Complications:-(

Hi Everyone!

This is my first post although I've been reading the boards for a while. I had surgery on Friday the 17th of August and encountered terrible pain and weakness. I fainted the first night in hospital and my high heart rate would not come down. I had bleeding from an unknown location (infra-abdominal bleeding). I had a CT with dye scan which showed a large accumulation of blood (bleeding not in the stomach but out surrounding my other organs). It eventually stopped on its own with a blood clotter and my hemoglobin stopped dropping rapidly after a blood transfusion. I was discharged a Monday and wasn't home for 8 hours before I started to feel a pain in the back on my calf. I figured it was from walking laps at the hospital. At bedtime, I did my first app "check in" and at the end, it said I had to present to the ER in case of a clot. Ughhhhh. Off I went at 11pm two nights ago. Thirteen hours of no sleep after a complicated surgery to finally have a doctor say I don't have a clot.

Overall I'm so glad to be home and am pretty weak. Since my hemoglobin is so low, it's hard for me to even walk to another room without having a hard time with a pounding heart. Can't wait for some great healing and no more complications!!!

Here's a pic of my tummy ð?'?.

Good luck for you. Low hemoglobin can be an issue.

If I were you I would request the doc order not only a typical CBC tests but also detailed iron panel that includes ferritin level. Losing so much blood, you also may have low iron now. And with RNY it can be very difficult to raise iron using oral iron. Specially at the beginning. If you have really low irom and ferritin below 50 - you may need to get iron infusion, to get the levels up.

I am 10 years post op and I need my iron "recharged" (iron infusions) every few years.

I hope you can get some rest and heal after all of this. Were you offered an iron infusion due to everything? I would request labs and speak to your Dr. because as the other poster said, now that you have had surgery it will be more difficult to get your iron up

While your pic of your incision area does not look normal for most people with the internal bleeding you had I don't think unexpected.

As HALA said, make sure they keep an eye on your ferritin as well. Blood transfusions is the treatment for very low hemoglobin (I've had them pre-WLS) and iron transfusions for low ferritin. Ferritin is the reserve iron we have stored in our bone marrow.

Hopefully this will just be a blip on the screen of your life and you will be onto success and reaching maintenance.

So sorry you are having a rough time. I hope now the worst is behind you and you can get to feeling better. Please take care.

Thanks everyone for all of your tips. I see my bariatric doctor in 2 days so I will ask him for a detailed iron panel! I didn't know about the differences (e.g. ferritin). I wasn't offered an iron transfusion to bump it up but I thought the blood would help. Upon discharge, when I asked the 2 residents if I should have my bariatric doctor recheck my hemoglobin on Friday, they both shrugged and said it wasn't necessary. That really surprised me! But my bariatric doctor will probably be better -informed of things in post-op land!

Sweetheart I feel so bad for you!! Please make sure you have the right doctors attending to you! Those bruises do not look good at all. Stay calm and ask for second opinions or additional help if this isn't rectified immediately.

Sending you hugs xx

Cindy

Same thing happened to me. My revision to bypass went fine but then started bleeding internally. I had blood in all four quardants of my stomach and a blood clot. Needed a transfusion. My stomach looked like yours except the bruising extended much further south than yours :) which was freakish to see.

Thanks everyone for continuing to share! I feel much less alone! Starting to feel slightly more human. I had a follow up with my bariatric doctor and he found one of my incisions to be infected so I'm on some antibiotics now. He checked my hemoglobin again and I asked about ferritin. He said we should assume it's all gone, try to build my stores back up, and check it in 3 months. Can one build up another store of ferritin in a few months?