DS question
As I get closer to completing insurance qualifications I need to pick my surgery. I am torn between RNY & DS. I would like some input from DSers. What was recovery like? how long was hospital stay? what are results for you? are there common problems? diet differences? ect.. If you feel it would benifit me by knowing please let me know. While I have read quite abit about both surgeries I have talked to alot of RNYers, books cant give you first hand experiences like you guys can give me. Thanks Stacee
Hi Stacee,
Welcome to the DS forum. I'm sure many will respond to you about why the DS is awesome and why we love our DS's. There was a thread a few days ago that had lots of great info in response to basically the same question: www.obesityhelp.com/forums/DS/4135232/Why-DS-over-RNY/
My recovery was totally smooth and easy. Some have a more difficult or longer recovery. My hospital stay was two overnights, I went home on the third day. There are major diet differences between our diet and the RNY diet, but again those are discussed in that thread I linked above. Good luck with you choice and feel free to ask any and all questions you have about the DS here!
Sarah
Welcome to the DS forum. I'm sure many will respond to you about why the DS is awesome and why we love our DS's. There was a thread a few days ago that had lots of great info in response to basically the same question: www.obesityhelp.com/forums/DS/4135232/Why-DS-over-RNY/
My recovery was totally smooth and easy. Some have a more difficult or longer recovery. My hospital stay was two overnights, I went home on the third day. There are major diet differences between our diet and the RNY diet, but again those are discussed in that thread I linked above. Good luck with you choice and feel free to ask any and all questions you have about the DS here!
Sarah
My surgery was open (only way Dr Anthone does it) and the hospital stay was 5 days. Recovery really wasn't to bad. Def not as bad as I thought it would be. I came home 6 days post op (stayed in Omaha 1 day extra "just in case") came home and had help for the first 2 weeks only because I have young kids but really only needed help the first week, the 2nd week was just an added bonus. I could have went back to work at 4 weeks out but I never went back (long story unrelated to surgery). I have currently lost 84 lbs. I would like to lose 20 more but that might be a stretch as it would put me at 130 lbs (I am 5'6") My surgeon uses a feeding tube just to ensure you don't get dehydrated the first few weeks. It is usually left in 3 weeks but I choose to keep mine in longer and then ended up having it in 2 weeks shy of 6 months because I was losing weight to fast by my surgeons standards (he is SUPER conservative with weight loss and would have been happy if I had stopped losing 30 lbs ago lol) I had another surgery 2 weeks ago today to fix 2 hernias and my bowels were twisted but my surgeon said everyone has a 1 in 3 chance of having twisted bowels whether they have had this surgery or not.. I would do it again in a second :)
Now of course, I am a bit biased, but I really don't know how there could even be any question as to what surgery you should choose. When I first started my WLS quest, I was all for the RNY. Then I started reading profiles. And more profiles. And still more profiles. This is what I found: the RNY'ers had lots of issues. Dumping, strictures, staple line disruptions, and lots and lots of ulcers. That's not to even mention the alarmingly high rate of regain I was seeing. I thought to myself, "How could I go into a surgery like this, lose all my weight, look great for a year or two, then start regaining.?" I just couldn't see it. I then found out out about the duodenal switch. I literally spent hours of the day pouring over profiles. Everyone seemed so happy! No complications, their quality of life was so much better, although they were really strict about their vitamins, and they were losing to goal and staying that way. Furthermore, I knew that the "DS diet" - high protein, high fat, lower carb, was a diet I could live with, because the only way I had ever successfully lost weight was on Atkins. I immediately changed my path, and fortunately, my surgeon did the DS. I am so eternally grateful to him for encouraging me to do this! I am 3 3/4 years out, wear a size 2, and have successfully maintained that weight for three years. It's the first time in my life I've worn clothes long enough for them to go out of style!
Okay - that's all the good. Here's the bad, at least for me. I am super sensitive to wheat and sugar. Super, super sensitive. I am on the extreme end of the spectrum. I get awful farty stinky gas when I eat too many carbs. I can eat perhaps four crackers or a cookie without problems, but any more than that and I'm miserable. There are plenty of other things to splurge on though, and I quite merrily do - potato, rice, corn products. I eat a mountain of popcorn every day. Dark chocolate is no problem either. Sometimes I decide to just eat the gas-producing stuff anyway, but I usually save it for when nobody else is going to be home. My DH of one year though, is truly immune to my farts, thank God. Probiotics help - the better quality ones. I have also had some really significant vitamin D issues that have not responded well to increased oral dosages of dry D. I have to get D infusions twice a week for now, with the hope that eventually we can go on injections. I'd still do it all over again - no regrets.
If you can follow a high protein diet, commit to taking a handful of vitamins a day and, and get your labs checked twice a year, you'll do fine.
