WildGrits

I agree. No matter how much mental preparation i try to give myself pre -op, i know that theres so much i cant comprehend emotionally and mentally until im faced with it. Yes saggy skin does frighten me...but if this surgery will give me better health and more energy than i dont care. All my life ive been tucking my fat into slimming shapeware anyway. Working out alot with wieghts minimizes loose skin..ive seen many wls patients do it, so thats an option. I just want to be here for my kids as long as i can. Im unhappy abt my wieght but i love my life now. And i think so many ppl go into wls thinking it will change how they feel abt their life. Its been two years since i left an abusive relationship (physical,emotional, mental). This wls is a step in getting my life back and living my life for me and my kids. Its so important to love urself and be ur own cheerleader. Ur saggy skin doesnt define u, nor do wrinkles or other physical aspects we r so hard on ourselves abt. Remember their is a beating loving heart inside u. Be proud of everything u are.

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You are far from alone. For me the Roux en Y was the first step for me. I knew I was going to need PS before I was complete. When I told my mom I was have surgery, that was her only thing she went to was her worry about all the skin.
My arms are fine enough for me not to play with. My thighs could use some exercise but the "National Geographic" boobs and the incredible amount of skin on my belly have got to go. I am the oldest of 4 girls and the mom of two. We all are over DDD size. It's part of my identity. Although at a size 34 being that big would be silly to me, I cannot be under a DD.
I have had decent success with the neck and chin sag with Avon products.
For me, I was 135 at 20 years old. In my head somehow I must have thought that once I lost the weight I would be 20 again. Surprisingly I am not.
But I definitely understand where your coming from.

I found the easiest meals to eat while still healing were extremely wet. If I had chicken I found that rotisserie chicken went down pretty well. Pork was the hardest because it is so lean. For pork I used the crock pot.
So my meal would consist of my meat, mushy frozen veggies and mashed potatoes. I was never a fan of mashed potatoes until I had my surgery.
It's been awhile since my surgery so I don't remember measurements. But try to eat your meats first.

Subscribing to thread since I'm almost at goal weight.

If you have lost 75% of your goal in one year then I only have one thing to say to you.
AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are a lot of reasons people are mean to folks after weight loss surgery.
One main thing I hear over and over comes down to one thing.
People hate change.
In their mind we have broken some unwritten contract and they are mad. We were the fat one. This is especially true for us who were the biggest in the group. They can eat their cake with out guilt cause they might gain weight but they will never let themselves get fat like WildGrits.
And then you change the game and all of a sudden they say mean things. I loved how some people said things like I'm full of myself. Well I have always been full of myself. I'm a snarky lil firecracker and always have been.
You were wise to distance yourself from others people and their chaos. That must have been very hard. Good for you for putting your needs where they belong, the priority.
I'm not big on support groups. But I am in a Facebook group which was a big help. Maybe you could start a new one. I would invite u to ours but its people who had surgery the same time I did and has become pretty quiet.

I take a Vitamin supp patch. IT's 25$. That's all for me.

If you have hit a point in your life where you are sick and tired of your diminishing health. You realize what you have tried has not given you the results you want. Well then you are ready for a change.
Is this change the change for you? Only you can answer that. This is not the easy route. But it is a life changer.
Any questions feel free to ask. People here try to be honest. But remember this is your journey, not theirs.

The RNY surgery is a seriously extensive surgery. You will be healing for about a year. If you are having problems getting fluids down, try sugar free popsicles.
Your whole abdomen is inflamed. One of the biggest mistakes people don't even realize they are making is that you have to SLOW DOWN your drinking. You cannot drink like before.
Another thing that causes pain, very bad pain, is the pain meds.
Did you go home with a script for liquid meds?
Guess what is in that:
In addition the following inactive ingredients are present: anhydrous citric acid, artificial cherry flavor, FD&C Blue #1, FD&C Yellow #6, high fructose corn syrup, methylparaben, polyethylene glycol, propylparaben, purified Water, saccharin sodium, and sodium citrate.
Do you see it?
If you are going to continue with pain meds, switch to regular strength Tylenol, crush it and put it in yogurt or applesauce. Yeah it's gonna taste terrible but no more of that crazy side and back pain you get from the liquid solution.
Keep on hand or sugar free popsicles, Gas X, and Tylenol.

I was 44 when I had mine. My coworker was 60. Your never too old. Just keep in mind that you need to focus on your fluids and Proteins in order to heal well.

