Tomo

Okay this is long and boring at parts but here it goes. I am 3 years post sleeve and I have gained all my weight back . First of all I was on the smaller side to have the sleeve but I do still have all the same struggles and if I had waited until I was older it was just a matter of time until I was a higher bmi having the surgery. The fact that I have lost and then gained it all plus some within less than years is probably proof of that.
Anyways, with the sleeve I did lose a big chunk of weight. I went from 235 to 168 which I could not have done with regular diet. But, i was always able to eat a little more than I should at every given stage and everything was easy for me. From day one I had no gas pain and Water was easy to get down, then fluids and Protein which were easy to keep down, I had no food intolerances and advancing through each stage. I was living my best life watching the pounds fall off but I was alway able to eat just a little more than everyone else at the same stage. Well, while the hunger hormone was gone and I was focused I was able to eat exactly what I SHOULD be eating and I measured my portions to the Amount I should be eating and I was satisfied. So lost most of the weight the dr suggested I would.

i held that weight for a few months but then the hunger started creeping back and between the hunger and the extra room in the pouch I started gaining in spite of still making healthy food choices (my food was fine but my portions were too large and too frequent). Well, even though I knew I was losing control my friends and family continued to look at me as doing great..I was still on the road to getting to where I needed ti be in their eyes. I was ashamed. I was failing yet They kept complimenting me and offering me food. They were saying things like your doing so good, you can have one slice or pizza or one brownie. It won’t kill you. It’s okay that you’ve gained a couple pounds I’ve gained a couple it’s Christmas. You can lose that. Well I have since learned that no I cannot just have one of anything to do with carbs or I crave them for a week but I didn’t know that back then

Anyways, was still going to my surgeon asking for help but I have bipolar disorder and the meds I take for it limit what other meds I can take so I cannot take many of the weight loss meds they had to offer. And the one I can take worked wonderfully during the day but when it wore off I ate all night Fast forward a few months and I stepped on the scale and I was back over 200. That sucked but I wasn’t giving up.

went back to my surgeon asking about revision to bypass. I have heartburn gerd whatever you call it and clearly the sleeve wasn’t working so I wanted to know my options. Well let’s go back. I knew I didn’t want to have surgery if I was going to just repeat the yo-yo that had just happened so I decided I wanted two opinions this time. Well the second opinion dr had a cancellation so I seen him first. He was on board. He was going to bypass a shorter amount of bowel so i had less absorption issues and my meds Would work fine he said which seemed to be his concern even though it wasn’t really my question. I just needed my dr to say that it shouldn't be a repeat of last time and I was going forward.

Well even though the bypass was an option he presented to me to start he said he wouldn’t do a bypass for me. He thought it would be a bad call with my mental health issues. This was confusing to say the least because I have one dr saying it’s fine and another dr I really respect saying it’s not and I started this thinking bypass was always an okay option in terms of mental health but worried the surgery just wouldn’t work for me. I am of course concerned about my mental health so took some time to think about it.

I tried for a while to find a bariatric therapiest but none near me are taking any new patients. I even asked the surgeon and he said he would look into it but be never did. Anyways I called around for the better part of two days. They all just do the evaluations now for surgery. I have had every hormone test and lab they have that could possibly be the problem. I changed all my meds in case they were the issue. I tried everything myself and my doctors could think of but I kept gaining.

When I revisited the idea of surgery I was scared. Anything that was going to upset my mental health again just isn’t an option I decided. I already know what life without my medication is like and I do not want to go back there. I continued to gain. I got back up to 245 and I am miserable. I am so depressed when I look at what I have let happen to myself. I had a chance and I blew it. I am disgusted when I look in the mirror. I decided that the weight is causing me to be more depressed so I needed to get some real answers.

I went back to my surgeon. Not to ask him to do the surgery but exactly why he thought it was a bad idea. The plan was to take that info and talk to the other surgeon to make sure he had considered that and see why he wasn’t worried about it. Well, surprise…my surgeon is on board now with doing a revision for me. When I asked why he said no before he said something about a nite in my chart that said I wasn’t complaint with my meds back them and he didn’t know I have a psychiatrist and psychologist and take my meds but now he is comfortable doing surgery.

So, frustrated I had to wait until I gained almost 50 more pounds to get here but excited he is willing to do it I am researching the other surgery he thinks will be a better fit for me called the SADI. At the same time I am still not buying the note in my chart thing. Cause that was never true.

