So New

Rainerific

Member
Joined
May 31, 2017
Messages
18
Hey guys! I just found this website today. I'm very pre-op (as in, I haven't spoken to a surgeon yet) and I'm trying to learn everything that I can about my chosen surgery - Duodenal Switch!
 
Hey @Rainerific! Many of us were in the "very pre-op" stage for a long time! This forum is a wonderful resource, especially to those choosing the DS. Have fun crawling through the archives ;)
 
hello welcome. You have found a very good site to be able to broaden you knowledge of the DS. There are a plethora of WLS vets that can answer anything thrown out there. Also there is tons of answers already archived regarding every aspect of WLS. So if you don't feel comfortable asking questions you can more than likely find some thing in the archives regarding your questions. I'm glad you found us
 
Hi and welcome @Rainerific ! :) DS was one of the best decisions I ever made. My best advice is to seek an experienced, vetted surgeon who performs the two anastomosis / traditional DS.
 
Thank you all for the warm welcomes and advice! I'm learning so much about the DS surgery from going through the forums. There is so much more to this surgery than I imagined. I love how straight forward people are here.

As for surgeons, I've been researching them too. I'm very seriously considering Dr. Sudan at Duke University Hospital. It is a bit of a drive for me, but he is so well reviewed. Of course, I'll need to speak with him before I make any final decisions.
 
Hi and welcome!
Dr. Sudan is definitely an experienced DS surgeon. Someone else around here (sorry, I can't remember who it was) did post recently that the group at Duke is now making excessively long common channels in hopes of avoiding nutritional deficiencies. So if/when you see him, you need to ask about that, and make it very clear that you want not just the real DS with 2 anastomoses but also a cc of 100 cm or thereabouts. You are an intelligent, well informed patient who is capable of following directions and who understands that the protein, vitamin, and mineral requirements are exactly that, requirements, and that this is a life time commitment.
My guess is that they've had a few patients who have been noncompliant and gotten themselves into trouble, and they are a bit gun shy about the malabsosrption of the DS, which is serious malabsorption. But it's also the malabsorption that creates and esp helps maintain our weight loss and makes the DS the most effective bariatric surgery available. Accept no substitutes!
 
@Larra thank you so much for the info about Duke! I'm going to the informational session with my husband in a couple weeks. I know that I don't want a common channel longer than 100 (and preferably a little shorter than that!) so I will be direct with them about that at my first appointment.

I've been thinking a lot about vitamins. I told my husband what to expect as to much I'll be taking. I showed him the vitalady website. I plan to take her premeasured vitamin packs for the first three months, until I get my first blood work post-op and then change things up. Though, I wonder if I shouldn't do the mostly chewable ones to help my stomach at first.
 
Although I used Vitalady's recommendations, both pre and post op, I did not use the pre-assembled vite packs. I preferred to add vitamins one at a time so I could know if one was bothering me (and carbonyl iron gave me diarrhea after I had bought THREE bottles) and switch to another or delay adding it in until my innards were better healed and more tolerant. Some have reported that they have difficulty figuring out which pill is which in the packs in order to separate them. (I've never seen the packs so I'm only reporting what I've heard.) And as you realize, once you get your first labs, you'll probably need to change up what's in the packs anyway.

I was able to take all vitamins whole except giant calcium and magnesium which I crushed with pill crusher and mixed in yogurt. (Gritty but flavorless.) But I only needed to do this for the first month or two, then I was fine -- and my VSG was VERY irritable, more so than most report. Within a few months i was taking a fistful at a time. (I would not have believed this possible in the first month!) Chewables are more expensive and usually contain less vitamin than the kind you swallow which means you have to take even more of these costly pills.

As for CC lengths, the Hess method based on total bowel length is the safest way to go but if all he'll agree to is the 100 CC, take it. I and many others here have a "cookie cutter" 100cc and have done well. This who do not are usually outside of average height (bowel length can be related to height) so the very short get too much absorption and the very tall get far too little.
 
the chewable were somewhat helpful at the very beginning but unless you have a problem swallowing pills now, I would think three months would be longer than you'd want to be doing the chewable. I am a huge VitaLady fan, and tried the prepackaged vitality vites once, (not as a recent post op, though) and it wasn't as convenient as I would have imagined. The doses come sealed in a row of multiple doses for the same time of day. So you still have to snip them apart from four different strips for each day, sometimes the seals would get nicked or burst open and spill out. I ended up spending nearly as much time on the prepackaged ones as when I set up my own doses. And adding the vitamins as tolerated in the first few months and weeks is difficult with the prepackaged set because you will have to figure out/guess which pill is which in the plastic pouches. Maybe consider ordering the Vitalady regiment but not prepackaged for the first time~?~
 
Thank you guys for the recommendation against the preassembled pill packs. My major reason for wanting to choose it is because I'm so overwhelmed by all the vitamins and how to take them. I wanted to make it easier on myself. I'm determined to keep myself healthy so I'll look into buying her suggestions instead. Swallowing pills is no problem for me, so I'll invest in a pill crusher for shortly after my surgery.

This website is amazing and I'm so incredibly thankful that I found it! Everyone is so helpful. I am so thankful to everyone who has taken the time to reply and give me suggestions.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top