The Cancer Survivors Network (CSN) is a peer support community for cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, families, and friends! CSN is a safe place to connect with others who share your interests and experiences.

Total Gastrectomy - Excess Bile Pain Issues and solutions

dave2013
dave2013 CSN Member Posts: 1 Member

I would like to share my experience and see if anyone has advice regarding, post stomach cancer Total Gastrectomy w/ Roux-In-Y reconnection, excess bile acid/salts release into the duodenum (gut).

I have been living with the somewhat random triggering of excess bile and the acid burning pain, now for almost 12 years ago. And I'm still looking for a reliable solution to relieving the bile acid burning pain when it inevitably occurs.

Over the years I have identified some of the triggers that affect me: drinking to much carbonated liquid or even water, to much coffee or chocolate (these I can have in limited amounts without problems), to much fatty food at once (fat triggers the bile release), for me even anxiety seems to trigger bile release and can occur at any time.

Some solutions that I have found that help relieve the pain are:

  1. very small amounts of ginger ale helps alleviate the pain, but there is a fine line between enough and to much. The ginger must do something to relax the gut, because ginger candy was also something that was recommended during chemo treatment.
  2. deep breathing (seems to work well for mild pain relieve)
  3. if it is a large amount of bile in the gut and very serious pain then sometimes the only effective solution for me is to vomit the bile out of your gut.
  4. I've also tried (on and off) sucralfate and a bile sequestration powder, GI recommended as a possible preventative solution, but these don’t help immediate pain relief when bile is triggered, only a possible preventative measure.

If anyone is having similar problems and has found other reliable solutions to neutralize the bile in the gut when this occurs, please help with this ongoing and what will be for me a lifelong continuing issue.