I guess the important takeaway for those of you here that are just starting out is even if you do regain don’t lose touch with your team and don’t give up. I feel like my dr wavering in whether he would do the surgery didn’t help but I could have asked more questions sooner and I wouldn’t have so much to lose this time. Plus, hopefully you guys can take the weight loss meds and won’t be facing a second surgery.

I’ve been gone a while from the forum. life has just been busy and I guess time just gets away from me. It’s like I turned around and I’m old 😂 not really old but you know what I mean.
looking at my profile it’s hard to believe I’ve been banded since 2014. I can only imagine where I would be if I never had the surgery. Or if I had done it sooner….
today I’m probably the healthiest I’ve ever been. I’ve got to be the mother and grandmother MY parents and grandparents never were and it’s because I changed. My career my marriage and my family has all flourished!
is it all because of the surgery? Maybe not. But I definitely attribute a lot to it!
the way I feel, the activities I can do…my overall mental health….i still deal with body image issues….still that chubby woman in the mirror, stuck episodes and bad days. We all probably do. But the good definitely outweigh the bad!
I recently went to the dr for a horrible sting and when she took my blood pressure it was 55bpm I said “isn’t that too low?”
she said “honey, you are almost 44, sitting cross legged on my table and just told me about your 20 mile mountain bike ride. Just looking at you I would say other than this sting you appear pretty healthy. It’s just fine.”
coming from a family tree with tons of health issues, cancer and obesity I felt a huge win!
so here’s to hoping the band holds up another 10 years😂 (I see a lot of horror stories) she has been a lifesaver and a huge help. Without her I don’t think I would be where I’m at!
cheers to you all! Wishing you all the best of luck on your journey!

Tell us of your eating and activity programs so that we may give rational advice.
For example, how many meals per day? Consisting of? How compliant are you? What activity program do you follow? How often? How are you performing compared to program goals?
Additionally, are you tracking your eating and exercise? How consistent are you?
Surgery addresses short term over-eating pretty successfully. However, 'grazing,' which is constantly eating smaller amounts over a longer period of time defeat our restriction component pretty effectively. There are actually other similar traps we may fall into without being aware.
So, let us know and there are tons of folks that will fall over themselves to help you out.
Good luck,
Tek

I made it to the other side. I had surgery yesterday. It was not easy. My pressure sky rocketed in the recovery room but I'm much better now. But this burping is killing me.

I'm two days post-op and got home from the hospital yesterday around 1:00 pm. I feel pretty good. I don't require anything beyond Tylenol at this point for pain and I bought a s/f liquid version of it so I could dump my crushed daily medications into it. Anyway- this is about gas. Everybody said, "gas pain, gas pain, gas pain", so I expected something, but this? This is beyond. I never imagined gas could make me feel as though something was really going wrong. I'm not looking for advice. I have all the tools I need to deal...just wanted to commiserate.

Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and peas. I’ve switched from buying premade rotisserie chicken to scratch made and everyone agrees it’s much better.

...which leads me to:
this fine looking salad i prepared for lunch. greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado, feta cheese, broccoli, mushrooms and the fried up leftover Protein from earlier.
logged as 503 calories for the whole thing.
i ate...nothing (yet).
as often happens, the excitement of eating and prep has waned by the time i was done, and now i no longer feel like eating it. i'll want it later fo sure tho! so for now it will wait for me patiently in the fridge

had some leftover roasted chicken and pork belly. not enough for a meal for the "regulars", so i fried em up all crispy to use as salad toppings:

salad!
greens, cucumber, avocado, cherry tomatoes, leftover roast chicken, homemade vinaigrette and seasonings.
285 calories, shared with Mr., estimating i ate maybe 2/3 of it.

Brunch date. Milk oolong tea (SF) and a Cinnamon roll, probably 1000 cals but I ate one bite before I decided it was a terrible choice (so much sugar) and didn’t eat anymore.

I’ve eaten pretty much the same dinner for the last couple nights. A spinach, potato, and asparagus Soup and an asparagus tart (used this recipe for inspiration). Added nutritional yeast to the top of the soup both days as well.

