SerendipityHappens

Follow your doctor's instructions. I was allowed carbonated drinks after six weeks. I drink diet gingerale which is VERY bubbly and it feels no different on my sleeved tummy than it did before. My doctor's only advice about soda was to make sure it's diet, don't overdo it, and if it hurts, don't drink it. Whether or not to drink soda is a personal decision. There are people who feel addicted to soda an therefore choose never to drink it again. There are people for whom having soda triggers cravings for other foods such as pizza so they avoid soda in order to avoid those cravings. There are some for whom soda no longer has a place in their healthy new lifestyle.. Then there are others like me, who have no medical reason not to drink it since our doctors don't believe it stretches the sleeve and who tolerate soda well, and who don't find it leads to cravings or addictive behavior. So for ME it's not an issue. I have a diet gingerale a couple times a month.. but what works for YOU might be completely different.

I keep some taco or fajita meat frozen in the freezer.. On nights when I make something for my boyfriend that doesn't fit into my present eating plan, I simply pull out 3 ounces of ready made meat, dice some avocado, lettuce, tomato, etc and fix it in a thin corn tortilla. I LOVE that this meal totally tastes like "junk food" to me but is actually quite healthy an high in protein. An since I make everything from scratch I know exactly what's in it.

I tried to keep my items to a minimum. Shampoo? I sucked it up an used what they had at the hospital/hotel... Slippers? pfft, I just wore clogs for my rounds at the hospital.. Pajamas? Wore the hospital gown and at the hotel I just wore a t-shirt. Pretty much I packed one extra bra.. enough undies and socks for all the days two pair of sweat pants and two t shirts. I wore the same clothes on the plane both ways. I'm really glad I packed some of my favorite herbal teas. The warm tea felt sooooooo nice on my new tummy. I just heated the water in the hotel room coffee maker. I also packed gauze bandages, bandaids, antibiotic ointment and peroxide.. It was a waste.. My incisions healed so fast that I was discharged from the hospital without any coverings except on the incision where my drain was and with instructions to just wear a clean shirt every day and wash with soap in the shower and pat dry. The only thing I used from my "medical kit" was a bandaid to cover my one incision that still needed covering. I am glad I had the gasx strips though.. They don't help with the gas you feel in your back and shoulders from surgery but they definitely help calm down the tummy if it starts feeling a bit gassy in the early days. And remember, it's ok if you forget something, you can just buy it down there!

A simple.. "yes, it sounds like you aren't comfortable with the risks/stigma of the surgery, I can certainly sympathize with that.. Good thing you don't need/aren't getting it then! Personally I've assessed the risks of surgery and done what I can to mitigate them and I'm unconcerned with what others will think of my personal health decision."

I was allowed regular coffee from the get go.. but was told to enjoy it in moderation.

I work in a mom&pop convenience store.. I'm the "mom"

Bariatric Advantage brand Multivitamin, puritain's pride brand Calcium citrate, puritain's pride brand probiotic and also puritain's pride brand salmon oil. Also I ALWAYS get my full Protein in ... I've been getting 70-90 grams of protein in since I was one week out and never have a problem in that department. I also lost hair when I had my gallbladder out. For some people it's just an aftereffect of the trauma of surgery.

I solved the problem by buying a multivitamin without Iron. Now I take my multi and my calcium with my meals.. then my iron before bedtime. I take Bariatric Advantage capsules.. no iron.

I went alone. Stayed in the hospital two days then hotel three days. My sister would have come with me if I wanted her to but I wanted to go by myself. I was GLAD I was alone so I didn't have to worry about anyone else being bored. I enjoyed just resting at the hotel and taking short walks. Also there are many other sleevers in the hospital and in the hotel to keep you company if that's what you want.

Prior to getting sleeved my only experience with surgery was having my festering rotten gangrene gallbladder removed. Because of the gangrene the surgery was complicated. For gallbladder surgery I couldn't even walk until day three... I was in the hospital for several days and I want to say they didn't even give me food until day four. When I woke up from VSG surgery I was like: "Seriously? This is all???" I got up and started walking right away and felt like I could have left the hospital on the first day. I didn't even feel pain... just.. "discomfort". Definitely NOT what I was expecting! I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop but it never did... Things just got better and better. My VSG surgery recovery was a cake walk. Glad yours is too!

Yup if I'm full to the gills I sneeze. For me sneezing is a sign that I should have stopped a bite ago. For others it is their queue that they are full. I'm almost five months out and been sneezing when overfull since I started pureed foods.