Oh - my recovery? 2.5 days in the hospital, 2.5 weeks back to work teaching full-time. The first forty eight hours were pretty icky, then I was fine.
Okay - that's all the good. Here's the bad, at least for me. I am super sensitive to wheat and sugar. Super, super sensitive. I am on the extreme end of the spectrum. I get awful farty stinky gas when I eat too many carbs. I can eat perhaps four crackers or a cookie without problems, but any more than that and I'm miserable. There are plenty of other things to splurge on though, and I quite merrily do - potato, rice, corn products. I eat a mountain of popcorn every day. Dark chocolate is no problem either. Sometimes I decide to just eat the gas-producing stuff anyway, but I usually save it for when nobody else is going to be home. My DH of one year though, is truly immune to my farts, thank God. Probiotics help - the better quality ones. I have also had some really significant vitamin D issues that have not responded well to increased oral dosages of dry D. I have to get D infusions twice a week for now, with the hope that eventually we can go on injections. I'd still do it all over again - no regrets.
If you can follow a high protein diet, commit to taking a handful of vitamins a day and, and get your labs checked twice a year, you'll do fine.
Oh - my recovery? 2.5 days in the hospital, 2.5 weeks back to work teaching full-time. The first forty eight hours were pretty icky, then I was fine.
Julie R - Ludington, Michigan
Duodenal Switch 08/09/06 - Dr. Paul Kemmeter, Grand Rapids, Michigan
HW: 282 - 5'4"
SW: 268
GW: 135
CW: 125
Duodenal Switch 08/09/06 - Dr. Paul Kemmeter, Grand Rapids, Michigan
HW: 282 - 5'4"
SW: 268
GW: 135
CW: 125
Read the thread Sarah linked to. I put my 2 cents (or 2 dollars) worth in.
I stayed in the hospital for 4 nights, though I could have gone home after 3. I chose to stay because I live 3.5 hours from the hospital and wasn't comfortable with my liquid intake. I had a fairytale recovery. No complications at all. I took no pain meds once home, not even Tylenol. I only threw up once and that was from overeating at 3 weeks out. My biggest issue was getting tired easily, but I felt completely normal at around 5 weeks out.
As for diet differences, well, I just finished eating an original recipe chicken breast from KFC for lunch. It has 4 carbs and 42 grams of protein. (I don't know or care about the fat or calories.) It's the perfect DS food!
I stayed in the hospital for 4 nights, though I could have gone home after 3. I chose to stay because I live 3.5 hours from the hospital and wasn't comfortable with my liquid intake. I had a fairytale recovery. No complications at all. I took no pain meds once home, not even Tylenol. I only threw up once and that was from overeating at 3 weeks out. My biggest issue was getting tired easily, but I felt completely normal at around 5 weeks out.
As for diet differences, well, I just finished eating an original recipe chicken breast from KFC for lunch. It has 4 carbs and 42 grams of protein. (I don't know or care about the fat or calories.) It's the perfect DS food!
Thank you all so much. I am still reading tthe other thread. I am seriously considering ds. Although when I started my quest for wls, Kaiser was quick to promote RNY as best choice for me. I found out DS is covered by my insurance and started researching it more. The insite from this forum is wonderful. Thank you all so much!
Hi, and welcome!
Kaiser is "quick to promote RNY" to everyone, not just you, so take that with a grain (maybe a pound) of salt. They don't offer the DS and aren't going to discuss it, let alone recommend it, for anyone.
Fortunately you are doing your research. I'll try to answer some of your questions.
Recovery - 4 days in hospital, really could have left 1 day sooner. Pain wasn't bad at all. I did have a lot of fatigue afterwards and really struggled to eat and/or drink, more than most people, for some unknown reason, but that all resolved long ago. I would recommend, though, focusing more on the longterm results of different operations, rather than the first few days or weeks. wls is supposed to help you for the rest of your life. If it doesn't, there is no point in doing it.
So let's talk about that. Longterm, the RNY has a failure rate of 30% (that's per the Kaiser doc who would have done my RNY if I had let him). DS failure rate is less than 10%. When you consider that "failure" in the world of bariatric surgery is defined as losing or keeping off less than 50% of your excess weight, that means that if you lose even just 51% of your excess weight, you are considered a "success". Most people with RNY lose at best 60% of their excess wieght. With DS the average is about 80%.
Diet - with RNY you have to not just eat less, but eat low fat and low carb for the rest of your life. If not, you will regain your lost weight. With DS, we still have to watch out for carbs, esp simple carbs, but we can eat all the protein and fat we want (and some carbs). This is because we don't absorb about 80% of the fat we consume, and about 40 - 60% of the protein we consume. So it isn't just that you can eat more, it's also that you can eat a more varied, normal, healthy diet. For life.
