Sorry to hear about your friend. My doc had me take famitodine (pepcid) on a daily basis for 6 months or so, but now I don't. I will pray for your friends healing. -Kt

Hello gang. Sorry for the long post. I am a sad and scared person right now. One of my close friends who had the surgery a year before us is in the hospital because an ulcer in her pouch burst. She complained about her BACK hurting for about four days before she went to the ER on Friday night. We talked about it a lot when she had pain and we thought she wasn't getting enough water and had a kidney infection... neither of us ever thought it had to do with her pouch. This is truly frightening because the pain was in her lower back and was more achy than anything at first and got progressively worse... she was still working at 5pm Friday and decided to go to the hospital that evening. On Friday when she got to the ER about 10pm she was complaining about her back aching and thought she was being a wussy (it didn't help that her soon to be ex told her she was being a drama queen and made her drive herself to the hospital 20 minutes away). She felt severe pain when they gave her barium to drink for a scan and was screaming in pain immediately. They did emergency surgery Saturday morning to fix the pouch and take out her gall bladder which was now 4x normal size. The poor thing just had a tummy tuck in October and a breast job in March and they had to slice her from breastbone to pelvis because they had a hard time finding the hole in her pouch at first... it was on the back side. Apparently this is why her back was hurting since the acids were going down her back. She still has a tube down her nose into her abdomen to suck out the gunk. She is still not allowed to eat or drink and when she sucks on ice chips it gets sucked back out immediately. I feel so bad for her and although she is going to be OK there are some things to think about. She now has a nasty scar going straight down after self paying for the tummy tuck. She is stressed about having stress do this to her again... a nasty cycle. I'm stressed because I'm scared for her and scared for me too because I don't handle stress well. I end up bottling it just like she does. The poor girl is going through a nasty divorce and apparently the stress caused the stomach acids to eat through the pouch. I found this strange because I thought the stomach acids weren't in the pouch to break down the food. Her soon to be ex is not being kind or nice to her or anything EVEN WHILE SHE IS IN A HOSPITAL BED. She was hoping to stay with her parents while she heals so she is in a stress free environment but he won't let her take the kids and said if she goes without the kids he will claim abandonment. She is stuck with this man in her house because he refuses to move out until the divorce is final and he is ordered out. I think this may kill her because of the stress and games he is playing. I have another friend that is a nurse that works with two other RNY patients... they have both had ulcers too. I'm going to try to find out more from them but I have plenty of questions for my surgeon... again. So now that I have scared everyone ... anyone heard how to avoid the ulcers? I'm going to go back on the Nexium to be a little safer.

I posted last week about the problem with my tummy hurting. Laxatives & suppositories didn't help. Went to ER saturday night. Had x-rays. Found nothing. Was told to do a Fleet's enima once aday for 3 days in a row.. Pain eased off sunday night, came back monday. Getting worse.. pouch feels like it's on fire. Went to PCP this morning. Did some kind breath test on me to detect if there is bacteria, if so that would mean an ulcer. And blood work. Nothing again!!! Told me to call my surgeon. I did. Nurse said to come in and be seen in the morning, possible scope. Could have gastritis or ulcer cause if the ulcer is IN the pouch that breath test won't detect it. Fun Fun Fun Jo 444/414/298 -156

Well, here is my confession. I'm embarassed and ashamed. It seems like several times a week I just have a compulsion to eat things I know I should not. It's like I have no control over myself and I hate it. Today was one of those days. I started off OK with my morning decaf and later on I had my South Beach peanut butter bar. Then 11:00 came. I went to the cafeteria that we have at work. They had meat lasagna and I knew I had to have it. It was so premeditated that I had to go to the credit union to get more money. I entered the cafeteria and was about 10 yards from the line when I ran into someone I used to work with who hadn't seen me in awhile. She spent the next 5 minutes complimenting me on how I looked and remarking on how much personal strength I must have. Of course I felt very undeserving since I was minutes away from shoving meat lasagna and a roll and butter into my mouth! I forced myself into the direction of the salad bar and I made myself a large filling salad without regard to calories. Everything in my salad was OK to have although I'm sure it was alot of calories--lots of cheese and some chicken salad and real blue cheese dressing. But now I am back at my desk feeling full. What is wrong with me??? I have been at this 8+ months and I am sick of the restrictions sometimes. I am so close to my goal. Why am I sabotaging myself? Today I am tired and feeling stressed, I'm sure that doesn't help. And I haven't had my period in a few months (no chance of you know what!). Well, I just had to get this in writing. Thanks for listening. XO, Sandy (268/158/136)

I usually lose every week. Anywhere from .25 lbs to 3.25 lbs in a week. Two weeks ago I had my first gain since I came home from surgery. I gained 1.25 lbs. But in the two weeks since I've lost about 3 lbs a week for a loss of 6.25 since the gain. The weird thing is that I have exercised less and eaten more the last couple of weeks. But I'm not fooling myself into thinking that's good! Gotta stay on track.