Rootman

Welcome Johhny, we are almost "twins". I'm going to be 50 in a few weeks and was about 375 lbs when I was sleeved 12/6/10. I'm down almost 75 pounds in less than 2 months. It has its difficult times but anything is better than being an obese invalid with high blood pressure , pre-diabetes feeling crappy all the time. I wish you good luck!

@Sheila Some food, like yogurt and pudding - things that are soft and you don't have to chew - can "slide" right through the stomach and not fill you up. If you keep eating these foods your sleeve will never fill up and you will not get full and maybe not be satisfied and therefore eat more and more. Like anyone, if you keep eating (consuming calories) you will HOLD or even GAIN weight. You should therefore choose a precise portion and not eat any more. Drinking during a meal will carry some of the food that you ate through the stomach and therefore leave more room to eat and consume more calories. If you still get hungry you may eat more to get full. Most NUTs recommend NOT drinking during a meal. Personally I cannot do that and I need a few sips as I get dry. If you are like me and no longer get hungry you need to select a meal of precise portions and then STOP afterwards and not eat any more till the next meal. If you still feel hunger you definitely need to control your portions to get and feel full and satisfied. Snacking or keep adding "slider" foods will subvert your calorie intake and not allow you to loose weight.

A few guys I chatted with after my surgery in MX said they too did NOT do the pre-op diet and actually pigged out on nachos, chicken wings and tequila shots the NIGHT before. They both said that they were violently ill and got badly constipated after surgery. So pigging out the last week - especially the night before - would not be a wise thing to do. I personally would do a liquid diet at least a week before the operation, it helps reduce the size of your liver - which makes it smaller and less prone to be nicked in surgery and helps clear the colon so you will have less chance to get constipated and possibly impacted. Your choice but you may regret pigging out!

Great news Mr Mason - we all wish you continued success!

Best wishes!

Well, the liquid diet does not produce much in the way of stool material, especially if it was followed by a liquid pre-op diet and possible use of a laxative just before operating. You SHOULD have a movement soon as even the liquid diet produces SOME material for a stool. If you still feel stopped up Miralax is the best stool softener / laxative that I have found. You can safely take it daily indefinitely. 1/2 to 1 cupful in Water will get you going again.

Yes, you can find them in any pharmacy and most grocery stores. The most common ones are 29 grams of protein, I've seen some with 50 grams. The "shot" is actually 2.5 OZs or more so it is not something that a sleever can probably "slam" in one gulp. And WARNING, these too are very nasty tasting.

Well despite Klus's comment below most of us are scared sh**less right up to the op and usually have an episode afterwards too. It is completely NORMAL. It's a BIG decision and a BIG change. Just stick with it, it will work for you.

We all wish you the best!

The wife and I order ONE full size entrée, I take a bit of it and she eats what she wants, we take home the rest. At a few restaurants we eat at there is enough for use to EACH have one more meal or at least one of us a meal Most places will serve you just what you want. Ask if you can have JUST what you want. We go to a burger place and I get JUST a burger on a plate with cheese on it, I eat a few of the wifes fries. Same with a chicken breast.

One of the biggest troubles I had pre-op was that I was never full. I could completely override the subtle fullness feeling and stuff myself till eventually I was really hurting with bloat and over did it. Not just at Thanksgiving, this was like a daily thing for me. I now cannot eat very much and I get an indistinct full feeling, If Iam talking or absorbed in TV I can sometimes miss it. I just get the feeling, "Hey I'm full I don't want any more". If I ignore it and take maybe 2 more bites the pain starts, intense stomach pain that radiates up my esophagus. It lasts maybe 10-15 minutes. FULL always very subtle, it is MORE distinct now and the consequences are much more severe.

