swizzly

That is a classic anorexic's trick, I used to do that one all the time. These things can sneak up on you for real, but it sounds like you are well on top of things. Good luck!!

Most of the Kurs I've seen, I'd hope to give them a miss. It's not all mineral baths and massages, that's for sure.

Well, that will be coming on my three-month surgiversary, upcoming this week. Yes, she did -- and I told her. I have a huge aversion to typing out specific names or details, but if people couldn't figure it out from my user name, it's a wee central European country that is widely associated with banking, cheese, and anal retention.

Ooh, oopsie. Nevermind my earlier post, you've already found ybnormal! Lol. You even have the same surgery dates, so it's kismet. I'm sure you will both do great!!

Hi there -- man, that sounds so awful!! I am sorry to hear you are having such health challenges. I do agree that losing weight will help, but it might get worse before it gets better. I think you will need longer than 2-3 weeks off work. Truly. Your doctor there will understand. I have little pre-existing conditions other than HBP, but I was off for five weeks. You really need to be fully better before you go back to work IMO. I have a friend with Fibromyalgia who had a RnY over a decade ago. She said it really helped her a lot. There's another poster here who has Fibro AND CFS, called 'ybnormal' -- she has a blog at www.skinnyrenee.com and you can also find her at www.weightlosssurgeryforum.com. She's just about to have surgery in a couple days as well. Wish you ALL the best, Amy. Seriously, keep posting and you'll get through this just fine.

Ahoy, there, ahoy! Well, the first thing I've just realised is that no one ever replied to my one-month surgiversary post. Hmph! Thanks for being the first lol! You will do great -- I am going to PM you, coz I know another expat in Austria (are you in Vienna?) who had their VSG done there a few months ago. (Also for all the other info.) Re: the differences -- yes, there are many. And I am careful about how I post about the differences because people think the doctors/surgeons and nutritionists here are crackpots. But I have found the process to be really good, and I've always felt I was in good hands, Healthwise. I did stay 6 days in hospital, they wanted to keep me another day, but I was DONE. Good lord, the seven-day minimum hospital sentence, I can't get away from it!! Cheers for the post -- and best of luck to you, you will do great!!

At first you can't really feel it coz your tummy's numb or something. So you get these weird signals like a hiccup or a tightness in your chest, and you just know you're done. Now I get a semi-normal full feeling again (I had a very strong full signal before surgery) and it is just clear that there is NO MORE ROOM. I like to stop a bit before that because it's like Thanksgiving full after half a cup of food. Trippy, that's what it is. To be that full and HAVE NO TANGIBLE FOOD BABY. It's awesome.

Me too -- I've been taking these ENORMOUS tablets (TWICE A DAY OMG) since surgery and I have to keep taking them for a full six months. They're heinous, but I can get them down usually fine. Good luck kicking the infection!!

Congrats! It's so trippy when you hold up these wee trousers and then they fit. I'm 5'7" about 202 lb, don't know my waist measurement, but I can wear a size 14 US jeans, 12 if I don't mind not breathing too much. I know everyone is "big boned" but I actually do have a fairly large frame, so when I used to be thin, I still weighed 140 lb and I never wore anything smaller than a size 8 -- but size 8s are bigger now, so it was probably like a 6.

Hmm, trying to answer this question is making me very depressed. Wonder what's up with that. I don't want to have anymore surgery ever again. Cosmetic surgery is sooooo effing expensive here, I would have to drain all my assets to get it done lol. Right now I'm very disturbed by my arms, which I have ALWAYS hated. They are like whole hams hanging from my shoulders. Tops in size L and M are fitting me just fine now, but the arms are always too tight. :angry: My boobs have been saggy since I had boobs, so I'm not that fussed about them hanging even lower. I'm getting a dangly wattle under my chin and that is depressing as hell. I haven't been thin in over a decade, so smaller me is not looking familiar really. Right, I'm going to not think about this anymore for now.

1) How long have you been sleeved? Today is three-month surgiversary 5) How much weight have you lost since your sleeve date? 38 lb so far, I'm slooooooowwwww 6) What type of sleeve do you have? Same: regular old sleeve (85 percent removed and stapled) 7) Would you recommend the type of sleeve you have? totally 8) Do you find you still have the necessary level of energy to sustain a good workout? yes, though I haven't been doing really hard workouts yet 9) Do you find it difficult to keep the weight off once you have lost it? not so far 10) Do you have trouble eating, such as getting �stuck�? never 11) What is the one things about getting the surgery that you regret? nothing 12) Would you do this surgery again, or would you have made another choice? I would definitely do it again.

For some reason, this just made me think of the last time I was in hospital (no surgery) when the vein my IV was in blew. OMG, I had a hematoma the size of a baseball on my arm -- purple-ish black and hurt like a bitch. Took a couple of months for it to go away and I to this day still have the faintest outline of it on my arm. Sometimes we just get lucky, eh?

Hope your energy is also coming back?? (Vitamins, they do make the peepee yellow lol. At least mine do.)

:) LOVE that soup, baby! (Okay, but now all I can think about is your mad baking skillz...and yummy fab baked stuff...mmm...maybe I am having the wrong takeaway from your post...)

