catwoman7

well, yea - at age 60, my bikini-wearing days are L-O-N-G gone, so I don't care too much about scars, either, as long as they're not in the middle of my face or something. I do love my results, though. I could have lived with something not quite as aesthetic as long as that saggy skin was gone, but I must admit he did a great job while he was at it. I don't think my body looks like a typical 60-year-old's at all....let alone the body of someone who's lost a truckload of weight. Not a sag to be found, and everything is in proportion. This is how I should have looked at age 30 or 40 (but unfortunately, did not...) and yes - there's no such thing as a completely stable weight. Normal, never-been-overweight people have weight that fluctuates - like a five-pound range or something. The surgeons just don't want people to have surgery and then put on 20 lbs, because it can affect the results (they say gaining or losing 10 lbs or so is fine, but much beyond that can screw up their work). That's one of the many reasons I had it - figured it might force me to stay at a decent weight since I went through so much hell and forked over so much money to look this way!!

you might not have to. I know some surgeons leave the drains in for a couple of weeks (although it may depend on the situation, too), but I went to Chicago for my surgery (I live in southern Wisconsin - about two hours from Chicago), and he took mine out at my first post-op, about four days later, before I headed back home. It was great because I didn't have to deal with them after I got home. Although it could be that they were just ready to come out, too - it depends on how much "output" you're having, I believe... also - belly buttons - they try to position them in a natural spot, in proportion to the "new" you, and they arrange the skin over them so that (supposedly) you can't tell you've had surgery (although as I said above - sometimes you can tell - so check for someone skilled in this as it's supposedly a challenge to create natural-looking ones) - so i'm not sure how this will turn out if you tell them not to re-position it. Just ask when you're there - obviously they're going to be WAY better at predicting the results than I am!!

I'm wondering if something else is going on - I haven't really heard about migraines related to WLS. Could it be hormone related?

maybe 15 lbs? I was around 330 before I started the two-week diet, and 315 the morning I was rolled into surgery. So about 5% of my weight. But I lost quite a bit of weight prior to that, so I'd probably lost a lot of water weight even before then.

I lost around 215-220 lbs (I originally lost 235 lbs - I gained 15-20 lbs during year 3 post-op). I'm still drinking one protein shake a day, but that's because we discovered early on that I malabsorb protein (I may have malabsorbed it even before surgery, but we never did a baseline on protein, so we'll never know). I have to have at least 100 grams of protein a day or my prealbumin levels tank, so having a protein shake every day helps me get there. Otherwise, most patients only need 60-80 grams of protein a day, so you can usually get there just through food alone once you're a few months out. I've been eating normally for a long time. I can maintain my weight if I average around 1700 calories a day - so that's not much less than a woman my age and activity level who's never had weight loss surgery (of course, i was not eating that much when I was in weight loss phase)

yes - I should have added the reflux could be temporary -- as in it may not lead to chronic GERD for the OP. Reflux when you're early post-op isn't uncommon - which is probably why many surgeons put patients on a PPI for the first few months.

charts can give you a ballpark idea, but they may not be true for you. They tend to deal with averages - and I think the average bariatric patients loses about 70% of their excess weight. But as with any average, there are people who lose more or less than that. There are people out there, including on this site, who have lost 90-100% of their excess weight, so it can be done...

I agree. GERD is a potential side effect of the sleeve. It's a minority who get it, but a large enough minority that it's a known complication. Keep on top of it -- because MsMocie is correct - unmanaged GERD can lead to more serious problems down the road.

many surgeons put patients on a PPI for the first 3-6 months - are you on one? If not, you might want to let them know what's going on. Feeling like that would be miserable! also, some people develop lactose intolerance - at least temporarily - after surgery. Can you eat other things?

depends on the program. Ours had us on purees as soon as we left the hospital. BUT....if it's bothering the OP, then yes - she should probably go back to liquids for the time being.

congratulations!!

