Continuous Belching After Gastric Sleeve Surgery

I am a 62 year old female medical practitioner.
I had a gastric sleeve in Sydney, Australia in 2011.

I have lost 31 kg (about 70lbs). BMI has decreased from 35 to 22.

I have been distressed by belching after food or drink, ever since, despite never belching before in my life. A busy life that frequently included gulping my food.

In the last 2 years the trapped air gives me moderately severe chest/epigastric pain, which restricts my eating considerably, until belched up which sometimes can go on for 3/4 hour.
I had a 2-3 sliding hiatus hernia repair at the time, which needed to be re-repaired a year later.

Oesophageal manometry studies this year with an expert were reported as normal.

A 3D ‘fizzy’ CT scan this year showed a 60 degree kink (“corkscrew”), in my 200ml volume sleeve.

I have had 5 achalasia balloon dilatations of the incisura by bariatric surgeon No2, then pylorus dilatation, twice, by a professor, the second of which early this year gave me a “micro” perforation and “minor” peritonitis.

Bariatric surgeon No 4 did a side-to-side anastomosis in April 2015. That was later dilated to 3 cm a couple of months ago by a gastroenterology professor, who last week inserted a Megastent into the sleeve.

Whether the kink has been straightened by the stent, I don’t know. It stays in for another 10 days.

Distressingly, I have been still belching (for 4 hours after the surgery!), less as time goes on, but I’m hardly eating due to moderate discomfort and slight nausea.

Can anyone help me please?

Is the problem that that dilating the sleeve won’t help because it, at end of the day, remains mechanically kinked ?

Or is the sleeve still a high-pressure area?

Or, is there another reason for belching?

I have begun to despair, and am becoming suspicious that my (male) medical colleagues are not ‘fixing’ me, but protecting their little mate, surgeon No 1.

Perhaps a mistake has to be acknowledged before anything can be fixed.

Dr Karen C
MBBS