I kept seeing these raw vegan wraps on social media so I broke down and bought the ebook (actually a whole package of digital content). Anyway this is the Amazon link to the actual book.
The amount of prep work (maybe 20ish minutes of mostly chopping veg) that went into this is totally worth it. Most of the “cooking time” is really waiting on cashews to soak and the food dehydrator to do its thing.
It’s called a mushroom fajita wrap. The wrap is a blend of bell peppers, onions, oranges, pineapple, and carrot. Then it has chili lime portobello mushroom slices, a bell pepper mix, and a jalapeño lime cashew crema that is amazing! I added romaine because I had it and needed to use it.

@BlondePatriotInCDA reminded me I’d found this a while ago to help identify possible causes of pain per quadrant. Some may find it helpful.

or maybe something like SIBO? Or IBD or IBS? Or even a redundant colon? (I have the latter - I'd sometimes wake up in a lot of pain because "stuff" would get stuck in one of the curvy parts). A colonoscopy would detect the latter, though (that's how I found out about mine). Not sure about the others.

Have you guys tried cauliflower rice and was it good ??

I’d ask simply him why. Why he’s removing it & why he wants to do two separate surgeries.
Lap bands have dramatically decreased in popularity over the last years & not many surgeons do them any more. Failure, side effects, effectiveness, etc. seem to be the reasons. Some studies say the life span of a lap band is only 7-10 years so you’re at your band’s end of life now.
Not all surgeons do the removal & revision in one surgery. Maybe your surgeon is basing his decision on your current health status. Maybe he wants to give you a recovery period between the two surgeries to ensure you’re fully healed. May be he wants to give you time without a weight loss tool to see how you respond in regards to self monitoring your food intake, etc.
Just throwing some ideas out there.

most people (not all - but most) lose their sense of hunger for up to a year post-surgery. For a lucky few, hunger never comes back.
the pre-surgery liquid diet is different, though - that's the worst part of the whole ordeal, IMHO. It's hell - but most of us have been there and have made it through. I ate lots of sugar free popsicles and sugar free Jello (the latter since it was the only thing I could have that somewhat resembled real food). You just have to white knuckle it and remind yourself that it WILL end. I was so glad to be rolled off to the OR the morning of my surgery knowing that the stupid pre-op diet was OVER!!

The statistics say that 1% of VSG patients experience a leak and that they usually occur because solid food was consumed too early, or from physical trauma/injury to the area. With that said, I know the anxiety youʻre talking about. I only have this knowledge because I deep dive into things Iʻm afraid of.

I was 275 in 2012. I had the sleeve in August 2012. I was down to 200 pounds by December. I have worked hard to keep it off. I am 63 and, as of today, am 190. I have kept it off for 11 years.

The first pic is 2012 before surgery. the next pic is recent.

 

It evidently affects people differently. I take a capful every morning and have for almost nine years - fortunately, it never had that effect on me.

I doubt it would be gas too. Have they ruled out gall stones, appendicitis, pancreatitis, ulcers, etc .? Did the CT scans check your liver, kidneys, spleen?
Hope they can find an answer for you soon. And they have given you something to help with the pain.

Breakfast today was Greek salad and a pita.
dinner tonight was grilled cheese (made on 45 calorie a slice bread with a slice American cheese) and Tomato Soup (made with milk). Cooked the grilled cheese with non stick spray and finished in the oven to crisp without burning.

I finally mastered the Protein waffle recipe (again) the texture and flavor was perfect. Tracking is for the entire Belgian waffle, the pic was the last quarter that I remembered to photograph.

omg repurposing leftovers is one of my fave things to do!
a sample of my "Leftovers MacGyver-ing" (yes i take pictures food every. single. day. ...almost...i have an album titled "random food pics" on my phone hahahhaha)
in order of appearance:
1. leftover baked potatoes into chunky cream of potato Soup with bacon and cheddar
2. leftover cheesecake into cheesecake brownies
3. leftover dahl and sweet potato fries into curried sweet potato soup BONUS: also used leftover pita bread to make the croutons on top.
4. blueberry yogurt that was about to expire into yogurt bread

It’s my week 5 now and I can add some toast and crackers in my diet. Which mean I can eat left over from my family. Lol
I always rework my left over. Today morning I made salmon omelet with left over salmon and added low fat cheese. I should have added some onion as well. For lunch made chicken salad with left over rotisserie chicken as well.

For dinner I made it fresh. 93/7 Ground beef with onion, and some cracker. make sure I cook my onion very well and I can tolerate it.

I should add more veggies on my diet. Need to go food shopping soon.