Tylenol should be fine.

well, all I can say is I spent about 30 years gaining and losing weight. It finally got to the point, when I was in my 50s, that it finally dawned on me that it wasn't working, it had never worked, and it probably wasn't going to work in the future, either. So if I wanted to lose weight and keep it off, I was going to have to do something drastic.

a lot of plastic surgeons want you to be at a stable weight for 6-12 months before getting plastic surgery. Reason being is a lot of us experience a 10-20 lb bounce back after hitting our lowest weight. Gaining or losing more than 10 or 12 lbs after plastic surgery can affect your results. I actually waited two years until I was absolutely sure I was at a stable weight. also, it's good to get someone who specializes in people who've had massive weight loss, or at minimum, someone who has done a truckload of these surgeries. It's supposed a pretty complicated subspecialty, so you want to make sure you have someone who's had a lot of experience with it. Keep in mind that the pictures they post on their Web site are probably going to reflect their best work, so look at sites like realself.com, too. Check belly buttons - those are supposedly hard to do. I've seen some crappy-looking post-surgical belly buttons.

just keep in mind that rate of weight loss varies widely among people based on so many different factors - age, gender, metabolic rate, starting BMI, whether or not you lost weight prior to surgery, how compliant you are with your food plan, activity level. I was a slow loser and thought there was no way I was ever going to lose all my excess weight, but I did.

Welcome! I lived in NC for several years - and my brother still lives there, so I still get down there once or twice a year! for healthy snacks that travel - individual bags of nuts, string cheese, beef jerky, protein bars (there are others, of course, but those immediately come to mind) clinics will usually tell you not to have a "food funeral", but a lot of people do. I didn't go hog wild (a term I still use even 30 years after leaving NC!), but we did go out to dinner a couple of times that last week so I could enjoy some of my favorite dishes that I knew I wouldn't be able to have again for awhile. good luck with everything! You'll be so glad you did this!

you CAN eat more once you're out a ways. I don't think the pouch really stretches much, though - I mean the first few weeks you have a lot of swelling in there that eventually disappears (making the pouch "bigger" - or more accurately, capable of holding more volume) - but after that, I'm pretty sure I've read that it doesn't stretch all that much. The stoma can get bigger, though (the hole they put in your pouch and connect the small intestine to). And from what I've heard, most of the methods they've come up with to make the stoma small again aren't terribly effective. UPDATE: I just skimmed through a few articles on this. Some say the pouch doesn't really stretch that much - and others say it can permanently stretch if you're constantly overeating (not an occasional splurge, but constantly overfilling it). SO....I don't know. I know for sure that some people's stomas stretch, though - that's from constantly overfilling your pouch, too.

I was really tired and headache-y during my two-week liquid diet - I think it's carb withdrawal plus ultra-low calories. I didn't have the sore throat and nasal stuff, though. It may just be the change in weather - I often get that way in the spring. Hopefully that's all it is.

most people don't see the loss right away because they pump you full of fluids while you're in the hospital. And that fluid has a lot of sodium in it, so it can potentially stick around for a few days. I've heard of people gaining up to 10 lbs while in the hospital! It's been awhile for me since surgery (five years) that I don't remember how long it took for me to start seeing a loss - but maybe a week or so? It may have been a little longer - but suffice it to say, many of us don't see a loss right away.

I don't know if any insurance companies would cover that, but you can always call and ask them. Some employers pay for various coverage options (and riders) for their employees that employers might not - so all BCBS policies aren't necessarily the same...)

I had my surgery five years ago...

I found the two-week pre-op diet to be the hardest part of the whole ordeal. I just had to white-knuckle it. It does seem to get better after the first three or four days, once your body is in ketosis.

BMI of 22 is not underweight. Plus many of us who reach normal BMI look pretty scrawny for awhile, and then things sort of redistribute and we start looking more filled out and healthy. Plus, at six months out, you're still in that "magical time" when things seem effortless and the weight keeps falling off. That ends for almost all of us. I got too thin and thought I'd NEVER be one of those who regained weight. Ha! Wrong. Gained it in year 3 without even trying. Now it's a huge, daily struggle to maintain (my weight is still fine, but I'm 20 lbs heavier than I was at my lowest (which admittedly was too low), and I struggle every day to stay there). So enjoy it while it lasts... (p.s. don't take this to say you need to lose more - you don't. You're good. But this amazing time period won't last forever, as I'm sure you know...so just keep it in mind)

I think the worst part was the two-week pre-surgery liquid diet. UGH.

she's a sleeve patient, though - strictures are pretty rare for them - although I suppose it COULD be... You're right, though - an endoscopy might help them figure out what's going on.