Gastric Bypass Surgery Support Group

I looked this up and found this explanation for you:

As the surgical connection or anastamosis heals, it forms a scar tissue, which contracts with time, causing the diameter of the surgical connection to shrink. This is referred to as a stricture. Usually, the transit of food through the anastamosis will maintain its width, but sometimes the contraction process of the scar may cause the opening to become so small that even fluids can no longer pass through it. When this occurs, the only effective solution is a gastroendoscopy - a procedure which stretches the connection by inflating a balloon inside it. Sometimes more than one gastroendoscopyis needed to achieve lasting correction.

Had one that they fixed at my 6 weeks appointment. I seemed to get things 'stuck' at every meal and did the dry heave thing. After a couple of weeks they scheduled the EGD to check and it was a little tight - not completely closed, but tighter than it should be. They did the balloon procedure while I was still asleep. Hubby said I was only out of the room about 20 minutes, so it was truly no big deal. I have been able to eat much better since then. Occasionally, I still have that 'stuck' feeling, but in almost every case I knew as soon as I swallowed that it was going to cause trouble - still on that learning curve I guess.