AvaFern

@@MichiganChic You make a great point about the potential issues with healing. Like you, I have a background in the medical field so the fact that recently the entire medial part of my posterior body lift ripped itself open and left me a 6 inch hole in my back hasn't really freaked me out like it would have if I hadn't had plenty of experience dealing with wound care on others. Logically I recognize that I'm not diabetic and I have no other health issues so it has to heal eventually and that since I'm getting new sutures next week, that will expedite the process, but between my new hole, a seroma after the tummy tuck, pulling my drains only to have one drain hole spew out exponentially more than it ever did with the drain in it for over a week, and the other lovely disgusting things you go through after surgery, had I not been comfortable with wound care, I would have found the experience far more unpleasant. Plastics are awesome and I was lucky that I recovered easily after all of them. The first week was the worst because you are uncomfortable and feel like you can't really move very well and then after that it is mostly just a process of things getting better everyday. For me, it was worth the tens of thousands of dollars and the scars, but it is something that requires a bit of thought before going into major body contouring procedures.

Fantastic! What an awesome NSV!

I would call them back and demand to speak to the surgeon directly. If they did not tell you the weight loss goal was mandatory then they cannot hold you to that requirement. Explain to him that you will be having the surgery on the originally scheduled date or you will be filing a complaint against him with your insurance as well as in multiple forums online. Doctors don't generally have patients who challenge them and when they do, usually they readily fall in line. You are the patient, not the pinball. Tell them you had planned your life around the original surgery date, rescheduling it is absolutely unacceptable and you will not be going away until they have resolved the situation in a manner you find to be acceptable. A lot of surgeons tend to be bullies because very few people challenge them...be the bigger bully and you will inevitably win.

I like using those little peppers as my new stuffed peppers. I take ground turkey and cook it with marinara then stuff it into the peppers like you would a normal size bell pepper. I put a half a strip of cheddar cheese over the top, bake it, and voila- sleeve stomach sized stuffed peppers!

Don't worry, your boobs aren't getting bigger. I am a 34DDD which is the same thing as a 36DD and a 38D in the actual cup sizes. I was a 36DDD when I was at my largest and I dropped to a 34DDD after plastic surgery. Even though the DDD part is the same, the physical cup on the 36DDD is bigger than on the 34DDD. Also, sometimes if they are out of a style I want, or they don't carry it in a DDD, I can go up to the 36DD, which tends to be a little loose in the band, but the cups fit perfectly.

If you are within childbearing years, maybe consider depo? I know you mention you've had issues in the past, but completely stopping the bleeding seems to be an optimal solution at the moment. It completely stops your periods and you can stop taking it a year or so after your sleeve when you don't have as many bleeding concerns. I've been on depo for most of my adult life and I never have a time of the month- which is good since I have to take both B12 and an Iron supplement to avoid anemia as it is. Just something to consider...

I went through a phase for a few months where for some reason everything I ate made me barf. With experimentation I realized that first, some foods my sleeve does not like...butter, sugar, milk fat, oil...and if any of my food is cooked in that it is pretty much an instant barf. Dry chicken makes me barf too, even if it is completely plain. I also found that I was eating too much, too fast. I am way further out than you and my issue didn't start until about a year after surgery. Now I am really careful to only eat the things that my stomach has approved of and I have tried to slow down a lot. I don't have the issue anywhere as often as I used to. But...you have a doctor for a reason and your insurance should cover the visit? Why not let him know about it and see what he thinks? Can't hurt and you might feel better with the opinion of a professional.

I am 1 year and 7 months out and up until yesterday I have had less than 5 shakes the whole time. They are so disgusting tasting to me. If, however, you would like to drink them, there isn't anything wrong with that and like someone else said it gives you a nice jump on your Protein. I have found recently that if I drink a blended version where I add in Protein powder, almond milk, greek yogurt, and PB2 or any variety of flavors you enjoy, it tastes a lot like a milkshake, the calories can be quite low, it is portable, and the protein can be epic compared to trying to eat the same amount.

Thank-you everyone! I didn't see any notifications posted about this thread for awhile and I just checked on it now. Appreciate all of your replies!

