Post oesophagectomy help questions

Hello Hugh. You are definitely in the right place to get advice and support. My husband is on a different treatment pathway but there are many here post-surgery or supporting those who are.

I hope you get the answers you need.

Lorraine

Hi Hugh. I have not heard of anyone else on this site suffering from swelling ( I could be wrong)  so this seems a bit unusual and perhaps he needs specialist advice from the hospital on this aspect. Everybody post op. struggles with eating and initially one has to forget the whole concept of normal mealtime. Grazing is the most effective solution-perhaps eating 8-10 times per day.. A lot of us have found we need to lie down after eating to avoid discomfort. All this does improve with time. I presume he is using a pillow wedge overnight to keep him semi-upright, if not, these are available in medical shops. Everybody has to keep experimenting on their diet as each of us seems to have varying responses to certain foods. I cannot eat bread - others can. Eating slowly is of major benefit- I certainly did not do this in my previous life!  He maybe having trouble absorbing fat which might contribute to the toilet issues. This latter is normally addressed by enzyme medicines such as creon. I took the latter for a short while but no longer need it- others use it continuously. Not sure if any of my comments are of much help but the recovery process for some of us can take a long time. Hope he gets some kind of improvement soon and please come back if you need any further info.

Thank you

Thank you for your lengthy reply its appreited. Perhapps swelling is actually bloating and hw describes it wrong just last night he had to make himself sick to get his stomacg empty as nothing seems to be processing at all have you any info on help or medication for this type of thing?

I would not suggest any form of using 'over the counter' medication without professional advice. What is his nutritionist at the hospital saying ? You can feel full and nauseous on two mouthfuls of food in the initial stages. The only thing I as a layman can say is that it can't be emphasised enough how small the food portions should be. Personally I eat a lot of fish and very little meat. As i said previously, you can forget your previous eating habits certainly for the first year or so.        

Hi 

I haven’t had my surgery yet but when I spoke to the consultant about the surgery he went through all the problems I might encounter and one of them was that the valve that will be left a the bottom of my stomach going in to my intestines can either stay open causing diarrhoea or dumping or not open causing pain and swelling in the stomach ! It’s just a thought that the latter might be happening ! Anyway hope he feels better soon Tricia x

The valve that they remove makes it more likely to get regular bouts of acid reflux that's why they normally prescribe Lanzaprozole etc. The diarrhea (dumping) is caused by the stomach being much smaller and food going through the system too fast.

Anthony x

Good to hear from you BB it was explained to me that the valve at the top is removed but the one at the bottom stays in place but can either stay open or stay shut !! Which can cause problems!! 

Just looked it up it’s called the pyloric sphincter ! 

I knew it had a name. I am getting mine dilated in a couple of weeks time. That should be fun! Evidently they use Botox as part of the procedure. I thought that was something used on faces !