Understanding Your Stomach Pouch Size After Gastric Bypass

Question
I had gastric bypass surgery back in 2002.  How do I know how big my pouch is today?

Answer
Eileen,
There are three ways I know of to check the size of your stomach pouch.

1)  Endoscopy (also called upper scope, or egd) - in my opinion, this is the least useful method.

2)  Upper GI X-ray - patient swallows liquid Barium, and the radiology folks take pictures to see what the pouch looks like.  This is the method I find best.

3)  Cottage cheese test - a simple home test can give you a rough idea of how big your pouch is in a functional sense.  You can read how to do the cottage cheese test on the web at

http://www.ndwls.com/cottage_cheese_test

Best of luck!
Dr JP