You are not being vain. To start off with, at 270 you may not have medical issues right now, but you will in the future. If you can avoid ever having to go through unhealthy comorbidities in the future, why not do so? I did not have any healthy issues and at my pre-surgery weight of 237 I was well into the morbid obesity phase. All through my teens and twenties I gained and lost weight, usually 50-80 pounds at a time, so I wasn't fat or thin for extended periods which is why I likely didn't have any major health issues. I chose to get the surgery because I was tired of having to always be on a diet, always feel like I was starving, and never feel like I really had any control over my weight. Also, because I like being thin and this seemed like an excellent way to get back to being a "normal" size. If you have surgery, any kind of surgery, because it makes you feel healthier, happier, or more confident in your own skin, then more power to you. There is nothing wrong with being a little vain, although in the incidence of the sleeve, I really don't think you can call it that by any stretch of the word.

I used to like both chicken and tuna salad and now they taste gross to me too. I also used to have a huge sweet tooth and now I tend to crave salty Snacks more than sugary ones. I notice that my tastes did change after surgery, but for the most part it has been a good thing because now if I'm hungry, I don't eat the junk that I used to really like. Eventually you will find new things you really enjoy and not liking your old foods won't feel like a loss.

@@Babbs Thank-you for your concern. I figure as long as I am within the healthy weight range for my height (I'm short at 5'2-5'3ish) then I'm ok with being a little obsessive about the number. I tend to be very all or nothing, so as long as I have a goal, I won't slack off, whereas I have never been good at maintaining. I think 119 is a healthy number for my height and while I'm not sure if I will be happy when I get there, I figure I will worry about it then.

I understand the position you're in. I hit a huge stall at around 168 and then around 155 and at 155 I was mostly ok with my size. I felt strong, I ran fast, I was healthy, and I wasn't sure if I really needed to lose more weight. It was then I started my plastic surgery procedures and I dropped a few more pounds from losing muscle when I couldn't work out. I am very numbers oriented. I knew I would not be really happy if I didn't hit the first goal I set for myself, which was 129. I am also a little shallow and I know that at 129 there is no one who can look at me and tell me I need to lose weight. Even the cruelest person cannot legitimately call me fat at 129. I just continued what I was doing- working out, watching calories, and eventually I hit goal at the first of this month. So now my goal is 119 which was my goal when I was younger and of course, no one can call me fat at 119. I think that there is sometimes a bit of a danger in getting caught up in numbers. I have read your posts and enjoy the thoughts you give to other people and something I have noticed is that you always comment about how strong you feel, how you feel really in shape, and how you get all your Protein. Maybe a good idea for you to try is to really re-orient yourself to your "diet" but do so because it fuels you as opposed to because it might get you to the 155 or 165 number that you're looking for. It can't hurt to cut out any junk food that may be slipping in and if you focus on a major fitness goal, like your 5K and continuing to workout and eat right because it makes you feel good as opposed to because you might drop more weight, you might be happy with the results. It seems likely as a byproduct of that, you will lose weight, but you will be doing it for reasons that matter far more to you than a number on a scale.

Woohoo! Good job! Hope you had a great time (minus that little hiccup you posted about last week)!

I was given Percocet after surgery and I used them for 3 days, mostly because it keeps you from tensing up and delaying healing. I didn't need them after the third day. There is no reason to decrease your Water intake. The doctor may have suggested that to help minimize swelling, but given that you probably don't drink as much water as a regular person, there is no medically valid reason to tell a post plastics surgery patient to reduce Fluid intake right after surgery. If anything, drinking more will help you flush the toxins out of your system and help minimize your chances of a UTI, since they use a catheter during that procedure. I naturally drink less immediately after surgery because I feel like crap, and I ended up with a wicked UTI once. Drink your water! Hope you have a swift and easy recovery!

I drink diet Pepsi everyday and I have since probably 2 months post-op. I really doubt it is going to hurt your sleeve, but I wasn't sure how the caffeine (which does Sprite have that?) would affect my stomach. I would personally wait a month or so yet, then enjoy all the diet Sprite (not the real stuff!) that you want. Once your stomach is healed it will not hurt you and they mostly discourage you from drinking soda because they don't want people drinking all of their calories in Coke. Diet soda isn't healthy, but strictly in terms of this surgery, it's not going to hurt you. Your stomach isn't a closed system, so after your sleeve has heeled, all of the fizzing will just make you burp, it won't stretch your sleeve. I am 1 year and 7 months out, still have major constriction, and disregarded the soda rule, so that would be what my advise is based on.

@@Miss Meg I am possibly the last person to ask about Protein, lol. I have read most people try to get in 60 grams a day at the minimum, but I tend to average closer to 30-40g and I did for the entirety of my time post-op. I use MyFitnessPal and it adds up all of my protein for me when I enter in foods. I did get 93g today though! Which is probably the first time ever having that much since I got my sleeve, but for 1193 calories and that much protein, I was kinda proud of myself.

