Miss Mac

During my pre-op phase, I was on a three-month supervised diet prior to ten days of liquids only. I did indeed use that time to wean off of soda and caffeine. I bought little plates and baby utensils, and practiced sipping Water and paced beverages and food. The hardest part was that I was doing with 100% of a stomach. However, eating Protein first and prioritizing veggies over mac and cheese and bread really helped. I lost 22 pounds pre-op and had established my new habits before I had my surgery. It can be done and I recommend it.

It was one of my favorite compliments. At six months out, I had to see a specialist that I had not seen since a couple of weeks pre-op. I was on the treatment table and the doctor looked at the nurse and said, "Are you sure we have the right patient on the table?" They rechecked my ID band and my chart and re-verified my name and birthday verbally. I had to show the doctor my incisions to convince him that I had surgery and lost over 60 pounds. It was my first NSV.

At 2 1/2 years out, my larger incision just looks like a mosquito bite, and the other three are not visible. You would not know if I did not tell you.

I had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease NFLD, with an enlarged liver, so a liquid pre-op regime was necessary for me. However, there have been a few folks here on the forum whose surgeons were comfortable with the standard surgical prep of limited food/beverage for one day or overnight just to clear the system.

I am 2 1/2 years post-op with a gastric sleeve. Several of your survey questions are redundant. Here is a link to my favorite thread on this forum. Instead of giving you maybe a dozen responses, it will give you 1, 309 reasons why we decided to follow through with bariatric intervention. http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/219831-what-was-your-final-straw-that-broke-the-camels-back/?hl=%20final%20%20straw

One thing you will find out about this forum is that opinions and tact will vary, but we mean well. I agree that the same as you would not give a newborn pizza and Pepsi, you should not give your new tummy edibles that it cannot handle. Give your tummy a name. Mine is "Miss Tummy" and at 2 1/2 years, she is still the boss of me. She wins the pain argument every time. It seems that you are the chief cook and bottle washer at your house. That means you are in control of the food shopping and the cooking. One of the best things you can do for your family and yourself, is to not buy anything made in a factory. Factory edibles are not the same as food. They just tell us that Pop-Tarts and Kraft Mac & cheese are food because they made it and now they have to sell it. You will need to train your adult common sense and post -surgical sense of self-preservation to take control over your taste buds. The whole idea of bariatric surgery is to increase our chances at longevity and to improve our quality of life. One result of bariatric surgery that many of us do not expect is that losing weight helps you to re-invent yourself and emboldens you to be more outspoken. Each time you do not give in to temptation, you become emotionally stronger. Hang in there......and give that new tummy some respect. You are the only gatekeeper it has while it is healing.

Per Comment 17 and the Blogspot: One BS alarm for me was the misrepresentation that no insurance pays for bariatric surgery and the expense for everyone is totally out of pocket. MOST insurance pays for a great part of the cost of surgery, if not all. In that regard, I got my sleeve for $150. By the way, I am 2 1/2 years out and far healthier and happier than I was with a 53" belly.

Sounds like he has a sense of humor and was trying to find a way to tell you that all of your efforts to get healthy appear to be paying off. I would take it as a compliment.

Cool Beans! That is even faster than mine. It was submitted on a Thursday afternoon and approved on Monday morning.

I absolutely agree. I only needed pain pills for two days after coming home, but I was flat exhausted until I got back on regular cooked foods at one month. If I were not retired at the time or had little ones to take care of, I could not have done it. My respect goes out to all of my bariatric brothers and sisters who have to get right back to their routine.

I tried drinking Water with a whisper of lemon in it, but it gives me acid. I love homemade lemonade, even though I use artificial sweetener, but I can't have more than a sip without getting acid. Bummer.

Mine went from 44D to 36B and are still holding their own....and I'm 64.

It sounds like your bariatric team let you down by not informing you better about your options and consequences. Well, you can't undo your sleeve, so you may as well hop on for the ride. The first month is tough. Not only are you healing, but your body which has been used to indulging itself, is now being told "no" or "let's find an option for that". Hopefully your surgeon gave you a meal plan to follow that will graduate you from liquids, to purees, to soft mushies, to regular cooked food. For many of us that takes four to six weeks. You will feel so much better when you start soft mushies and may start to get some energy back. The foods that you have to leave behind are the ones that really weren't food at all. Instead of nutrition for your mechanical human body that your soul lives in, you were probably eating mostly factory edibles made from highly processed ingredients. Now you can focus on what it takes to keep a human being alive. You will find that the human body does not need nearly as much food as we thought it did to thrive from day to day. As the pounds drop off, you will feel more encouraged that maybe you did do the right thing and will have a better quality of life because of it. Worry is a waste of time. Poo poo happens in this life, whether it is spraining an ankle or getting reflux, or something more tragic and heart-breaking. Hang in there kiddo. You have already made it through two weeks and lived to tell about. Keep coming here for encouragement. I wish you good luck and good health.

