Croaker

Sounds like referred pain. The nerves of your diaphragm enter the spinal cord at the same level as those of your shoulder. The signals get crossed and you get shoulder pain. I had this following my surgery for awhile due to the hiatal hernia fix I had at the same time. As stuff passed through the diaphragm I would have shoulder pain.

I always joke that I don't care where we go out to eat, as I'm going to have the grilled chicken. There are very few places that don't have something along those lines. I plan to take half home, to supplement the dinner with a few bites of salad, and try to pick a healthy veggie side.

I'm shooting for 1400-1500 per day, and about 90g Protein with less than 80 of carbs. At nine months, I've lost 100. I've been stalled for 8 - yes, 8 - weeks. However, I've gone down two pant sizes in that time, despite being the exact same weight. Stalls suck, because we desperately want to see the numbers decline. But weight loss isn't linear, because our body doesn't want to lose that emergency reserve of calories. So we go through cycles. Fat is broken down to replenish stores of glycogen in the liver. This is then used at a later date when we cross some biochemical threshold. Losing the glycogen results in weight loss. Breaking down fat results in changes in inches. My own weight loss has been stair step in shape. What breaks the stall isn't necessarily something we do, we must just keep walking down the right path and it'll all sort itself out.

People can have profound sleep apnea without snoring! You need to be properly evaluated. The big deal is that people with OSA (obstructive sleep apnea) halt their breathing, which leads to a drop in the oxygen content in your body. This has been proven, time and again, to be severely detrimental to health and healing. Mix that with a surgically assaulted abdominal wall and narcotics, and it can lead to issues post-operatively - both in the hospital, and at home. This isn't just some box to be checked. It's important.

Just to note, the study published regarding the Reshape demonstrated increased weight loss over those who didn't have it, yet we aren't talking about huge amounts. Despite the above quoted weight loss average from the company, the study showed those who received the balloon lost on average 14 pounds over six months, compared to 7 pounds for those who underwent the procedure but didn't have the balloon placed (the placebo group). So, does it help with weight loss? Yes. But 7 pounds more over the placebo group over a six month period isn't exactly going to get anyone from morbid obesity to a healthy weight.

Plan, plan, plan. Planning and packing food to take to work will be your greatest assets in keeping on track.

The important thing is to do the right things. That's what I'm focusing on. I'm 5 months out in a few days, and my surgeon has a goal for me of 60% excess body weight lost by 6 months. Right now I'm at 42%, so I'll likely wind up short of the goal. However, I'm still holding to the principles of sustained weight loss, so I'm not particularly worried. I can't make my body lose weight faster (I tried shouting at my gut for awhile and it ignored me), so I pay attention to the things I can control. Great post!

Hydrate. Alcohol wrings the water out of your body, which is what causes the hangover. So water up!

I shopped sales and clearances, buying a size down. I've gone through a lot more pants, shorts, and belts than shirts. Ebay has been a great resource for cheap jeans.

Yes, there are people who regain all or most of their weight back after surgery. Ask them, and you'll generally find people who've deviated from the basic principles of the post-op lifestyle, whether it's an unhealthy diet or lack of exercise. But for those who use WLS as a tool to affect a change in their life, it's a powerful way to get healthier. Yes, it would be ideal if we could all just change our diet and exercise habits and lose without surgery. So many of us have tried and failed on that path. Or succeeded, but only temporarily. Your GI doc is woefully misinformed about that. She is correct that a sleeve would be a mistake for you. The concern is that if the Barrett's were to progress to cancer, those who've undergone a sleeve won't have enough stomach left over to have surgery and hook things back up. Those with bypass have a reserve stomach ready to help with that.

The human body is an incredible thing, capable of adapting to whatever conditions thrown at it while still driving the important things to it - providing enough fuel to survive on and storing what isn't used into fat. We are hard coded in our DNA to gain weight easily, to survive what used to be lean times between meals, and be reluctant to give up those fat stores unless absolutely needed. We walk a fine line in trying to lose the weight, by proving to our body that through exercise that we need our muscle mass, while taking in few enough calories to force it to burn fat. Once you realize that this process goes against our biology, it's easy to see that this is going to be a challenge.

For me, the incisional pain was there, but not a big deal. It did make getting up out of / into bed hard, but was manageable. The majority of my pain was in my shoulder, referred pain from my diaphragm and a sizable hiatal hernia repair. I stopped taking the narcotic immediately on getting home (every time I tried I almost vomited and had excruciating pain with it - said screw that and threw it away). I used Tylenol liquid for a few days then stopped that. I was on the treadmill on the second day after surgery (surgery was on a Monday) and able to do pretty much anything on Saturday.

It's a sign that your mouth is opening during the night, allowing the flow to escape that way, thus drying out your mouth. I bought a chin strap and wore that. Solved it right away. It's important to address, as the pressure escaping through your mouth isn't providing therapy for your OSA. As for me, I have an auto-CPAP, that senses what I need. Before surgery, I was at 16 cm H2O nightly. Now I'm running about 9. I'm hoping that in a few more months I'll be free of it.

I'm in the midst of a stall, yet the pant size is changing. I've come to accept that stalls happen and are perhaps my body catching up to / recovering from getting rid of my past caloric indulgences. Right now, part of it may be my Water, since I've been working long hours that aren't easy to get the water in. So that's my focus for now.

I weight myself daily. However, I also don't obsess over the numbers. I recognize that my weight is going to fluctuate on a daily basis, up and down. The tracking software on my phone that I enter that weight into shows me the overall trend downward. I look at weighing myself that often as just putting in data points to watch the long term graph.