I would say your feelings are normal. I had briefly considered lapband about a year before I had the sleeve, although I dismissed it as probably being too expensive since I had to pay out of pocket. I also had this idiot boyfriend a few years ago who had said to me "if I could give you the money for lapband, I would totally pay for your surgery". I wasn't even fat enough to qualify for it then! When I did research the sleeve, as a byproduct of looking at lapband again, I went to the training session where the doctors talk to interested people, and 3 weeks later I was in the OR. I didn't give myself time to change my mind. As for the long lasting effects you are worried about, well, I drink with every meal and I drink diet soda every day. I am doing just fine. Those are more suggestions than requirements. You shouldn't drink with meals because it washes your food down faster so you may eat more, which if you're paying attention to portions shouldn't be an issue. They advise against soda in the long term because they don't want you getting your calories from it. Short term I avoided soda because I didn't want the caffeine and fizz to mess up my sutures, but two months out, I was right back to my diet pepsi habit. In terms of nausea, I am someone who is unlucky in the sense that I get dumping syndrome and a whole lot of foods make me barf. If you average out the times I have puked, it is probably at least 3 times a week since I've had the sleeve. I can't go out to dinner and eat anything I'm not familiar with because it literally comes spewing right back up my throat (cute, right?). I can't eat sugar often because for some reason it makes my heart beat fast, gives me a hot flash, and makes my skin red. All of that being said, I would still get the sleeve again everyday, and most of my puking and dumping symptoms are very rare. Only you can make the decision for you, but I have not regretted my choice at all.

I try to eat vegetables, but fruits tend to make me sick. My sleeve doesn't like sugar of any form. If you are two months out, how much you can eat is dictated by how you feel. I try to incorporate vegetables into meals, so I'm not sure how much I can actually eat and I didn't eat a ton of veggies when I was close to where you are now just after surgery, so I don't have that perspective either. You can eat any fruits and vegetables you want at this point, so experiment with what you like and you should be able to find what works best for you in no time.

In the vast majority of cases a leak is only a concern the first few weeks after surgery. That being said though, there is a lovely woman on here who had a leak several months after surgery and then something like over a year after surgery, so I hesitate to say that you only have to worry about it immediately or if you do anything crazy with your sleeve. My understanding is she did nothing wrong and had a major leak twice, neither of which was right after surgery. I stopped worrying about a leak at about two months. At that point you should be healed enough that there shouldn't be an issue with any leaks and if your surgeon, like mine, has never once had a leak, it is likely something that you shouldn't trouble your pretty little head over at all (at least that's what I told myself!). Also, keep in mind, you probably can't find research on 20, 30, 40 years in the future because this is a procedure that has no data from those time periods because the surgery is new. Strictly speaking the way our body heals, there should not be a chance of a leak in the future, however that is part of the risk of having a surgery that there isn't decades of data available for. Could in theory we bust open our stomachs 30 years in the future? Sure I suppose so, but it would really take a major break in the way our bodies work and our understanding of healing for that to happen, so I am confident that the chance of a problem far into the future is really slim to none.

I am not quite sure how the band works compared to the sleeve in the sense that I thought you have a port. Is that visible to someone looking? If so then I would say the only time where you may need to tell him is if you all are getting naked with the lights on. I am a sleeve patient and I've had an abdominoplasty, so there is no visual evidence of the procedure I have had and I will never tell anyone that I have had it done. My three best friends know and that is it. Everyone has secrets and it is ok to not share literally everything about you with someone you are dating. I may change my perspective on this if I am ever in a seriously long term relationship, but right now my thoughts are that it is no one's business but mine. I don't think you should tell him to make him feel at ease. If he is insecure, that is his problem and not something you need to try to correct by telling him personal information. If you want to tell him for your sake, then go for it, but simply to make him feel less insecure at this early stage of the relationship does not sound optimal to me. I will be honest- I don't date men who share how insecure they are in themselves very early on in the relationship because I know it will create issues later. You gotta love yourself before someone else can love you and if you are just starting to see him and you already feel you need to make disclosures that are very personal so that he can feel comfortable, I don't feel like if I was in this situation I would be good with that. Tell him to man up and stop whining- his insecurity is in no way your problem or your issue to fix.

