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So, I had my EGD yesterday and the doctor talked to my wife following the surgery (apparently he talked to me but I dont remember any of it, haha). He said I had a lot of scarring from Acid Reflux, which I never realized I had. I know every once in a great while if I ate something spicy I would get a touch of heart burn but nothing dabilitating, so I never thought much of it. I now have a pepsid prescription to stop something I was not aware of and am not discomforted by in the least.... Anyone else have their EGD to find out they had acid reflux, and did it impact your surgery at all?

So this may be a hard question for me to ask clearly but I was curious as to real life loose skin stories. I know lots of factors are involved in having loose skin or not but I am trying to get a good idea if I will have a lot of extra skin if I reach my goal of roughly 185, which would be about a 115 lb drop for me (just under 6 ft tall). I'm still young (at least I consider myself young at 38) with no health issues other than being 300lbs @ just under 6ft tall. Just seeing what other's experiences were with getting loose skin, I guess, and what your pre-op and post-op factors were. This may be too personal of a question so I understand if people dont want to answer. Please just yell at me and tell me it is an inappropriate question!

As I guy, I even feel your pain about the thighs in jeans. All of my life, even when I was skinny in my late teens and early 20s (military), I had a terrible time with jeans not fitting my thighs. I have always had larger thighs and very strong "frog legs" so I could never get the jeans to fit right w/o having to go up a waist size....which then presents a new set of ill-fitting problems. I have always been condemned to a larger waist that what was necessary, even as I progressed in size. I guess if that is my worst problem after I get sleeved, I will be now thankful for it!

So, since I started the pre-op program (3 months in my case), I have been trying to really limit myself on what I am eating, taking the nutritionist's advice on what to eat. Has anyone tried really limiting your caloric intake similar to what you would be limited to following surgery? I understand that you would really struggle with an all liquid diet or a diet of only 400 or so calories without the help of the surgery, but I am looking to see if anyone tried, successfully to approach it in this manner? I think it would be a great way to ease into the new diet following and not be such a shock to your system or daily routine disruption. I have been trying to stick with this philosophy and fortunately never had an eating disorder like binging or depressed eating. I am simply a case of being able to eat too much without feeling full, and eating all the wrong foods..... Initially in the beginning of this "experiment" the first week or two was tough becasue I had to fight all the cravings for sweets and carb heavy foods but now, 4 weeks or so from starting, it is MUCH easier. My cravings are gone, for the most part. The other day, I did have a craving for a PB and marshmallow fluff sandwich (sounds strange but tastes soooo good) so i made one....only to take a small bit and had it off to my wife who can afford to eat it! let me tell you how hard it was to have it in my hand and not eat it! But, I took a small bit of it and it completely satisified the craving and I no longer wanted it. At this point, I eat 1 Protein bar for Breakfast, a handfull of raw almonds for a mid morning snack, a cup of chili for lunch, another handful of almonds for an afternoon snack, and then a zero fat, high protein yogurt for dinner. I fill the rest of the time with about 80-100 oz of Water and that's it.... Anyway, let me know your experience with the calorie limited, high protein, low carb attempt prior to surgery if you have been able to follow through with it and if it helped following surgery.

I am going to shoot for a week off as well. I am an IT manager who sits at my desk on teleconference calls several hours a day and have free access and time to drink all day if I choose, as well as not having to do anything physical. I am generally pretty good with pain (back to work after 2-3 days with 3 fully broken ribs in 2008) so I am hoping I can survive this while at work. I would hate to have to be out 2-3 weeks!

My wife is actually a surgical RN and has worked tons of bariatric surgeries. She told me that they look at the gallbladder when they are in there and just remove it if it needs to come out. She made it sound not all that uncommon.... Maybe with the sleeve it is uncommon but with RNY it sounded pretty common.

Bedhead, that may be the greatest answer to any question I have had yet! Thanks!

So I am a complete hater of all things salad. The only items in a salad that I do like are the croutons and carrots. All lettuce is as tasty to me as going out and grazing in the yard, and tomatos, cucumbers, olives, etc may as well be considered the devil to me! So, that being said, am I really screwed with weight loss surgery and will be "forced" to like these things, or are their alternatives? Anyone else here really despise salads? If so, what have you done?

gmanbat, I am in the same situation as you although I have not had surgery yet. At about 2 months out, I have been in the "program" where I will have surgery and i have already dropped 15 lbs from changing my eating habits, down from roughly 315 to 300.2 lbs as of this morning. I can tell a difference on the belt I put on for work this morning and the new hole I had created is almost too loose to use. Funny thing about the belt is that it is the same belt I had 75-90 lbs ago but was almost too loose on the tightest setting back then. That belt and some shoes are about the only existing items I have been holding onto over the past 6 years because of the inability to fit anymore! Everything else was donated.....

Its funny, I told one person at work that I would be taking a little time here and there leading up to this surgery and he siad not to tell anyone becasue he wanted to start a "biggest loser" contest for the site and he would put money on me to win..... Nothing like inside information! Haha! I really am looking forward to it, not so much for me, but for my 8 month old daughter. I see how my brother interacts with his kids and know I am not able to do that at this weight, and I want to be there for ANYTHING my daughter asks me to do with her or be the inspiration to get her out and about doing stuff.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to stop in and say hello. I am new to the site as a registered member but have been on periodically over the past few months reading as much as I possibly could in order to get a real world education on the sleeve. I actually visited the surgeon for the first time on Jan 26th, got his preliminary approval to move forward and to decide which route I wanted to go. My wife is actualy a surgical RN and works in bariatric rooms so I was pretty sure which direction I wanted to go based on her recommendations, but still needed the consult with the doctor to help make the right choice. It looks like I will be scheduling the surgery for sometime in May and I am looking so forward to it. My story is that I was always pretty normal growing up as an athlete in HS and then in the military for 4 years, always in that 165-185 range (dipped as low as 155 when I was doing a stint in Saudi Arabia). In college following the military, I found the love of beer and then tore my ACL while playing softball. From that point on, I blew past the 200 mark and have only dropped under one time, about 12 years ago. I was actually almost there in 2006 when I got married but have since gained 100 lbs to top out at 317 when I went infor my consult. As of now, since seeing the second doctor for the nutrition consultation, I have dropped down to just above 300 just with diet habit changes. I actually look forward to the 2 weeks of the Optifast diet leading up to the surgery because I am already a fan of the liquid diets (I'm a slimfast lover already). Anyway, I really appreciate this forum and have been looking up a lot of the before/after pictures as motivators to keep moving forward with a positive outlook. I think I will initially will struggle with the slow and steady pace of eating and drinking because all of my life I have been an eat-chug-run type of person not wanting to take time to sit and eat a normal meal at a slower pace. As for the drinking part, I have a problem with having a drink in my hand, regardless of what it is, I want to drink it as fast as possible. It will definitely be a change that I need to work on now. I look forward to reading many more success stories while hoping to provide one of my own shortly. By the way, those of you who have posted before/after shots, you all look amazing! It is quite a sight to see your profile pics and compare them to your pre-surgery pics. Most of you I would never think in a milion years that the before pics are actually you!