I had my bypass in September last year at the age of 44. It's never too late to start on this journey. I feel better than I've ever felt in my life!!
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Starting in December I have been battling fatigue, headaches, and dizziness. A few bouts of hypoglycemia and now I have a glucose meter for the first time in my life.
I am not going to lie to you or myself. I know what happened. Cookies, subs, pizza, carbs/starches have crept into my diet. I don't gain weight but I have made myself extremely unhealthy. I told myself I could live a little and go back to behaving after the first of the year.
So now I sit here with no energy, past my goal weight loss and not able to walk the 4 miles I was walking before this started.
One thing I have learned is it is easier to diet than it is to maintain.
But today I am getting real with myself and gonna be more accountable for my actions. If you are going through this, really look at your behaviors.

Starting in December I have been battling fatigue, headaches, and dizziness. A few bouts of hypoglycemia and now I have a glucose meter for the first time in my life.
I am not going to lie to you or myself. I know what happened. Cookies, subs, pizza, carbs/starches have crept into my diet. I don't gain weight but I have made myself extremely unhealthy. I told myself I could live a little and go back to behaving after the first of the year.
So now I sit here with no energy, past my goal weight loss and not able to walk the 4 miles I was walking before this started.
One thing I have learned is it is easier to diet than it is to maintain.
But today I am getting real with myself and gonna be more accountable for my actions. If you are going through this, really look at your behaviors.

If you feel the cold now and didn't before, it's not from just fat loss. It's from brown fat loss.
It sits like a huge collar around your neck and collar bone and shoulder blades.
So if you have a boney neck and shoulders, then you are more apt to be cold because brown fat is the insulation in us.
Scientists are only now just beginning to understand what the functions of brown fat are. From what we can tell so far, main differences between the two are:
White fat is the result of storing excess calories. When we consume too many calories, the body converts them into a contingency energy reserve in the form of white fat. Brown fat generates heat by burning calories. When it is cold, brown fat's lipid reserves are depleted, and its color gets darker.

If you feel the cold now and didn't before, it's not from just fat loss. It's from brown fat loss.
It sits like a huge collar around your neck and collar bone and shoulder blades.
So if you have a boney neck and shoulders, then you are more apt to be cold because brown fat is the insulation in us.
Scientists are only now just beginning to understand what the functions of brown fat are. From what we can tell so far, main differences between the two are:
White fat is the result of storing excess calories. When we consume too many calories, the body converts them into a contingency energy reserve in the form of white fat. Brown fat generates heat by burning calories. When it is cold, brown fat's lipid reserves are depleted, and its color gets darker.

Starting in December I have been battling fatigue, headaches, and dizziness. A few bouts of hypoglycemia and now I have a glucose meter for the first time in my life.
I am not going to lie to you or myself. I know what happened. Cookies, subs, pizza, carbs/starches have crept into my diet. I don't gain weight but I have made myself extremely unhealthy. I told myself I could live a little and go back to behaving after the first of the year.
So now I sit here with no energy, past my goal weight loss and not able to walk the 4 miles I was walking before this started.
One thing I have learned is it is easier to diet than it is to maintain.
But today I am getting real with myself and gonna be more accountable for my actions. If you are going through this, really look at your behaviors.

I was surprised to find this thread is so current while I was searching Reactive hypoglycemia post–gastric bypass. I was having a few sugar drops recently so my GP had me do a two hour glucose test.
My two hour blood draw was 36.
To me the scariest thing was that the week before I had two incidents in one day where the room started to spin and I was sweating profusely. After driving myself home from my blood work I entered my kitchen and then the symptoms kicked in. So how low could I be getting before symptoms? I would have never driven if I had known I was that low.
Tomorrow I go to an Endocrinologist. I have never been a diabetic so I am not very happy with this new issue.

If you think you are moving slow, reach out to others who are a few months ahead of you and read about their experiences. It really helps put things in perspective. Only do this with people who have had the same surgery as you because there is incredible differences in what each one does.
My surgeon explained it this way, "The Roux en Y is an extremely invasive surgery, just under heart surgery. It will take an extended amount of time for the body to heal."
That being said, the first few months you will lose weight but a few things work as factors. You have a lots of tissue in the body that is trying to heal now. It will be swollen during this time. If you take certain meds or have diabetes, it will take longer for the body to repair the damage.
A helpful thing to do is make sure you take full body measurements. During those plateaus I found I was actually experiencing my skin shrink in. So when you feel discouraged it is good to not just rely on the scale but to have other ways to check your progress.

I totally agree
Gas from eating to quickly is so common for me. I find there are certain times I just eat way too fast. Mostly dinner cause I have hard dining room chairs and I no longer have any padding on my butt so I find myself rushing to get out of that chair.
Another thing that became hard was low fat food. They are just too dry for me to get down no matter how hard I try. I have to make sure they have a sauce on them. Pork is a no go for me now.

