Sajijoma

I know it probably isn't going to help to say it, because it only made me angry when people said it to me, but I am truly sorry for your loss. I have lost 3 children. 2 before birth and 1 at birth and there is no right or wrong way to deal or not deal with that loss. It's a deep pain that never completely goes away. If you are lucky, you manage to eventually get it into a box enough to go on with your life, but it's never gone. You will have days where you cry and scream and wish you could have died with them and you'll have days where life feels almost normal and then later that night you feel guilty for almost feeling normal again. It's a long process and for some it takes years to get to the place where they can handle living again. Grief counseling can help, but I didn't feel helped by it. I felt like they wanted to rush me through my grief to where they wanted me to be and feel and I just wasn't. Talking about it helps. Maybe talking to your grand daughter about her dad and the fun things he did as a kid or the funny things he'd say or just whatever. It can give you both something to heal with. My babies were so small when they died that I didn't have that memory to fall back on to get through to where I am. Am I "over it"? No, you never get over losing your child, and I still have days where I cry and miss them but I'm functional and I have come to the conclusion there is a reason I'm still here and I need to focus on that purpose until the day we are reunited again. You can't find the comfort for your pain in a bottle of booze, a bottle of pills, or like I did, a box of ice cream sandwiches daily. All it does is make you sicker and will eventually lead to your family mourning you sooner. Hang in there [emoji173]️

I feel kind of bummed! I don't have any cute sneezes or hiccups or burps or anything like that to tell me I'm done eating. All I get is this feeling that is a little tight between my breasts. Sometimes my tongue feels like it's drawing back and that's it. I also get the cold all the time which is AWESOME because I used to be so hot and sweaty all the time and now I can wear all my cute sweaters and mittens and scarves and it's mostly fine. LOL

My approach has been to take a neutral stance. I have told very few people outright, but if someone asks "how I did it" and they are someone who like me has had issues, then I tell them. I'm not ashamed of having the surgery, but at the same time it's not everyone's business either. I don't evangelize the awesomeness of my rny to the grocery checkout clerk when she commented how good I looked and she could tell I lost a lot of weight, but between friends and stuff, there really isn't a reason to keep it a secret or lie. I have lost one friend after she found out I had wls and that's ok because doing a post mortem on that friendship, I realized she wasn't really my friend to begin with and only wanted someone to beat down and I made a great target. If your friends turn on you let them go. Life is better without the toxic life suckers and if you do tell, it might help someone. My former college roommate was the one who got me thinking about it. We had always been the same size and then the next time I saw her she looked amazing and when I found out she did wls I thought "heck, if she did it, why can't I?!?".

I never had a csection but my rny surgery was way easier and less painful recovery than my births. It was also less painful than my gallbladder surgery, but that was a complicated mess from it rupturing, so not the best comparison, but I totally think of you handled a csection or two that this will be easier than you think. I was expecting the worst and was pleasantly surprised I was even able to climb in our giant van to go home without any worries.

I think part of your lucky cramp free periods was because your body was regulating itself after having a baby and breastfeeding. After each of my babies, I didn't have a period for a year or longer each time because we breastfed and when it came back, it wasn't the painful hellish periods I was used to, but more like what I imagine normal people feel, but as time would go on, it worked itself back into the hellish mode again. I'm not saying go get pregnant again, but for me, that was a nice reprieve! Since surgery, and losing weight and weaning, my periods were all over the map, but now they have seemingly settled into a 26 day cycle(which I've always had exactly 32 day cycles so I have no idea what the deal is) but the same pain and flood of blood is coming back. By flood, I mean, I literally cannot leave the house for 3 days a month and use the giant super super overnight maximum diaper depends for pads because none of the "feminine products" are big enough or absorbent enough to even almost catch it. I still have to keep extra undies and pants in the bathroom and sit on a stack of towels to prevent leaks from ruining the furniture. I'm waiting to get hydro ablation done because I'm done having kids(7 is plenty) and that will end my period misery forever(hopefully). If you aren't done having kids and aren't ready for more, maybe talk to your OBGYN and see if maybe mirena or some combo pills might be an option to at least keep the lining from building up too much. I can't do pills because they just don't work for me. I've lost 3 babies after getting pregnant on various birth control pills because my body just doesn't absorb them or I'm a hyper ovulater or something.

