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From: Nick
Remote Name: 152.163.205.61
Date: 03/26/02
Time: 04:48:49 PM
Hi Francine!
My redo surgery was this past February 2002 right on Valentine's Day(the 14th). I can definetly say that it has improved alot with the exception of certain foods still sticking like any kind of breads, cakes, sandwiches and meats. It is slow in going down and some times it even gets stuck for a little while. If I eat too fast like one bite after another like I used to before the first Nissen, it gets stuck for a longer period and I have to spit it out. So I've learned to eat more slow and chew better for the meantime untill things get better, if they do. Again, I'm only 6 weeks post op and some people say it can take alot longer like a few months to get back to normal. I hope I'm in the slow recovery group and not go through what I went through the first time and get out of this mess. Both my surgeries were done laporscopically. The only reason that I freak because no one understands the hell I went through after the first Nissen. I could not even swallow water or pills the first time around and had lost about 40lbs. I stayed on Ensure for a long time just to get some kind of nutrition. I'm 6ft5in and I looked like a giant broomstick with teeth. Everyone thought that I had some kind of deadly disease like Cancer. At the 3rd month after the first surgery I started with my dilitations because the first idiot(first surgeon) told me I had to give it 3 months to see if it healed. I had 8 all together with very little relief(still was getting food stuck every single time I ate and had to throw it up) and by the fall of 2001(October) My GI doctor and I decided that the dilitations really did not help. I was getting the dilitations once a month because my GI doctor said that you had to break the scar tissue to stretch out the esaphagus.Well, they did not work so I decided that I could not go on with a normal life like this, and this is the main question you have to ask yourself. Whether you could live like this the rest of your life. I was told by my second surgeon that he was 90% sure that he could do the redo laporscopically,but, he would have another surgeon in the OR with him just in case there was complications and had to convert to the open, for he does not do open surgery. My second surgeon was Dr. Barry Salky (New York City, N.Y.- Mount Sinai Med. Cntr.) One of the best laporsopic surgeons in the world. He has been in many publications and if you mention his name in the medical field especially laporscopic surgery he is well known by his peers. Some surgeons I guess feel safer with the open method because they can use their hands in stead of a tool with a difficult surgery like a redo,but there are alot of surgeons that do all their redos laporscopically. You should ask alot of questions in your consultations with surgeons. Find out how many Nissens they have done and especially redo's because you want a redo specialist. Also find out how many redo's were their own and were they succesful. Also find out if the surgeon will put you in contact with people he's done redo's on.But getting back to me it is definetly alot better now than the first time around. I just hope that I will be able to swallow like a normal person in the future. I still have not come off my acid MEDS because the first time around I got off of them right away and I had refux like crazy do to, from what my GI doctor told me, the wrap being to tight that the food would get stuck in my esaphagus and stay there and ferment and would give off like a burning feeling in my stomach and chest. This was called another type of reflux. I don't know the name, but people with very tight wraps experience this also along with spasms. I also have Gastritis and Barrett's Esophagus. My second surgeon said that now that everything is in place with the esophagus and stomach the Gastritis should clear up and there's even a chance that the Barrett's could reverse itself(which happens in 3to4% of people with Barrett's.) Are you still on MEDS? Any way GOOD LUCK and if you want to e-mail me in the future to see how my recovery is going, you may. I hope I've answered all your questions and you will be OK granted that you do your research in finding the right surgeon. I know what you are going through for I've been there.
Thanks Francine,
Nick
Cioppa5@aol