Sreeves

I never stopped vaping. I did, however, move to 0 nicotine a few months before surgery. I am now 8 weeks postop and have been vaping since the day I left the hospital. My doctor was fine with it. Since vaping is NOT using tobacco products or combustion, it does not cause you to heal more slowly or increase the risks of DVT or pneumonia. Even if you do vape low nicotine, it isn't enough to cause issues. Some of my juices now are 4 or 6 mg and I have had zero problems.

45 pounds is great! You are headed in the right direction. I also experience slower weight loss than I expected, but at 14 months I am down 90 pounds from my highest and 75 since surgery. When I stall, it lasts for months! I actually thought I was done losing weight when I hit a major stall at 6 months, but since then I have had spurts of weight loss and now I am 20 pounds from goal.
Try not to get discouraged. If you keep eating healthy and stay within the parameters of the diet your doctor laid out for you, you will continue to lose. Slow weight loss is better than weight gain any day, right? You got this, Pinkgirl. Congratulations on your success so far!

45 pounds is great! You are headed in the right direction. I also experience slower weight loss than I expected, but at 14 months I am down 90 pounds from my highest and 75 since surgery. When I stall, it lasts for months! I actually thought I was done losing weight when I hit a major stall at 6 months, but since then I have had spurts of weight loss and now I am 20 pounds from goal.
Try not to get discouraged. If you keep eating healthy and stay within the parameters of the diet your doctor laid out for you, you will continue to lose. Slow weight loss is better than weight gain any day, right? You got this, Pinkgirl. Congratulations on your success so far!

45 pounds is great! You are headed in the right direction. I also experience slower weight loss than I expected, but at 14 months I am down 90 pounds from my highest and 75 since surgery. When I stall, it lasts for months! I actually thought I was done losing weight when I hit a major stall at 6 months, but since then I have had spurts of weight loss and now I am 20 pounds from goal.
Try not to get discouraged. If you keep eating healthy and stay within the parameters of the diet your doctor laid out for you, you will continue to lose. Slow weight loss is better than weight gain any day, right? You got this, Pinkgirl. Congratulations on your success so far!

I am only 8 weeks out, but so far I have gone from a 46 D to a 44 long. The Girls and my badonkadonk were the first things to go. I am down 45 pounds and I am pretty sure half of that was from those two areas, lol. Everyone is different, though, so I wish you the best! I know what you mean about not liking your girls. I really wish I had been a lot less "blessed."

It very well could be an issue with your bowels. If you are having trouble going to the bathroom you should call your Bariatric team. You don't want to end up with a blockage.
Hope you feel better soon!

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45 pounds is great! You are headed in the right direction. I also experience slower weight loss than I expected, but at 14 months I am down 90 pounds from my highest and 75 since surgery. When I stall, it lasts for months! I actually thought I was done losing weight when I hit a major stall at 6 months, but since then I have had spurts of weight loss and now I am 20 pounds from goal.
Try not to get discouraged. If you keep eating healthy and stay within the parameters of the diet your doctor laid out for you, you will continue to lose. Slow weight loss is better than weight gain any day, right? You got this, Pinkgirl. Congratulations on your success so far!

45 pounds is great! You are headed in the right direction. I also experience slower weight loss than I expected, but at 14 months I am down 90 pounds from my highest and 75 since surgery. When I stall, it lasts for months! I actually thought I was done losing weight when I hit a major stall at 6 months, but since then I have had spurts of weight loss and now I am 20 pounds from goal.
Try not to get discouraged. If you keep eating healthy and stay within the parameters of the diet your doctor laid out for you, you will continue to lose. Slow weight loss is better than weight gain any day, right? You got this, Pinkgirl. Congratulations on your success so far!

