James Marusek

Congratulations on your weight loss thus far. I can't help with any advise on your meds. Dizziness or light-headedness when standing up occurs as a result of abnormal blood pressure regulation. Normally, when people stand, gravity causes blood to pool in the veins of the legs and trunk. This pooling lowers the blood pressure and the amount of blood the heart pumps to the brain. Low blood flow to the brain causes the dizziness and other symptoms. To compensate, the nervous system quickly increases the heart rate and constricts blood vessels, which rapidly returns blood pressure to normal before symptoms can develop. The part of the nervous system responsible for this compensation is the autonomic nervous system. http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/heart-and-blood-vessel-disorders/symptoms-of-heart-and-blood-vessel-disorders/dizziness-or-light-headedness-when-standing-up

Advice - let's see! I became lactose intolerant after my RNY gastric bypass surgery. So every time I drank milk or anything that contained lactose, it was upset stomach and a quick trip to the bathroom with diarrhea. Beware some Protein drinks contain lactose. While in the hospital they tend to give patients antibiotics to kill bacteria that you might encounter during surgery and your hospital stay. This kills not only the bad bacteria but also the good bacteria that resides in your gut. You need to reestablish the good bacteria by taking a probiotic. The three most important elements after RNY gastric bypass surgery are to meet your daily protein, Fluid and Vitamin requirements. food is secondary because your body is converting your stored fat into the energy that drives your body. Thus you lose weight. Weight loss is achieved after surgery through meal volume control. You begin at 2 ounces (1/4 cup) per meal and gradually over the next year and a half increase the volume to 1 cup per meal. With this minuscule amount of food, it is next to impossible to meet your protein daily requirements by food alone, so therefore you need to rely on supplements such as Protein shakes. So the main focus should be on meeting your daily protein, fluid and vitamin requirements.

As your meal volume increases, this gives you an opportunity. If you concentrate on consuming high Protein meals, you can begin to reduce the amount of Protein shakes you consume each day, and the calories these protein shakes contain. This is how I worked my way through many of the stalls I encountered after my RNY gastric bypass 3 years ago. Your daily protein requirement is met by a combination of the amount of protein you obtain from food combined with the amount of protein from protein supplements (protein shakes, protein bars). Right after gastric bypass surgery, the volume of food you are restricted to is minuscule (2 ounces) per meal. But as you get further along, the meal volume increases. Therefore if you concentrate on consuming high protein meals, you have a very important option available to you. You can start to reduce your reliance on protein supplements. I went from 3 protein shakes per day in the beginning, down to 2, down to 1, and then when my meal volume increased to 1 cup per meal at a year and a half, I was able to completely offload my use of protein shakes.

Some of your skin will tighten up on its own. At a minimum you might see this tightening occur before June 2017 and perhaps beyond. I would wait until you reach the maintenance phase until you decide to try alternate methods. I had RNY gastric bypass and I entered the maintenance phase around 7 months after surgery. Sleeve patients loose weight slower but over a longer period of time, sometimes 2 years. Therefore if you had a gastric sleeve in June 2016, it can be awhile until you reach the maintenance phase. Your goal weight is an artificial number. I think I set my goal weight at around 190 pounds. I would have been satisfied if I reached 190 pounds. But in the end, I dropped down to almost 140 pounds. I went from a size 3X in shirts down to a size small. I am not sure of your initial height but it might be possible that your weight might even reach the 110 to 100 pound range before you level off.

Congratulations and check back with us when you are on the other side.

Good luck on your upcoming surgery.

Congratulations. Let us know if we can be of any help.

After my RNY gastric bypass surgery, I was on full liquids for the first 4 weeks, pureed foods for the next 4 weeks and finally in week 9 I was approved for solid foods. It is difficult to transition to solid foods so there is no need to rush.

Things do get easier but that does not happen overnight. It took me 6 months to reach my happy state when all the problems seemed to melt away.

The three most important elements after RNY gastric bypass surgery are to meet your daily Protein, Fluid and Vitamin requirements. food is secondary because your body is converting your stored fat into the energy that drives your body. Thus you lose weight. Weight loss is achieved after surgery through meal volume control. You begin at 2 ounces (1/4 cup) per meal and gradually over the next year and a half increase the volume to 1 cup per meal. With this minuscule amount of food, it is next to impossible to meet your protein daily requirements by food alone, so therefore you need to rely on supplements such as Protein shakes.

My taste changed after surgery and even Water tasted horrible. But I found out that flavored water such as Crystal Light worked good, so that is what I relied on for fluids. The Fluid requirement is met by a combination. It is not only the water that you drink each day. But also the water you drink when you take your Vitamins and medicine. It is the milk you drink. It is the fluids content of the Protein shakes. It is the water component of the Soups you take. It is met by flavored water such as Crystal Light. It is met by sugar free popsicles. It is met by tea and decaf coffee. It is a combination of all the fluids that you consume during the day.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

One of the dangers of surgery is the development of blood clots. The symptoms of a pulmonary embolism are sudden shortness of breath or chest pain with breathing. I would recommend you let your surgeon know that you have experienced shortness of breath and pain.

