bewell

I also have no advice for you specially to strictures. (Had my gall bladder out years ago) BUT I do know that post-op I had all kinds of aches and pains. It felt like food was getting stuck all the time. And I was hurting for at least 3 months. I was on soft foods for 2 months. I couldn't eat solid food for a long time. t still get a funny pain now and then. For the first 2 months I called my doc right away and they are good to check me out. It turns out everything was OK. I hope that is the same with you.....of course the gall-bladder is a issue. (That is usually a pretty easy surgery tho....I went dancing the night after my gall bladder surgery......course I was younger.) Best to you.

Extremely Frustrated after check-up! I continue to lose weight at a decent rate BUT at my last Doc visit w/nurse she totally sent. me away very disappointed and discouraged. I eat 4-5 small meals/snacks a day. It's working for me. I just got back from 21 days in foreign countries eating out 2-3 times a day (9 days at a resort with 2X's all you can eat buffet meals) and I lost 7 pounds. I don't weight or measure. I do count Protein and fluids. I eat a few carbs. I usually stop as soon as I am full which if I'm honest with myself, I'm full after just a few bites. And of course I am hungry in a few hours so i eat a small snack or meal again. Nurse said nice BUT now you need to get to 3 meals a day, no Snacks cuz the more often you eat the more it raises the chance of making poor choices. She really pushed it after I said but what I'm doing is working. I've had a very hard time since the doc apt. Got the F--it attitude and emotional "I'll just eat what I want". Self-distructive I know. i was hoping for a doc apt that was positive and they would say "gee, your doing fantastic!" I know I'm over-reacting. My hubby tells me I just don't like what I'm hearing and I need to listen to them. Three meals does make sense but...... I know I'm at a place where I can start to sabotage my weight loss. Nibbling on soft not-so-good foods and gain weight. Done that many times before. I'm clearly conflicted. HOW MANY MEALS/snacks does your DOC tell you to do?

Thankfully Hugh?

Once I felt a little better It was SO hard for me slow down. For me, It was all head-hunger and years of quickly stuffing myself so I could have that full feeling and zone out. Self-medicate on food. It took months to get past wanting that full feeling. Finally let it go and accepted that it may be gone forever. Now I don't miss it. Well most of the time anyway.

@@lfry925 I vomit almost immediately after eating just a few bites of ice-cream. I've only tired it 3 times now and it was BAD!!! AND I'M GLAD!!!

@@bunnybunny626 From my understanding, YES your sleeve can stretch just like our stomach used to. For me, I try to be careful not to eat too much or drink Water with a meal. I don't want to go thru all of this to lose my restriction. Also eating too much can cause me to vomit of get serious acid reflux.

I think for some of us, it is more than a liquid flushing your food down to your intestine and then eating more. For me it's mechanical reason of the sleeve itself. Early on when I drank Water during a meal or right after it made me vomit. At almost 7 months I can drink a few sips of liquid at a meal so I can take pills but if it's any more than a sip, my tiny tummy revolts and I will vomit. And this is with 1/3 cup of food or less. I also have to wait at least 30 minutes after and sometimes longer if my meal is mostly Protein to drink fluids, or I might vomit. I know everyone's experience is different. I am a lap-band to sleeve convert. With the lap band I had no trouble drinking water anytime and it did wash the food down my pouch. Not so with my sleeve.

Not the fattest person on the island!!! Just got back from 9 day retirement vacation, on a small island in the Indian Ocean and I WASN'T the biggest persons there. Pre-WLS I was always the biggest one on the bus it seemed. And I swam every day, even went scuba diving, jumped from moving boats to go snorkeling, swam with whale sharks, turtles, octopus and zillions of fish and amazing coral. It was fabulous. I didn't sweat as much and had lots of energy. I felt normal even tho at 204 I am still a big girl. AND I lost 4 pounds and once again my hubby gained 4 pounds. Our accommodations included all you can eat buffet breakfast and dinner and the food was fabulous. The first few days I took way too much and of course couldn't eat it all. Not even close. Then I got my buffet-legs and cut way back. My plate looked so meager compared to what I would have done before. (and most others around me, it felt SO GOOD) I did try a few carbs that I hadn't eaten before (a little bread, rice and potatoes) and even tasted deserts. I hadn't had sugar in 6 months so it didn't taste so good and my tiny tummy (and intestinal track) let me know it didn't like the sugar at all, so I stopped. (after racing to the bathroom a few times either vomiting or diarrhea) An experienced sleever told me she could just taste desert and not eat any more. It still seems like a very SLIPPERY SLOPE to me. But I did eat just a taste. I am back off the sugar and deserts. What is your experience with sugar???

@@Veronica Page We all have those moments. We can do this! Congrats to you!

I couldn't stand the taste of water for about 8 weeks. And everything tasted weird. But it slowly goes away. Now I guzzel water and love it. (Loved it before WLS). My nut/doc suggested I drink apple juice as much as I wanted the first 4 to 6 weeks. I did. Also added water to it. They also told me not to worry about calories in the apple juice. It was more important to get the fluids. It dies get better. Hang in there.

Congratulations!!!

If you have a fever and pain you might want to call your Doc. I know I had many hard days where I had no energy at all and soft foods made me nauseous. Tuna and mashed potatoes weren't on my list for months. I did blended Soups for weeks. Maybe you need to stay with the softer foods. Blended soups, Cream of wheat or yogurt, I was way behind most for starting puree and solid foods. You might be too. Keep the liquids going. I got dehydrated and ended up in the ER which isn't a big deal. They just gave me IV fluids and I perked right up. It takes a while to feel good again. I called my Doc all the time. Mostly got the nurse but they were great at answering my calls and calming me down. Be gentle with yourself.

