NikkiDoc

Just a heads up this thread is originally from December 2014. My program has allowed fruit as part of a Protein shake since week 2 (seedless fruit). I can continue to have the fruit but I eat it rarely. I just had pulled pork with mango salsa from the work cafeteria. Yummy. I had a peach recently. As long as I am getting my protein, Water and some vegetables some fruit is fine.

My friend had the band 6 years ago. She never quite got down to ideal weight. She was about 25 pounds away according to the charts at her lowest. She is now more like 30 pounds. She looks fine. I think she would have preferred more weight loss but she did lose 80 pounds and 80% of her excess weight. When I was considering bariatric surgery she really discouraged me from getting the band due to the issues she has. She still gets things "stuck". She still vomits periodically. She will make a batch of chicken on Sunday night for her lunch for the week. On Monday she is fine to eat it. Tues it just won't go down, Weds it is fine again. It isn't consistently the same things that will cause problems. It can be things she has eaten fine for weeks. On one of her follow-ups with her surgeon he said his practice no longer will install bands and they are removing so many due to complications, many of these get revised to sleeve. My surgeon recently retired from bariatric surgery and he was still performing bands but only if the patient really did not want the sleeve or bypass. The other surgeon at that facility no longer does bands. I think over time you will see fewer and fewer bands performed and I think there will be insurance companies that will approve sleeve or bypass but exclude band coverage. I think that the band appealed to some people because if you have complications it can be removed. The sleeve isn't exactly reversible. However, an aquaintence had so much scar tissue from her band she still has a stricture where the band used to be. I remember one of the selling points from when I had looked at bariatric surgery about 7 years ago was that for young women they could have some or all of the fill taken out while they were pregnant and breastfeeding when they had higher nutritional needs. They could then get the fill added back once they delivered.

Why not homemade chili? It should be high in Protein with the meat and Beans. The carbs/sugars shouldn't be pretty low. Okay maybe skip the saltines on put one or two on the top instead of half the box. I have had both chili and buffalo wings since surgery. I only have the wings occasionally due to the fat but they are protein and low-carb/sugar. What I miss is Manhattan bagels with cream cheese. I probably only had them about 5 times a year but have been craving one lately and am not sure why.

I was swallowing pills the size of an M&M or smaller from day 3. Be careful crushing pills if they are enteric coated or timed release. Make sure you check with your pharmacist. I found that dairy such as cottage cheese can get rid of the bitter taste fairly quickly. I used to take prednisone, that stuff is the worst.

My 6 month pre-approval diet was with the dietician in my PCP's office. She knew nothing about bariatric patient's and IMO nothing about people with real metabolic issues such as PCOS. Lots of whole grains and fruits. Lots of no-fat food. That just is too much carbs for me. I went through the motions. She did provide me with some accountability so I lost weight the first 5 months and stayed the same for the 6th month. My NUT through the surgeon was fine. She showed me how this program wanted to read nutritional labels. Since I was used to the Atkins approach of looking at carbs and they have us look at sugars per serving, Protein per serving and fat per serving. Beyond that she has just been there. I read their bariatric bible and I had a good handle on nutrition prior to this so it wasn't new.

I had urine sample, final blood draw, and abdominal ultrasound. The ultrasound was to check for gallstones. I would have had an EKG but I had one only 3 weeks prior. Since it was less than 1 month and they had the results that was good. I was given my special soap to use the night before surgery. I was told no make-up, no nail polish on toes or fingers. I was given my bariatric bible with the pre-op and post op diet information. I had an appointment with the program's NUT. I used a different one I used for my 6 month pre-approval diet since I am an hour plus from my surgeon. I got to meet one of the hospital internists that would monitor my non-surgical medical stuff like my blood pressure meds. They just took a history and did a brief physical. Nothing scary.

