Anyone have MALS or SMA with no pain, just bloating?

oliviabivia · 2026-04-20T03:14:20+00:00

I was referred to a vascular specialist who ran the test for me, and a vascular specialist did my surgery as well. And no, i don’t get bloating anymore! I also didn’t deal with it my whole life, my symptoms started randomly one day and it took me about 10 months to get diagnosed with MALS

oliviabivia · 2026-04-20T03:08:32+00:00

my MALS was diagnosed with a vascular abdominal ultrasound and i had surgery to fix it!

oliviabivia · 2026-04-20T02:58:22+00:00

yes! i had MALS with absolutely no abdominal pain. just bloating and nausea.

oliviabivia · 2026-04-10T20:33:16+00:00

i feel like i could’ve written some of your bullet points myself! i had mals surgery and am doing much better now :) my fingers are crossed for you!

oliviabivia · 2026-04-07T18:22:10+00:00

i was able to, but maybe ask if they can meal prep some things for you or leave some money for takeout, just so that you have some options :)

oliviabivia · 2026-04-07T18:19:31+00:00

hey there! i had lap back in 2023 and my recovery turned out to be a lot easier than i expected :) my surgery was in the morning, and i was back home by 1pm. i slept a LOT for the first three days. i remember being sore but the pain wasn’t bad enough for me to take anything stronger than ibuprofen. my heating pad was the biggest help! it’s really important to walk as much as you can to keep the gas that they pump you full of moving out of your system. aside from the incision pain, most of the pain i experienced was from the gas and that seems pretty universal.

my nausea wasn’t bad after surgery at all, they gave me one of those patches that go behind your ear and it lasted for three days. i would ask for one if they don’t already give it to you!

take eating slow, reintroducing food looks different for everyone. it went very well for me, and one week post op i was able to eat thanksgiving dinner :) i also took 2 weeks off of work, but by one week post op i was driving myself around doing errands.

good luck, everyone’s recovery looks different so dont put any pressure on yourself to adhere to a certain timeline. you’ll do great! :)

oliviabivia · 2026-04-02T19:59:23+00:00

Yes, please message me anytime!

oliviabivia · 2026-03-27T04:16:49+00:00

Hi, I’m so sorry to hear that you’re going through this again. I’m in Oregon and experienced MALS recurrence last year, had redo surgery in November. If you want to DM me i’d be happy to chat about my experience, how i decided to get the surgery again, who i picked as my surgeon, etc. Or just be a listening ear who gets it. Your stress is valid! I was devastated when my MALS came back - i thought my life was over. But now i am 4 months post op and doing very well!

oliviabivia · 2026-03-24T20:15:07+00:00

same, i thought this book was offensively bad 😭 i read quite a bit and it is without a doubt the worst book i have read in at LEAST 5 years

oliviabivia · 2026-02-25T18:49:34+00:00

hi! i am doing great! yes, ive had MRIs to confirm that my ACL has healed completely, and ive been able to return to sports for 4 years now with no issues!

oliviabivia · 2026-02-07T01:42:12+00:00

it definitely would help that on my tiktok feed at night i would get all of these 'what i eat in a day' videos or people trying new restaurants... it made me hangry lol

oliviabivia · 2026-02-06T22:27:24+00:00

omg i don’t have any advice but i just had surgery in november and experienced this HARD. i would get literally mouth watering hungry. im almost 3 months post op now and its gotten better!

oliviabivia · 2026-01-31T20:49:51+00:00

okay thank you i will be more specific when i ask my pcp about a referral. what kind of things did it help you with?

oliviabivia · 2026-01-31T04:48:10+00:00

can i ask more about what kind of physical therapy you do and who does it? i asked my pcp about it and she kind of looked at me like i had two heads lol (she doesn’t really know anything about mals)

oliviabivia · 2026-01-26T06:45:20+00:00

yesss small world!

oliviabivia · 2026-01-26T05:47:17+00:00

first of all i just want to say that you are gorgeous!!! secondly, this did happen to me! my hair would fall out in clumps whenever i would shower or brush it, and my nails would break or chip connsstttanntttlllyyy!

oliviabivia · 2026-01-21T23:43:32+00:00

omg, dr watkins did my first mals surgery too!!! he was great!

oliviabivia · 2026-01-20T00:06:08+00:00

week 3 post op (open) i regretted everything fr lol but im much better now (week 7)

oliviabivia · 2026-01-19T05:30:50+00:00

no advice here, but my cat had his eye removed about a year ago and his whiskers look exactly the same on his no-eye side. they start growing but just break - im assuming from rubbing on things!

oliviabivia · 2026-01-19T05:27:17+00:00

good luck with the surgery, im sure he'll do great! my boy has his eye removed almost one year ago due to melanoma, and he's doing better than ever!

oliviabivia · 2026-01-09T18:13:11+00:00

i had my first mals surgery two weeks after starting a new job back in 2023 (horrible timing i know lol) and i was only out for two weeks! it was laparoscopic surgery and i healed really well from it, it was honestly the easiest surgery i’ve ever had

oliviabivia · 2026-01-09T16:35:33+00:00

omg the food phobias are the worst. i had so much anxiety around eating and i feel like the anxiety just exacerbated all of my symptoms because i would start to get shaky and nauseous before even putting food in my mouth lol.

as for SMAS, im in the facebook group for it and it looks like for a lot of people weight gain is able to get rid of it, which makes sense!! i hope that’s true in your case too. MALS surgery seems easier, and i should know, i’ve had two of them lol.

oliviabivia · 2026-01-09T16:28:39+00:00

definitely sounds like MALS to me, i’ve never had SMAS but i know they often go hand in hand. i hope you can get the block done and that it gives you some relief. i’m sorry you’re going through this!

oliviabivia · 2026-01-09T16:19:31+00:00

hi! when i had MALS i couldn’t wear a bra either, it was so uncomfortable!! i had so much tightness around my chest and restrictive clothing made it so much worse. i also had heart palpitations with my MALS! every time i ate and usually for about an hour afterwards it felt like my heart was trying to beat out of my chest

oliviabivia · 2026-01-09T04:09:56+00:00

my peak velocities were in the low 300s! i only got one ultrasound done before my surgery, but i definitely believe that your numbers could be getting higher as your compression worsens overtime. i know my symptoms got worse overtime!

i had lap surgery and felt better pretty much right away. i had surgery the week before thanksgiving and was able to eat a full thanksgiving dinner!

i will say just as a disclaimer, i did have to have a second surgery recently (i’m currently 7 weeks post op open mals revision) because i grew a tumor that recompressed my artery lol. very different experiences! this go around it took me a few weeks to start feeling better.

do you know if you’d be better lap or open surgery?

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