LoserMama

Hi there, figured out how to join a group, just missed the button because I dove straight into the discussion thread. Anyway, my name is Julie, I'm in Boise ID and am in early pre-op, had my consult with Dr. valentine on 9/12 and my first of 3 supervised diet appts with his PA on 9/19. I am excited and nervous about this. I am not sure yet, actually, whether I will have RNY or sleeve. How and why did you choose sleeve over other options? What do you think of Dr. Valentine and/or your St. Lukes doc if you are in this area? Finally -- what is the st. lukes preop psych eval like? mine is in october. I'm not sure what to expect. Thanks!!!

My doc says he uses a 34fr bougie, loose. On the fairly small side of things, right? At lunch I was able to eat a 5 oz can of canned chicken breast (pureed with low fat mayo and the broth from the can) and 2 oz of fat free cottage cheese. That is 7 oz of food. No pain whatsoever. Is that normal? I initially served myself about half of the chicken, but after finishing it and the cottage cheese, still felt hungry. So I started on the remaining and finished it. Incidentally, this was done in about....20 minutes? Did I just eat too fast? But wouldn't I have felt pain? Have I f'ed up my sleeve? Can people further down the line speak to the volume of soft foods they were able to eat at this point? I wasn't worried about the fact that I could have quite a volume of liquid without a problem, since it just kind of goes right through, but i would have assumed chicken, even pureed, and cottage cheese, would fill up the sleeve.

Hi, i fear I am going to be a slow loser. Here I am 11 days post op, and i've barely lost anything. its hard to watch all the posts of people saying, "oh hey, I lost 15 lbs at my 1 week post op appt." Not me -- 2 lbs. Sigh. I was wondering if you all had slow weight loss from the very beginning?

Hey there everyone...its been a long time since I've popped in here ,but coming up on one year I am thinking of all of you. Still have about 21 lbs to go to a final goal for me, but feeling awesome about being darn close to 100 lbs down! Hope you all are well. I need to get back on a cleaner eating track, and better exercise again.

We eat dinner out almost exclusively (I'm pre-op), We both work jobs where we are just drained by the time the day ends. I know I need to start makign meals at home more (I'm lecturing myself, don't worry. ) BUT anyway.... preop, I am able to make pretty decent choices. I am curious if you just avoid eating out until you resume eating normal foods entirely? Are there any places that have decent options for the mushy phase at least (I'm sure liquid phases are out ) Once you don't have form restrictions any longer, what do you eat, at what place, when you go out, that you feel is a decent choice? I'll give a pre-op example. At chili's, I either get the margarita grilled chicken (don't eat the rice, and eat maybe 1/2 a cup of the black beans) or I'll get the grilled chicken fajita,s and not eat the tortillas or guac or anything. Just sprinkle a bit of the cheese on the grilled chicken. I could imagine that post-op, once I can eat somewhat normally again, that i could eat either of those two again, just wouldn't be able to eat as much of it. is that a fair assumption or am I deluding myself? I understand food intolerances could make things freaky, but am just curious what you do if you like the social/having someone else do the work aspect of going out?

So, I am sure this has been asked before, but would like to see responses from current times. What Multivitamin were you prescribed post-wls, and do you still take that one, or have you switched to anything different? How about Calcium,D3, Iron, any other things prescribed by doc, related to WLS? I was told to take either optisource or Bariatric fusion. Both of these are required to be taken 4x a day, and I rarely get all 4 in I usually get 3 in per day. The NUT told me not to take Opurity (which is a once a day bariatric Vitamin, that I wouldn't get enough in,but honestly, I would get more in taking that once day than forgetting 1-2 tablets per day. What do you take? I was told to take Calcet or another chewable calcium citrate supplement. I took calcet the first month, and then slacked off the calcium for a couple of weeks, and right now, I am just taking my citracal petites to get something in, until I can order some calcet, but I'm not sure if the citracal gives me any benefits. I also take D3, a gummy form. So what do you do???

whoops duplicate

AMen to this. people seem to be afraid to touch their hair and want to put it back or tie it up, and those things are the worst things we could do. Massage your scalp, get blood flowing there, use good products, brush your hair regularly to stimulate your scalp. You just have to ride it out. For most of us, the loss will occur, and nothign you can do is going to stop it, because its already dead. You have to just get the hair out of your head so new stuff can grow in. And for most, the loss doesn't start until 3-4 months out i've seen. I got to 4 months and that is when it hit! I had so hoped I'd be spared. It is slowing down now a bit. And I have fuzzy new growth starting in. And like petal said, my hairdresser told me to use nioxin, so that is what I am using.

I am losermama73! Add me and see my current shame!

Ok, caveat that I am fully aware if you look at my MFP I've got a big problem currently...traveling and under more stress than I can remember having in years. So a real test to my ability to not soothe with food, and I'm currently failing. That said....when behaving, I find my body lets go of weight more quickly when I eat between 1000-1200 calories a day. When I was down in the 600-800 range like the NUT wanted me to be, I had really really long stalls. I seem to creep down each week. Probably not as fast as it should, but I am super happy. I DO still need to conquer the bad carb demon. I fully admit that. I'm not there yet.

Hey gang, long time no talk! I had a worrisome thing happen last night that I need feedback on. I'm down quite a bit, and I know at home I've had to adjust my cpap range downward. I hadn't adjusted my travel CPAP because I can't do that myself. Up through last month, it wasn't an issue that that was operating at a higher pressure. Last night, though, was using it in my hotel room and it just felt almost overwhelming suddenly, but i just went with it. I however, woke up in the middle of the night with my stomach hurting. I had a lot of air in me, I presume maybe from too much pressure? I stopped using it for the rest of the night and was better by am, but I had to (TMI) get a lot of that air out of my system, one way or another, in order to feel better, and even now, my tummy feels achy. Do you think I could have hurt my stomach with that at 5 months out? Should I be calling the doc? I probably will anyway, jsut to be safe, but I wanted to ask if anyone who had been on cpap ever had this happen. I know the very first night out of surgery that I was not allowed to use my CPAP to protect my stomach from injury, but I would think at this far out... anyway, any experience sharing would be great!

I'm having major issues right now with this same thing. Its what I feared pre-op, that made me feel like i should probably go for bypass. I still have the ability to eat the crap and I haven't conquered the beast of head hunger. I am currently being done in by two very bad foods that I keep eating, and they blow my calorie count. And i think the worst thing is, I'm still losing (albeit slower than I should be) so I'm having trouble motivating myself to change my behavior. I know I need to get back on the straight and narrow.

I took metformin pre op and took it all the way through the liquid diet without issues. I stopped taking it post-op, and my blood sugars normalized almost immediately. I haven't been back on it since.

I'm five months out and (knock on wood) I feel like its starting to slow down. I had a lot of hair to start out with, but hubby says its noticeable up front and a little bit in back. I was told to NOT wear hair in ponytails, because this stresses out your hair more. the hair is going to be lost whether its in a ponytail or not, its dead/dying. I was also told by nut to brush it actually as often as possible, because that encourages blood flow to your scalp and stimulates hair regrowth. I am using Nioxin products, but not sure if they are helping or not. I also am taking a Biotin supplement and try to always get in my 60-80 g of Protein a day. I think we just have to wait it out. New hair is already growing in and i hate the fuzziness, but at least I know its coming back!

5 months out and this still happens to me, and yes, it reminds me to drink Low BP related, which is somehow fluid intake related as well.