Nausea and cramping in the first three to five days are expected rather than a complication. The medication schedule and hydration decide how bad that week is.
Nausea and cramping in the first three to five days after a gastric balloon are expected, and they do not mean something has gone wrong. The stomach has just acquired a soft object it did not ask for and responds with contractions, the same reflex that would try to expel any foreign body. Almost everyone feels it to some degree, and almost everyone is through the worst of it by the fourth day.
You leave with anti-nausea medication, an antispasmodic and a proton pump inhibitor, and the instruction is to take them on schedule for the whole first week rather than waiting until you feel sick. Chasing nausea once it has started works far less well than staying ahead of it. Sipping cold water continuously and staying upright for two hours after anything you drink both help more than patients expect them to.
Vomiting combined with not drinking is what turns an uncomfortable week into an admission for intravenous fluids. The target is one and a half to two litres a day taken in small sips, and dark urine is your warning light. If you cannot keep liquid down for more than twelve hours, contact us on WhatsApp at +905402555055 rather than waiting for the morning. This is the one symptom we want to hear about immediately.
A small number of patients never settle. If nausea, reflux or pain is still limiting normal life after two weeks on full medication, we remove the balloon rather than telling you to persevere. That is a fifteen-minute endoscopy and we do not charge again for it. Clinics that treat early removal as a personal failure are protecting a price; the honest position is that this device does not suit everyone.
Most patients can, and we schedule return flights from day three onwards. Cabin pressure does not affect a saline-filled balloon. What we do insist on is that your anti-nausea medication travels in your hand luggage rather than in the hold, where you cannot reach it.
It usually settles for good after the first fortnight. Occasional episodes come from eating too fast or too much, which is the balloon doing its job. Nausea that returns suddenly after months of calm should be reported to us, because it can be the first sign of deflation.