Upper endoscopy question

OK - I have to have an upper endoscopy tomorrow because I've had a couple of episodes of severe abdominal pain and they want to check for an ulcer.  Will this stretch out my stoma?  Is this the same sort of thing they do when someone has a stricture?

 No, it won't stretch your stoma. They put you under sedation with propofol and put the tube down your esophagus until it reaches your pouch.  The tube is pretty small too.  

You are correct though that when someone has a stricture, EGD is how they do it, but with additional tools.

Good luck!  It is quick and painless though.

I'm pretty sure they are going past the pouch.  They need to look past that as well.

When I had an endoscopy to look for an ulcer, they did not go beyond my pouch.  I assume the doc doing yours knows you have RNY and that it's important not to stretch the stoma, right?  Perhaps you should talk to the doc about your concerns.

They know that I have had gastric bypass.  Since you can have ulcers in your intestine they have to check that.  They also said sometimes the connections from the bypass do not get good enough blood flow and that can get ulcers.  I will ask tomorrow about the stoma as I will also want to know how big it is.  They told me that they have done this on gastric bypass patients before.  The doctor doing this also did my colonoscopy and does a lot of these procedures.

I was scoped just this past Tuesday.  It was my third time since my RNY. 

My doc went into my Small Intestine and actually took a biopsy.  She said something looked "weird."  Still waiting for the results.  She did find a hernia, too.

My point?  If the doc knows what they're doing, it's not a problem.  The EGD was actually done by the surgeon that did my bypass - she did reassure me that my pouch and stoma still look great/as expected.  What a relief!

What she found was a hiatal hernia -that is different than a hernia.  A hiatal hernia is when there is a type of hernia that involves the stomach and esophagus - sometimes the diaghram -  - it is what causes reflux/GERD.  Sometimes when really bad, people need surgery to correct the hiatal herniat which I dont think can be done after a RNY, it can be done at the sametime or before - Usually surgeons find this at the time of RNY and correct it to avoid reflux post op, I am suprised your surgeon didn't find it.  You will need to take PPI's (protonix, nexium, prevacid) for the rest of your life to prevent reflux with this and also to prevent ulcers due to the high acid produced from a hiatal hernia.

I actually had severe GERD before my bypass and haven't since.  I know it's a hiatal hernia but as long as I'm feeling no ill effects, it doesn't require any treatment.  It wasn't present at the time of my bypass - nor was it present as the time of my other surgeries (gtube placement, untwisting of intestines, gallblader removal, abdominal mass excision, adhesion repair, etc...I had a few.)  

I'm still in contact with my surgeon on a weekly basis and if anything changes, I let her know.  That's why I had the scope in the first place - I've been having abdominal pain sporadically and she wanted to check for an ulcer.  I could have gone to my local treaters (I moved to CT about 16 months ago) but I figured going to the doc who'd scoped me before would be good - plus it was an excuse to visit my family up north of Boston.