Posted 6/14/2012 1:13 PM (GMT -5)
You will read mainly horror stories online. Don't let that bother you. Very few people go online to tell about how great their surgery went. Instead, they are off living their lives. People who had complications search for answers online and share their stories. Here, you'll find plenty of success stories as well as some less successful stories.
I wouldn't worry about the post surgery weight loss. I did lose about 22 pounds in the 2 months after surgery, but now at 6 months, I've gained 37 back! Not really the direction I want to go, but your ability to eat and appetite will return, I promise. :)
As I said in my other thread, I was on liquids for 2 weeks, soft foods (pasta, mashed potatoes, thick soups, pudding) for 2 weeks, then I started adding everything back in. The last thing that gave me trouble was harder breads... by 8 weeks those were no problem it eat. Even before that I could eat them, I just had to take smaller bites and chew chew chew!
My recommendation is to find a surgeon in your area, preferably one your doctor recommends, and go for a consultation. Take ALL of your questions. I took 2 pages of questions to mine, probably 50 questions. The surgeon didn't care, he spent 90 minutes with me going over each one. Surgeons are different. Some have more experience than others, and some have different results than others. The surgeon can show you data of his or her success, so you can see exactly how many of their patients have success with your symptoms, what are possible side effects, etc. That information will be much more beneficial than stories you read online. My surgeon could tell me in exact numbers that helped me be more comfortable, he did X number of surgeries, and out of those X% of people had success with your symptom, X% saw improvement, etc. If I relied solely on information I read online, I may have not done it, and my life would not have changed for the better.
I'm sure some other folks will chime in soon. Like I said, we have lots of people here that have had the Nissen. This is a great community, the people are wonderful... I first signed up a few days before my surgery, and that was 6 months ago and I still hang around, mainly to share my story with folks like you. I wish you all the best!
Tony