sasicas

You know, you are right. I need to stop looking so far into the future. It's been such a long road to get to here and I need to just do what I need to do and really I want a normal body. My weight has stabilized, thank the Lord! I am still really struggling to get in liquids and food, but I'm forcing myself to get in what I can even though it's quite uncomfortable. I don't even get to see my surgeon til the end of NEXT week so I am still left with no answers :/ I just wish they would hurry up and tell me what is up so I can get over these issues and stop being so uncomfortable. Stupidly I decided to try kickboxing last night, I was in such a bad mood I just needed to beat the snot out of something Well I paid for it and my sleeve was furious and I ended up in pain soooo no more kickboxing till this gets figured out Thanks for asking!

I'm struggling to decide if I want to move forward with a panniculectomy or not. I am having issues with the excess skin, which I was well before even considering WLS. I have had 3 c-sections and carried twins in the last pregnancy so I am sure you can imagine the state of my stomach. My surgeon has been trying to find a way to get the insurance to cover it yet they would not, even though long ago I had been approved for it and had been a wait list which some random idiot dr pulled me from the list :/ And a friend with NO issues from her small amount of excess skin was recently approved and had her surgery two weeks later on the same insurance. Ugh! So anyways, my surgeon called the other day to discuss all my issues lately and said he actually found something in my medical record that can likely get the skin removal approved. The problem? Well now I am having serious issues with my husband and I do not think we will make it out of this mess. So of course I start thinking that I would like to have more kids some day, something I have always wanted but he had a vasectomy after the twins against my will. So here I am in my 20s still and thinking what if our marriage doesn't make it and what if I find some guy crazy enough to take in a woman with all these kids that wants more kids?! Then of course I think, what guy would want to see all this loose skin either. I do have a friend who had a tummy tuck and a year later got pregnant but do I really want to undergo this surgery to have my stomach possibly destroyed again a few years down the line?! AHHHH! And I'm on a time limit now too before this insurance ends....so any opinions? What would you all do? Thanks in advance ladies.

I probably waited about a month before going back to coffee, now I live on the stuff, day and night I had to laugh last week at the support group. We had a ladies mom who was visiting and she asked about having regular coffee. Her daughter, who is in her 50s and has the RNY, refused to drink caffeinated coffee because she thought it was not allowed. Little did she realize the coffee at group IS caffeinated haha.

Sometimes our bodies just don't want to lose weight, sometimes it's eating too much or not enough, it can be water, it can be a million things. For me the vitamins never affected anything, truthfully I am awful at remembering to take them but still lost all the weight and then some at a pretty fast rate.

I did have complications and the first several months and now too have not been the easiest but my complications were nothing compared to some. I started out with a lot of pain, not just my sleeve but pain from one of the incissions where they pulled my stomach out of. I spent the first two months struggling to get in fluids, let alone food. Drs played with the PPIs thinking it was just acid reflux. At 5 or 6 weeks (can't remember now but it's in my youtube videos) I was hospitalized once I could no longer keep even Water down. Spent almost 2 weeks in the hospital, scopes, leak tests, xrays, test after test and no eating. I had a stricture, a small hole in my sleeve (no leaking though so they just glued it shut), a kink in my sleeve so it's shaped more like an L than a banana, increased swelling. Finally it started to let up some and I was able to go home. Had a couple more scopes after that but was progressing nicely. It seemed MOST of the issues were caused by the increased swelling. My surgeons said that some people just swell worse than others and it tends to let up between the 6th-7th week which was true for me. Now recently at 10 months out, I had a lot of stress going on. I thought that was causing all this restriction I am dealing with, enough so that I can eat 1 or 2 bites and I am stuffed. I burp all day long too which is beyond annoying, just constantly full. Finally after dropping 10 lbs in 2 weeks I saw the drs and had a scope done last week. We suspected a stricture. But nope, no stricture. I had a gastric polyp removed, I have chronic gastritis, and gastric mucosal abnormality characterized by erythema, so byopsies were done. Basically areas of redness and swelling. Drs suspect H Pylori but I won't know til next week. So as you can see I've had complications but it's still worth it to be half hte size I once was.

Another sleevie here too My kids call it my "wittle tummy" hehe.

I refuse to live like I am on a diet, I've refused from day 1, I don't count carbs, calories, Protein, nothing. Whatever I cook for the family, I eat. Like if I make spaghetti and meatballs, I eat a couple of noodles but fill up on meatballs. Last night we had chicken and Rice Casserole, I ate more of the chicken than anything. Tonight is chicken and stuffing, again I will fill up on the chicken part of it Generally the meals I make are higher protein anyways now, I feel it's healthier for everyone in the family. I know for me, I did this surgery to get healthy and be "normal". Living like I'm on a diet is not normal in my book so I won't do it and it has worked well for me.