It is a personal decision. I am not a private person so I told everyone. I will say that as a physician I hope that if you have a patient that asks about your weight loss you don't lie or prevaricate. If you are happy with your surgery and happy with your weight loss you are in a unique position to educate people about WLS. You do not need to lecture them or provide a dissertation. But if you are not truthful and people ever find out about the WLS you will just enforce that WLS is "the easy way out" or something to be ashamed of. You being honest with your patient make help them be supportive of a friend or relative rather than dismissive. You may help one of your patient's look into WLS or to take that final step and decide to have WLS.

I am a polite person but I am also blunt. I have not had anybody try fat bashing or bashing anyone in general. Somebody would have to be pretty dense about my personality to bash somebody like that with me let alone expect me to join in. They would know I would put a stop to that kind a nasty gossipy stuff pretty quickly and if they didn't know before they would find out right quick. I don't participated in negativitity and don't tolerate it much.

Most of the time people who are on blood thinners need to stop them for a time before dental cleanings and surgery. I have never heard of needing to take blood thinners prior to surgery. I am actually in PA but work in DE. I had my surgery in Langhorne, PA. I was in for 2 nights. My surgeon does not use drains. I had a catheter the first night and had to walk with the catheter. Getting back in bed with the catheter was uncomfortable if I didn't line things up right. I am glad I had it the first night. I didn't need to worry about leaking and not being able to get to the bathroom quickly enough. I did use some pain meds but not much. I was walking within a couple of hours of waking up after surgery. I never had the gas pains many people have. I took an oral pain narcotic pain med abut 45 minutes before my husband came and picked me up. I had an hour plus car ride home. I wanted to make sure I was as comfortable as possible. I took one narcotic pill that night to make sure I got a good night's sleep and did not take any pain meds after that, not even Tylenol. I would say the first couple of days my pain level was like I had done way, way, way too many sit-ups. That really tight feeling when you would first try to sit up from laying down or stand up from sitting down. It would loosen up and get less uncomfortable as I walked around or moved around. The next couple of day was more like I had done too many sit-ups. After the first week I only got a few twinges occasionally. My nurses told me to breathe out when I was trying to sit up from laying down and breathe when I was going from sitting to standing. Holding your breath tenses the stomach muscles and makes it more uncomfortable. Good luck. It will be so worth it.

So what is more important- cardio or weight training? My NUT thinks cardio for weightloss. My personal trainer thinks weight training. The NUT did not give a reason. The personal trainer says the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. Now I do use a 10-15 minute cardio warm-up and another 10-15 minutes after. My big problem is that I work an hour from home. I leave at 6 am in the morning. I get home around 5:30 pm. I can make it to the gym 3 times a week. I also have a horse. I like to ride 3-4 times a week. I cannot do both the barn and gym on the same day. I just don't have time. I am sweat big time so this time of year walking at lunch just isn't practical. I don't like being wet and stinky after lunch. For those of you that don't ride- yes riding is exercise. I am not a passenger. I ride English so I post. Think of posting as squats on top of a horse. The style riding I do involves a decent amount of core strength. Getting the horse ready involves grooming, walking around the farm, sometimes lifting hay bales, Water buckets and manure buckets. I am trying to the most bang for my buck timewise. I also fell off the excercise wagon from Mid May until yesteday. So now that I will be going back to the gym do I do cardio? Do I do the cardio warm-up/cool-down and the weight training? Although somewhere in my week I want to try yoga for some core strength and balance. Not sure when to fit that in. As a reference my surgeon expected me to be at 40% of excess weight lost by 6 months. I am at 55% so I am ahead of where he expected me to be. Should I take that as a sign that the riding and the weight training I was doing is working? At least once a month I will be "stuck" doing cardio at a hotel as I travel for business. So what works best for everyone cardio or weight training with a little cardio? Remember timewise I can only commit to 3 times a week.