For anyone who happens to read my posts, you might know that I am not great at getting in Protein and I hate Protein shakes. It has been 1 year and 7 months since my surgery and I have had less than 4 protein shakes in the entirety of that time. They are, in my opinion, so gross tasting and I would rather just eat a few pieces of chicken than slurp down chalky tasting milk. Also, milk and sugar tend to make me sick so that was another part of my rationale. I decided this week that while I am at goal, I would like to drop 10 more pounds, which would put me at the goal I set when I was younger. I keep reading everyone's post about how they always eat protein first, which I don't do, I eat whatever tastes good first, which is usually something with carbs. So, I decided I would make a conscious effort for the next few weeks to put protein first, which started with trying to make a protein shake/ smoothie that didn't make me sick and didn't taste disgusting. Below is what I came up with: 12oz Almond Milk 1 container Yoplait Whips Yogurt Cupcake flavor 1/2 tablespoon raw organic honey 2tbs PB2 1 packet Body Key vanilla Protein powder Total: 465 calories, 31g protein (makes a HUGE cup, so if you try it, you will probably only drink 1/2-2/3 which makes the calories a bit better) I froze half the almond milk the night before and the container of yogurt so I wouldn't need to use ice. I mixed the other half of the milk with the protein powder and PB2 in the blender first, then I blended in the frozen milk and yogurt. I got some organic raw honey the other day for something else so I tossed that in, but in the future it mostly adds calories more than flavor so I would probably leave it out. I also like vanilla almond milk just to drink, but in the future I would probably use the non-flavored version which drops it from 135 calories in almond milk to about 65. A frozen banana would probably also be good to add. In the end, I have a giant cup that tastes like a cake batter flavored milkshake. It is ridiculously good and really filling, so I only ended up drinking about half before I was full. Ideally in the future I can modify it a little so I don't end up with so much leftover. So, since I have read a lot of Protein shake recipes hoping I would find one I like, I thought I'd share. Happy Sunday Everyone!

I am a dumper too, although I don't have as much of an issue with food coming out the number two side and more that it comes right back out my mouth. If you're eating all healthy food, it's odd that you are having an issue with dumping. I find that the true dumping I experience only happens with sugar and sometimes fats, whereas the puking version, which doesn't usually include the increased heart rate, flushed skin, and hot flashes, happens when I either eat too much too quickly or I eat something that has been fried in some way. If you have only been eating really healthy for a few days, maybe this is just your system cleaning you out. Kind of like when you go on a juice diet or a really healthy low carb diet and whoosh, you spend half the day in the bathroom until your body has cleaned out all the junk. If though it continues to persist, I would let your doctor know and ask his thoughts.

So, not to be critical at all, but phentermine is not really the way to long term weight loss. I tried it, I felt like a crackhead because it made me so jittery and I lost weight, however as soon as I stopped taking it, the weight came right back. If you've recently gained weight, how many calories were you eating then? If you were at say, 2000, why not drop your calories back to 1700 for a week or two, then to 1500, instead of all the way down to 1000-1200? Not only will this make it a gradual process to go back to fewer calories and you will feel less deprived, but you may end up losing weight if you eat a bit more, granted if that eating a bit more includes healthy food. My entire life I have been on one crash diet after another. I have starved myself anywhere from 20 pounds down to 90 pounds down, however the thing I liked about the sleeve is that I knew it was going to take time so I wasn't as freaked out furious when I got on the scale and the number didn't move downward everyday. As long as I watched my calories and I exercised, I knew I would eventually get to where I was going. Phentermine and 1000 calorie diets are not the key to long term weight loss and maintenance if you are over two years out from surgery. Again, I am totally not being critical because I have seriously done every diet in the entire world (grapefruit, cabbage, cookie diet anyone?), but if you are able to approach it from a more moderate take instead of trying to knock out your 30 pound gain quickly, it seems more likely that you will find yourself less upset about stalls, you will be healthier without the phentermine and not be at risk for the quick gain often associated with stopping that drug, and you might find that it takes twice as long to lose, but it stays off for twice as long too. Good luck!

I started in a tight 18, which was the biggest size I had and I refused to buy any bigger. I am now in a variety of sizes, lol. In shirts I am an extra small or small. In running tights I am a medium in Nike and Under Armour, but a small that is kind of loose in most other brands. In dresses, good gosh, I run anywhere from a 2 to an 8. My most recent happiness is that I can squeeze into a size 2 in American Eagle pair of jeans and the 4's fit me comfortably. In an ideal world I would like to lose 10 more pounds and squeeze my butt into a size 0 in those jeans. I don't really care if that size 0 is absolutely busting at the seams, but it would be something I would be proud of.