1 week post op today. I am feeling better each day. Last week I really thought a made a big mistake!!! My surgery lasted almost 4 hours. I had alot of scar tissue from previous surgeries. I think I will live now!!! Down 14 lbs.

@@WildGrits
I had to chuckle at your comment regarding the loss of padding. I literally have no behind left at all and unless I am sitting on a coccyx pillow I am extremely uncomfortable.
I just bought a second pillow for my car.
I have stopped eating at the table because of it as well which I know is bad but I figure I have worked hard to eat slowly and my pouch will give me hell if I do.
I had heard that your body will readjust but I am 14 months post op and it only gets worse.
I have learned to sit with 1 leg under me or I try to sit on one side of my rear.

I can not get myself to slow way down when I eat, therefore I'm constantly gassy and uncomfortable. Unfortunately I only remember to slow when when it too late!

I totally agree
Gas from eating to quickly is so common for me. I find there are certain times I just eat way too fast. Mostly dinner cause I have hard dining room chairs and I no longer have any padding on my butt so I find myself rushing to get out of that chair.
Another thing that became hard was low fat food. They are just too dry for me to get down no matter how hard I try. I have to make sure they have a sauce on them. Pork is a no go for me now.

@@Dallas Powell
I am going to make a post, you may well not like. Call it tough love. It consists of two parts, first. Stop eating more than 800 calories a day. Man the fuck up, and just stop. I eat 600-800 calories a day and am never full, I do get satiated from time to time, but I find ways to distract myself, take a long ass walk. Like 2 hours long, you can't eat if you are an hour away from home in some park.
CONTINUE EATING AS YOU ARE AND YOU WILL DIE.
Part two. Run, better yet, drive, and drive quickly to the hospital that performed your surgery, and refuse to leave until they have solved this problem. It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to eat 3 lean cuisines with a 4 oz pouch. There are really two possibilities, first, a Fistula, secondly the opening from the pouch to your intestine if that junction is too large (it should be roughly 1/2 the diameter of a dime at this stage) you lose the restrictive portion of the surgery. Then, it becomes possible to eat as you have been because the food does not even slow down in your pouch, it just slides right through and you won't feel satiated until you have filled your entire roux limb AND pouch.(and I am not going to do the math but if you have a standard Roux limb it is 150cm long so think of how much food it takes to pack 150cm of garden hose and you get an idea of the volume of food you COULD stuff into yourself) Either of these is a borked surgery that, and I am going to bold this;
YOU PAID FOR. YOU ARE A CUSTOMER. YOUR SURGERY WAS NOT COMPLETED PROPERLY, REFUSE TO LEAVE THE HOSPITAL UNTIL THIS IS FIXED.
I'm not an asshole, but you have to understand the customer, salesman relationship. You or at least your insurance paid for a service that is defective. Pack a bag and head back to the hospital. Under no circumstances leave until this issue is resolved. Look up the hospitals resources. Call them. Dispute your discharge, just about every hospital has Q A people you can call.
NO EXCUSES, NO COME TO MY OFFICE, NO LET’S MAKE AN APPOINTMENT, FIX THIS AND FUCKING FIX IT NOW, OR YOU ARE LEAVING ME NO CHOICE BUT TO SEEK LEGAL REMEDY.
Sorry for all the cursing, but this has gone on long enough. We cannot help you, only your surgeon can. He already admitted a 'problem' making your pouch, We'll if he has to go back in and unfuck his mistake, that is on him. We have done all we can do, anything more in this post is speculation, you need medical care, and now.
Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

The pain you have under your left rib is your stomach, sounds like you are stuffing in too much food and yes that will cause pain. What happens when you eat half a cup of food? What do you mean by starving yourself? What type of hunger symptoms do you have? You may have only head hunger that is making you eat. Sounds like you may need nutritional counseling and meal planning. Give it a try.

You are placed in a cardiac ward (typically) after GB surgery because the first and easiest way to detect leaks is that the subject will develop tachycardia (heart rate typically > 120 bpm at rest), if not fixed very soon, as in within hours, death is the most likely outcome, as your septic. (see sepsis), if you had a whole in your stoma and were stuffing this food into your abdomen, your heart would be racing after several hours, and sadly you would not have survived two weeks. All those different foods and their associated bacteria in your abdomen! I mean if an appendix (think of how small those are) bursts, it's touch and go about survival for awhile, and that's just a couple of ounces of liquid.