My sleeve makes the craziest noises still at 10 months out. It gurgles, LOUDLY, and it likes to make these really weird noises where it sounds like Water is slowly leaking it's way into my sleeve. I can't even explain it, it's so odd ha. And like mentioned above you will know the difference between it making noises and not liking something. You will feel ill or nauseous if it doesn't like something.

I sure hope I see that soon. Mine went from super light and super short to SUPER heavy yet still really short and the cramps are worse than ever before. Enough so that my dr wants to put me on birth control but I have a risk of blood clots anyways so I refuse :/ I had hoped once I hit goal it would chill but no such luck, of course this month I lost an insane amount of weight for 10 months out due to medical problems but before that the weight loss had really slowed down once I hit my original goal.

Yum! chocolate. Now I want some, thanks You will notice some cravings become stronger, some weaker. If you are like me, you will even find that some things you liked preop you cannot stand now and some things you didn't like you want all the time.

Is it actual hunger or head hunger? The two can easily be confused in my opinion. I know many people have said though that hte hunger returns, not for everyone but for some. FOr me, I don't feel normal hunger but I feel that empty hunger that tells me I HAVE to eat. Ultimately I would not stress too much, the holidays are nearing an end and less food will be around, just get your Protein first and go from there.

Well I had my scope done. No stricture. However they found a few things. First was a gastric polyp, they removed it and sent it for biopsy. They found Gastric mucosal abnormality characterized by erytherma. Quite the name, don't ya think? They biopsied that. And chronic gastritis, a specimen was sent out on that. I didn't see the doctors after I woke up just the nurse who went over quickly what the paperwork says. She said they are basically looking to see if I have H Pylori or some other odd issue going on. From what I gathered from my anesthesia induced haze I basically had swelling and redness in my sleeve and that polyp. Now I wait. I won't see my surgeon again for 2 weeks :/ Wish I didn't have to wait that long. I'm tired of not being able to eat normal and frankly I am tired of losing weight. I keep hoping my body will get angry enough with the lack of calories that it starts holding onto what I have (never in my life did I think I would dread losing weight lol). I'm tired of everyone telling me I am getting too skinny, like I can magically control what my body is going through Just can't please everyone. First I was too fat, now too skinny. *grumble* Anyways, like I said, now I wait. Oh and my labs looked fine. So odd considering I rarely take my Vitamins and haven't been able to eat normally and I am still dealing with all kinds of crazy bruising for no reason :/ So that is the update, I will update again in a few weeks once I have the results. This whole thing stresses me out which doesn't help my weight either.

Don't let the scale control you. It happens far too often. We go from letting food control us to allow that stupid scale to control our lives. The scale will fluctuate for ever. The rest of your life that scale will go up and down. You can do everything perfect and still see the scale go up and sometimes you can go totally crazy eating crap foods and see the scale go down. Just go based on how you feel, don't let the scale rule you.

Bwahahahaha! I nearly lost my coffee on that one! Thank you so much for that laugh, I really needed it ha~ As for the original question...I really have no words of wisdom, I am SERIOUSLY dealing with some major body image issues. These saggy, shriveled up A's make me want to cry daily. My stomach that has begun to wrinkle up makes me want to vomit. Thankfully my legs and arms shrunk pretty nicely but good night, underneath the shirt?! Psh. Aint nobody seeing that. And I have been married for 10 years :/ All I keep thinking is that I want a tummy tuck and boob job but then I think that I want more kids soooooo I have to put those on the back burner and figure out how to overcome feeling so disgusting. It doesn't help that if I mention plastics I get the evil eye from people telling me I don't need it. Uh yeah. That is called clothing and padded bras, they hide the ick pretty well.

Well don't shoot me but mine is to STOP losing weight ha. Hopefully after the scope this week that will finally come to an end (suspected stricture leading me to not be able to eat). Stop stressing and just do what I need to do to be happy. And get into kickboxing at least 3 days a week to tone this flabby body

Like the others have mentioned, your body needs time to heal. You cannot compare yourself to ANYONE. And I mean anyone. No one who has had the sleeve, no one who had the DS, no lapbanders, no RNYers, no one. That is something you need to get in check now or you will drive yourself insane. We are all different people and will all lose at different rates. Genetics, age, weight, height, activity, food choices, etc all come into play with these surgeries. I was told initially by my surgeons assistant to consider the RNY because I would lose more. Then my surgeon came in and said the sleeve losses are just about in line with the RNY losses. There is no way I wanted to deal with the complications that can come with the RNY just to possibly lose a few extra lbs if that. Now that I am 10 months post op and 25 lbs below goal I am even more thankful that the sleeve worked for me even through the complications I had, the sleeve was the best choice for me. But seriously you need to get the desire to compare to others out of your head, really it is just self sabotage.