Okay it sounds like since I almost always do a mix of cardio and weight training I should be good. I tend to do 20-25 minutes of cardio- half before and half after weight training. I use the machines for weight training. It is a fairly long routine so 30 minutes if I do the base workout and if I am feeling ambitious and do extra sets maybe 40 minutes. I guess it didn't seem like the amount of cardio I was doing "counted" for much. As far as horses not counting as exercise, I pointed it out to show I wasn't being couch potato on the other days. Many people think that riding horses is like renting a fully tacked and groomed horse for a 1 hour guided trail ride where you are primarily walking and the rider doesn't need to do much. Thanks for the replies

I never heard of that. At one of the information sessions I was in a band patient gave a little talk after the surgeon spoke. She showed a before picture and talked about her journey. At my current program I went to one of the support group meetings. They also have Zumba there 2 nights a week and it is the same night as the support meeting. The Zumba instructor was a WLS patient so she stopped down after class and showed us her before picture and talked to us a little bit. I haven't seen anything as elaborate as a banquet. It keeps striking me as funny as I tend to think of banquets being food centered and mediocre food at that. I hope they are smart enough to have WLS patient appropriate menu. How ironic if they serve lots of white bread, Pasta, rice or white potatoes. Good for you for accepting so that you can show people that WLS is a good tool.

My doctor's plan is no NSAIDs ever. I can take Tylenol. However he did approve the low dose of Celebrex as the Cox-2 inhibitor is easier on the GI system. There was one time I took one Advil PM since I really needed to get some sleep and that was all I had. I figured 1 pill 1 time was not going to hurt. I was not on the Celebrex at the time. You are not supposed to stack NSAIDs with Celebrex anyway.

I didn't NEED somebody there during surgery. I just needed an emergency contact person & phone number. My husband was there until they wheeled me back for surgery. Then he ran out to download some books onto my Nook and get Breakfast. My hospital didn't have wi-fi and I had no books available on my Nook. He was back before I woke up. I did talk to him in my room afterwards but really just wanted to sleep. Yes, you absolutely need somebody to drive for you. Plan on not driving for at least a few days after surgery. I also would recommend a friend rather than a cab. I took pain meds about 45 minutes before my car ride home so that I was sure I would be comfortable for my car ride. Now my ride is more like an hour to an hour and 15 minutes depending on traffic. I also used a small pillow between me and the seat belt. While it is very likely nobody will take advantage of you why take the chance.

I was pre-diabetic and am PCOS and my surgeon and my endocrinologist both recommended the sleeve. I am now 6 months out. I started at 242 ten days before surgery. I lost 12 pounds on the pre-op so was 230 on the day of surgery. I am now 174 this morning. I don't get nearly the hunger I used to get. I would get a second opinion from a surgeon and speak to your endocrinologist. If your endocrinologist isn't familiar with the different WLS surgeries then either find one that is or see if your endocrinologist is willing to educate themselves about the various surgeries. You could also have the potential surgeon talk to your endocrinologist. The surgeon can then discuss from a hormonal POV why her prefers one over the other and your endocrinologist can decide whether that is sound medicine or personal bias. If you don't have an endocrinologist for your PCOS, IMO, you should. I think they are best suited for dealing with PCOS and most metabolic issues. A fertility specialist OB/GYN can be good if your goal is getting pregnant but from an overall health perspective I think it is important to have an endocrinologist.

My chiropractor thinks I should take a probiotic. I do know that I give my horse a daily probiotic. For various reasons I stopped it and the other supplement he was on. Next thing you know he isn't feeling well, wasn't eating well and had to have the vet out. I put him back on a probiotic and he is doing fine again. Now it isn't practical to use refrigerated probiotics for horses so I don't know which ones are better for humans. I really should look into one for me. Maybe next payday I will order some.