By the time I lost the first 30 pounds I could feel a difference in the pressure on my joints. Imagine wearing a two-month old colt for a belt. That is what 100 extra pounds feels like. Now imagine the relief on your back and your joints from taking that colt off your waist and putting it on the ground where it belongs. One of the reasons I had to get sleeved was because that 100 extra pounds was collapsing my spine. No regrets. I feel so much better and have much better range of motion.

Did they give you an IV while you were in the ER? When I had my surgery, I gained 12 pounds from the IV's.

A stroke at the age of 58. Here, this thread will open your eyes: http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/219831-what-was-your-final-straw-that-broke-the-camels-back/?hl=%20final%20%20straw

Is an omission of details the same as a lie????? ""It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Bill Clinton I also heard from the pulpit once that you don't have to lie......you just don't have to tell everything you know.

My sleeve improved my posture greatly and I gained back 1/2 inch that I had lost from leaning over. My 53" belly was very heavy. My unprofessional guess is that at 130 pounds down, maybe you have a heavy apron of skin bringing you down with gravity. If you are not considering a skin removal, maybe a girdle would help hold it up. Your posture is definitely worth mentioning. There are so many odd changes that happen to our bodies, but so much to look forward to.

Make sure it is cooked and moist. Many of us save raw foods and things with bits and bobs in it for three to six months post-op. Chew well. You don't want to get anything hung up on your staple line. Congratulations, and I wish you success.

Congratulations! That extra 100 pounds was like wearing a two-month-old colt for a belt. SparkPeople has this list of What Things Weigh: http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=3421351

If you are comfortable enough to talk about everything else, you can open up about your feelings. Just hold for that right moment to slip it into a conversation. It sounds like he really likes you, or else he wouldn't keep coming around. Good for you - you deserve to be happy - you have worked so hard to get where you are. Hugs.

Well, without knowing what program plans you were given by your bariatic team, all I can tell you is where I was at in that stage. All the way through my first four months, my limit was 1/3 cup plus two tablespoons. Early on, it was difficult to get even that much in. You will be surprised at how little food the human body needs to survive.

I used to be able to take opiod pain meds pre-op, but just can't handle them now. Because of chronic orthopedic and neuropathic issues, I need to take something to get through the day. Now, one hydrocodone or oxycodone makes me so sick to my stomach that I am dysfunctional for three days. There is no taking one every six hours as needed. I have been taking Lyrica for so long that it is as effective as Tic Tacs now - so I dropped it. I went back on it for a little while and gained ten pounds in twelve days, so I stopped it, too. Right now, I tough it out during the day because I am busy and my mind is occupied, but at night I use Lidocain Patches to ease the pain. Several years ago I had frozen shoulder. I was given Fentanyl patches to break the cycle of pain, but I totally lost three days of my life. I have NO idea what was happening or where I was. Fentanyl is 100 (that's one hundred) times stronger than morphine. Proceed with caution.

In January 2009, I tripped over my own foot and landed hard on my shoulder. It was sore beyond imagination and I could not even swipe my parking garage card at work. When I got to the orthopedist, he said that I had torn 3 of the 4 tendons in my rotator cuff. I ended up having arthroscopic surgery and was off work for two weeks and in a sling for six weeks. The worst of the pain was over at that point, but it took three months of physical therapy to get some range of motion back and a full year to get all of my range of motion back. I feel your pain and wish you a rapid recovery.

I get in trouble every time I tried to self-diagnose or get "Google-itis". A while back my left shoulder started hurting really bad in that "mosquito spot" that itches and you can't reach it no matter how you twist your arm. At first, I thought maybe I pulled a muscle from lifting weights so I started putting Ben-Gay on it, which made the pain horribly worse. Finally, I caved in and made an appointment with my doctor. He took one look at my shoulder and said "You have shingles!' Oh man, no wonder it hurt worse. I was putting Ben-Gay on araw rash just like Chicken-pox. He scolded me in a kind way and told me to just give him a call when something that I don't understand is happening. Hopefully you can find a resolution to your pain.