Sugar free is gross, at least that is how I feel about it all. The way I look at it is that for something to be sugar free a bunch of other junk has to be shoved into it to make it taste half way decent so I just go with the regular ol' sugared stuff

Thanks everyone. It is very scary and truthfully with how little I eat normally even when I'm feeling fine and only able to eat 1/4 cup at a time, it scares the snot out of me to think of how bad it would be if I get revised. My RNY friends all have food restrictions and to think of me having to deal witht hat too?! I don't know how I could stop losing weight with that. Seriously the size 2 already makes me nervous. I mean goodness, I have 4 kids, how many people with 4 kids expect to wear a size 2!? The surgeon that was there and my surgeon when he called me both said they hope the revision to be the very last possible thing to turn to. the good thing is there are 6 surgeons that do WLS at my hospital and they all get together with each other to discuss the difficult cases so many opinions will go into it. It just really stinks...

Well some of you might remember the complications I had that landed me in the hospital around the 2 month mark, increased swelling, stricture, small hole, kink in the sleeve, etc. Well there is the possibility I will land there again this weekend I'm trying really hard to just make it through until I can get in for another scope which isn't until Wednesday. Over the last few weeks I have had an increasingly hard time eating. I take a bite and I am STUFFED. I have the "full burps" all day long, even before I eat anything in the morning. It's crazy. I dropped 10 lbs in the last 2 weeks! I am under a serious amount of stress so I assumed it was just the stress causing the restriction but usually that only lasts a few days not 2 weeks. So I finally gave in and went by the surgeons yesterday. He is on leave right now so I saw the nurse, then the PA and she went to talk to another surgeon. He said we absolutely need to do another scope. We talked about my acid reflux issues and my previous complications and hospital stay. He then called my surgeon who also called me. Both surgeons repeatedly told me to head to the ER if I get to the point to not being able to keep Water down, which is what happened last time, they both assumed I would get to that point which really stinks. They said the good thing from that though would be that if I was hospitalized I would get the scope sooner than I can now. There was talk again about a revision to the RNY. Honestly I don't get how that could possibly help. I am well below my goal, so it's def not a matter of trying to lose weight. It scares me to think that if they revise me I would continue to lose. At this point I clearly haven't been able to get it to stop with the issues I am having. Good grief, I am in a size 2, I don't want to get any smaller at all. I never even thought a 2 would be physically possible for me anyways. Anyways, from what I gather they think if a revision is necessary, which they will NOT do it unless there are no other options, that it could help the reflux. They said there is the possibility that if there is a stricture, which really I have ever symptom of having one, then it could be caused by the reflux. UGH! I am praying it's just the stress. I do NOT want another surgery, I just want to be normal Things had been going fine, I was able to eat anything and everything just in small portions, and all of a sudden at nearly 10 months post op this hits. Oh and I assume my labs are going to be a hot mess too, I was a month behind in getting them done and finally went in with all these issues I'm having and because I started bruising everywhere. Literally, my legs are covered in bruises and I don't know why.

Bwahahahahaha! Oh man, I really need a laugh tonight so thanks for the national geographic boobs thought hahahaah!

One of these days I will learn to not drink coffee and browse VST I've almost spit my coffee out twice so far and this is only the second thread I have read bwahahaha! Computer mouse *snicker* that's quite the way to explain it Well I have the same basic shape but my weight has moved around more than it has in the past. The bulk of my weight was always in my stomach, uh yeah, it's still there. It's the only area I am unhappy with, well other than my boobs that shriveled up and died. My butt did get smaller. I still have a visible butt but I was always called bubble butt for a reason and well I don't get called that anymore.

Bwahahahaha! I nearly spit my coffee all over my screen laughing

I don't think that is normal either. I had issues up until the 2nd month post op and had some complications that caused it. The only people I know that have had issues with eating and throwing up were either eating too much, too fast, or too big bites, had a stricture or had the RNY. I would suggest seeing another doctor who will at least do a swallow study or scope you to make sure there isn't a stricture.

Mine are gone too and yes totally disappear when I lay down. It drives me nuts! So far the best bra I have found are the Ambrielle push up bras from JC Penny. No idea on the leg thing though.

Yes people treat me differently. I have" friends" who have fallen off the map, and I have never heard from again. Apparently I was being used just to be the fat friend. One situation in particular really showed me how different people are around me now, even complete strangers. I was waiting to have lab work done. It was pretty empty, seats all around were empty, but people actually came and sat right next to me. It's happened at the doctors, the pharmacy, so many different places. And ya know, it bugs me. I was invisible when I was fat and it wasn't just because I made myself invisible, it feels as if people were scared they could catch the fat or something. *sigh* Things changed with my husband too. He has become protective over me which he was not before. He is more affectionate. And again this bugs the snot out of me. I know he is a man, and men tend to be visual creatures but really it's hard to take in. Now it's at the point that I have to adjust to the differences and I have to work on myself to not be angry with the differences I see from other people. I will tell you this much, after seeing first hand how different society treats obese people I will go out of my way to make an overweight person feel welcome and loved because I know how bad it hurts.