I've been following this forum for a while but this is my first post. I was banded in 2006 and everything was great for a while. I lost about 125 lbs and kept it off for almost 6 years. Then I started having days where my band was too tight and I couldn't eat anything, and if I did eat, I couldn't keep it down. Other days I could eat with almost no restriction. I also started having terrible reflux, to the point I would sleep propped up and still wake up with acid coming out of my nose. Went to the doctor and found out my band had slipped. Took the Fluid out to let the band readjust. In that time I had several life changing events happen and I ate my feelings. I ended up gaining 40ish lbs back. Started having regular fills but still wasn't getting any restriction, gained another 45 lbs. I had another barium swallow done recently and found out my band has slipped again. So now I've gained back 85 of the 125 lbs lost and my band has slipped for the second time.
I've now stared the process of band to bypass revision at the beginning of next year! I'm very excited and can't wait to start having a normal relationship with food again. I've done a ton of research and have been able to find answers to all of the questions I've had...except one. What is Hair loss like after bypass as compared to after lap band? I have thin, fine hair and this is a concern for me. Not enough to make me shy away, but still enough that I want to be prepared for it. I didn't lose any hair with the lap band, or if I did it wasn't enough for me to notice. I have considered starting supplements for growth. I know they won't stop the process of hair loss if it's going to happen, but I'm hoping that if I can get some new sprouts growing maybe the loss won't be as noticeable.
So, the short version of the question is, how did hair loss after revision surgery compare to hair loss from the initial procedure?

Celebrated my 125 pounds lost with some ink - my first!!!
I knew as soon as I started this journey that I would document it in some way with a tattoo. After reading some of Glennon Melton Doyle, I knew what I'd want my tattoo to say - "I can do hard things". Just because something is hard or challenging isn't an excuse to not do it. I have done hard things, I will do hard things, I CAN do hard things. Now every time I look at my feet, I'll be reminded that I am strong and capable of doing hard things.
The flowers are just some plumeria that remind me of tropical vacations.

Congrats!
I am 4 weeks tomorrow Wednesday. Today I went to a family BBQ of course i took my meal and I looked amazing. Everyone kept commenting on how nice and skinnier I looked. Someone even said I am starting to look sexy!
Yaiiiii! For us who are starting to see the difference
 
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Hey all I'm 5 weeks post op from RNY.
HW 310lbs
SW 3OOlbs
CW 244lbs
It's amazing to see all the changes in my body. Don't have any before pics on my phone but I'm so happy I did this!

I had the same experience early on. Once I started eating a more balanced diet that taste went away, but my taste buds definitely did change. I can't tolerate super sweet stuff anymore, which is just fine with me! For me I think it had a lot to do with the change to very high Protein content and the fact that I was getting most of my Protein from shakes and yogurt. Once I was able to tolerate animal protein and solid veggies things got a whole lot better.
The breath thing could be from the very low carbohydrate count. It's called "ketone breath." I had a co-worker who used to do low-carb diets fairly regularly and I always knew it because of her breath! I started paying attention to my own breath and I definitely did notice a change. I felt bad for anyone I may have inadvertently offended. Mine goes away with the addition of just a few grams of carbs, though, which I get through my veggies, so I don't even think about it anymore.

In a handout from my surgeon's office it says the parts of your stomach and intestines that digest fat and sugar are the parts that have been bypassed. So when fats and sugars hit your shorter bypassed small intestine, Fluid from all over your body is rushed to that area in order to dilute and get rid of the offensive stuff. So your other organs get stressed from shortage of fluid, some people get headaches, nausea, pain, weakness, diarrhea, etc. it not only feels awful but it is hard on your body. Thats from memory. I'll look it up tomorrow if you need a more complete description. Our bodies eventually recover the function of that part of the small intestine but maybe not entirely. Some people never dump, some are more sensitive. I'm just scared! Lol.

I have only had 2 true dumping episodes. The first one was after a can of potted meat very early on, I think about 6 weeks after surgery. I got dizzy, nauseous, and sweaty. My heart was racing and my ears were ringing. It felt like the worst flu EVER! I actually had to take a zofran because I felt so bad. It lasted about an hour or so and made me so tired I just went to bed, but I felt 100% better the next day. I looked at the can and found that this particular potted meat (Spam spread) had a TON of fat in it. I had been eating a deviled ham that was great, but I never did try that Spam one again, lol. My second episode was a sugar overdose at Christmas. I just don't do sugar anymore, so my body totally rejected it. I had to stay near the bathroom for a good 24 hours and I think I doubled my Fluid intake during that time because I was losing fluids so rapidly. I felt icky but not quite as bad as the first time. I'm actually glad I dump from too much sugar. I wasn't sure if I did or not because I have had nuts with a lightly sweet coating on them and those don't bother me, but they also contain nowhere near the amount of sugar I consumed during that episode at Christmas. Lesson learned the hard way!

