I need help and bad (And, if you can't say anything nice DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL).

 I am two years out and went to the ER on my surgiversary because of stomach pain/dicomfort. The ER was pretty confident that this was the start of an ulcer but my upper GI revealed nothing of the sort. I have been at 135 for over a year now and, of course, am extremely comfortable with my new life but one think I've struggled with pretty much since before I can even remember is drinking with meals and my addiction to drinking diet soda (I hate tea, water, and crystal lite). I know, ALL OF YOU will probably want to punch me after saying that but PLEASE BE KIND!! I'm really scared and could use some kind words right now or words of similar cir****tance. I've been in a lot of pain with a lot of discomfort of the past month so what could be causing this sudden change after two years if those two weren't causing problems before!? TMI but important: My poop is normal (it's always been irregular timing, even before surgery so that is normal for me) and they said everything looked fine in the upper GI. I felt like they're may have been a blockage in my "chest" but that seems to have passed now and, again, they didn't see anything on the upper GI. They prescribed me prilosec which seemed to have helped some but not really. The radiology technitian said it looked like I had a little bit of an enlarged small bowel but the doctor who did the test, again, said everything looked fine so I'm a bit confused there! SOMEONE JUST HELP! Suggestions welcome too!!!!!!!!!!!!

AGAIN, BE KIND (even if you think I need tough love right now). I'll have enough from that when I revisit my surgeon on Thursday.

 I has some pain and cramping in my stomach, my doc increased my priolsec and man it has helped. One thing I noticed was that my pain/cramping was way worse if I drank something that was acidy. I like lemonaid mio but have quit that. Have you noticed that anything makes the pain worse after you eat or drink it?

 No :( I think that's what scared me too!! Even though the prilosec seems to help, I never get the discomfort after acidic stuff, not even Trop 50!!

 I don't have any experience with your symptoms - I have trouble free - but.....I have been drinking diet coke since almost a year out and still drink it daily.  Keep pushing for the testing needed to figure out what the problem is and maybe give up the diet coke until you get a handle on what's wrong.

 Thank you! I haven't touched diet coke since they said it might be an ulcer, especially because that seemed to make whatever is going on act up but I have been drinking other soda (diet sunkist) which doesn't bother me at all and I always drink it with ice to flatten the carbonation a bit. But it's good to hear that I'm not the only GBP patient who drinks diet soda now.

There are lots of a who drink diet soda (and who do so while still maintaining our weight loss).  I haven't had any issues, but my understanding was that the carbonation and/or citric acid is what would cause pain if you had an ulcer, so I am not sure why Diet Coke would bother you and Diet Sunkist would not since boh path drinks contain both of those ingredients.  My experience, though, is hat not all carbonated beverages contain the same amount of carbonation, so  perhaps the Dunkist has less carbonation than Voke.  (I tried one of those "ice" diet drinks, and even though I poured some over ice just as I do with the Diet Coke/Pepsi/Dr Pepper, the carbonation it in hurt my pouch which the others don't do at all.)

An upper GI does not always diagnose an ulcer.  Has your doctor mentioned the possibility of an EGD?  That would give you a definitive answer.  I hope you find the problem soon.  And don't let the no-soda folks get you down.  Everyone has the right to choose for themselves.  As long as you know what the possible problems might be with drinking it, you are making an informed decision.  For me, and for a number of others on he, drinking the diet soda keeps us from snacking (or eating sweets).

Lora

Maybe the "citric acid" in the soda is the problem. I would give up
any drink that has it to rule it out. In the meantime keep taking the prilosec in case you have an ulcer developing in the blind stomach.

Hope you start to feel better soon!

 Thank you and I'll definitely do that! Honestly, I didn't even think of that just in case and I'll go back to trying water again (I'm such a big baby and it makes me gag lol). But it's what I need to to to get better to I'm willing to do anything at this point!!

After my RNY I could not stand plain water..............I live on Crystal Light ..............in a pinch I would do plain water if I needed the fluids and that is all I had.

Odd about the water, I have heard others say the same thing abou****er...........and on your other troubles i have no clue, but like allergies , sometimes you need ot rule out 1 by 1.............so start with the carbonated drinks, oh an di read quite awile ago, that even if something agrees with you for a few years , your body then changes its mind and rejects it again..............so that could be what is happening.

Hope you find out  soon, pain is never fun!!

No flack from me.  I always say that if it works for you who am I to say anything?  I quit drinking soda a while before my revision so it's no big loss but a few times after surgery they gave me some diet Sprite and it didn't cause any issues.
What I wanted to say is that your symptoms are fairly common around here.  I can't count how many post ops have complained of pain that no cause can be found for.  I know that Lora had to have surgery to find the cause of her pain.  I think it was adhesion's, which is also common for people who have had abdominal surgery.  There is also the worry of a Peterson hernia and I also recall being warned of internal hernias that occurred in people with large weight loss.  I'm not sure if that is the same as the Peterson hernia or a different kind.  Something to do with the holes from the laproscopic equipment.  I remember new people being advised to ask their surgeons if they closed up the holes after the surgery.  These are internal holes, not the external holes from the incisions.
Anyway, what I am saying is there are a lot of causes for post op abdominal pain and many of them don't show on scans.  I had terrible pain after my surgery in my pouch area.  I assumed it was an ulcer because I started smoking again after my surgery and I was afraid to go back to my surgeon and tell him.  I did quit and I had an EGD, which was fine.  Turns out that it was from an incisional hernia I got after my open surgery.  I had it fixed once before but the surgeon just sewed it together and it wasn't enough.  After I had surgery to repair it with mesh I have never had that pain again so I have to assume that was the cause.  I guess that's the problem with a lot of medicine.  It really i**** or miss.  I guess they can't really know what the cause is until they can fix it and then they are sure what caused it.
What I am trying to say is don't give up.  Be persistent until they find what is causing the pain and fix it.  You should not have to live with pain.  Pain is a sign that something is wrong and should always be treated.  Don't let them tell you that, because they can't find something it isn't there.  It is there, they just haven't managed to figure it out.  That is their job, not yours.