Hiatal hernia after VSG

Hi. Has anyone here ended up with a hiatal hernia after the VSG,  and if you did, what did you have to do? I am 9 months out and just found out I have a hiatal hernia. My dr wants me to get another test done before seeing her, and I just wanted to be prepared for the different possibilities of what she might say to me.

Thanks

Daisy

Sorry to hear you're dealing with a hiatal hernia - they can really hurt.  My surgery is next month and stomach acid post-op was a real concern of mine.  My surgeon said that he will be prescribing a PPI for 6 weeks post op and I should be fine.  May I ask if your surgeon prescribed the same?  Have you been taking acid reducing meds since your surgery?

I was taking omeprazole. I stopped taking it I think two or three months post op, not sure about when I stopped. The thing is, I don't think I have acid problems. I've been having pain in my gallbladder area and in my right shoulder and shoulder blade, and a little nausea and fatigue, but none of the acid reflux. I had it sometimes before surgery, but not often, and I didn't have the symptoms with it that I have now. I didn't start having these problems until March, when I had a gallbladder attack.  That was the first symptom i had. I took the omeprazole for about a month after that, but it didn't help any.  I had an ultrasound, and it showed no stones, so then I had a cat scan. I started having stomach pain after drinking the barium for the ct scan, I didn't have it at all in my stomach before that. I get the stomach pain off and on, but it's usually not too bad. Mostly more of a minor irritation. The upper right abdominal pain is actually worse.

Reach out to Thinlizzy - she had two post VSG HH repairs. She managed so far not to have to revise to RnY but that may be a recommendation your doc comes up with. It is possible to repair a HH post VSG without a revision which is what I would try to do - preserve your VSG. "Luckily" my HH was seen by my surgeon when he was doing my VSG so he repaired it at the same time. I pray (sort of) every day that it does not come back! Another OHer - HollyKim - had a HH after VSG and she had it taken care of when she revised to the DS (not because of the HH). Best of luck to you!

Thank you for the information and recommendations. I will not plan on revising, hopefully the dr won't make that an option. I don't want to revise if there's another way to fix it. I picked the VSG for a reason, and I feel like it's what I'm supposed to have, not the RnY or the DS.

I agree, I wouldn't want to revise either.

I had one pre-op and, based on symptoms I am having, I suspect it may have come back. I don't plan to do anything about it unless I get heartburn so bad that it can't be controlled with a PPI.

When I had it before, it went undiagnosed because I didn't have traditional heartburn until the end. Instead I had a cough and symptoms similar to allergies. But eventually I also got heartburn and prilosec didn't touch it. My HH was repaired with my VSG and my "allergies" went away! I still had heartburn but the PPI kept it under control and I was able to eventually wean off it.

I get heartburn once in a while now and that cough too and a pain in my back like I did before and that's why I think my HH came back. The pain is in the exactly same place it was post-op after the HH repair.

Sorry to see that it might have come back. That stinks. Because of the other test, I'm not seeing my surgeon for another month, but hopefully whatever she tells me is good news. You can always pray for a better outcome than what is expected.  And like I said, when I had the heartburn before surgery, it was totally different than this. I had an acid taste in my mouth, a burning in my throat, and it felt like someone was poking me in the chest.