Vsglass

Please remember to respectful to others
And any inappropriate language is against the forum rules
http://www.verticals...tion=boardrules

Wow. I didn't see anything posted here that could have caused that response from you, Cupcake. I'm only 5 days post-op and I'm sure trying to learn the dos and dont's is frustrating. I see nothing but support here. I hate that you had to become so trollish so soon.

Gone? The Attitudes adjusted...everyone on this forum is friendly and willing to offer their experience, support, and opinions. Noone here can offer medical advice nor say what may be right for everyone. They can only offer up what they personally have experienced or have knowledge of. So attacking someone for offering what is exactly the point of this site was rude and unacceptable. All opinions should be read with your own physicians advice in mind. If a post is made that you don't care for, u are not required to respond to it or berate the person offering it. We are all friends in the same boat from all different walks of life and different surgeons. Everyone here deserves kindness and respect. Its what I have found VST to be grounded upon. Love all you guys here. You've become my comfort, my teachers and my friends.

Yes, they can and will give you a bigger bougie. Of course, you may want to read some research about success rates vs bougie size. It seems that many surgeons are going to a slightly larger bougie as a matter of course. I guess the standard size used to be about 32, but I've heard of people having a bougie as large as 40. Those measurements are in millimeters so the difference isn't as long as the word difference on your screen.

I think everyone goes through the fears you are experiencing now, I certainly did.
A couple of things my surgeon said, things I've read, etc... The latest thinking is that people's brains tell the body to process food in different ways. For example studies of Prisoners of War should that they were all given the same meagre amount of food and took that same amount of exercise and yet, after years of being imprisoned, on release, some were emaciated and yet some were not. It is thought that in some people the brain tells the body to process food differently, to store more fat than in others. A stressful episode in someone's life seems to cause some people's brains to panic as it thinks the sudden shift might be the body going into starvation mode so again it stores more fat.
Then there is the issue of the hormone ghrelin that sits in your stomach ( the part that gets removed during surgery). In some people maybe because of constant on and off dieting this hormone, which sends a signal to the brain that you are hungry and must eat, goes into overdrive. I know that in my case most of my weight issues started around 5/6 years ago when things were a bit stressful. Since then, doing the same things I did before to lose weight, just didn't work. As soon as I started eating during the day, whether at Breakfast time or waiting until lunchtime, once I started I never felt full so kept eating.
So to my point (sorry a bit long-winded but I'm getting there..). I had all your fears. I was sleeved on 26 April so I am 2 weeks 3 days post-op and the part of my stomach containing Ghrelin has gone. I can honestly say that have an amazing calmness around food. As an obsessive daily weigher, I don't seem to have the same panic about the numbers going down, I just know they will. I have remained the same weight for 3 days now despite eating very little and miraculously it doesn't faze me at all. I feel back in control for the first time in a long time as I know I will lose weight. During this 3 day stall I am changing shape as my body adjusts and recovers from surgery. It's like my brain has been rebooted and the cravings, lack of weight loss panic, mild blues associated with being overweight have just disappeared... I have a friend who was sleeved in September last year who also described all of the above post-op.
So please don't worry. Unless you intend to consume a vat of ice cream at a gazillion calories, you will lose weight. Make healthy choices, walk more and above all enjoy getting this fresh start....

So.... I wrote my first blog. More of a "help me, I'm drowning" venting session, really. But y'all can read it and make fun of any grammatical errors I may have. (I need to utilize spell check more often)... Anyway, thought I'd give myself kudos and brag about my 1st sleever blog.......

I took everyones advice including mine and decided to call my surgeon. After playing manhunt with the hospital they finally located him and connected us. He ask me to come in IMMEDIATELY. Practically face me an hour to get to his clinic. Once I was there they did the usual Pre testings, then I finally got to see him. After touch around my mid section trying to locate my center of pain, he noticed the internal tenderness. He advised me to check into the ER and he would inform the ER of my current state. So I left and proceeded to walk to the ER fatigue, weak, hurting and naseaus. Once I got there they checked me and I had to approximately 20 mins in order for them to check me into triage. The wait was ridiculous but worth it because all my docs and nurses were well-informed about my situation.
First thing this proceeded to do was give me a X-ray to test for leaks... I drank that disgusting liquid sip, sip, sip, gulp. I practically threw up over the guy, I even forewarned him about this potentially occurring. After the test was complete he told me that he found no leaks, but did see a lot of acid reflux in action. I was very excited to hear that because I really didn't wanna go back under the knife for nothing, the no leaks part not the acid reflux part.
After returning from the Xray they drew some blood, flushed me, gave me some nasea meds and some morphine. The stomach pains subsided and I'm actually able to breathe in and out normally w/o any pain. So that's a win in my book. Now I'm laying here waiting for the cat scan to be completed. I drank some ice Water and my god it was the greatest thing to me lol. I've been drinking room temp water since day 1 of surgery so this was practically a new/missed sensation for me ...
I'll be back with updates a lil later

