After finding your website, I wanted to send in my story to see if anyone else can relate. All my life I had suffered chronic heartburn, and I ate Tums like they were candy. At age 28, I was hospitalized with pancreatitis, and during that hospital stay, the GI specialist found my hiatel hernia, and recommended the laproscopic fundoplication. I had the surgery November 1, 2001 (All Saints Day!). My experience was very similiar with all the others I read on your site with the exception of diarrhea.
From day 1 I suffered from diarrhea with each meal. My surgeon at first said that it was because I was on a liquid diet, and that it would change once I went back to a regular diet. Time passed, and my diarrhea remained. After a couple of months of the diarrhea, my surgeon told me he believed that he must have damaged the Vagus nerve which runs along the esophagus, and this caused my digestive system to go into "overdrive," because within 15 minutes of eating, I have to find a bathroom. Lomotil didn't slow it down at all. He eventually prescribed me Elavil, which is an antidepressant - stating that Elavil had a side effect of slowing down the digestive system. I was on 150 mg per day. After feeling horrible from the medicine, and after really losing trust in my surgeon, I called my GI specialist again. He could not believe that I was on such a high level of Elavil, and began immediately bringing me off of it since it was not helping at all.
He since has sent me to one of the University hospitals in my state (NC) where I have been undergoing test after test to determine the cause of the diarrhea. My GI specialist does not believe that the surgery caused my problems, but my surgeon still does because I saw him in a hospital (I'm a minister and I was visiting a church member), and he actually apologized to me for damaging the Vagus nerve. Keep in mind, this surgery was done over a year ago! I am taking a medication called Cholestyramine, which is actually a cholesterol medication, but it actually helps "block" up my digestive system. It blocks it up to the point that I become constipated, which leads to painful bowel movements. Plus, I still always feel nausiated after eating. Plus, I still suffer diarrhea - only not as frequent. With the medicine, it's probably only 4 times out of 10 meals - as opposed to 100 percent of the time without the medicine.
I truly desire to find out if anyone else has suffered symptoms such as mine. I was not aware of this as a possible side effect of the surgery, so I am inquiring if anyone has even heard of something such as this. Thanks for you help!
12/23/2006 Update: Five years after my surgery, I do still suffer side effects from the surgery - mainly the Irritable Bowel Syndrome that was brought on by the surgery. I did find out not to long ago however, that my hietal hernia had recurred, and that the surgery had become undone. Just wanted to put that out there to let people know that the surgery may not be as permanent of a solution as I had originally thought.
Adam