Posted 9/15/2016 10:43 PM (GMT 0)
Hello, all. I recently was advised to have a partial wrap. I initially had a barium swallow in February after telling my doctor about food seeming to stick in my throat. That showed showed a 5-cm hiatal hernia, and a loss of esophageal muscle tone. A subsequent endoscopy showed a very, very inflamed esophagus, Grade D. The doctor didn't even do a routine biopsy as he was afraid it would bleed out while I was under anesthesia. Doctor prescribed Prilosec (generic) 20 mg morning and night.
While I know medications are a necessity in some cases, I've always tended to try and heal through natural means. After a lot of research and reading books, I changed my diet (nothing acidic), got an elevated bed, and pretty much forgot about the medicine. I had no heartburn, no sore throat, no trouble swallowing, no discomfort, etc. At the 3-month follow-up endoscopy, the esophagus was completely healed, which I credited solely to the change in diet. However, I still needed to have the hernia repair. I also underwent the test to measure my swallowing (NOT FUN).
At the consult with the surgeon, he recommended a partial wrap. It kind of threw me as I was just absolutely positively sure that all I would need is the hernia repair and would be able to control the gerd with diet. However, the LES is more severe and more of a problem than I anticipated, and even though I never really had pronounced gerd symptoms, the combination of the extended hernia and the LES keeps the acid up there.
After considering it for several weeks, I feel I need to go ahead with it, and need to make another appointment with the surgeon to discuss it.
I didn't quite "gel" with the surgeon I saw. However, I just discovered there's another surgeon on staff that does it robotically, and was wondering if it would be worth my while to have a consultation with him.
Long way of asking does anyone have any information regarding robotic surgery vs laparoscopic? Has anyone had robotic surgery, and do you think your recovery was better or different from what you understood laparoscopic would be? Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
This board has been a life-saver for me the past few months as I've worked my way through this. Even though 61, I take no blood pressure/cholesterol or other medications considered common for my age group. I've never really had any major medical problems, so it's a new experience to try and wrap my head around it. I thought I was invincible. Ha!
Thanks very much.