Achalasia is a condition in which the lower end of your esophagus—called the lower esophageal sphincter or LES—fails to relax enough to let food through when you swallow. While the exact cause of achalasia is unknown, there are a number of ways to treat it, including surgery. Heller myotomy is a procedure in which the…
Part of the role of bariatric surgery is to encourage you to choose healthier options and keep portions small. Because of this—and to assist with recovery post-op—you’ll need to follow a strict diet, especially right after surgery. General Pointers for Your Diet After Surgery Some types of weight loss surgery, such as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass,…
Frequent acid reflux is called gastroesophageal acid reflux disease, or GERD for short. Roughly 1 in 5 adults in the US suffer from GERD every year, and the number of people hospitalized for it count in the millions, with 4.7 million being hospitalized in 2010 alone. Chronic acid reflux results from a weak lower esophageal…
Patients who have gallbladder removal surgery sometimes experience heartburn afterward. What are the causes of heartburn after gallbladder surgery? Do people suffer more severe acid reflux after gallbladder removal? If you’ve recently had a cholecystectomy, heartburn may be troubling you more than it ever did before, but you may be surprised to learn that this…
Bariatric surgery is an effective way to reach your weight loss goals, and you’ll see a lot of progress in the first few months. However, sooner or later, your weight loss may seem to stall out. That can be frustrating, but it’s actually more of a milestone than an obstacle. Plateaus are part of the…
Once you’re scheduled for your operation, your surgeon and a registered dietitian will have you start a diet to prepare for bariatric surgery. This diet is vital to the success of your operation, and if you don’t follow it, your surgery could be postponed. The goals of a pre-bariatric surgery diet include: Shrinking your liver…
I had really bad acid reflux, coughing. My symptoms were cough and it was really disruptive, if either I was talking too much or fast or eating. While I was eating, or drinking, or laughing, anything would provoke a really nasty cough that sounded like it was coming from my lungs. So everyone would turn…
When I was 17 years old, I started to find that certain things that I ate irritated my stomach and what originally was just an irritation, gradually over time, what turned out to be 20 years, turned into just suffering. If I drank a glass of water, it wasn’t just spicy food that did it…
Most of my adult life I struggled with gaining weight and then trying to lose weight. I had tried all diets, every other option, Weight Watchers, several other fad diets, even diet pills. I had even sought to try medication. In 2012, I opted to do a Lap Band as a tool to try to help me…
As a kid, I always had been a big kid. I remember having to go to Sears to get my clothes because they were the only department store in the area that carried husky pants because I had to be in husky rather than regular. Then, as I got older, I did all of the…
Life before was a little challenging. I have two children, 9 and almost 3. I wasn’t able to like play with them as much. I couldn’t keep up. It was kind of laborious. Obesity runs in my family and my father ended up being almost 500 pounds. So when I was about 10 years old,…
I seem to have always kind of struggled with weight my entire life. It seemed to get worse after I had children, harder to lose weight and as my children got older and you know, I just found it was difficult to keep up with a lot of their activities and stuff, kind of due…
I’ve always been a big guy. From early childhood, I’ve been always the overweight kid, just never ate the way I was supposed to eat. I grew up in a family of big people. My mother was overweight. My grandparents were overweight. A lot of my family is overweight. I just kept getting bigger and…
Before surgery, I was in a depression state, always in my room, eating a lot, a lot of health issues. I had GERD. I would rush to the ER at night thinking I was having a heart attack but it was just anxiety attacks. It affected me at work as well because I wouldn’t be…
I got up to as much as 351 pounds. I had no energy. I had all sorts of ailments, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea. Then I got into truck driving which that didn’t help at all. So the pounds just went up and up and up, and I tried dieting, but when you…
