Proud2BMe

Wow! I didn't think I would ever see this day! I hovered between 173-175 forever. I will admit that I could have achieved this probably about 9 months ago but I fell off the wagon a few times, well, several times. lol I have never been this skinny in my life. Feels great! Kind of scared too because I have to do plastics now and am definitely not looking forward to the recovery time.

I've messed up countless time by eating junk. The good thing about the surgery is that it pretty much prevents that massive gain that was possible before surgery. I mean, if there was no restriction on how much I cold eat I could have gained 25+ lbs in the past few weeks. Luckily, I only gained 4 lbs instead and have now lost them. I'm at 1 lb away from goal but I've been here like 5 times now. Each time I get here I let myself eat crap and will gain a few pounds and have jump back on the wagon again.

No, I had laparoscopic. From what I've read, laparoscopic is far better than single incision. I was fine two days after surgery and now I'm almost two years out of surgery and there are no scars. There was no pain at all save for the drain and even then it only hurt for a couple of seconds after they removed it.

Okay, here's the scoop on hemorrhoids. 1. Everyone has them. They are part of your body. Their purpose is to help keep the anus closed and prevent leakage. 2. When a hemorrhoid become inflamed or irritated it is called a "pile". 3. There are 4 stages or grades of piles. The first stage/grade can spontaneously heal all on its own. In the first one there is no sign of an external pile. In stage/grade 2 the pile is officially external and can be felt/seen. These piles are treated by manually pushing them back into the body. You can do this yourself, have a loved one or significant other do it for you, or have your doctor do it. In stage/grad 3 piles can not be fixed by pushing them back into the body as they simply plop back out. In stage/grade 4, piles extend far outside the anus and are extremely painful. Stage/grade 4 can only be fixed through surgery. Stage/grade 1, 2, and 3, may have sightly painful, may itch, burn, and bleed but in stage/grad 4 the piles are extremely painful and many people are not able to sit down without using a special donut-shaped pillow. 4. Surgery is normally quite effective and simple. Most piles are treated by tying off their blood supply. They then die over a few days and will fall off of the body when you use the restroom. Internal piles need to be surgically removed. 5. OTC treatments may provide relief for stage/grad 1, 2, and 3 but not for stage/grade 4. 6. Obesity, pregnancy, smoking, weight-lifting, and straining while defecating can all potentially cause piles. However, the number one is genetics. If your parents have them you will usually get them as well. 7. Do your best to keep your anus clean as infection only makes the situation worse. This can be problematic for piles that are bleeding or oozing fluid. Just do the best you can and try to cleanse your anus after every BM, despite how painful it may be.

I did not. I kind of am curious if you are one of the people who think that the single-incision is better?

1. Own your mistake. 2. Forgive yourself. 3. Get back on the wagon. If you have to, go back to your pre-op diet for 2 weeks and then work yourself through the entire process again. You have to motivate yourself and learn to depend upon yourself. People are going to let your down and people can't be there for you 24/7. As long as you become your own rock then you will naturally attract and be attracted to the right people to share this journey with.

I'm with #BirdDog. The only thing I remember was lying down on the table and be asked to scoot up a bit after I complained about my back hurting. Then the very next memory I have is waking up in a dark room. So no memories of the tube and no soreness in my throat at all.

Yes, quite normal. Here in a little bit the constipation will set back in and then you will cycle back and forth before your body comes back to normal. For me, I noticed that if I drank my protein shakes too quickly I would get horrible "mud butt". Just wait until your constipation gets bad. For a while I was having just one BM every week. My longest time period w/out a BM was 2 1/2 weeks and when it hit I felt like I was birthing a calf, breech!

My post was in no way passive aggressive. Perhaps in the future it may be better not to make assumptions and perhaps not make posts if your expectation is that everyone is going to agree with you 100%. Otherwise, you might have better satisfaction just talking to yourself in the mirror.

Have you Googled it yet? FYI: You may or may not find a surgeon who will do it for medicade. However, there usually is expenses that medicade will not cover, such as psych eval and other tests. So you will likely have to pay out of pocket for those so you will need to be able to come up with a few thousand or so to get it. I tried Googling it and nothing immediately jumped out but I did read something that FL medicade is not accepted for bariatric surgery but then found another thing that said that lapband was approved by medicade. So just keep at it.

Try it. If you keep it down you are good to go. If you throw up then stick with the liquids or whatever you are at. That's pretty much the only way to tell for sure. Just eat a tiny bit, like one teaspoonful.

Good luck! Some advice: Don't put off losing weight. Go ahead now and try to lose as much as you can before surgery. You will thank me later. So many people don't and then struggle after the surgery. If you can, go ahead and start your pre-op diet or something close to it. If you can go into surgery already being over with your carb withdrawals then you will have a great advantage over those people who did not do such.

Pumped fluid into you? What kind of surgery did you have? You talking the IV? My experience was not even close to yours. Not hungry in the slightest. Are you sure you aren't just having head hunger because the majority of your stomach was removed and with that the ghrelin which causes hunger. So I'm not following as to why you could be hungry unless it was head hunger. The day I came home (2 days after surgery) I only manged to ingest half a bottle of a small Gatorade all day and was perfectly okay with that. I didn't even crave food until almost 6 months after surgery.

A quick Google search is your friend: http://www.docspot.com/d/TX/houston/bariatric-surgery/medicaid.html FYI: Medicade usually doesn't pay for all of the surgery. There usually are other expenses that you will have to pay out of pocket for, such as psych eval and other other tests. So consider saving a few thousand or so.

You mean you are normal? LOL Sorry, I get a chuckle over people who think this is a "thing" because in reality we are all supposed to be lactose intolerant since milk is only for babies. We are the only species that consumes milk long after infancy. Just so people know, if you go without milk for a long while you automatically become lactose intolerant because your stomach stops producing the enzymes needed to digest milk. Unfortunately, if you continue to regularly drink it your body should begin producing them again. To answer your questions, if you are using the powder form you can just use water instead of milk. Or you can use another milk substitute.