What form of Iron is it? Some tummies sleeved or not are very sensitive to iron supplements. I take ferochel chelated iron and it has been great for me. It is in capsule form but it's smaller than the acid reducer capsule so it's easy to swallow.

When I was three months out, I hadn't lost any hair.... I started losing it at four months.. one day, It just came out in fistfuls in the shower. The shedding episode lasted a few days and has been ok since. I'm HOPING this was the only hairloss I'll experience but my understanding is that months 4-6 are worst months for hairloss. I have extremely thin and fine hair so every strand is precious to me I take fish oil daily for health reasons and also my multi has the recommended dose of biotin for bariatric patients... but still the hairloss started.. not EVERYONE will lose hair... but don't breathe easy until you've passed month 6...

Yup, yup, yup, I often just click on something from "recent topics" and sometimes don't notice what sub-forum it's in.

I'm not terribly blessed in that department.. at 360 pounds I was a C cup.... at 247 I'm a B... and even though I "only" lost a cup size so far.. my boobs are completely deflated looking... Indeed they ARE breastcicles. So, when the time is right I'll fly to Tijuana and have them hoisted and stuffed.

I'm finding it MUCH easier to stick with a wheat-free diet since being sleeved. I'm intolerant to wheat and being wheat-free for me means, no joint pain and I'm off my thyroid medication now. Apparently, the inflammation has left the building!

Also my caloric intake is that of someone a bit further out... My sleeve has a larger capacity than most sleevers (long stomach) and I did 3.5 months of a VLCD prior to surgery so my body is already responding as if it was sleeved 3.5 months before it actually was.

When I was on purees I was getting 700-900 calories. Actually when I went to solid food my calories dipped a bit because solid food filled me up a LOT better than purees and I felt my restriction for the first time! I'm now four and a half months out and I'm targeting 1240 calories a day.... in practice I'm getting 900-1250 a day and I don't force myself to eat the 1240 if I I'm not hungry.

I still LOVE EVERYTHING about food... There is nothing I don't like now... but since surgery I LOVE Frank's Red Hot sauce. Used to be a bottle of that would last me years.. but went through a bottle in 6 weeks! Now I finally understand their tag line.

Yes I lost. My highest weight was 360 pounds. I scheduled surgery at 335 pounds and was sleeved at 290 pounds. For me losing weight prior to surgery had two benefits. First it put me at lower risk during surgery and second it helped me get my surgery for less money since there was an additional "high BMI" fee of I think $750.00..so that's $750.00 more I have to put toward plastics!

It's just temporary. Give it some time. I'm four and a half months out and I LOVE to grocery shop.. EVEN MORE THAN BEFORE.. Now I can buy the expensive items that I NEVER could afford before. I bought four ounces of 10 year aged extra sharp cheddar last week at $21.00 a pound. It was DELICIOUS! I also buy seafood and expensive cuts of meat, and AWESOME looking produce. I'm not just looking for things that will fill up my enormously large stomach anymore so I can focus on QUALITY rather than QUANTITY.

Growing up, the closest thing to a "sugar cereal" on our breakfast table the sugar on the raisins in the box of Kellog's Raisin Bran. I was a full grown adult before I realized that people actually eat Frosted Flakes in a bowl with milk.. For us Frosted Flakes was a "treat" that we could sometimes have sprinkled on ice cream or in our unsweetened yogurt but putting milk in sugared cereal was a sin next to murder. I might have been the only fat kid in America who got fat from OD'ing on Grapenuts.

Onderland posts NEVER GET OLD!!!!! Love it! Congratulations on reaching this milestone!

A doctor (not my surgeon but a member of the team) caught me bending over in the hospital scolded me a bit and told me NO BENDING or twisting around or lifting anything over 15 pounds for two weeks. It was HARD for to remember this because bending didn't cause pain for me.

Congrats! Next stop Twoderville! I hear you on being a slower loser. I still have a hundred pounds to go and I lost 6 pounds in July and 4 pounds in June.. That makes me a SLOW LOSER... Even if I lose only FIVE POUNDS a month from here on out, I will weigh 210 pounds on my one year surgiversary and 180 pounds by the 18 month mark. The beautiful thing about being sleeved is I don't feel like I'm being tortured. I don't MIND watching my calories or resisting Snacks because I'm satisfied with what I CAN eat. Because I don't feel like I'm being tortured, I don't mind that it might take a little longer than other people. Sure, I'd like to lose faster,who wouldn't?... but it's not the end of the world if I don't!