catwoman7

I know everyone is different, but I had very little pain with my RNY (I'm not a revision, though). I thought plastic surgery was MUCH more painful.

a 30-40 lb weight loss the first month is the exception with "normal" WLS people. That's more common among people on shows like "My 600 lb Life", who start at way higher BMIs than most of us do.. I've been hanging out on this and other bariatric surgery boards for at least five years, and I would say the average loss for the first month is in the 15-25 lb range. I lost 16 lbs the first month, and I started out at over 300 lbs. So I'm not sure where you've been reading that, but even though it happens occasionally with us more "normal" WLS folks, it is definitely the exception.

most people do lose some bone density after all that weight loss because your body doesn't need all that bone to hold up the weight anymore. That said, yes - osteoporosis/osteopenia can be a complication of WLS - esp the malabsorptive types. I have osteoporosis that was discovered two years after surgery. I have no idea if it was caused by WLS or not since they didn't do a baseline before surgery, but osteoporosis runs rampant among women in my family, so it could have already been there. I'm 60 years old. and yes - you can have osteoporosis/osteopenia that early. I have a 400 lb friend who has it (age 57), and a normal-weight friend who has it at age 62. Neither have had WLS. As I recall, my mother had it early as well. So although yours could be due to WLS, it may have happened regardless, too.

we're able to take a lot of meds. NSAIDs and extended release versions of meds are a no-go, but many others we can take.

that's not normal. I'd contact a doctor.

the first couple of years post-op I focused on turkey and vegetables and just had a tablespoon or two of everything else. I also brought pumpkin yogurt to eat (several yogurt companies make it this time of year) while everyone else was eating pumpkin pie. I've since found some crustless protein pumpkin pie recipes that aren't bad - although I haven't had them for Thanksgiving yet.

I've also read that silicone tape or gel can help improve scars. silicone products aside, I've read that other expensive creams don't really do any better than the cheaper ones. The idea is to keep the scar moist while it's healing, so my plastic surgeon said products with cocoa butter were good. I've also read Vaseline (yes, Vaseline!) was good, too.

my surgeon required a cardiac stress test for anyone over 50 years old AND for anyone who's had previous heart issues, regardless of age. So yes, I had it (I was 55 when I had surgery). It was pretty easy.

sometimes people stop menstruating when they get too heavy - not sure why, but it happens. It can also happen when they get too thin. you may have just dropped enough weight that it's back again. also, like the above poster said, rapid weight loss can temporarily screw up your hormone balance because of estrogen being released from fat cells, where it's stored.

high liver enzymes are pretty common - rapid weight loss is really hard on livers. Mine stabilized eventually - maybe at 18 or so months out.

I have a sublingual (Superior Source), but you don't have to take K2 sublingually - a tablet will do. I just try to take some of my vitamins sublingually because I get tired of swallowing pills (and I'm not sure I'd recommend Superior Source's sublingual K2 anyway - it's too sweet. I like their sublingual vitamins D and B12, though) I take 100 mcg, which is the standard dosage btw, this one is MK-7. It's supposedly easier to absorb than the other versions of K2.

I don't think they really know for sure what all the surgery does - other than it works. It's definitely causing some sort of malabsorption because if you don't keep on top of your supplements, you can experience some serious deficiencies. I'm guessing these study results aren't consistent.

I started taking whole pills as soon as I got home from the hospital. There were only two that were too big to take - those giant calcium tablets and one other one that escapes me, but the PA at the surgeon's office said it was fine to wait a couple of weeks before starting the "other one" (for calcium, I just took a chewable one instead of the big tablets). So in summary, I never crushed pills.

