catwoman7

I slept A LOT so really didn't need much. My husband brought my laptop over, but I'm pretty sure I never used it. I just wanted to sleep....

it's temporary for sure. Lots of us at 3+ years out really struggle not to regain. If I don't constantly watch what I eat, my weight starts to head north...

when I started looking into this 2-3 years ago, I was told to expect about $8000-10,000 per procedure, with the lower body lift (LBL) counting as two procedures (because they do so much with the LBL - front, back, mons lift, etc). I had three consults and did find that guesstimate to ring true. It may be a little higher now since it's been a couple of years, but that should at least give you a ballpark idea. It'll vary a little depending on the surgeon (if he/she is nationally known and/or has 30 years of experience, except to pay on the higher end) and location (it'll cost you more in New York and LA than it will in Helena, Montana), but again, that should at least give you a ballpark idea...

they seem to work for some people, but not for others. Not sure I'd want to take the risk.

I never had a problem drinking water. In fact, I was worried about it at first - but then, fluids go right through your pouch, so...

my surgeon had everyone on omeprazole for a year. I think he's reduced it to six months now, though, with all the negative press PPI's have gotten lately. Most surgeons have always done it for the first 3-6 months (I think mine was an outlier)

I was - I quit in 1994.

my husband took a week off of work but ended up going back after about two days. I was fine on my own - and probably would have been even right after coming home from the hospital.

that's really common. I eventually got to the point where I was no longer cold all the time, but some people remain cold YEARS after surgery.

I agree that it depends on how much weight you have to lose, your age, etc. Everything does shift around a bit within a year or so after you hit your lowest weight, making you look better, but still, many of us still deal with excess skin even after that. If that's the case with you, the only way to get rid of it is plastic surgery.

your nerves were cut during surgery and will take a few weeks to heal. You WILL feel restriction as soon as you start healing up and move on to solid foods. You are literally risking your life by doing things like eating breadsticks only one week after surgery. PLEASE follow your surgeon's plan.

back when I had RNY, is was required of the potential sleeve patients but not the bypass patients. I don't know what they're requiring now as that was 4.5 years ago

those are usually made of titanium, which are fine. At any rate, I've had at least four MRI's since my RNY (I'm in a longitudinal research study) and have never had a problem.

I just googled it - it does have acetaminophen (Tylenol) in it, which should be OK. The above posters are right about the alcohol, though - depending on how much is in there, it could hit you hard. Maybe you could get the liquid and just take half a dose or something to see if you can handle it first?? Or better yet, call your clinic and ask.

I didn't with my RNY but I DID with one of my plastic surgeries. Not sure if they used a different glue or tape or if it just took me awhile to develop a sensitivity to it. At any rate, call your clinic. My plastic surgeon put me on prednisone for a few days until I was healed enough for him to remove it - and then he removed it.

another thing - at four weeks out, I was probably eating around 500 calories a day. That's probably like one piece of battered fried fish. WAY too much for one month out. Bad idea. Same with fries. Maybe a piece of baked fish would work.

me too - I'd be vomiting all evening. Ugh.

I can't even handle fish & chips at 4.5 years post-op. TOO.MUCH.GREASE.

I was told to just let it come off on its own. It took about four weeks.

you'll have to ask your surgeon since their requirements are all different. I wasn't allowed any food for two weeks - just no-cal or very low cal fluids (including broth and V8/tomato juice) and 4-5 protein shakes a day.

You are not going to die on the table. Your family is working with very outdated information. Yes - weight loss surgery was risky back in the 60s and 70s, but it's just not anymore. Surgical techniques are very different now and it's become a routine surgery. Mortality rate on the RNY is around .3% - and it's even lower for the sleeve. So in other words, there's at least a 99.7% chance that you're going to get through this just fine. Those are excellent odds - much better odds than for a hip or knee replacement surgery, which as you know are done every day. If possible, maybe you could provide them with current information - e.g, the Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies book - so they have a better understand of the risks (few - and mostly minor) and what all this entails. and you're right - it's much more risky to remain morbidly obese than it is to have the surgery.

I had a similar dilemma (two different approaches to what needed to be done), so I went on a third consult. The third surgeon had the same idea as surgeon #2, so that confirmed (at least for me) that that was probably the best route. do either of them specialize in body contouring for massive weight loss patients? Or at minimum, do A TON of them (as opposed to just a handful a year)? If so, that would be another factor I'd consider. Body contouring for the formerly obese is supposedly a challenging subspecialty, so you want someone with A LOT of experience doing it.

we were told not to worry about calories the first couple of months. You're not going to be able to eat enough to consume that many calories. Most of us were told to focus on protein and fluids.

I'm not sure if you caused any harm physically or not, but going off your plan just a week after surgery is worrisome on the mental side. You really have to be in the right frame of mind to be successful with this surgery. I'm sure all of us "cheat" at some point, but at only a week out? This journey is going to take a TON of work and resolve if you want to be successful. Hard work. If you're not working with a therapist, you might want to add one to your team.

Around three years out. I can't really handle it anymore unless i let it go fairly flat first. The carbonation irritates my stomach. Some people have no problem with it, though.