catwoman7

one of my favorite Desserts is to get some vanilla Greek yogurt (Chobani makes a 60 calorie one - and Light and Fit aren't much more than that), stir in some unsweetened cocoa powder, and then add a dollop of sugar free Cool Whip and a few raspberries.

I didn't have mine weighed after it was removed, but a lot of people claim theirs only weighed 4 or 5 lbs. I guess if you have a lot of liposuction you could lose more than that. I don't think my weight went down much. I looked about a zillion percent better, though!

yep - super common. It's just the IV Fluid.

I swear I was 33 yesterday, but somehow today I am 50 and I promise you, that's way too young to die. You deserve a long life, and you deserve for it to start now, when you're still young enough to enjoy every minute of it. Surgery can be scary, but the good news is it isn't dangerous and it can help you have a healthy life.

Hi Carrielee - welcome! I had VSG surgery just about a week before my 40th birthday this past November. I had sworn in the years leading up to it that I would NEVER have any kind of WLS, but here I am! If I could have done it on my own, I would have - I needed help to improve my life, because nothing I tried on my own was working, and I tried it all.
I had sleep apnea, insulin resistance, and bp that bounced back and forth between hypertensive and high-normal. I felt like I was going to die after climbing up a flight of stairs, and I was passing up good opportunities at my job because I didn't want to walk 5-10 minutes to another building and get all sweaty. I had never had surgery of any kind before (other than getting my wisdom teeth out, but it's not like I was intubated for that), so the thought of getting put under and having my innards poked at was rather intimidating.
I would do it over again in a heartbeat. Like @catwoman7 said, I'd do it every year if I had to!
I never needed to use my prescription pain meds post-op. I actually take the "long way" to my car at the end of my workdays now. My husband and I routinely walk to the front of our neighborhood and back, whereas previously, I hated just walking the 0.10 mile to our mailbox. My blood pressure has actually been almost LOW ever since waking up from surgery, my IBS-D has essentially disappeared (and I had days where I couldn't be too far from a restroom before), and I'm a little less sweaty. My knees feel INFINITELY better, and they're a little less noisy when I bend down.
Now, you do have some health conditions that could make any surgery a little more risky (fatty liver, history of PE especially), but your doctor will review your history and will probably have you do quite a few tests and things to make sure it's safe for you to have surgery. I had some weird, random heart palpitations for darn near 20 years that were dismissed as "nothing major", but my doctor insisted that I do a 48-hour Holter monitor just to be sure. When that didn't show anything, they had me do a monitor for a whole month! They actually figured out the cause (occasional premature atrial contractions, or PACs, which apparently darn near everybody has at some point - some of us just feel them more than others), and cleared me for surgery.
Ask your surgeon all the questions you can think of. I watched YouTube videos for months leading up to my surgery just to see what others' experiences were. I crawled through this forum extensively. I read the binder my program gave me over and over and over. I started following tons of WLS accounts on Insta. Do whatever you need to do to ease your mind a bit, and know that there is a large community to back you up!
Trust your gut and go with what you know you need to do, be that surgery or something else. No matter what you choose, we'll be here for you.

About 21 years ago I weighed over 700 pounds when I decided to have surgery at 43. The writing was on the wall: By 50 I would be dead or wishing I was. With surgery I had solid chance at losing enough of my weight to live a more active, healthy, happy, and longer life.
Because of my weight and health issues, Doc said I had a 1 in 20 chance of dying on the table. I had a 100% chance of dying in too few years.
I didn't even have to think about it.
Surgery went fine. I'm told I didn't die. I followed my plan. I worked on my mental health. It took about 3 years to lose just over 500 pounds. I am healthier, happier, and ridiculously more active beyond anything I imagined.
Life is still full of ups and downs. Some ups and downs are the same, some are vastly different. The current ups and downs are better. Much better.
Good luck,
Tek

I went back and forth for at least 10 years on this. Fortunately, I didn't have the health issues you have, but I knew if I didn't get the weight off, I wouldn't live to see my 60th birthday (I was 55 at the time). I went into it thinking it was a "dangerous" surgery, but I thought it was even more dangerous for me to stay at almost 400 lbs. I was happy to learn that these surgeries are no longer dangerous (like they were years ago) - they're actually very routine now and quite safe - safer than hip replacement surgeries, which they do all the time. So I took the jump. Absolutely the best decision I've ever made! I'd do it again in a heartbeat - in fact, I'd go back and have it done every year if I had to!

