One year and ten weeks post op

There has been something of a breakthrough in my post op life during the last two weeks.

 

Diarrhoea was still present and on Wednesday last week I saw my dietician at St Brieuc.  She weighed me in at 71.5kgs - the same as my home scales.  She was happy with my food diary - I have to complete the diary for a week before I see her - and that I was now including pretty much everything in my diet.  She wasn't happy with my continuing diarrhoea and suggested that I didn't wait for my appointment with Dr Lechaux in December, but see him before that.  She asked what I was drinking.  I explained again that I had a refrigerator which dispensed ice and chilled water.  She said that she thought that the very cold water I was drinking might be the problem.  I haven't drunk water with ice since, but have had the chilled water.

 

Before I left the hospital I popped into see Dr Lechaux's secretary and she said she would get him to 'phone me. He did 'phone and asked if I would email Dr Robert Rutledge, a mini gastric bypass surgeon in Nevada, USA, who has done more than 5000 of these operations, to see if he had a possible solution to my diarrhoea.  I emailed Dr Rutledge and heard back immediately from him suggesting a revision of the bypass.  I wrote back, worried, asking if this was a reversal.  He replied that it was an amendment to the length of the bypass.  If I was losing too much weight then it needed shortening and vice versa.  He described it as an easy operation which didn't take long and referred me to a youtube video of his.  I forwarded the information to Dr Lechaux and he replied today saying he would be contacting me regarding a revision.

 

Since stopping the iced water I am now starting my third day of limited diarrhoea.  I go to the toilet when I wake up and then not again until I go to bed.  In fact, last night I didn't, so it was twenty-four hours until I visited the toilet this morning.  Consistency marginally more formed but mainly mousse-like.  Is this a breakthrough?  Could all my troubles really be down to drinking water with ice cubes?  

Well - six days further on and the effect of stopping iced water has not lasted.  I shall wait to hear from Dr Lechaux. 

After my mini gastric bypass last year I was ambulanced back into hospital because I got a clot in my right leg.  Having now seen the vascular chap at Guingamp he has referred me to a vascular surgeon at Clinic du Littoral for 17 October to discuss having the vein removed as he says it is dead and liable to clot.  I would now want to have this operation before any revision to avoid another post op clot.