It's true, they are mad keen to keep you in hospital until you are all pink and perky again. Of course, being the contrarian I am, after about day three, it's like I'm plotting my escape from Alcatraz, and all I can focus on is cajoling the doctor or surgeon in charge (depending on which time I've been in) to let me out early for good behavior. Minimum sentence is one week I tell you!! Bless them, they are really very focused and serious about good health, I am lucky.

Ah, bless. I'm so glad you have been so quickly proactive about this, I'm very impressed!! Sounds like you are well on the path again. I also had a very smooth surgery and swelling went down very quickly, so I've been able to eat fairly normally (albeit quite small amounts) since surgery. I always wonder if there's something wrong with me...approximately two seconds before I think OMG I GOT SO LUCKY! Best to you on your continued journey.

Sweet!! I always love the single-pant-leg photos. And your behind looks gooood in those new jeans!!

Sorry, no Red Velvet credentials, but just a couple things I wanted to interject into your conversation completely uninvited, cos that's just the kind of girl I am. First, I am LOLing that meggie and I both independently used the terminology 'weak as a kitten' this morning (nearly at the same time, too!) to describe that post-op weakness. It totally fits. Second -- and hopefully not to cause a scandal or controversy -- I DO believe you will feel better when you are eating more normal/varied food. I was very weak at first, and just a day or two after going on to 'normal' foods (limited of course), I felt SO much better. Granted, I moved on to those foods within the first week, but still -- I am just hoping you can feel some optimism that food actually IS good for you and WILL make you feel better. Seems obvious, but also seems like nothing is obvious after this 'thumby' (as I call my own wee tum now -- used to be Hedwig, but to be fair to thumby, it's not angry anymore, it's just a thumby) renovation. Finally, for whatever this is worth, I also have a history with anemia, and Iron level is always one of my concerns. At my first post-op labs, my iron levels went UP. Shocking. It might be at least partially down to the mass amounts of cream spinach I was living on (might I recommend this to anyone reading this? It's very good for you, SO easy to get/stay down, and tasty and filling to boot -- I use these little frozen balls of organic cream spinach and zap them in the microwave for like 2 mins...mmmm, green creamy goodness...), but I was just glad to hear those numbers. Good luck to you all, even though your group name makes me think of (totally inaccessible thank god) CAKE.

I have (had?) IBS too (C or A, not D) -- aside from a wee bit o' the runs post-op, things firmed right back up, as I suspected. Even though I still have the C from time to time (not as often as before, I don't think), I do NOT have the bloating and abdominal pain anymore. I am SO touching wood that it doesn't return!! Good luck on your pre-op!!

*snerk*

I know!! This dumb little thumb-size tummy of mine makes me lose all sense of proportion!! An over-attended organ has taken over the driver's seat from my brain...makes me feel a bit of sympathy for men if I'm honest.

I should have mentioned that I didn't even get any good pain meds while in hospital either -- no morphine pump, nothing but paracetamol in my IV, and then later the effervescent version for my water glass. And yet my pain wasn't bad at all, so I can't be too bitter. (After my hysterectomy, which was a major surgery due to complications, I had a morphine pump for the first day or so, then also got switched to paracetamol and ibuprofen...both in suppository form. So I'm glad they didn't go that route [lol] this time!)

I'm hypothyroid, it runs in my family as well (most of them who have the problem were never obese). I have been taking synthroid for many years (can't even remember the dosage right now lol), and it lands me well within the normal TSH zone. However, being hypothyroid didn't really seem to affect my metabolism at all, as I have a pretty good one. Being hypothyroid didn't make me gain any weight that I can tell (other reasons for that, nothing to do with thyroid); being treated for it (while helping other symptoms) did not help me lose any weight either. It's quite possible that the synthroid helped me to stay the same weight for the past >10-years prior to VSG, though. No real way to tell. I'm still on the same synthroid dose post-op as I was pre-op, when I get my next labs I'll be interested to see where the TSH is now, though I don't expect anything to change on that front, frankly. I have heard of many other hypothyroid people who've had loads of success with WLS, so I definitely think it's do-able.

I don't have any kids, but I felt really guilty pre-surgery because I never even told anyone in my family that I was having it (still haven't). I figured if something went wrong and I kicked it, they would be doubly pissed and upset that they didn't even know I was having an operation. But THEN I figured, well hell, I live very far away from them and only see them every couple of years usually, and in the between times, anything could happen to any of us, at any time. Surgery in a nice hospital with good doctors and surgeons should be the least of my worries, but somehow it crystallises as this big scary thing. I think it's just because it's entirely out of our control. I am agnostic, so I just focused on the skill of the surgeon and anaesthesiologist and knew they would do their job well. I told my husband I loved him, but no big speeches lol -- I just told him to tell my family I loved them if anything happened to me. No new wills or just-in-cast letters though. I got more worked up about it all when I had my hysterectomy a few years ago, that was a 'bigger' surgery in many ways. Fact is, just like fearing flying but reaching your destination with no problems, the vast majority of people will also come through surgery just fine as well. So statistically, you've very, very little to worry about. Maybe that's not comforting to anyone else, but running the numbers like that always makes me feel better.

You know, I don't even have a clue how many carbs is too many? I count calories and Protein just to keep track that I'm getting enough of both, but the program automatically counts carbs too. I have zero bloody idea what is meant to be low? What is high? I love cake sooo much. Luckily there is NO good cake here. Seriously. Also no Chipotle or Taco Bell or aisles of yummy junk food at the shops. I am perhaps doomed if I ever move back to the US.