Butterflyhigh

I was sleeved seven years ago and have maintained my goal weight since then. I have been suffering greatly from severe GERD for several years with a dramatic increase in daily pain and discomfort for the past two years. Finally diagnosed with a Gastric Diverticulum. I’m seeing the GI specialist in a few weeks and am expecting they will schedule me for a laparoscopic resection surgery.
Anyone have any experience with this?
Is there a post-surgery diet to follow?
Did it eliminate or lesson your symptoms?

Thanks so much for any insight!

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Beautiful family. Amazing transformation!! What an incredible journey you've been been on. You're inspirational. I think your post/pics are the last little kick I need to start the weight lifting I've been imagining myself doing. Thank you for sharing.

Beautiful family. Amazing transformation!! What an incredible journey you've been been on. You're inspirational. I think your post/pics are the last little kick I need to start the weight lifting I've been imagining myself doing. Thank you for sharing.

I had my surgery 2 year ago in August. I was 320 lbs and couldn't run a half mile. I just competed in my first triathlon and have raced in 3 half marathons. I can't believe how far I have come.
I did this for my kids and now they want to compete in triathlons. I am a proud dad.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

S.w.250 c.w 165 s.d.9/24/14

Ill have to get a body comparison later but heres a headshot from before surgery and at about the 6 month mark with a weight loss of about 154lbs. Im currently at 174lb total loss as of my last weigh in

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

Before at about 220lbs.
After at 127 lbs.

This is a great reply post. Very very true. I was lurking around here for at least one year before surgery and I've taken stock of the same things you've observed about the difference in people.

I'll be subscribing to this thread. Thank you for bringing this up. I am pre surgery but I have an interesting prospective. I have been feeling a bit like an imposter my entire process for getting qualified for surgery. This, WLS, is supposed to be the like the last house on the block. We were supposed to have tried and failed miserably at the weight loss thing and never had any long term success at losing weight, but this has not been my exact story.
In 2005, I lost 140# without surgery. I discovered that I have a sensitivity to gluten and sugar and I stopped eating junk food. I didn't exercise but the weight literally fell off my body. I was lighter than I had been my entire adult life. I went from 320# to180# in about 8 months probably averaging about the same clip as a bypass patient I'm imagining. I had some feelings of euphoria, but mostly I felt like a live electrical wire. My comfy fat, my safe place to hide from the world was suddenly gone and I felt as if I was practically electrocuted if I would even brush by furniture too hard. I had trouble sleeping with the new sensations of my knees, ankles and toes rubbing together aching for their familiar cushion and I felt horribly uncomfortable if anything including clothes touched my newly discovered clavicles. I cried at random and inconvenient intervals. I stayed at this low weight for a VERY short time and hovered comfortably at 200 for many many years.
I was never prepared for and have never heard ppl taking about how to just be and reside in a body, newly formed and considerably smaller. How do we really listen and hear and feel in a body with new sensations and dimensions? How do we become like the normies I call them, those people who never ever gain weight while we constantly were ballooning up and dieting down the scale?
What were/are we to do with our one life outside of food? I know I have the tendency to want the newer, sexier, more interesting route to any destination, like success with even WLS can't just be about plain old (following the prescribed) diet and exercise, can it? I'm still wondering if the surgery is just the newest thing for me. I switched my surgical consideration from sleeve to bypass for this very reason. Because if I'm going to do it, I need to go old school. With me it had to be vegan, raw, paleo and Crossfit. Zero to sixty. Never just walking, always training for the half.
What happens when the proverbial dust settles and it's not about the food anymore and the weight is lost? When the life I thought weight loss or this surgery would fix is still going forward unchanged? Sitting in this empty space with myself without support and resources or a clue is what made maintenance so elusive and probably so for most people who've lost massive amounts of weight with or without surgery and gained it back. Will having had a glimpse of being thin for a while make me a better bariatric patient, more compliant? Perhaps, or maybe not but at this stage in the game I can't take anything for granted but these are the questions that are clearer in hindsight and that I need to formulate a plan for now on this side of surgery.

I am 4.5 months post-op and am just a few pounds away from reaching my goal of 23 BMI.
What were you told prior to surgery about life after surgery that was not entirely true or was not the entire story?
Nothing really. Life after surgery (so far) has been just what my Team said it would be.
What do you wish you had fully understood prior to surgery that you did not and what do you believe would have put you in the best possible position to succeed after surgery?
Even though I was prepared for the challenges of handling stress and emotional events without the ability to use my #1 coping method (eating), it was still incredibly hard in the beginning. I didn't realize how critical it would be to have healthy coping options.
What information, if any, was missing in the lead-up to your surgery that gave you unreasonable expectations or that led to disappointment in the months or years since surgery?
I would say that my surgeon was very honest about the risks vs benefits, realistic in his description of long term post-wls living, and did not try to oversell me on anything. The arena in which I have encountered the most 'cheerleading' has been the online bariatric forums.
Something I've noticed in real life and it is well represented here is that most people are okay with just knowing the basics. They don't go into a bunch of in-depth questioning or research and they don't display much self awareness. The responsibility to learn and become educated about anything truly falls upon the individual. If a person is considering WLS and they don't question the process, the diet, the expectations, the long-term lifestyle changes, their own psychology, the aftercare plan, etc. it is because the desire to fully understand (and consequently change themselves) is not in their nature. It's just not. That's not a bad thing...as my Mama says "It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round", but it is just the way it is. We're all so different.

The information is available to those who wish to learn it.