It was similar for me. Only my husband and my niece who took care of me the first week post-op knew about my surgery. 6 months later I've only added 4 people and of course my doctors. I told one person I wish I could un-do. I keep thinking of what an old timer sleever told me, you can't undo who you tell so I'm very careful. It's no ones business. It's personal. When someone asks me about my weight loss, I just say "ask me again in a year" and I'll let you know how it's going". No one has probed any further.

Congratulations on onederland! I can't wait to join you. It's in my sights. Also a little scary. Under 200 is where I have been and then gained it back too any times. I can do this! It's been 20 yrs since I saw anything under 200!

It is so good to read your post and remember what i was doing at day 4. I feel so good now, It is so easy to forget. You sound about right to me at day 4, especially the fear of messing things up. It's a scary time but in my experience the fear passes but took me about 3 months before I relaxed and "felt" everything was going to be OK. For me it was a steep learning curve to learn a new way to eat/drink. Baby steps. Everyone kept saying to me-follow the doc's orders and everything will be fine. Complications are rare. Best to you on your new journey. I am so excited for you.

In my experience, it's your stomach is healing and reacting to a huge insult to it's pre-surgery status. My tiny tummy made lots of noise and I had many new sensations to everything I ate or drank. Early on my mind was crazy with fear and it created a lot of anxiety. The nurse just kept reminding me of the significant surgery I had just had. Your eating is now significantly different and for me it took a while to get used to it. Follow the doc;s orders and if some food isn't settling right when you eat it, postpone it for a few weeks. (Sometimes I didn't cuz I saw others were eating this and that and I kept vomiting!!! Not a good thing.) I starting thinking of my new tiny tummy as a little baby, learning to kick and crawl. Remembering it would be a long time before it was running and jumping over mountains. Each person is different. Take it easy.

Keep posting-we all need to support each other no matter where we are. Best to you!

Lauraellen80- keep posting. We all need this site to support our success and we need it even more when we stumble. We will all have moments when we titter into our disease of obesity, no matter what we weight. We need to be supportive of everyone, wherever they are in their journey. This is a lifetime challenge for all of us. And like life, there are all kinds of people with their own opinions. Makes it all that much more interesting. Best to you You can do this!

@@Lapbandster My band to sleeve surgery went just fine. The surgery was about 1 hour longer than just the sleeve surgery because they had to remove the band first. Scar tissue builds up around the band and port so they have to carefully remove it. My biggest pain post-op was the incision where they pulled out the port. Having said that, I was down for about 10 days. I could have gone to work at 8 days but that would have been pushing it. For me, about the same as the band surgery. Everyone is different. Some surgeons remove the band and put in a sleeve in two surgeries. I was only wiling to do one surgery. My surgeon prefers to do it in one surgery whenever possible. The only time he can't is when there is so much scar tissue it takes too long to remove the band. This has happened only once for him. The recovery was maybe a little longer with the sleeve than the band but I'm 10 years older (now 64). For me the big difference is the lap-band is a restriction. The sleeve is a small pouch which limits the amount you can eat. They also remove part of the stomach that creates the hormone grulin (SP?). I am not hungry at all, my cravings are gone. I love healthy food. (I'm told that can change in the years to come but for now the sleeve is working well for me. There is a lot of information on this board about lap-band to sleeve revisions.

I am a lap band revision to sleeve. (banded 2006-sleeve revision Jan 2015) I had a lot of problems with lap band. Had a slip early on and had to have it replaced. Then continual pain in my abdomen always. I had all the Fluid removed for last 4 years and still had constant pain. Nothing showed up on tests. Doc kept blaming me but it hurt when I hadn't eating a thing. I finally had the bugger out and did a revision. (Initially didn't plan for sleeve revision, just wanted it out but Doc suggested I consider it.) FOR ME....the best thing I'd ever done. Wish I had done it sooner. FOR ME...the sleeve is so much easier post-op. I think my body does not tolerate foreign objects well. After sleeve surgery my stomach stopped hurting immediately and feeling like it was constantly in a knot. BTW-initially right after surgery, lap band complication are low compared to other WLS. But long-term lap band has much higher complications than other WLS due to foreign object in the body that can erode, slip, fail, etc. Best of luck to you. I understand completely how you feel. ONCE AGAIN... this is my experience with a lap-band. Many have wonderful results with no complications.

i noticed my surgery date disappeared and then watched and seemed others did not show up either. Not sure if it's me and a user error but I don't think so.

@@jenn1 pudding w/strawberries sounds good. Do you make the pudding 1st or just mix yogurt with dry pudding?

Good for you, thinking about this before it's a lot more weight to lose. I have no experience with this but will be interested in what people have to say. One of the support people at the center I went to for WLS did have to use diet pills to lose what she gained and lose some more. She went back to basics and talks about it a lot to us newbies. It can be any one of us a few years out.

I had serious PF and I do feel it's better with WLS but I still have it. I do the exercises (mentioned by others) before I get out of bed in the AM. I have great orthopedics that cost a lot but worth it. The good news I go barefoot much more often with 60+ lbs down. I love it. I could never have done that before. Crocs didn't do a thing for me. OOfos are amazing sandals with nice high soft arch. Had to get them online. I wear them around the house all the time now. Not too expensive. Made in Korea. Also Keen have been good for my PF. Also expensive but hey, it's my feet. Can't get around without them puppies.