See if you can get your daughter to go with you to a surgeons visit or to one of the informational sessions. Maybe when she sees some of the statics of weight loss surgery success and safety she will be a little more open. Even is she doesn't approve I hope you change your mind and have it done. You have to live with your body and your health. She does not. It should be your decision not hers. Since she doesn't approve of you getting WLS has she stepped up to help you lose weight in other ways? Is she walking with you? Going to the gym with you? Helping you with shopping and meal planning? Going to Weight Watchers with you? If she is just saying WLS isn't the right way for you but isn't being supportive by actually helping you find the "right" way that isn't fair. That is setting you up to fail. Don't let yourself go another few years, another few diets that only work for a short time and add a few dozen more pounds before you decide to do what YOU need to do for YOUR health and wellbeing before have the WLS. Time and again I see people on this board saying their biggest regret is not having the surgery done sooner. In the end it is your life and your choice. It would be nice if you have your daughter's support but not necessary. If you think that your daughter was able to sway you because you weren't ready for surgery that is fine and I understand. WLS is a big commitment and not for everybody. And just because now isn't the right time doesn't mean it won't be in the future. If you let her sway you because you didn't want to disappoint her and took the path of least resistance that is a shame. If that is the case then some therapy to help you understand why your daughter's feelings are more important than your health may be a good idea. Good luck whatever you decide to do. (not sure why my quote of Bamp62 didn't work)

I went out to Breakfast with friends and DH about 10 days after surgery. I brought my caffeine free tea bags and my little container of Jello. No big deal. I was cooking meals for hubby while I was home for the 2 weeks after surgery. All stuff a couldn't eat. I actually was fine with it. I think DH originally felt guilty with me cooking and him eating in front of me. I figured I just needed to get used to it. I like to cook and it gave me something to do while I was home and not working. He is a picky eater so it is pretty common for me to make something for him and something different for me. I like fish, meat, fruit and lots of veggies. He is meat and potatoes. I will make him a carb side like mac and cheese or a noodle pack but will sometime leave it on the counter rather at the table. He then needs to package the left overs. It keeps me from picking at and stealing a bite or two.

Based on my height of 5'3" my weight by one of the gov't or Met Life weight charts says 131 is the top of the ideal range. I was 231 on the morning of surgery so my excess weight was 100 pounds.

I asked my surgeon: What bogie size he uses. (40) How much work I would miss (2 weeks- I could have stayed out longer if I wanted) How many days in the hospital (2 nights) I did a lot of research prior so didn't have lots of questions for him. Mine were specific to him. Some people want to know if they will have a drain or be cath'd. (For my surgery: No drain, yes, cath) Knowing what your pre-op and post-op diet will be like including what Vitamins you will need can be helpful. This way you can buy what you need ahead of time. He gave me a list of pre-op testing he wanted done which is separate from the insurance requirements. I did not ask how many surgeries he did or his complications rate. I saw him give a group informational session at a different hospital a few years before and he address that then. If he had not I would have asked. Ask about what kind of support you will get from a staff NUT or dietician after surgery. I see mine with every follow-up and via phone or e-mail.

Red Robin will do any of their burgers or chicken sandwiches as a lettuce wrap. I then substitute broccoli or small salad for the fries. I still eat cheese and mayo on my burgers or chicken sandwich. If I make a burger at home it is pretty small and I either don't use a roll or I eat it with part of one of the Arnold Sandwich Thins. I just eat it open faced and get the wheat. I eat about a 1/4 of one total. (1/2 of a 1/2). I toast them. They are well within my program's guidelines.

I was reading on a hospital website that it can be used to help a patient get down to a weight where WLS can be safely performed. It looks like relatively minimal weight loss compared with having to go under anesthesia twice in 6 months. I know for many of us we can lose some weight and sometime large amounts of weight but without the WLS it eventually come back. I know I lost 45 pounds on my last big diet. I kept it off for 3 years. I just don't see it being a great long term weight loss solution once it is removed. They only kept 3/4th of the weight they lost off for only 6 months. I wonder where they will be in 1 year. I wish the article had reported the weight loss as percent of excess rather than percent of body weight. 6.8% of a 5'4" individual that is 250 pounds is way different than 6.8% of a 6' individual that is 250 pounds. Just my knee jerk reaction to this procedure.