I am 4.5 months post-op and am just a few pounds away from reaching my goal of 23 BMI.
What were you told prior to surgery about life after surgery that was not entirely true or was not the entire story?
Nothing really. Life after surgery (so far) has been just what my Team said it would be.
What do you wish you had fully understood prior to surgery that you did not and what do you believe would have put you in the best possible position to succeed after surgery?
Even though I was prepared for the challenges of handling stress and emotional events without the ability to use my #1 coping method (eating), it was still incredibly hard in the beginning. I didn't realize how critical it would be to have healthy coping options.
What information, if any, was missing in the lead-up to your surgery that gave you unreasonable expectations or that led to disappointment in the months or years since surgery?
I would say that my surgeon was very honest about the risks vs benefits, realistic in his description of long term post-wls living, and did not try to oversell me on anything. The arena in which I have encountered the most 'cheerleading' has been the online bariatric forums.
Something I've noticed in real life and it is well represented here is that most people are okay with just knowing the basics. They don't go into a bunch of in-depth questioning or research and they don't display much self awareness. The responsibility to learn and become educated about anything truly falls upon the individual. If a person is considering WLS and they don't question the process, the diet, the expectations, the long-term lifestyle changes, their own psychology, the aftercare plan, etc. it is because the desire to fully understand (and consequently change themselves) is not in their nature. It's just not. That's not a bad thing...as my Mama says "It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round", but it is just the way it is. We're all so different.

The information is available to those who wish to learn it.

I am 4.5 months post-op and am just a few pounds away from reaching my goal of 23 BMI.
What were you told prior to surgery about life after surgery that was not entirely true or was not the entire story?
Nothing really. Life after surgery (so far) has been just what my Team said it would be.
What do you wish you had fully understood prior to surgery that you did not and what do you believe would have put you in the best possible position to succeed after surgery?
Even though I was prepared for the challenges of handling stress and emotional events without the ability to use my #1 coping method (eating), it was still incredibly hard in the beginning. I didn't realize how critical it would be to have healthy coping options.
What information, if any, was missing in the lead-up to your surgery that gave you unreasonable expectations or that led to disappointment in the months or years since surgery?
I would say that my surgeon was very honest about the risks vs benefits, realistic in his description of long term post-wls living, and did not try to oversell me on anything. The arena in which I have encountered the most 'cheerleading' has been the online bariatric forums.
Something I've noticed in real life and it is well represented here is that most people are okay with just knowing the basics. They don't go into a bunch of in-depth questioning or research and they don't display much self awareness. The responsibility to learn and become educated about anything truly falls upon the individual. If a person is considering WLS and they don't question the process, the diet, the expectations, the long-term lifestyle changes, their own psychology, the aftercare plan, etc. it is because the desire to fully understand (and consequently change themselves) is not in their nature. It's just not. That's not a bad thing...as my Mama says "It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round", but it is just the way it is. We're all so different.

The information is available to those who wish to learn it.

I am 4.5 months post-op and am just a few pounds away from reaching my goal of 23 BMI.
What were you told prior to surgery about life after surgery that was not entirely true or was not the entire story?
Nothing really. Life after surgery (so far) has been just what my Team said it would be.
What do you wish you had fully understood prior to surgery that you did not and what do you believe would have put you in the best possible position to succeed after surgery?
Even though I was prepared for the challenges of handling stress and emotional events without the ability to use my #1 coping method (eating), it was still incredibly hard in the beginning. I didn't realize how critical it would be to have healthy coping options.
What information, if any, was missing in the lead-up to your surgery that gave you unreasonable expectations or that led to disappointment in the months or years since surgery?
I would say that my surgeon was very honest about the risks vs benefits, realistic in his description of long term post-wls living, and did not try to oversell me on anything. The arena in which I have encountered the most 'cheerleading' has been the online bariatric forums.
Something I've noticed in real life and it is well represented here is that most people are okay with just knowing the basics. They don't go into a bunch of in-depth questioning or research and they don't display much self awareness. The responsibility to learn and become educated about anything truly falls upon the individual. If a person is considering WLS and they don't question the process, the diet, the expectations, the long-term lifestyle changes, their own psychology, the aftercare plan, etc. it is because the desire to fully understand (and consequently change themselves) is not in their nature. It's just not. That's not a bad thing...as my Mama says "It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round", but it is just the way it is. We're all so different.

The information is available to those who wish to learn it.

I am 4.5 months post-op and am just a few pounds away from reaching my goal of 23 BMI.
What were you told prior to surgery about life after surgery that was not entirely true or was not the entire story?
Nothing really. Life after surgery (so far) has been just what my Team said it would be.
What do you wish you had fully understood prior to surgery that you did not and what do you believe would have put you in the best possible position to succeed after surgery?
Even though I was prepared for the challenges of handling stress and emotional events without the ability to use my #1 coping method (eating), it was still incredibly hard in the beginning. I didn't realize how critical it would be to have healthy coping options.
What information, if any, was missing in the lead-up to your surgery that gave you unreasonable expectations or that led to disappointment in the months or years since surgery?
I would say that my surgeon was very honest about the risks vs benefits, realistic in his description of long term post-wls living, and did not try to oversell me on anything. The arena in which I have encountered the most 'cheerleading' has been the online bariatric forums.
Something I've noticed in real life and it is well represented here is that most people are okay with just knowing the basics. They don't go into a bunch of in-depth questioning or research and they don't display much self awareness. The responsibility to learn and become educated about anything truly falls upon the individual. If a person is considering WLS and they don't question the process, the diet, the expectations, the long-term lifestyle changes, their own psychology, the aftercare plan, etc. it is because the desire to fully understand (and consequently change themselves) is not in their nature. It's just not. That's not a bad thing...as my Mama says "It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round", but it is just the way it is. We're all so different.

The information is available to those who wish to learn it.