I think everyone goes through the fears you are experiencing now, I certainly did.
A couple of things my surgeon said, things I've read, etc... The latest thinking is that people's brains tell the body to process food in different ways. For example studies of Prisoners of War should that they were all given the same meagre amount of food and took that same amount of exercise and yet, after years of being imprisoned, on release, some were emaciated and yet some were not. It is thought that in some people the brain tells the body to process food differently, to store more fat than in others. A stressful episode in someone's life seems to cause some people's brains to panic as it thinks the sudden shift might be the body going into starvation mode so again it stores more fat.
Then there is the issue of the hormone ghrelin that sits in your stomach ( the part that gets removed during surgery). In some people maybe because of constant on and off dieting this hormone, which sends a signal to the brain that you are hungry and must eat, goes into overdrive. I know that in my case most of my weight issues started around 5/6 years ago when things were a bit stressful. Since then, doing the same things I did before to lose weight, just didn't work. As soon as I started eating during the day, whether at Breakfast time or waiting until lunchtime, once I started I never felt full so kept eating.
So to my point (sorry a bit long-winded but I'm getting there..). I had all your fears. I was sleeved on 26 April so I am 2 weeks 3 days post-op and the part of my stomach containing Ghrelin has gone. I can honestly say that have an amazing calmness around food. As an obsessive daily weigher, I don't seem to have the same panic about the numbers going down, I just know they will. I have remained the same weight for 3 days now despite eating very little and miraculously it doesn't faze me at all. I feel back in control for the first time in a long time as I know I will lose weight. During this 3 day stall I am changing shape as my body adjusts and recovers from surgery. It's like my brain has been rebooted and the cravings, lack of weight loss panic, mild blues associated with being overweight have just disappeared... I have a friend who was sleeved in September last year who also described all of the above post-op.
So please don't worry. Unless you intend to consume a vat of ice cream at a gazillion calories, you will lose weight. Make healthy choices, walk more and above all enjoy getting this fresh start....

199.2lbs as of today!!!! Yayyyyyyy

Not only do you look great, you look so much happier!

I'm 9 days post op and I fit into my jeans right out of the dryer!!! So happy

Good for you! It is really amazing how fast you 'grow' out of your clothes. I've given away 10 garbage bags full of my morbidly obese clothes and have a very limited wardrobe right now. But.., that is a-ok with me! I'm no longer morbidly obese and soon to be not be obese at all!! I no longer shop in the Plus Size clothing department. It is such a great great thing! I put everything in the dryer now where I would have cringed before if my cloths were put in the dryer.
Congratulations on your successes!

I'm one week out and feeling lots better everyday. Congrats!

Yep.. You have to be ready for this. I struggled with the loss of food and not being able to eat for a while but as soon as I started feeling better physically .... then mentally hands down, best choice I ever made. I have never regretted doing this.

So lets talk the basics first. A general guidline is 1 pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories. Eat 3,500 more calories than you expend, you gain a pound. Eat 3,500 calories less than you expend, you lose a pound. Of course everyone is different.
Each of us has a certain number of calories we burn doing absolutely nothing but breathing. Walk around, you burn more calories. Run around, you burn even more, thereby the old rule of weight loss ... eat less, move more.
So, when you are in WW using points, you are trying to eat fewer calories than you burn and tracking them with points is just another perspective on the whole deal.
Post-surgery, I was able to only get about 400 calories in per day, thus I had a dramatic drop early on. A lot of people do not lose as rapidly early out but there are a lot of other factors going on: Water retention, TOM ...
About 3 weeks post, your body discovers what's going on and freaks out a bit. This is the start of the first stall. Your body is discovering it is no longer getting the 4,000 calorie nacho binge or the 5 Mountain Dew per day supplements and takes a step back. Your body, as is called by some, has gone into starvation mode. It is hoarding.
Now, we can't have a heart to heart with our body and explain it, so, instead, let's trick it. Throw it a proverbial bone, if you will. Up the calories, so it goes, "Ah, here is something" and knock itself out of hoarding and releasing the fat deposits.
We have to do that occassionally to kick the body out of complacency. Exercise is another way to force your body to give up the ship, too. It will get to the point where your body is demanding energy that can only be met by tapping the fat stores. You have to be getting your Protein in, though, because you want your body to be tapping fat stores, not muscle, which it will do.