We all have seen the Youtube videos of the stapling and cutting of the stomach during the GSV procedure. My question is what goes on above or in the esophagus? I've heard mention of the bougie of a certain diameter and looked them up and have seen the are long slender flexible plastic things of a certain diameter. So I assume these are pushed down the esophagus into the stomach to hold it to a certain diameter to use for a line to place the stapler stapler against? If I'm right and the bougie is pushed down the esophagus are all patients intubated during the process or is it possible to breath while the bougie is in place? I am also fascinated as to how the autosuture staples work. I can see plenty of info online as to the staplers themselves but not as to how the staples themselves are shaped and how they work. Anyone know?

Plenty of water and Miralax do the trick. Miralax is one of the few laxatives - stool softeners that you can safely use daily.

I have been using a CPAP for almost 10 years now. I STILL often wake up and have to adjust the mask. I really look forward to being able to eliminate it. As I loose weight I've had to tighten the mask a few times, trouble is I can't think to do this during the night when it starts leaking, I just can't seem to figure it out in the stupor of awaking with the leak blowing air in my eyes and making noise. I figure it out in the morning but it costs me a good nights sleep. I would say the recovery is the DAYS in the hospital following the surgery. A lot of people barf when coming out of anesthesia and you would run the risk of aspirating it if they put it on immediately after surgery. Just a guess though. Not sure here, never experienced this. Mine is set to 12 as well and always has been. I think 12 is perhaps the most popular setting. I would say it could be but each change would require another sleep study - which are VERY expensive. My brother had a RNY bypass and lost a lot of weight, when he contacted his doctor that prescribed it he would not do another study as the insurance would not pay for it. He suggested that he just try without it and have his wife observe him sleeping or if he awoke choking to go back to it. Not a very smart way to go in my opinion. He eventually DID stop using it and seemed to be fine.

I'm close to 2 months out and EVERYTHING tastes off to me yet. I am really turned off of food and can barely finish nearly all my meals. Things I THINK will taste good just don't. Hormel's Turkey chili is the only thing that really tastes good to me. I hope that it does clear up but in a way I hope that it won't. In the past I really had a problem with food and really porked out. I am willing to put up with this if it aids me in reducing and keeping my weight off.

Yep, me too. I've been overweight for 30 years and morbidly obese for the last 7 or so. I've lost 70+ pounds so far and am SHOCKED at what I see in the mirror! I expect to see my old punkin' faced Charlie Brown head but see this slim faced man looking back at me. I'm beginning to look like my dad more and more! My eye glasses are no longer putting a rut on the side of my face either and I DON'T look goofy in sunglasses - like they are too small for me. It's great.

No, stretching out a meal with properly sized controlled portions is NOT grazing. Eating the meal then snacking all day is. A cracker here, a piece of cheese there, a handful of nuts - it all adds up. While a few snacks are good just watch the TOTAL caloric intake to make sure you are not pushing it was up.

If you are drastically cutting your food intake as most of us are doing then yes, you are eating less therefore pooping less. If it becomes an issue of not going for more than 3 or 4 days like it did for me then I would recommend Miralax. This is basically a super hygroscopic powder that adsorbs water as it passes through the gut and adds bulk and moisture to the stool.

Good luck - yep it's a tough road but you sure will be better off after you reach the end!

