Help with reading operative report

[Julanie]

Trying to figure out how to upload images but im having trouble. How do i put them out here for you guys to look at?

 

[Julanie]

Trying to figure out how to upload images but im having trouble. How do i put them out here for you guys to look at?

Oooh! I did it! Trying to figure out my CC length and if i have a true ds.

Surgeon says he gave me a ds with a long cc so i could avoid malabsorption of vitamins but could shorten later if my weightloss wasnt acceptable.

 

[Larra]

I wish surgeons would specify the lengths of the different channels in their reports, but none of them seem to do this. It sounds like a real 2 anastomosis DS but with a long alimentary limb and a 100 cm common channel to me. Given your struggles with the lap band and what your surgeon repeatedly calls "extreme obesity" though he doesn't specify your bmi, it would have made more sense to me to make the AL and CC combined on the short side and then lengthen in the future if you had nutritional problems, rather than making their total longer than usual. But it does sound like a DS and not a SADI unless I missed something.

I will go back and read it again later, sometimes something I didn't spot jumps out at me on a second attempt.

 

[galaxygrrl]

Don't stress about this. 100 CM common channel might be Ok, it works for alot of people. See where you end up.

 

[Julanie]

Yeah thats my problem. Had the ds back in 2012 and never went below 250. Which leaves me still morbidly obese. Im hoping that when i see the new surgeon he thinks going back in will give me a shot at losing more. I dont need to be skinny but i havent been below 200 since highschool.

 

[Julanie]

I wish surgeons would specify the lengths of the different channels in their reports, but none of them seem to do this. It sounds like a real 2 anastomosis DS but with a long alimentary limb and a 100 cm common channel to me. Given your struggles with the lap band and what your surgeon repeatedly calls "extreme obesity" though he doesn't specify your bmi, it would have made more sense to me to make the AL and CC combined on the short side and then lengthen in the future if you had nutritional problems, rather than making their total longer than usual. But it does sound like a DS and not a SADI unless I missed something.

I will go back and read it again later, sometimes something I didn't spot jumps out at me on a second attempt.

Thanks. I thought is was the regular from what i saw and how i understood the surgery to work. Ive been very upset with the records as ive read them.

They originally placed a 14cc band in me but assumed i had a 10cc because that's usually what women get. I did lose weight through the liqiud post op period but i never felt restriction. They filled me up a little past 9cc and i still didnt have restriction. I was hungry all the time and kept telling myself ut wasnt real hunger, it was head hunger. When they finally ordered the inventory report fron the hospital they found out i was actually hungry trying to eat only 1/2 a cup of food at a tine for months. They got me restiction finally and i lost more. But then i got pregnant and because of morning sickness they removed some and when i returned after the baby the band was broken and wouldnt hold amy saline.
Ive now seen letters that they wrote to my pcp saying i wasnt going to reach my max weightloss potential because i was at 9.2 out of 10 and they could adjust much more. No more letters once they found out i really had a 14cc band.

Then theres only one mention of my band breaking and referring me to dr kim for consult on removal. All other mentions talk about me needing removal and conversion because of vomiting and nausea which is NOT true. It was broken. I cried when i found out i needed another surgery. If my band could have been replaced i would have. But dr Kim was rude and said if i couldnt get the weight off with the band then for someone as overweight as i was there were only 2 options...rny or ds.
But i get it now. His staff took such sparse notes he thought i failed the band. Nothing in the chart talks about band size after that letter and hospital invoice. If i didnt know what happened id assume i was failing too.

 

[DianaCox]

I read that her CC was 100 cm and he divided the ileum 150 further cm distally - that's a 250 total alimentary tract (150 alimentary + 100 cc) which is very very usual. It's what Rabkin did for both of us, as far as I know. He didn't measure the entire small intestine and do percentages, but many of us have standard lengths and have done fine.

I don't know what weight you started at, but if you were SMO, then the band would NEVER have been enough no matter how full it was.

How rigid have you been about carb control? That's where most of us who don't reach goal "mess up." I just learned to be happy at 170ish.

 

[Larra]

I think you're right. My confusion was as to whether the 150 cm limb was alimentary or BP, but on reading again I think it's the alimentary limb. These would be reasonable limb lengths for a non-Hess method DS.