krisrpaz- my saddle fitter recently mentioned going for a sleep apnea test. She has one of the fitness devices that monitors her sleep- FitBit maybe? She figured out she was getting about 3 hours of actual sleep. If you have one of the fitness devices that does the sleep monitoring it might be a starting point toward figuring out if you have a sleep disorder. Another thought: About 10 years years ago my husband was having fatigue issues. We finally figured out that he was sleeping too deep and never getting into REM sleep. The doctor prescribed him a mild anti-depressant for a few months to get his sleep cycle back to normal. Since the Valium helped you I wonder if you never really sleep deep enough to get to REM so maybe try taking a Tylenol PM or OTC sleep aid each night for a week to see if it helps. If you don't get enough sleep in the REM stage it can cause fatigue. I sometime have insomnia and I take a half dose of either an OTC sleep aid or Tylenol PM. If I take a full does of the OTC sleep aid it will cause me to be groggy when I get up. A half dose is enough to slow down the mind enough to sleep and stay asleep. So you may want to start at the lower dose end of things.

OP if you were in my area I would say to be checked for Lyme or other tick borne diseases. I don't know how common Lyme is in CA. If you have been to the East coast anytime fairly recently except in the dead of winter I would get tested. If it isn't common in your area your doctors probably won't think about Lyme or other tick borne diseases. There are 3 other tick borne diseases that are fairly common in my area. I am being lazy about looking up the names since I can spell them. I have had Lyme 4 times, DH has had it 3 times. Fatigue is a big symptom of Lyme. Neither of us has even found a tick or bulls eye on us. We find deer ticks on the cats all the time. DH also got a fever one time shortly before he noticed the fatigue. I get body sore from the Lyme but DH does not. Lyme can have a variety of symptoms depending on the individual. DH actually always tests negative but his symptoms go away after he takes Doxycycline. He couldn't get a script the last time he had the symptoms and tested negative. But a friend had leftover Doxy from when her horse had Lyme. Symptoms gone after 40 days. We use human Doxy for horses. They just get about 20 pills twice a day.

If your family keeps pushing it then tell them that it is a medical procedure that has been discussed and cleared with your doctors. Those medical doctors feel that this surgery is best for your health and for your situation. OP while you feel that VSGAnn2014 was rude I do largely agree with her. For the majority of the people we know well, such as parents and siblings, you should have a good feel for how they will react. So to be wrong on one is understandable but to be wrong about 3 is surprising. I told my mom last because she is the one that always tried to tell me how to eat so I could lose weight. She is 5'2" and at her heaviest was 125 pounds. I decided to tell everybody. But I am not shy and really don't care what people think. Yes, I delayed telling my mother mostly because I didn't want to go over the same ground again. On the other hand I did tell her a few months prior to surgery. I really did not need to tell her anything at all as I see her once a year. She lives in AZ and I live in PA. She was very supportive. If people ask why I am eating so little I tell them. "I had weight loss surgery in February. I eat lots of small meals, and I drink lots of Water." I mostly get "Good for you. How much have you lost?, Is it hard? what can you eat?" 60 pounds in 6 months, it takes planning but isn't hard. I can eat anything but since I need to eat so much Protein in a day I normally eat just protein and green vegetables and I eat 5 to 6 meals a day. I exercise. Yes, I will occasionally steal a fry from DH or two bites of his ice cream". I don't mind when people ask how much I have lost since surgery. I think my attitude comes across as open and willing to answer questions so they ask them. Once again I am not shy and tend to be pretty assertive therefore I don't think people are going to say to me you took the easy way out. It hasn't happened yet and I started telling people a year ago. I do not consider this surgery to be the easy way. However I will be the first to admit that I have had a textbook recovery. I can eat anything and nothing bothers me. I did not have gas pains after the surgery, I have never had low energy, I am ahead of where my surgeon expected me to be for my 5 month visit. But I do know it is more of a struggle for other people. I have seen plenty of people that at 6 months out the sleeve is still picky about what they can eat and drink. So while I reply that it has not been hard when people ask that is based on my personal experience.