Question:
I know I should ask my surgeon my stupid question

But recently I went to an gastroenterologist and he told me that my stomach was the size of an egg, the other part is gone, I have no large intestine and my small intestine is attached to whats left of my stomach...Does this mean I had the DS instead of the RNY... I thought at the time my surgeon did the RNY but with most of my stomach gone??? She never told me what I had.......OK,OK I know I should ask her but I would really like to know now, cause the office is on vacation....HELP me if you can.    — Rebe W. (posted on December 26, 2002)

December 26, 2002
Rebe - Only your surgeon's office can truly answer this but I think your gastroenterologist needs to learn more about WLS. If indeed your stomach is the size of an egg then you would have had an RNY as far as I know. The DS removes a large portion of your stomach but leave a lot more than an egg sized stomach based on what I have read on the procedure.<p>What bothers me is how would your specialist know that the residual stomach is gone. He can't scope it, without a lot of effort, and he can't get barium into in so it shows up on x-rays. Only a CT or an MRI would show it and I'm not even sure it would show on a CT without barium. I have read that some RNY's do have the residual stomach removed but that seems to be few and far between. Your residual stomach would shrink to be quite small so I'm not even sure it could be palpated. So if your surgeon's office indicates your residual stomach is still there then I would get a new specialist. It's scary when a doctor talks about something as fact that turns out to be 100% wrong. I would want more confidence in my doctors than that. It also would not hurt to get a copy of the surgery report and always give a copy to any new doctor, so they clearly know what was done.
   — zoedogcbr