Surgery Risks

[Snapdragon]

My husband had a VSG 10 years ago. At the time, he was told by the surgeon that RNY was a very risky procedure with a high probability of complications. So, of course my thoracic surgeon, whom I saw for hiatal hernia, said my best shot at repair would be RNY. My husband supports a VSG for me but is scared by the idea of a RNY.

I’m curious to hear what, ten years later, folks’ surgeons are saying about how risky each is. Nothing is without risk but I’m wondering if RNY is still so much worse complications wise than VSG. I never met my husband’s surgeon so I don’t know how to interpret what he said. Maybe he’s lazy and doesn’t like performing RNY???

Anxious to hear others’ experiences.

 

[3momchaos]

I had my RNY in October 2020. The risks presented to me were infection, pouch ripping (they did a swallow test before I left the hospital to make sure there weren’t leaks), malabsorption, nutritional deficiency, blood clots (I have a genetic disorder predisposing me to them, so I had blood thinner shots for a month post op), normal surgical risks to anesthesia, death, and dehydration. Those are all the ones I can remember, but I’m sure there are more. I will say one thing that is a side effect that I wasn’t warned about is (no not hair loss, that was abundantly clear) the weight loss can mess with hormones, so if you’re still menstruating, you might have some irregularity. Not to say 100% because everyone is different, but since I wasn’t warned, I’ll just put it out there, but that’s not an inherent risk of RNY, that’s apparently what happens with extreme and fast weight loss.

 

[missyinacage]

The bypass does have a higher rate of complications but the list of complications are mostly the same. The sleeve has a slightly lower rate of weight loss, a slightly higher rate of weight re-gain and a lower rate of co-morbidity reductions. As 3mom mentions the risks above, I will not go into them here. The major difference is that malabsorption is more likely in the bypass because they reroute your intestine specifically for that purpose. So taking your vitamins for life is really important. RNY has come a long way in the past 10 years and doctors have a lot more experience doing the surgery. So really it's about what is most important to you and making sure you get an experienced surgical team.

 

[Dlkm]

I had the Rny Gastric Bypass and yes there are risks involved but with this surgery vs the sleeve you can loose more weight which is why I opted for it. I was afraid that the sleeve wouldn't work as well for me. No matter what you choose you have to make up your mind this is to make your life better and that you have to have the mind set "this is my new life". Ask you primary care doctor if they can refer you to a surgeon for a informational meeting. My primary set me up with the informational meeting where they presented both the sleeve and the Rny and they answered questions that we had. Then if we decided to go threw it then we had to contact the surgeon and get set up with a appointment and then you told the surgeon which surgery you wanted and he told you if he thought it would be best or not for your particular case. Hope this helps.