Melissa Schloemer was overjoyed when she was finally approved for weight loss surgery.

After months of sticking to a strict diet and losing 20 pounds, she qualified for a gastric sleeve procedure. This surgery involves removing about 75% of the stomach, helping patients to feel full with less food, thereby promoting weight loss.

Her weight had reached 300 pounds during her second pregnancy, and as a mother of two, she believed that the surgery was the fresh start she desperately needed.

Schloemer underwent the procedure in 2016, and it initially proved successful. Within a year, she shed 150 pounds, averaging nearly 3 pounds of weight loss per week.

However, around the one-year anniversary of her surgery, the now 38-year-old from New Jersey began to experience health issues.

What started as simple nausea and abdominal discomfort soon escalated. Her hands and feet turned purple, she frequently suffered from indigestion, and eventually, she began to vomit regularly.

Doctors were stumped as to the cause, suggesting it was all in her head and then that the stay-at-home mother had an autoimmune disease. At one point, she was prescribed chemotherapy drugs, even though she did not have cancer, to try to alleviate her symptoms.

The sickness led to her diet and exercise plan being quickly derailed, and Schloemer could only watch helplessly as the scales steadily climbed to a new high of 311lbs.

She continued to suffer from symptoms and weight gain for nine years until, finally, tests were ordered that she said revealed the true cause of her complications.

Schloemer said she had a life-threatening hole the size of a deck of cards at the top of her stomach that was allowing the contents of it to spill into into her abdomen.

From left to right: Schloemer is shown above with her best friend Kristen, son Braden, daughter Madison and her friend’s son Dylan

Schloemer claimed to Daily Mail: ‘That surgeon completely botched my procedure.

‘I did my own research, and he was the best in New Jersey, and he said he could help me, but it turns out that he left a hole open in the top of my stomach for nine years.

‘None of these other doctors helped me. None of them did any tests or anything. 

‘I was gaslit by all these doctors for nine years, saying it was all in my head and that I was totally fine, and the last doctor that I saw… he said I would just have to get used to being in pain and would be for the rest of my life.’

About 150,000 gastric sleeve operations are carried out in the US every year and the vast majority are a success and do not result in complications.

A 2021 study found one in 20 patients suffer from complications, such as leakage from the stomach, bleeding from the stomach, an infection and nutrient deficiencies, within 30 days of the procedure.

In these cases, doctors may prescribe antibiotics to prevent infection or perform a new surgery to fix the issue. A hole in the stomach is considered a life-threatening emergency because it raises the risk of sepsis or damage to other organs.

It was not clear whether the opening in the stomach was left in surgery or opened post-operative.

Schloemer was initially thrilled with the results of her gastric sleeve surgery and said it helped her to lose 150lbs, nearly 3lbs a week

Doctors say it takes about six weeks to three months for incisions to heal following a gastric sleeve surgery. Six months after the surgery, Schloemer began training for a bodybuilding competition, which can place extreme strain on the muscles and raise the risk of a rupture.

A hole in the stomach, or gastric perforation, is a serious medical condition that requires emergency care.

Doctors say the condition must be diagnosed rapidly to reduce the risk of death or serious complications. 

A 2023 study suggested up to 50 percent of patients who suffer from a gastrointestinal perforation, or a hole in the intestines or stomach, die from the condition.

It is normally diagnosed rapidly. It is extremely rare for the condition to remain undiagnosed for years.

Over the nine years after her surgery, Schloemer saw countless doctors, both in New Jersey and in South Carolina, where she lived from 2017 to 2022.

She said that some doctors offered her more surgery, but she refused.

By May 2024, two years after she had moved back to New Jersey, Schloemer again decided to try to lose weight. 

At the time, she had also just been diagnosed with sleep apnea and asthma, and was becoming worried that she might not be there for her two children when they are older. 

She joined JYM Army, run by Dr Jim Stoppani, a Yale-educated PhD in exercise physiology.

Schloemer is shown above this year after losing more than half her body weight for the second time. She says she is thrilled to be back weightlifting and training for a bodybuilding competition.

This regimen put her on a restrictive 1,300 calorie-a-day diet that consisted of mostly meat, vegetables and protein shakes. She also started to take supplements. 

She attended the gym six or seven times a week to either lift weights or do cardio.

It worked initially, and Schloemer lost about 40lbs, but after her nausea continued, she contacted another surgeon to try to get a diagnosis.

After talking to this surgeon, she agreed to another surgery this February, which was when the hole at the top of her stomach was discovered.

She then had a procedure to close the hole, and Schloemer says that, since then, her illness has disappeared and she is once again able to live life to the fullest. 

She has now lost 166lbs, losing more than half her bodyweight for the second time, getting her weight down from 311lbs to 145lbs, about 2.3lbs lost per week. 

Sharing her story, she said: ‘I just want people to know, don’t give up, never give up, find the doctor that will listen to you and get the surgery to fix you. It is not cheating at all.

‘If I did not get the surgery, I would be dead by now. Absolutely. My surgeon told me as much.’