Warning: this blog entry discusses vomiting. If this grosses you out (once upon a time it would gross me out too), don’t read it!
It’s funny that some of you are so relieved at the fact that I don’t vomit when I dump, because I vomit almost every single day. Dumping is the one thing I can control — I watch my sugar intake, I don’t dump. But I can’t control the fact that I vomit on a regular basis. I do know the things that will make me vomit 90% of the time, and those are things I avoid — pasta (however, I can tolerate egg- and rice- based pasta in small quantities) and bread. But other things that I eat I often wind up throwing back up. There’s no rhyme or reason for it, believe me, I’ve tracked my food and have tried to note anything that consistently makes me vomit. But there are no consistencies. I could eat a small portion of apple cinnamon protein cereal four days in a row and be fine, and on the fifth day I’ll vomit it up. I can go 2-3 days with keeping food down, then I’ll have a day where I throw up after everything. I have days where I even throw up liquids — protein shakes, water, juice, etc.
The most common cause of consistent and random vomiting after gastric bypass surgery is a stricture. But that was ruled out. I could have a motility issue going on — where my new stomach doesn’t do its job well enough in terms of contracting and relaxing muscles in order to push the food out. Dan also suggested that maybe my brain is just confused, and confuses the “full” signal or even the “half full” signal (note: I do not overeat. TRUST ME ON THIS. I eat bites, literally BITES of food, and that constitutes a meal for me!) with “okay, so full that I need to throw up!”.
And fighting the urge to throw up doesn’t help. It just delays the inevitable. I learned to control when I vomit when I was pregnant with Alyssa — it isn’t easy or convenient to deal with morning sickness when you’re taking your fiance to work! And I can still control when I throw up. I could probably wait hours, if I wanted to. But because my brain feels I need to throw up, the physical “side effects” associated with the urge to vomit kick in. Mainly the whole major salivating thing… so all that excess saliva runs down into my stomach pouch, and BAM, I’m suddenly super full, practically foaming at the mouth, and to not just go and get rid of it all (or some of it, at least) leaves me feeling very uncomfortable and full.
So in summary… “I’ll be right back” is Jenn Speak for, “Excuse me, I need to go throw up”.
Fortunately, the process of throwing up is quick — unless the food is stuck. Food Stuckage usually happens with bread and pasta, which is why I try to avoid them like the plague (or eat no more than 1-2 bites). Nothing is worse than salivating profusely and having your stomach and esophagus contract, yet feeling the food getting STUCK because it freaking wads up. But other than that, it’s a quick and efficient process, one I’ve gotten so used to that it’s just like going to the bathroom or brushing my teeth. And there’s no issue with bad taste or the fear of enamel erosion, because there aren’t any digestive juices in my new stomach. Anything that comes up tastes the same as it did going down.
Sidenote: since surgery I’ve thrown up in McDonald’s, Burger King, Arby’s, Applebee’s, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, in public restrooms in two different parks, in the kids’ preschool’s bathroom, and on the side of a few different roads, and most recently a highway. Fun times!
Seriously TMI here, but – don’t feel bad at all about it! Thanks to my hernia, I have thrown up in so many places that a couple of restaurants here know that if I’m headed for the bathroom, that’s what’s going to happen.
(Although I still hate vomiting in public!)
Actually, your husband may be onto something. Like you, I never overate, either. In fact, a year after I had the surgery, I was still only able to eat say half a chicken nugget (I allowed myself fast-food once a month..but in very small portions). Also, like you I would have days were I would not vomit, then all of a sudden once I thought the vomitting was over, boom, it was back and worse than ever.
A possible thing could be that there is a new hernia that the doctors haven’t found, yet (normally, within the incision (depending on the type of surgery..completely cut open or not). In my case, it was a hernia in my incision. Once that was done and over with, I seemed to get sicker. After tests & tests, nothing ever came back that was wrong.
However, by elimation, I figured it out. Though my stomach was saying after a bite of this and that, I was full. The truth was, I was overfull. How I learned this was I cut my portions down even further and I no longer got sick. So, it is possible that your brain/stomach is saying one thing when the truth is, it is something else.
Do not starve yourself, but maybe true what I did. It may help. Like you, I can control my vomitting now as well. However, I had a huge problem with it. I literally would make myself puke after I ate. I was 375 before surgery. About 9 months later, I was 150 lbs. Now, after having my son (he’s 9 months), I’m stuck at 195. I was 220 the day my son was born. So, I have lost 25 of that…45 more to go!
I am doing the special k diet (oh, I did this, too, after having the gastric bypass surgery), exercise, Flirty girl fitness dvds, et cetera.
Opps..typo in my comment. I meant to say maybe try this..not true. =)
Aww Jenn… That sucks. I can’t even imagine what I’d do if I threw up that often. As is I probably throw up at most 5-6 times a YEAR and that is waaay too much for me. At least you have a more positive attitude about it than I would!
Hopefully your doctors will be able to figure out what is wrong (didn’t I see you say somewhere that you’ve got a follow-up visit coming up?) and will be able to help you stop the vomiting.