I think this is why the results with DS are so much better than with RNY, and that's why I made my choice. Better weight loss. Better maintainence of that weight loss. Better resolution of comorbidities. More normal lifestyle. No dumping. No food getting stuck. You can drink liquids with your meals. You can take NSAIDs.
Keep on reading here. Check out the revision forum also, and you'll see lots of people with RNY trying to get revised in one way or another. You won't see this with the DS because it works so well. If you want a couple articles about the longterm results of the DS, both for weight loss and for nutritional health, just send me a pm.
Larra
Kaiser is "quick to promote RNY" to everyone, not just you, so take that with a grain (maybe a pound) of salt. They don't offer the DS and aren't going to discuss it, let alone recommend it, for anyone.
Fortunately you are doing your research. I'll try to answer some of your questions.
Recovery - 4 days in hospital, really could have left 1 day sooner. Pain wasn't bad at all. I did have a lot of fatigue afterwards and really struggled to eat and/or drink, more than most people, for some unknown reason, but that all resolved long ago. I would recommend, though, focusing more on the longterm results of different operations, rather than the first few days or weeks. wls is supposed to help you for the rest of your life. If it doesn't, there is no point in doing it.
So let's talk about that. Longterm, the RNY has a failure rate of 30% (that's per the Kaiser doc who would have done my RNY if I had let him). DS failure rate is less than 10%. When you consider that "failure" in the world of bariatric surgery is defined as losing or keeping off less than 50% of your excess weight, that means that if you lose even just 51% of your excess weight, you are considered a "success". Most people with RNY lose at best 60% of their excess wieght. With DS the average is about 80%.
Diet - with RNY you have to not just eat less, but eat low fat and low carb for the rest of your life. If not, you will regain your lost weight. With DS, we still have to watch out for carbs, esp simple carbs, but we can eat all the protein and fat we want (and some carbs). This is because we don't absorb about 80% of the fat we consume, and about 40 - 60% of the protein we consume. So it isn't just that you can eat more, it's also that you can eat a more varied, normal, healthy diet. For life.
I think this is why the results with DS are so much better than with RNY, and that's why I made my choice. Better weight loss. Better maintainence of that weight loss. Better resolution of comorbidities. More normal lifestyle. No dumping. No food getting stuck. You can drink liquids with your meals. You can take NSAIDs.
Keep on reading here. Check out the revision forum also, and you'll see lots of people with RNY trying to get revised in one way or another. You won't see this with the DS because it works so well. If you want a couple articles about the longterm results of the DS, both for weight loss and for nutritional health, just send me a pm.
Larra
AMEN!
Duodenal Switch hybrid due to complications.
Click! > DS Documents ~ VitaLady.com ~ DSFacts.com ~ OH DS FB
Click! > DS Documents ~ VitaLady.com ~ DSFacts.com ~ OH DS FB
Stacee,
If you go to www.dsfacts.com everything you need to know about the DS is there in easy to read formats.
I chose the DS because after I realized that what sounded "too good to be true" was actually TRUE it became obvious that the DS is the better surgery.
Better how?
Better weight loss
Better maintenance of the weight loss long term *
Better diet. More normal diet. No more "dieting"
Normal stomach function. No dumping syndrome
Able to take NSAIDs. Thank GOD.
Best at resolving diabetes. Type II diabetes killed my normal weight mother. I don't have to worry about diabetes EVER again.
I wanted to make sure I never had a regain if I was going to go through surgery and the DS has the best stats for that. Why in the world anyone would do the RNY when the DS is available is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Go to the revisions forum. You'll see lots of RNY failures. People seeking a "band over RNY" or a RNY to DS revision. What you won't see is people needing a DS revision. VERY informative.
Good luck with your decision. And do check out www.dsfacts.com.
Becky
If you go to www.dsfacts.com everything you need to know about the DS is there in easy to read formats.
I chose the DS because after I realized that what sounded "too good to be true" was actually TRUE it became obvious that the DS is the better surgery.
Better how?
Better weight loss
Better maintenance of the weight loss long term *
Better diet. More normal diet. No more "dieting"
Normal stomach function. No dumping syndrome
Able to take NSAIDs. Thank GOD.
Best at resolving diabetes. Type II diabetes killed my normal weight mother. I don't have to worry about diabetes EVER again.
I wanted to make sure I never had a regain if I was going to go through surgery and the DS has the best stats for that. Why in the world anyone would do the RNY when the DS is available is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Go to the revisions forum. You'll see lots of RNY failures. People seeking a "band over RNY" or a RNY to DS revision. What you won't see is people needing a DS revision. VERY informative.
Good luck with your decision. And do check out www.dsfacts.com.
Becky
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