I never had gerd or reflux until I got my sleeve. Then the gerd was so incredibly bad I ended up with gastritis and esophagitis. I had to take Nexium 80mg 2x per day plus Prevacid daily as needed (needed daily). The PPI was in such high doses so often that I developed an incredibly large amount of polyps all through my stomach. It took 4 endoscopies to get rid of all of them. I had a revision to bypass and haven't had a single issue since.

revisions do work the vast majority of the time. But not all the time - we see people on here once in a while who had one, but it didn't work for them. But most of the time, yes, it works.

yes - it's super common. For some it's temporary, for others, it's permanent.

I, too, take Water fitness classes. Anything in the water is easy on the joints.

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

I'd make an appointment with your bariatric team then. I'm a slow weight loser..but 4 lbs in two months seems off.

When i last had a hospital appointment they said the mushrooms peppers and onions are all good for nutrition and the mozzarella is also good for Protein providing its in small amounts like 40grams

there was a lot of conversation on here about those when they first came out a few years ago. It seems they work for some people, but not for others. I never tried them because I figured I'd be one of the people they wouldn't work for. I've considered getting them for traveling, though, so I don't have to lug a bunch of bottles around. Even if they didn't really work for me, four or five days or even a week without getting adequate Vitamins probably wouldn't really matter - esp since I'm only away from home that long maybe once or twice a year.

Hair loss is super common after bariatric surgery (actually, it can be a side effect of ANY major surgery because of trauma to the body - but I think we see it more after bariatric surgery because in addition to surgery trauma, we're also taking in very few calories those first few months)

I had it from months 5-9, but fortunately, I didn't lose very much. I doubt anyone noticed besides me.

about the only thing you can do is keep on top of your Vitamins and Protein to keep it from getting any worse that it would otherwise. Some people swear by things like Biotin, but others say it did nothing for them, so....

nope - that's the same thing I told people! (except for other obese people - they know the "diet & exercise" thing is a bunch of schlock, so I was more honest with them. A lot of skinny people believe that, though...)

I can't speak to somee of the other things you mentioned, but as far as BM's go, it's pretty common for it to take a week for your first one post-surgery. Not much in there...

If you follow your plan, you won’t put on weight. You are consuming so few calories & even when you progress to purées, soft food & then solid food, you’ll still be eating so few calories & such tiny portions, that again you won’t put on weight.
Not consuming calories, not meeting your Protein goals (or at least being close to it) will actually be doing you more harm. Affecting your recovery & healing, putting your body into starvation mode, being nutrient deficit, etc. These will impede your long term health & weight loss.
May be get in touch with your team & ask if you could see a therapist to work through this fear of eating. You don’t want to swap one set of poor eating habits with another & create new health issues.
Trust the program. It works.

I’ve had this feeling before but it lasted a very short while. Your body needs the calories to survive and weight loss will still happen. Your stomach is not that same anymore and you won’t be able to eat the same amount or the same types of food anymore. That feeling will pass in due time. You’ll be okay! Just make sure you follow your surgeon’s directives ♥️

yep - I think a lot of us how are a few years out can relate to this. I, too, thought I'd conquered all this. It's a lifelong battle.

I really didn't have any pain at all. In fact, at first I thought they hadn't done the surgery! Pain is all across the board with these surgeries, but I've been hanging out on this site for nine years, and from what I can tell, most of us experience very little pain. If you're one of the ones who DOES have pain, they'll give you pain killers to keep on top of it. They're pretty effective and the pain shouldn't last for more than a couple of days.
I also would not worry about complications. Techniques have improved immensely over the last few years, and complications are pretty rare.

I really didn't have any pain at all. In fact, at first I thought they hadn't done the surgery! Pain is all across the board with these surgeries, but I've been hanging out on this site for nine years, and from what I can tell, most of us experience very little pain. If you're one of the ones who DOES have pain, they'll give you pain killers to keep on top of it. They're pretty effective and the pain shouldn't last for more than a couple of days.
I also would not worry about complications. Techniques have improved immensely over the last few years, and complications are pretty rare.

I really didn't have any pain at all. In fact, at first I thought they hadn't done the surgery! Pain is all across the board with these surgeries, but I've been hanging out on this site for nine years, and from what I can tell, most of us experience very little pain. If you're one of the ones who DOES have pain, they'll give you pain killers to keep on top of it. They're pretty effective and the pain shouldn't last for more than a couple of days.
I also would not worry about complications. Techniques have improved immensely over the last few years, and complications are pretty rare.

normal bites - yes. Drinking while eating - no. That rule is for life.