4 years 3 months out. I'm taking: 2 generic equivalent of Centrum Silver 2000 mg calcium citrate (I have osteoporosis, thus, 2000 mg) 800 mg magnesium D3 K2 B complex carbonyl iron (with a couple of chewable vitamin C tablets) a megadose of sublingual B12 once every two weeks

yes I weigh 150 lbs now and have for at least a year, so a 12 lb gain. I seem to have stabilized here, though. A 10-20 lb bounce back after you hit your lowest weight is unfortunately pretty common - but this weight is still fine for me (even though part of me would love to be back in the 130s again!) as I mentioned above, I almost never went off my food plan while I was in weight loss phase (I do occasionally now - but I still log everything that goes into my mouth and cut back when my weight starts to climb above 150). as for exercise, I mostly did pool-based activities for cardio (e.g. water aerobics, swimming) for probably the first year due to my weight & arthritis. I went 2-3 times a week. I also did gentle yoga a couple of times a week. Once a lot of the weight was off, I added Zumba and other types of dance cardio. I still try to do cardio 2-3x a week and yoga a couple of times a week. I've also done a fair amount of walking this summer - 30-45 minutes at a time. I really should add in some strength training, but I hate it. Sometimes I'll do it for a couple of weeks and then give up. I really wish I liked it... So in summary, I'm not a gym rat, but I do get some type of exercise most days of the week.

I got that way when I was about three years out. I had a complete workup - nothing. Everything normal. Then I noticed once that I got a bad case of it about an hour after I ate a piece of cake at a retirement party. I asked my PCP if it could be RH (reactive hypoglycemia). She said it was definitely possible - it could be that my blood sugar was normal the day/time they tested it, so that wouldn't have jumped out at them. She said I could get a glucose monitor to verify - OR just try to eat something every 3-4 hours. Either a protein or, if a carb, then pair it with a protein. That seems to have done the trick - at least for me. The dehydration theory could also be what's up, though. (btw - during the workup they also checked my inner ear and checked me for orthostatic hypotension. They also did a urinalysis - not sure what they were looking for there - and did a complete blood panel.

I started out at 373, lost 57 lbs through my required six-month supervised diet + the two-week pre-op liquid diet. The morning of surgery I weighed 316. I was down to 138 lbs by about 18 months out. Have gradually regained up to 150 (but this is fine - I'm still within a normal BMI range) 3 months out - 276 6 months out - 241 1 year out - 187 P.S. I should add that this is not typical. I worked my butt off to lose this much. My surgeon said only about 10% of his patients that start out at my BMI lose all of their excess weight. The peer-reviewed studies I've read mostly agree with that assessment. But there are lots of people out there who've done it, so it IS do-able. It just takes a lot of commitment. I almost never went off plan while I was in the weight loss phase.

it's supposedly pretty easy to manage. It usually happens when they eat too much sugar at one sitting, so if you limit (or avoid) sugar, you shouldn't dump.

to gain seven lbs, you'd have to eat 42,500 calories more than your body needs. Unless you at 7000 extra calories every day you were gone, then it's likely mostly water weight.

actually, most RNY'ers don't dump - they say up to 30% do, so if true, that leaves 70% of us who don't. I've never dumped, although I don't feel that great if I eat a ton of fat or sugar.

you can do cardio every day. With strength training, you're not supposed to exercise the same group of muscles two days in a row, but if you want to do it every day, you can do something like lower body one day, and upper body the next. But your routine of doing cardio every day and strength training every 2-3 days sounds fine.

I had over 200 lbs to lose, so people didn't start noticing until around October (I had surgery in June), after I'd lost about 70 or 80 lbs. So I don't think they made the connection between my weight loss and the "staycation" I'd had four months earlier. By then, my weight loss had slowed a bit, too. I told most people that I was working with a dietitian, low-carbing and exercising like a fiend. I was more honest with close friends and other obese people (the latter because they'd know that was a bunch of crap), but skinny people believed that and were satisfied with that answer. Or at least they seemed like it - because they didn't ask further questions.

I'm not a revision so some of this I can't really answer, but as far as what you can eat, I can eat pretty much anything at four years out. I can't eat a ton of fat or sugar at one sitting, though, or I'll feel like crap -- but then again, we're not supposed to be eating that way *anyway*, so... btw - I went through UW as well

I don't think fat soluble vitamin deficiencies are a "thing" with gastric bypass. They ARE with the DS, though - those folks have to take supplements of those vitamins (A, E, etc)

nope - it just means you're getting even more water, which is never a bad thing!