Expert: John Pilcher, MD - 10/30/2008

Question
Okay so I am a complicated case. I have vagal nerve injury which resulted in gastroparesis with dysmotility of the entire intestinal tract. This has left me with a feeding tube and chronic pain and nausea. It has been mentioned to me by now 5 dr's in 5 years to reverse the surgery. I am now since my surgeon is strongly recommending it, strongly considering it. He wants to reverse the RNy and put on a lap band to prevent regain of weight but would allow me to have a little bit bigger stomach than I do now because my pouch never stretched (it is still the original size). I jsut need to knwo what I would be in for as far as recovery and such. I am an active person despite all the problems. Ihave had exploratory surgery, a lap chole, perotinitis that was near sepsis, feeding tube replacements, two bowel obstructions and other hospital stays for paina nd constipation. Currently I have a feeding tube also that I have a question about. NO one seems to be able to figure out what could be going on so I need all the help I can get. I had a button feeidng tube in and it was leaking around the stoma so they put in a regular g-tube, which caused blood to come out of the actual tube and had alot of pain. They replaced it with a different type of button tube, which helped the bleeding and discharge around the stoma but not the PAIN. It is bad, I am waiting for a call from my surgeon, ahve been to the er now once since the tube replacement on tuesday (2 days ago) and fear I am going to end up there again soon. This pain is bad it is sharp and buringin in my remnant stomach behind the feeding tube. I don't know for certain if the feeding tube is causing it or something else but I need advice since the IR people said my films from the tube exchange were fine. So any info on these two things would be great. Thanks for everything.

Answer
Alannah,
Sorry I did not see this extra information when I answered your question earlier.

It's a fact that feeding tubes can cause a lot of pain symptoms - the body "knows" it is not supposed to have a piece of plastic in it.  The tube you have, sounds like it is located in your bypassed stomach.  If so, and if you do OK with feedings into that part of your stomach, then I would have a higher level of confidence that reversal of the bypass would reduce your symptoms.

Best of luck,
Dr JP