Surgey

[Carl]

How can someone with hereditary fructose intolerance be able to go on a surgery without the risk of getting poisoned with the drugs ? I need to make a surgery because I torn a tendon but I am afraid because I was told there was fructose in the drugs that they use to put you to sleep etc, I dont knbow if there is fructose in anesthesia but I know that they use fructose containing drugs for sure. Is there a way to avoid this? please, I would be grateful if someone that has been through something similar could give me an opinion.


P.S-

I have the disadvantage of not having the diagnose yet. But I am 100% sure I have hereditary fructose intolerance.

Since I can remember, I allways hated sweet foods, specially fruits and vegetables, having vomits , diarrea, and allways avoided sweet stuff. 5 years ago I decide explore and learn about nutrition by myself, read a lot and started experimenting with foods and different diets. First I started a vegan diet, couldn,t make it more than 3  days , started craving salt, and vomited, my eyes were yellow, as well as my skin..I then found that it could be fructose malabsortion, but the symptoms that I had were diferent, since I could not even tolerate sweet stuff without vomiting, having pain in the liver area and the kydneys. I was allways hypoglycemic, I then came across hereditary fructose intolerance on the internet and finally saw all of the symptoms I had almost all my life described there, so I decided to eliminate all fructose containing foods from my diet, and started eating only meat and butter as a test as i how I would feel. turns out for the first time in my life I started to feel healthy. I had energy, my skin was great, i could easily tan for the first time, so I kept with the diet. every time i cheated and tried even to eat some plant foods i vomitted. i tried making low fructose juices, with parsley and watercress. even though they aren`t that sweet, they made me vomit, made hypoglycemic, made have pain in the kydneys, and it would take me 4 days to a week to recover with a zero fructose diet.  ive been 5 years pretty much on a zero fructose diet since then. the only grain that i can eat without problems is a litle white rice. for the rest the only foods i can eat is meats, eggs, butter, some cheeses, and unsweetened milk. I had problems with some cheeses, so i choose right now a cheese that is made only  with animal rennet, raw milk,and salt and i have no problems. even with spices i have the same problems, so I dont use spices or herbs. only salt to season the meat.

[colormist]

I just went through surgery about a year ago. I told every single person I interacted with leading up to the falling asleep bit that I had hereditary fructose intolerance and could not have fructose, sucrose or sorbitol. That if I had it, I could fall into a coma and die. That any sugars in my medicines and IV could only be glucose or dextrose.

Everyone took what I said very seriously (probably because I had on my serious face) and ran away to do some research/conferring before coming back to reassure me that there were no sugars in the IVs or oral meds.

My main problem with surgery ended up being the recovery time. After abdominal surgery, they gave me percocet which made me vomit and caused a burning pain. You do not want to vomit while you have hole in your stomach and let's face it--those of us with HFI already have nausea problems. My surgeon actually tried to prescribe another prescription, but he said "it has sugar in it". NO! He even knew I couldn't have sugar and he wanted to test me after 48 hours of no sleep and being delirious from pain. Not THAT delirious, doctor. He then told me to take OTC tylenol (which did nothing). I ended up escorted to the ER via ambulance with pneumonia. At the ER, I got a drug that didn't make me nauseated and felt remarkably better.

So, yeah, surgeries are complicated and you have to tell everyone because they don't seem to communicate very well or read the notes on charts. You'll be very tired of stopping everyone from putting stuff in your body and asking them if there are any sugars--even after telling them you have HFI. Try to make sure you receive a pain killer that doesn't cause nausea (or have sugar)--if at all possible while you are not sedated.

Is there any way you can get HFI diagnosis before treating the tendon? It might make the surgery go a bit easier if you have the diagnosis on your medical record. (Though, honestly, they just relied on me telling them what I have, so I'm not sure how much they fact-check what a patient says.)

Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions!