AvaFern

You look fantastic! You should have totally bought that bikini. Even if you only wear it around the house or in the privacy of your backyard or pool, you have done such a great job you deserve to enjoy a new bikini!

@@Shustar My surgeries were done by Dr. Ankit Desai in Jacksonville, FL. I'm a big fan of him and his office- really nice guy who does an awesome job. All of my procedures were multiples. The first was breast lift/ augment and abdominoplasty, the second was a thigh lift and brachioplasty, and the third was a redo of the thigh lift (I didn't like it, there was nothing clinically wrong with it, but my doctor did it a second time for free), and a posterior body lift with auto augmentation of the butt.

I've had Percocet three times after my plastics surgeries and as long as I took them with something like granola, crackers, (or yes, I ate cake once), then it seems to be ok. I don't get pain so much as nausea and I really avoid using them for more than a day or two because I get so totally blitzed on both Percocet and Tramadol. Do you have another surgery coming up? The Tramadol/Motrin cocktail is very effective for some people and may not bother your stomach like Oxycodone (Percocet) does.

I had a hiatal hernia repair done at the same time. You have one more incision and no more gastric reflux. In very crude terms, they just pull the part of your esophagus that is not supposed to be above your diaphragm back down to where it belongs in your abdominal cavity. I only started having reflux about 2 months before surgery and I haven't had it since. I also didn't notice anything different than I feel like I would have noticed if I only had the sleeve surgery done. Fixing the hiatal hernia is often part of the process for sleeve surgery and very routine.

I can eat an entire bagel, if I eat really slowly. It would probably take about 2 hours, but I could do it. My issue is less with it making me feel full and more with it making me sick. The Panera bagel you ate has a ton of sugar, which makes it very yummy, but my stomach hates sugar. I'd have gotten maybe 4-5 bites before I started puking. Now, a nice everything bagel with a little bit of cream cheese, oh I can polish half of that off in 20 minutes and feel quite content. I think that I stop eating after having half, not because I really recognize that I'm not hungry, but because I know that is the amount that "should" make me full. Also, I know if I eat more I'm going to get sick so I've been classically conditioned to stop eating before I feel full which tends to prevent yakking everything I just ate.

LMAO! Ha, ok that totally made me laugh. I feel like that all the time. People are like...what is your secret? I reply...oh I just workout more and eat less, when I'm really thinking, well I cut out 80% of my stomach because I couldn't manage to eat like a normal person. It's ok, we can be big fat phony failure liars together, I'm good with that, lol.

I know a lot depends on age, but what is your skin like, going down that many sizes? @@Goldy6575 My skin was bad. I had yo-yo dieted a lot so my skin was not terrifically cooperative about not being all stretched out. I ended up having 3 plastic surgeries, of which I had a breast lift/augment, abdominoplasty, thigh lift, posterior body lift with auto augment, and a brachioplasty. Sadly, I would never have fit into a size 0 without having the extra skin removed and the trade-off is scars, but I'm good with it.

I had all of my plastics procedures in the last 8 months and I am 31 years old. My first was a tummy tuck with breast lift and augment. Recovery was cake. I was walking 5 miles twice a day by day 10, which FYI I don't recommend because I ended up with a seroma. Easily fixed, but kind of annoying. I was fully back to the gym and running in 6 weeks. I was back to working 12 hour days at a desk on day 5, and about 8 hours on day 4. My second was thigh lift and brachioplasty. My thighs were minimally painful though a hassle the first two weeks to keep them dry and clean, and my arms had pain twinges for about 3 months, but I was back to my gym schedule in 6 week. Same work return- I was back to work full time at my desk (which is in my house, so not the same as actually driving to work) within 4-5 days. My third surgery was a posterior body lift with auto augment of the buttocks and a redo of my thighs. My thighs healed perfectly, my back has been an enormous pain in the butt. As of today I am two months post-op and while my original wound separation, which was resutured and then ripped apart again has almost healed, I ended up with a giant Staph infected abscess along the incision line at 6.5 weeks. I now have a truly enormous hole (ok the actual hole is only 2.5 inches at its widest- but it looks huge to me) that is over top of a 8-10 inch cavern in my back where all the Fluid had accumulated. I get the lovely job of packing my back, twice a day, for probably months or longer until it heals. Since I can literally stick my index finger in the hole and swish it around in a circle up to my knuckle, I can only imagine how long it will take to regenerate enough tissue in that area for it to heal. When I do finally heal I am likely going to have a whopping giant scar on my butt cheek. I have been walking 3-6 miles a day for the bulk of my recovery, excluding a few days around when I had to have the wound separation dealt with and when my abscess was cut open. Except for a few days where I was sick from my darling Staph infection, I worked full time the entire time. With the posterior body lift and augment, it is massively uncomfortable to sit on your butt for about a month, so that influenced my working as well. So...I've had 3 surgeries. Two were a breeze and the third one has been less than fun. None of them were really painful at all, just annoying in the limited range of motion. I would still do all of them all over again even knowing the complications that resulted. While I'm a bit ashamed of my scars, I look exponentially better with all of my extra skin gone...even with a giant gaping hole in the middle of my butt, lol.

I was a September 2013 sleever...it's a good month for surgery. Good luck!

Hahaha, ok I am having this same problem and I avoided posting about it because I figured it would annoy people. I fit into a 0,2, & 4 now in most brands for pants, but in most shirts, even the xs is a little loose on me, and it would totally not fit me at all if I didn't have boobs. I am also short, so finding things that are not way too long and need to be hemmed is sometimes difficult as well, especially since oddly the petite and regular sizes don't seem to match up. Lately I've had a hard time finding professional shirts because they just seem too loose on me and oddly enough, it seems like before when I really wanted an outfit, it was always too small and now I find the perfect dress or shirt or pair of pants and now they're too big. Funny how things work. By no means am I complaining, but I do understand where you are coming from.

I started at a much higher weight than you (237) but I had an almost 2 months stall at around the 165-170 mark. I'm 1 year and 8 months out from surgery and I only lost something like 33 pounds in the last year, 7 of which took 6 months. The sleeve isn't magic...it still takes time and consistency and a lot of effort to drop weight. At one point I was working out twice a day for almost 4 hours a day and the scale would barely move. Maybe consider increasing your exercise if you are able...that was the only thing that got me out of my big stall.

You are not alone- I thought I had ruined my life for the first 2-3 weeks after surgery. I had an unpleasant reaction to the anesthesia, so not only was I pukes-McGee for awhile, but I also had tingling in my arms and legs for almost a month afterward which really concerned me. I am now a year and 8 months out and I have a stomach that hates food. It likes to puke something up about once a day and while it universally hates butter, oil, anything fried, and almost everything sweet, periodically it also likes to barf vegetables, random meats, and food that it has never barfed before. When I eat sugar I get hot flashes, where my heart beats fast, my skin gets red, and I breathe fast. Every once in awhile I will eat something I shouldn't, like ceviche a few months ago, and spend a few hours on the floor barfing my brains out, but usually I eat, my stomach decides it is going to cooperate, and then I either go about my day or go barf, and then I feel fine. My sleeve is a total little B. I don't know anyone else, outside of those with leak complications, who has as picky of a stomach as I do, and I can say with 100% certainly that I have no regrets about sleeve surgery. Even with a sleeve that is downright evil some days, on the worst day I would still choose to have surgery. I love my little sleeve monster, and I feel comfortable saying that I think once you are past these first few weeks you will also begin to love your new stomach.

My hair fell out for probably 9-11 months. It finally started growing a little in January and I just got a hair cut where the ends of my hair is almost at the point where the new growth has come in. It feels much thicker and healthier now, thank goodness, I thought I would end up bald. Cutting your hair won't affect whether or not it falls out, but you will see less of it all over your floors and in your shower drain which may psychologically make you feel better. I noticed that my hair was much more noticeable as being thin when it was longer, but that may also just be in my head.

I was a self-pay patient so I didn't get to have any follow-up labs done after my sleeve procedure. I had a nutrition panel and a CBC done about a year ago where everything was fine, but last week I had my primary care doctor run a full panel of lab tests- CBC, thyroid, Vitamins, glucose, everything we could think of. I've never had issues with any results before the sleeve, but I eat a lot differently now than I did then and I was a little concerned that something may be off either nutritionally or with my thyroid. I received my full results today and everything is perfect. Almost all of my values are right in the middle of where they should be and they are all within normal limits. I feel relieved and validated given how so many people told me that getting bariatric surgery would lead to so many health problems and nutritional deficits. Looks like I'm not only now thin, but also healthy! I thought this may be helpful to anyone who may be considering the sleeve but wasn't sure about how easy it was to remain healthy in the distant future.

coffee isn't going to give you an ulcer. If I was in your position I would bring in a lot of recent literature and tell her she needs to work on her evidence based practice. The belief that coffee causes ulcers is an old one and no longer something that should be used to guide medical advice. Sometimes the best idea though is to smile, nod, and lie. If you don't want to get into a discussion with your NP about how she is wrong, just tell her you appreciated her advice and you're staying away from the coffee. Depending on the nurse or doctor, sometimes they get supremely offended and then decide to stick to their position even more irritatingly than in the past when you call them out on inaccurate advice. If she doesn't want to practice under modern guidelines, that isn't your problem. Drink your coffee...just don't tell her.

The dizzy feeling you're getting when you stand up from a seated position sounds like orthostatic hypotension. There are a lot of potential causes, some of which you didn't mention in your post and which are relatively easy to fix if they can be diagnosed. Hope you feel better! http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/orthostatic-hypotension/basics/causes/con-20031255

I was self-pay, so I had to go to a informational conference led by the hospital, which was on 8/22. I had two doctor's appointments, and one appointment with a nutritionist, and they rolled me into the ER on 9/9/13. If you're self pay it's fast, if you're insurance, it is a giant hassle.

Do you have any Phenergan? Your doctor may have prescribed it for nausea after your sleeve surgery. If you do, take some of that, you'll feel better. I am 1 year and 8 months out and the first time I had alcohol was at about 9 months and the second time was yesterday. I also feel nauseous, I took some Phenergan, and now I want a nap. You're probably just on an extended hangover since the alcohol moves a lot more quickly through your sleeve and into your small intestine than it does when you have a full stomach. Hope you feel better!

I've used depo for the past 10 years and haven't had an issue. Depo only causes an increase in appetite- it doesn't actually keep you from losing weight. I have been both thin and fat on depo and I am now at the thin end of the scale and I see no correlation between depo and my weight. As long as you're losing, you're on the right path! It took me a year and 7 months to hit goal and the last 6 months I lost a whopping total of 6 pounds. I was also stuck at around 170 for almost two months in the middle. Depo isn't the issue, it's just the process of losing weight with the sleeve.

I hate Water too, so I just drank flavored water, Propel, or the low calorie Gatorade. I think I lasted about a month before I switched back to drinking Diet Coke. Water is just so...blah. You can get creative though and infuse it with different fruit. I had watermelon and lemon in a gallon of water this week and it was pretty good.

I can appreciate this. I thought my sleeve surgeon was a total tool, but I really, really like my plastic surgeon. His entire office is awesome, but he is probably my favorite doctor ever. Fortunately, he's super young so not retiring anytime soon, but if he suddenly decided to stop practicing I would be really bummed. I plan to have him do my face lift in 10 years and all the botox and filler I need between now and then. I am sure though that you will be able to bond with your new doctor and you may not even need him that much now that you are so far out from surgery. I will think good thoughts for you.

@Evolving I am so sorry for your loss. I will keep you and your family in my thoughts. @stephh This will be my first challenge- thank-you for doing this! I am currently at 126 and my goal is 119.

I love spaghetti squash with marinara and zucchini with marinara when I use my vegetti to make veggie noodles. I haven't had more than one or two bites of Pasta since I had my sleeve so both of these options make me feel like I'm eating pasta (sort of). I tend to get full really quickly with both the squash and zucchini so remember to eat slowly. Even at over a year and a half out, the other day I ate my zucchini marinara too quickly and was puking 5 minutes later.

Woohoo! Good for you! I enjoy buying bathing suit tops since now that I have fake boobs I can wear all of the skimpy tops with no straps and the girls don't seem to fall out, sag, or move around at all. I still need to pre-approve all FB pictures though, lol.

I don't have these conditions, however Hashimoto's is a condition several people in my family have. When your immune system attacks your thyroid, it can't function as it should, which can lead to hypothyroidism, which could be why you have a difficult time losing weight. Pernicious anemia you can resolve with B-12 supplements and injections and hypothyroidism, is resolved with a little tiny pill that you take once a day. Neither of these conditions are something you should get upset over as they are both easily treatable and if anything if they can treat your thyroid condition, you may be able to lose weight naturally without having to have a sleeve. My understanding is that most doctors want to fix these kinds of conditions before approving a sleeve surgery especially since pernicious anemia can actually result after the sleeve and you are already predisposed to it. I didn't take a B12 supplement for the first year after surgery and I ended up getting quite anemic, however an Iron supplement and a B12 supplement fixed me up and within a few weeks I was fine. Good luck with your sleeve process!