How was VSG compared to other surgeries you've had? Please be Honest

Thanks for the heads up SassyItalian! I will be sure to ask for Reglan because I can't take Phenergan :(
I am also going to ask the anesthesiologist if I can do without a PCA pump since I am allergic to both Morphine and Dilaudid. Hopefully I can get by with just Toradol. That stuff works wonders for me. Thanks again for the reply!

I had an adult tonsillectomy about 8 years ago and that was way worse than my sleeve. I was out of work for 2 weeks. With my sleeve I was out of work for 3 days.



~Lori

Wow Lori 3 Days?!! That's great! Your surgeon is the bomb!

Yeah, I only had shoulder gas pains the first night and no incision pain at all..no bruising either. I did throw up blood clots for for the first night and the day after during the leak test but after that I was golden. I did feel like a did 10,000 sit ups though..but was able to function, just very slowly..lol


~Lori

Well, you have had a few prior to the VSG...You will be fine!...It's people that haven't had other surgeries to compare them to, can be a bit whiney..LOL..It will be a walk in the park for you...Out of my 10 surgeries the hysterectomy was the worse!!!..

Hugs and take care!

Donna

I had a few minor procedures that were really nothing significant. Than I had gallbladder removal and an open appendectomy.  These procedures were somewhat difficult, but I was back to work in a week from both.

However with my VSG, I was out 2 1/2 weeks, and I wish I had taken off longer.  The pain was not overwhelming, but I was very weak and tired.  For me VSG was the worst.

I had a c section in 1985. My vsg in 2008 was a cake walk !!! No issues, returned to my desk job in 7 days. In addition to traveling out of state for my surgery.

lol wow I must be a baby!  I had my gallbladder taken out a few years back...no problem at all.  Just minor pain in the muscles where the incisions were.  So I went into the VSG surgery thinking it was going to be a piece of cake.  Honestly I felt like it was the worst pain of my entire life.  Not sure if I woke up before the pain meds kicked in or what but I felt like how you would feel if someone cut your stomach out.  They had me on Morphine drip pretty soon there after but I was still in alot of pain.  My mom asked the nurse if it was normal to be in that much pain and she told my mom that they don't tell patients how bad it hurts because they don't want to scare them!  I couldn't stand or sit up without help from my husband, thank goodness he was there with me.  I went back to work about a week and a half later, so I feel like I recovered pretty fast.  I was just the first 2 days with the bad pain though after that the big incision that I had hurt for a good 3 weeks if I moved just the right way.  I'm completely fine now though and I would do it all over in a heartbeat.  Evidently this is not the norm lol  Looks like everyone else had hardly any pain! lol

I did not have a very good time in the hospital for 2 days.....I had a large hiatal hernia repair with the VSG....I think that sucked more than anything....I could only take shallow breaths and it hurt like hell to breathe.....hiatal hernia repair jacks around with your diaphragm. I had to breathe in a spirometer every hour... I think that hurt worse than the VSG itself.  I was on shots for pain...don't know what it was though...I also had dry heaves all night after surgery too.....I was all I could do to go to sleep...then it was just 2 hours later I was awake and hurting so bad again....I had bad gas pain....That pain is not localized...it's very general and you can't really pinpoint where it is coming from....I took everthing out of me to get up and walk the hallway....I did this 2-3 times during the night between my dry heaves and my little sleep.  I started having a reaction to something the next day and my face turned purple ..... literally..... I think it was all the anti nausea stuff that they were trying on me all night.....But I still got to go home the next day by 4 pm and from that point on it just got better and better...So the first 30+ hours sucked a big one for me...it took me a week before I could get the spirometer up to the top of the cylinder....

 I have a lot of sports related injuries from my teens and 20's.  I was pretty much 'adventure girl,'     My tolerance for pain is pretty high, so I'm probably not the best measure.  Of course I feel the aches now at 44, lol.

VSG was a breeze for me, particularly compared to other surgeries. It was similar to laproscopic removal of some endometriosis I had when I was in college.  I was better prepared, however, for the gas and I was up and moving much sooner after my VSG, as a result.  I have a bad shoulder that I didn't have, yet, in college (riding accident), and I REALLY didn't want to find out what the gas would do to it if the gas didn't dissapate quickly.

My worst surgeries (were "Orbital Decompression."  I had two operations a month apart -- one on each eye.   Having your eye-sockets made bigger and the fat behind your eyes removed is even less fun than it sounds, trust me. Behind that was the eye muscle surgery that followed to correct double vision if for no other reason than they leave a stitch in your eye so they can 'tune' the alignment of your eyes the day after surgery while you're awake.  It takes 6 weeks to dissolve, and it's maddening until it does.

 I've had a couple of operations on my right knee (partial replacement when I was 17, lateral release, arthroscopic cartilege removal), a compound fracture in my left hand (rapelling accident ), a cyst removed from my tailbone  (hereditary, thanks dad).  They were all much harder than VSG.