Supersweetums hit the nail on the head. I can add a little. Why do (some Sleeve) people eat so slowly, chew so slow? That was a turn off for the Band, so how is the Sleeve different in that way? I understand that if you eat too fast, just like before you will be overfull and feel sick, but why else, is there something different about the *new & improved stomach* that makes it hard to eat? What would happen if you ate some bites too big/fast (I read about the horrible coconut story)? I guess I don't want to spend so much of my day trying to just get in normal nutrients.For some reason - perhaps the elimination of MOST of the stomach area that produces the hormone ghrelin ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ghrelin ) - the desire for food is lost. I cannot wolf down my food any longer and have no desire to. Because the full stomach s no longer there to churn the food in a massive amount of gastric juices to start the breakdown process we must help the process along and chew the food to paste to make it easier to digest. I for the most part no longer WANT to eat but know I need to, so I sit there take tiny bites, chew the hell out of it and take my time doing this task, it's not unpleasant, it just no longer holds the desire I used to have to stuff my face - the thrill is gone. I eat to live now, not live to eat. Why is it so hard to get in fluids? One person had said they normally drink a Protein shake in the morning and it takes a hour and a half to get it down, and other 30 minutes for a egg. Why so long? Why can't fluids be drank faster or in *normal* quantities? I worry about long-term dehydration, as I tend to not drink much, then drink 2 full glasses of Water at one time to catch up.Again, the stomach is just about as big as a medium banana - it used to be the size of a womans clutch purse. Fluids don't just sail through - although they do go through faster than solids. Drink too much too fast and it gets uncomfortable, like after Thanksgiving dinner packing in that second piece of pie and drink used to feel. Drink WAY to fast and you get a lot of pain as the new sleeve does not stretch to accommodate the Fluid. You can barf it up too. Why should we avoid to eat and drink at the same time. If fluids travel thru so fast, then what is that so? (I understand that soda/beer bubbles tend to inflate.Again, the amount of capacity and therefore the amount of gastric juices is greatly diminished. Drink to much while eating and you can dilute hte gastric juices and cause un "treated" food to pass into the intestines where they won't be adsorbed as readily. You also have to make a choice - LIQUIDS or SOLIDS, you can't do a full amount of either. Since we NEED the solid foods and it's caloric benefit it's wisest to NOT drink liquids and take up some of the space the solids can use. I wonder about the focus on protein. I guess since the stomach is so small that we have to ensure that we get enough protein in first before everything else, but is that at the expense of fruits and veggies? Those are important too. Protein gets lame..Protein is "hi test" food, carbs are "lo test". Protein provides a longer term energy and the building blocks for muscle and carbs quick energy. Again, the stomachs capacity requires us to make a choice, better longer term energy in the form of protein or quick energy food for the here and now in the form of carbs. You SHOULD make the choice in the favor of protein. Later as the stomach heals and you can eat a tad more you can indulge in more carbs. What will happen 10 years down the line. I know the Sleeve as stand alone is only a few years, but will I be a old woman who can't get her Ensure in? LOL actually that might be helpful, since our metabolism slows down as we age, being able to eat less might help! I have seen a few of you have trouble maintaining weight, as in losing too much. That worries me a bit as I might be trading one problem for another. Those of you who don't have that issue (are above goal, slow losers) are you in that boat from *bad* choices or that you can eat more? Since it's only been around about 5 years there is no concrete data. You SHOULD be able to eat sufficient foods at normal meals to keep your weight stabilized. 3 meals plus 2 Snacks is all it takes - but the RIGHT meals and snacks too. I don't think anyone is going to pass away from malnutrition but we will always have to watch what we eat and make right choices. To ME this is a far better choice than being obese with diabetes, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure and myriad other obesity related diseases and THEN try to make a good choice on what to eat. As far as a "trade" it appears to be a good "problem" to have compared to the alternative. Why do many have issues with bread? Smaller stomach, not Band, so how does it get so stuck?I am not sure on this one but I think that it balls up and may be harder to digest than protein. It IS mainly carbs too. Well, I think that was it! I am off to see Dr. Ganta and ask my list of surgery questions.. Thank you all so much and have a great day! Colette

My theory is sensations left over from surgery. Your liver is moved out of the way, stomach poked and prodded and fat cut away and then up to 85% of your stomach is cut away, while the organs don't have nerve cells on the surface like skin does the stomach does (did) have have nerves internally - which are sheered off where the organ is removed. I can imagine the brain is used to getting signals from that area and now that it's gone is "feeling" the lack of response it normally gets. Maybe it's something like the phantom limb sensations that amputees have?

Congrats! Wish you the best!

Also be aware that the "hunger" you feel may be acid, I too had similar sensations but described mine as an "empty" feeling. Started on Prilosec and it made me a lot more comfortable.

I started with pureed meats with gravy, actually Gerbers baby food in a 2.5 oz jar. Went down pretty easy and actually tastes pretty good, the chicken is best with beef a second. Good luck, it DOES get better.

Great post, lots of info. Congrats on your change of life.