I only had it happen once, in the very beginning from drinking a shake to fast. Was on the commode for quite a while. Never did that again!

I think there are varying stages of dumping.
For me, all I get is my heart starts racing, I get light headed and a bit nauseous, almost like I might pass out but never do, a bit sweaty.
So that is probably the low end. Others can speak to other symptoms (I think they include cramping, diarrhea, that sort of thing).

Hello, Moo! Congratulations on your upcoming surgery!
My surgeon told me that all of us revisions have scar tissue that needs to be dealt with. Apparently they expect it! Sometimes it necessitates doing the surgery in 2 phases, but that will depend on your surgeon and the level of scarring. I was pretty bummed when I woke up from band removal to find out that I had not had bypass and would have to wait 4 months for that part, but my I completely trusted my surgeon. He said my innards were so beat up he just couldn't do the bypass at that time because there was an extremely high chance I would have complications if he did. I am very glad we waited. I felt much more comfortable knowing that my surgeon had my best interest in mind.

It sounds like your surgeon was comfortable doing everything at once, though, so that's good! It really is rough at first, though. I had a JP drain in for 2 weeks, too, and that thing drove me crazy!! I had to laugh at myself, though. With the scars from the band and the partially-healed scars from band removal, plus the 7 new scars from revision AND the bruises everywhere from the heparin injections I looked like I had been jumped in a dark alley, lol!

I had terrible scar tissue and if I look back I probably should of had 2 phase instead of all in one revision.
Rough

I agree....I am going to go in for a few hours and that's it....damn finances.
Outsourcing...ugh...different blog....
I think you have lost a great deal of weight..,doing really well.Exercise is ok now because you can now slowly move into it without all that extra weight.I will incorporate gradually walking...,not the marathon type.

Hi crazy,
Welcome! That is my fear as well, but when I talked to my surgeon about doing revision and I asked him if he does it in one surgery, he didn't seem very concerned... But maybe it depends on a surgeon, some prefer to do it in separate occasions from what I've read.

Ladies you are awesome! Seriously I feel so blessed to have found you here, I feel like I am finally understood and I am not alone who has gone through it.
Pinkgirl,
I am the same way, I only had 3 people in my family that knew about the band, I want to keep it this way for the revision.... I will have to come up with some excuse for work, maybe I will just say I have to take care of some medial issues and just have my dr give me note etc. not sure yet how to handle it yet but I will deal with it once I will have it scheduled.
How are you doing today?
And wow 80+ lbs? That is awesome! Great job!
I am preparing myself that it may be a mess in there with scar tissue as well, when I had lap band surgery I also had hiatal hernia repair so I am sure my dr is going to have a hard time as well, but hope it will be worth it to go through it all... I've suffered with lap band for so long and it was all for nothing.

Wow, a week is really early! I got lucky and our department was outsourced 8 days before surgery, lol. Lost my job of 10 years but it was great to actually have time to adjust to everything. The main problem for me early on was fatigue. I was soooo tired. I thought that I was feeling hunger right around that time and I started asking questions. Turns out it was actually thirst! As long as I could stay hydrated I did not experience hunger.
I do think that since this was not my first weight loss surgery, I was prepared to go through all of the phases of the post-op diet, and I was able to stay on track with that. I found that some of the allowed foods did not sit well with me (eggs were hard at first) so I just put that food aside for a couple of months until I felt more healed. It was definitely a process of trial and error, but I really have changed my eating habits for the better and I don't even care for the sweets and carbs I used to crave. I live by the "Protein first" rule, and even if I am having a salad for a meal it is topped with Protein. I did start taking B12 when my doctor suggested it, and that helped greatly with fatigue. I still take it daily. I am, however, off of my blood pressure meds and the early diabetic regimen I used to be on!
The one thing I struggle with is exercise. I know I need to get a good routine but I just haven't been able to make myself do it. I am about 20 pounds from goal now, though, and I know these last 20 pounds are not going to just lose themselves, lol.
I am so glad I decided to do the revision. It really has changed my life for the better. I am excited to see your progress, too! Remember that you will likely experience a stall in a couple of weeks that can last quite a while. Mine was two looooong weeks (almost 3!) but I knew it was just my body adjusting to all of the changes. Once that stall ended I started dropping weight very quickly. That's when things really get exciting!!