Dumping?

 I am a Lap-band pateint who is thinking of revising.  I am wondering about dumping.  I know bypass pateints have dumping, but I thought that had to do with the bypass part of the surgery.  Do any of you VSG patients suffer from dumping?  And what causes it if you do?  I know it might be gross to talk about but I really want to know.  Thanks:)

I am only 8 says out... Not sure if it was dumping but I have had 2 episodes while on my liquid diet. About 30 min after cream soup I got sweaty, racing heart, vision goes a bit dark, tummy feels very sick and if I move I will vomit. Lasts about 30 min. Then just stops. It is awful but after talking to Dr I think it is from all the lactose. As soon as I am on puree and not relying so much on milk products this will stop.

I still say it its worth it though.

Most sleeve patients do not experience dumping.  That's one of the main reasons I chose it.  I'm 3 years out.  TRUE dumping is likened to a diabetic reaction. . . shaking, sweating, vomiting.  This does NOT mean, however, that you will never feel sick or nauseous from food.  That still happens for me with some regularity, but not what I call true dumping (which occurs from sweets) in gastric bypass patients.

You're just experiencing very early post-surgery symptoms.  All normal.  You're already eating cream soup just 8 days out??? 

According to my doc (and a lot of what I've read) true dumping syndrome is hyperglycemia. I have a friend with the RnY. I saw her 2nd episode of dumping - scary as heck! What happens is that the sugar goes through the anastomosis super fast and right into the small intestine (no pylorus to ease the passage!) - so pure sugar goes in the intestines with no pre-digestion. The sugar hits the blood stream and the pancreas goes into super hyper drive to pump out insulin and you get sweaty, get the shakes, turn greenish gray, feel sick all over and nauseous.  Another symtom of dumping can be sudden blow out diarrhea to get the sugar out of the system. The only thing that gets the episode to pass is letting it take its course. My friend was down for well over an hour. She is now very careful with sugar intake and hasn't dumped since.

VSGers arent' supposed to dump in that same way (though I have read about 1 person who has the VSG who truly dumps). My doc said VSG patients can overdo, have foods that disagree that used to be fine, and that sort of thing and you'll feel sick, but it passes pretty quickly or you spit up and it's done. I think that's what a lot of VSGers call dumping. Two very different things - though neither is pleasant, I guess.

Dumping has nothing "necessarily" to do with surgery type but with how the intestines react to food passing from the stomach to the intestines.  It's MORE likely in RnY patients because there is no pyloric valve to allow food to be processed by the stomach before passing into the intestines, which is why ONLY about 30% of RnY patients actually do dump.  And then it varies from what they dump on oil, sugar, carbs, etc.

Now to answer your question, SOME VSGers experience dumping.  It has to do with how fast their stomach empties into their intestines.  And like RnYers it CAN be a temporary thing.  I dumped on sugar for about 1 1/2 years.

Ms Shell

Yes, starting day 3 I am in full liquids. Protein shakes, stained soups etc.

8 months out I ate quite a lot of milk chocolate covered pretzels- 20 min late I thought I was having a heart attack- was sweating in a lot of pain and I threw up- I instantly felt better.

When I hit 70lbs lost last year in November, I started with reactive hypoglycemia symptoms, even when I ate protein only. Got very sick, sweaty, couldn't even hold my head up in the bathroom. Literally had to hold my head against the sink which garbage underneath WHILE sitting on the toilet as I was sick at both ends. I started testing my blood sugars with a meter and I would be around 43,47,50 which is really low. My PCP thinks that my body was still making same amount of insulin that it did when I was around 300lbs so that was causing my blood sugar to drop dangerously low. It went on for about 2 months but my body stabilized and I haven't had it happen since Christmas day last year which was only a little episode of getting dizzy. It was very scary and I was not happy about it but luckily was only temporary.

I actually knew right away what was going on from reading the boards here. It was a big help to get diagnosed quickly.

~Lori