A bougie is the tube the anesthetist passes down our throat into our stomach to guide the surgeon when they staple the stomach line. A smaller bougie is supposed to mean more restriction, but these things are measured in millimeters, so there's literally [ ] that much difference between a 32 and a 40 bougie. You're not going to cram much in there.
I have seen discussions that suggest that a 40 bougie is less likely to have a leak than a 32 bougie. My doc used a 34 on me, I believe.

Doing really well all. There's pain but probably only because I'm pushing myself. The pain from the CO2 isn't bad because I'm walking a bunch. Meds going down well and staying on top of them. Hoping I can feel well enough to get back to work ASAP.

Not nervous. Ready to be done and to learn how to eat better with the sleeve. Praying for a fast recovery.

I was sleeved on 3/12, I just reached my 1 month slee-versary! So far I'm very happy with the results. I'm down 25 lbs! I pulled some old clothes out of my closet, and I'm down a whole pants size (from 24 to 22) and even those are baggy. I feel like I'm on cloud 9!!!!

So in celebration of reaching my halfway mark just thought I'd post some progress pics. 62 lbs down, halfway there!

Hello everybody!
Please forgive me for the format of this post as I am not accustomed to blogging or forums, but as I am sitting here 5 days after my surgery I was compelled by one of my closest friends to document my impending journey. I thought about writing in a journal to express my thoughts and I even played around with the possibility of making a YouTube channel focus around my own personal weight loss. I stumbled across this website some time ago and remembered it today and registered. I figured that writing to a community of people with the same struggles and triumphs that I have and will face would be the best route.
So... a little about me...
I am a young professional male living in New Orleans, LA... yes... the Big Easy...one of the culinary capitals of the free world and I have struggled with weight issues my ENTIRE life. While I have managed to excel in my educational and work environments I was often faced with the ridicule and pressure of being HUSKY, CHUBBY, BIG-BONED, PUDGY, FLUFFY, and all those other euphemisms for FAT. Being overweight was something that I came to accept early on as I loved to eat and most of my family was heavy. And though it hurt sometimes, I soon developed an exterior persona that would paint me as a person who was oblivious to their size; being stronger, wittier, and smarter than the people I would make acquaintances with and then going home to deal with the issues of my body in silence... and sometimes sadness.
The first time I played around with the notion of WLS was back in 2009. I was 23, out of college 2 years at that time and making a pretty good living for myself. I was in a relationship that was toxic and discouraging... Voices telling you that you are basically never going to change or grow just because you are smaller can really put a damper on your outlook. Needless to say... I ended this relationship and renewed my own confidence until I was soon faced with yet another challenge.
While vacationing with my friends for Memorial Day in 2010, I could sense something was different with my body. I was solemn, fatigued, and uninterested with the festivities that were taking place. I was also vomiting every morning... not food, but a weird golden substance that I decided to classify as acid reflux. On my first day back to work, my coworkers noticed that I looked dehydrated... like a fish out of Water... and that I was barely moving and slightly incoherent. My manager forced me to go to urgent care and soon after being seen by the doctor there, they urged me to go to the ER for treatment. Within in 45 minutes of being in ER I was diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes with a severe case of diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA, which is an extreme shortage of insulin that is potentially fatal.
After a week in the hospital, I was sent home with a shopping list of prescriptions to take and a whole new outlook on life. I immediately decides to sign up for a diet food home delivery service and tried that out for several months until the cost of that plus my meds became out of control. While I lost weight on the program pretty quickly, once I stopped the weight began to creep back. I knew I had to do something that would be definite... and that is when I decided to pursue WLS. I began reading, interrogating others who I knew had had it, and watching other VGS patients on YouTube. I told my close friends on my 25th birthday, on a cruise ship no less, that planned on pursuing WLS and I have not looked back since.&nSo... here I am... 5 days after my surgery... and despite the slight discomfort that is expected after surgery and a mild case of cabin fever (GET ME OUT OF THIS HOUSE!!!), I am feeling good and optimistic about what is to come.

Best thing I have done in my adult life is have a VSG!!!!!

I, too, need to burp after every sip of liquids. I can feel it working it's way up. I am only 3 days postop. I will definately need to learn how to do it quieter, but right now since I am at home, I just let it go. It also helps with the gas from surgery also.

I would say it is normal, because I was the same way. All of the positive comments out there tend to mnimize the fact that this is a major surgery with a fairly significant time needed to recover. All of the pain and discomfort is par for the course. Treat your sleeve with care and don't push it. Stay hydrated. It will improve greatly in a few more days.

I thought this article was very interesting and wanted to share it here
.
Protein while we recover from surgery and beyond.
"As soon as you drop below your ideal weight, you get into a group of people who are malnourished," and not well in general, de la Cruz-Munoz said. People in this population may not have adequate levels of protein in their bodies to properly heal in areas that have been operated on, he said"