My wife has had severe acid reflux for about 4 years now and we really want to get Nissen Fundoplication or acid reflux surgery as lifestyle changes and medication no longer help her and it is becoming debilitating for her.
We have been to 3 hospitals that say they don’t offer this procedure, unfortunately. We went to one hospital today that stated they offer this surgery on their website.
However, the surgeon informed us that they perform this surgery ONLY on patients with hiatus hernia and GERD. We don’t know any other hospitals that perform this surgery. If anyone knows or has undergone this surgery before in Kanto, we would appreciate your help. Thank you!
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You said hospitals. What about small clinics? You can usually get what you want at the smaller clinics.
[This hospital](https://www.showa-u-kt-ddc.com/en/gerd/) specialises in it, but I think you’d need a referral from a clinic. I go to [this one](https://goo.gl/maps/khcew9JJm4BV5wPW8) and Dr. Nakamura was familiar with the surgeons at the hospital. First I had to have an endoscopy and I got switched from Omeprazole to Takecab (Vonoprazan) which has succeeded in managing my reflux (had for 20 years) currently.
Surgery is an option for when medication isn’t working. That’s often why it’s hard to get. Dr. Nakamura did still offer me to see if I wanted to try for surgery, but I’ve opted to keep taking the Takecab for now. And I have a HUGE hernia apparently.
Best of luck.
Just to note. Surgery doesn’t always fix, it sometimes just means you’d take less medication.
Which doctor is prescribing you the medication? The normal way to get this kind of surgery is to have a clinic doctor refer you. They have the knowledge of which hospitals take what type of paitents for surgery and they’re recommendation will always be taking far more seriously than a paitent who self presents at a hospital.
If that doctor can’t help you with a hospital (or you don’t have one and are relying on OTC stuff). Then instead of trying for a hospital directly, find a doctor that specializes in gastroenterology, have them examine you, agree that surgery is recommended and have them recommend you to a specific hospital. If you can get a referral from your current doctor to this new specialist, then it’ll be even faster.
It might seem a bit of a run around and time waste, but really unless you get really lucky, it’s the fastest and most efficient way.
For reference, general flow would typically be something like
1. See gastroenterology specialist, present what medicine doesn’t work for you.
2. If there is a stronger medicine, they will give you that first to see. You will be expected to try it for a few weeks.
3. If that still doesn’t work after a few weeks, they will likely run some lab tests, like an endoscopy, acid monitoring tests and/or barium based x-rays. This will likely take another week or so.
4. Once the tests confirm a severe case that warrants surgery, they will refer you to a hospital that they know does this surgery for your condition. You will then have to go to the hospital and present the referral.
5. The hospital will want to see all your tests and do more examinations and possibly more tests themselves. This can also take another week or two, to possibly a month plus if the tests themselves are booked fully.
6. Once all the hospital’s tests also come back indicative of surgery. They will schedule your surgery. Wait times can be anywhere from days to months for an open slot.
7. You finally are admitted into the hospital for surgery.
For why such things are necessary, you may not necessarily have normal severe acid reflux if you haven’t had it confirmed by tests. You may have some other condition that has acid reflux symptoms. It’s imperative that the doctors actually narrow down and confirm exactly what you have before surgery. If you do have the definitive test results, present them to the gastroenterology specialist and the hospital when you are referred. You’ll be able to skip steps 2, 3 and potentially 5.
Maybe out of the scope but I’ve seen chiropractors fix this in the states. Not holding my breath about here though
Does it only happen at night? It might be sleep apnea induced. (I have a Hiatal hernia and GERD). A CPAP completely fixed my GERD problems while sleeping.