Since you are at the beginning of this process, I would recommend three things. 1. Take a good before photograph of yourself, so that you have something to compare to after surgery. Many times we are blind to our obesity. We do not see ourselves. Therefore when the weight begins to drop off rather dramatically, we question if this is really happening. Photographs are a good visualization of our success. Many people carry a before and after photo with them, just to remind themselves of their success. 2. Walk 30 minutes each day, every day until surgery (or equivalent exercise). Walking helps the recovery process go smoothly and minimized the pain levels from surgery. 3. Wean yourself from caffeine and carbonated beverages now. After I gave up my 6 diet coke a day habit, I suffered from a week of severe withdrawal syndrome consisting of severe headaches and body aches. I was miserable. You don't want to combine the effects of caffeine withdrawal with the effects of surgery.

It is normal. hair loss normally occurs during the weight loss phase. After you transition into the Maintenance phase, your hair loss should come to an end and most of your hair will grow back in.

I do not detect that I am treated any differently after my weight-loss from RNY gastric bypass surgery three years ago. For some people who haven't seen me since surgery, they sometimes fail to recognize me. Prior to surgery, like many others, due to my obesity, I was somewhat invisible. But now I am visible. Sometimes when I am in a store shopping and the person waiting on me is on the heavy side (and therefore somewhat invisible), I look at their name tag and greet them by name. They look up and are caught off-guard and astonished and grateful that someone took the time to notice.

Congratulations.

Many health insurance policies are similar. If you do not have a hard copy of your policy booklet, you can probably look it up online. Within it you will find the exact requirements for receiving Weight Loss Surgery under your insurance plan and the percentage they will pay.

The three most important elements after RNY gastric bypass surgery are to meet your daily Protein, Fluid and Vitamin requirements. food is secondary because your body is converting your stored fat into the energy that drives your body. Thus you lose weight. Weight loss is achieved after surgery through meal volume control. You begin at 2 ounces (1/4 cup) per meal and gradually over the next year and a half increase the volume to 1 cup per meal. With this minuscule amount of food, it is next to impossible to meet your protein daily requirements by food alone, so therefore you need to rely on supplements such as Protein shakes.

Congratulations.

I developed type 2 diabetes as I grew older and heavier. I was on 2 types of blood sugar medicine prior to my surgery and even those were not controlling my diabetes effectively. Then 3 years ago I had RNY gastric bypass surgery. When I left the hospital two days after surgery, I was off my diabetes medicines and haven't taken any since. I periodically check my blood sugar levels and they are fine. In today's world many young folks are gaining weight earlier and becoming diabetic. So the question is "Would Weight Loss Surgery benefit younger folks with this condition?" The issue was studied by Dr. Lwin Aung and colleagues from Singapore and Taiwan, and their report was published in JAMA Surgery. The study included about 340 Taiwanese patients with early-onset (below the age of 40) Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), and about 220 with late-onset disease. All had BMIs above 25, and had bariatric surgery to ameliorate their T2DM. One year post-surgery, about 57 percent of the early-onset individuals had achieved remission of their disease (and lost more weight) compared to about 50 percent of the late-onset patients. By 5 years post surgery, the early-onset folks maintained a greater rate of weight loss (which was statistically significant), and also a significantly greater rate of remission of their T2D. In their statistical analyses the investigators found that both the duration of T2D and age at which surgery was performed were independent predictors of disease remission. And that remission rate was significantly associated with the degree of weight loss. http://acsh.org/news/2016/10/19/sooner-better-bariatric-surgery-get-t2d-remission-10322

There are many things that can kill you. Setting aside cancer for a second. You indicated that you had high blood pressure and sleep apnea. These were very serious conditions that I had prior to my RNY gastric bypass surgery 3 years ago. These conditions went into remission shortly after surgery and remained there. So the surgery can be of benefit to you. I would not recommend lap band surgery because many patients have problems years down the road with this type of surgery. RNY gastric bypass or gastric sleeve surgery seem like good alternatives.

I had a problem with frequent urination (overactive bladder) before my RNY gastric bypass surgery. It got so bad that I had to get up almost every hour on the hour to use the restroom at night. But this condition went away after surgery. So this was a good thing. As you lose weight and your fat cells dissolve, they release a number of chemicals and hormones that were stored inside. These are flushed through your kidneys and expelled in your urine. In order for this process to work effectively, you need to consume enough fluids. Here is a quick link to an article about the color of urine. Unfortunately it is spread out over 3 pages. http://www.webmd.com/urinary-incontinence-oab/truth-about-urine#1

Welcome back.