meds if I need them, and the ice works wonders! I’ll try to update this thread when I begin to feel crazy better. I remain hopeful!