Put my back out shifting a wardrobe at the weekend, which at my age is apparently how it happens now. Went to the walk-in, described it, and the first thing out of my mouth was "I've had a gastric sleeve, am I allowed ibuprofen". Nurse's face did a thing and the answer was no.
Here's what's bugging me. Nobody in my bariatric follow-ups has ever said this to me plainly. I've had ibuprofen twice since surgery, once for a tooth and once for a hangover I'm not proud of, and nothing happened. So either it's a soft rule that got hardened up by a cautious nurse, or I've been getting away with something for eighteen months.
What I want to know: is it forever, or is it a first-year thing? What counts as an anti-inflammatory, because I've now realised I don't actually know what's in half the boxes in my cupboard? And what do people take instead when paracetamol just isn't touching it, because right now paracetamol is not touching it.
Forever, as far as my team is concerned. It was on my discharge sheet in bold and my dietitian repeated it at every appointment for a year.
The one that got me was cold and flu sachets. I'd been having them all winter thinking they were just paracetamol and lemon. Read the back of the box properly and there it was, ibuprofen, in about half of the ones in my cupboard. Check yours.
Same here on the hidden ones. My migraine tablets from the supermarket had aspirin in them and I'd genuinely never thought of aspirin as being in the same family as ibuprofen.
Pharmacist sorted me out in about four minutes flat, went through my whole cupboard bag with me and put the ones I couldn't have in a separate pile. Free, no appointment, easily the most useful post-op thing I've done.
Alan, this is one of the biggest gaps between what teams intend to say and what patients actually hear, and your "nobody said it plainly" is a complaint I've had from dozens of people. Here's the shape of it, then the bit only your own team can settle.
The family is called NSAIDs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and it's bigger than people expect: ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, aspirin, and the branded versions of all of those, plus the ones hiding inside combination cold, flu, period pain, and migraine remedies exactly as Donna and Tracey found. The reason bariatric teams restrict them is that NSAIDs irritate the stomach lining and raise the risk of ulcers and bleeding in anyone, and after a sleeve that irritation is acting on a narrow tube with a long staple line running up it. That's the whole logic. The site's guide to medications after a gastric sleeve sets it out properly, including the tablet-crushing side of it.
On "is it forever", the honest answer is that units differ. Some say never again, full stop. Some allow short courses with a stomach-protecting medicine on top, prescribed and reviewed rather than bought. Almost none are relaxed about regular long-term use. So your walk-in nurse wasn't inventing caution, and your bariatric team may still have a more nuanced position for a specific situation. Getting away with it twice tells you nothing useful, by the way. Ulcer risk builds with exposure and the first sign is not a warning twinge, it's the problem itself.
Two practical things. Low-dose aspirin taken for your heart is a completely separate question owned by whoever prescribed it, and nobody should stop that on the strength of a forum thread. And the "paracetamol isn't touching it" problem is a real one that deserves a proper answer rather than a workaround: that's a GP conversation about what else is appropriate for you, and it's worth telling them at the start of the appointment that you've had a sleeve, because it changes what they'll reach for. Mine is written at the top of my medicines note for exactly that reason.
Right. Cupboard audit done and it was worse than I thought, three boxes of the guilty and one sachet tin. Binned.
GP tomorrow for the back, and I'll lead with the sleeve rather than mentioning it at the end like I usually do.
Two weeks post-op and this thread has just saved me from myself, I had a whole box of the cold and flu sachets ready for winter and hadn't given them a second thought.
Alan, did the GP find you something that worked in the end? Asking selfishly, since I do a physical job and I'd like to know there's an answer that isn't just gritting my teeth.