My advice would be to try not to weigh yourself everyday and put the majority of your focus on just the water, protein, exercise and vitamins because it can be depressing if you are expecting more on the scale. I'm not a fast loser by any means. I'll lose a lb a day for like a week then stall out for the next 3 and then lost a lb a day for the next 4 days then stall out again for a few more weeks. It just is what it is. Physically though, I'm gaining strength and endurance and my body shape is changing and my pant size shrinking. It's just not so cut and dry as many of us have been taught that it just melts off and everyday you lose weight and every few days you lose more inches. It's more like a stair case and some of us get steep stairs of loss and some of us have shallow stair steps, but we all get to the same place in the end if we keep on doing the basics and stay away from those things that really sabotage long term success.

I was that way with tea. I used to drink nearly a gallon combined of tea every day and after surgery it tastes like spinach water. It was disgusting! It's gotten slowly better as the months tick by, but it never will taste as good as it did pre op I think. I'm actually ok with that. I've mourned that and moved on. I still get a glass every once in awhile(Splenda sweetened same as pre op) and it's ok....nothing special, but a good change when I get water bored.

My biggest mistake is not realizing how monumental losing weight would change my life. My life before was very basic and routine because it had to be. I couldn't function really and now, there are lots of fights and arguments because I'm not ok just sitting on the sofa starring at my husband play video games for hours and the kids run around from place to place while my life burns away. Even the best relationships will have periods where you have to renegotiate your life together. I mean, we aren't getting a divorce or anything, but I was not expecting to have to fight for the right to be allowed to go to the mall or go for a walk because it's not what he likes to do and he's still stuck in our old life cycle and I'm trying to make a new one.

Thanks everyone! It really is an overwhelmingly good feeling to know that this surgery and this change in my life has already saved me from things that to this point I assumed were inevitable, like getting diabetes.

I've been iron deficient most of my life. I'm actually surprised that I went UP from my last check to being just borderline deficient this time.

I had my yearly checkup last week and everything looked good in the office, but I didn't get my labs back til today and I am please to announce I do not have diabetes, high chloresterol, high triglycerides or any of that bad stuff! I could dance for joy! My only "problems" if you can call them that, is that my iron is a little low and my B12 is a lot high. LOL so I have a message in to my NUT and waiting to see what she wants to do with that. But I am soooo excited to not have diabetes because my parents, my living siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandparents when they were all alive had diabetes and I had gestational diabetes in my last pregnancy, so to walk out today with perfect health and perfect numbers was AMAZING! I am the first one in my family to almost reach 40(still got 9 more months) without having diabetes!!! It was the NSV of all NSV's! This surgery really has made my life better! [emoji4]

My surgeon set my goal at 200lbs because when he asked what I wanted to weigh, I said I had no idea. I'd been obese all my life and the idea of being a "normal" weight was just too much to fathom. So that's where it is with him, but later on the NUT and I decided I would shoot for 170 and see how that feels. I'll still technically be overweight, but the last time I was under 170 was probably 4th grade.

I lost about 24lbs the first month. My weight loss has been plagued by slowness compared to people my size who had wls. It just is what it is, but I'm still chugging along. I was 386 on the day of surgery and 362 a month out. Unlike most people, I think month 3 was my best month.

My balance is off too and my perception of if something will fit or if I will fit in that space. I think our brains just need time to catch up with our bodies' rapid change.

It's very common. Do yourself a favor and stay off the scales for a couple of weeks because it may take awhile to get back to where you started. You just had surgery and that comes with IV fluids and swelling so don't torture yourself.

At my pre op testing, all I had was a blood test, my weight taken, temp taken, and the world's shortest EKG. Literally he hooked it up and as soon as it started tracing on the paper it was over. That was it. I've been relatively healthy inspire of my weight, so he didn't feel any more tests were needed.

I have a power pressure cooker xl. It's no where near as efficient as my stove top canner/pressure cooker was, but it gets the job done eventually I! LOL I use it more as a crock pot than the pressure cooker since it took as long to pressure cook a chicken as it does to roast one in the oven. If you are going to get one, I hear instapot makes a good one.

I apparently don't dump either. I learned it by accident when I was making what I thought would be a better dessert for Easter dinner that I could maybe taste and not make everyone feel uncomfortable with me just starring longingly at their desserts. I made a cream cheese pie with fruit on top, but it had sweetened condensed milk in it that had 22g of sugar per tablespoon and after I made it, i licked the spoon, the bowl, and really just couldn't stop eating it and then I looked at the label of the sweetened condensed milk and freaked out. But no dumping. I was pretty disappointed especially since my roux arm was extended as far as my insurance would allow to help curb my sugar junkie ways. Now I just need to be careful and not fall of the wagon. It really is like a drug to me and if I know, or think I know there's no consequences, I'm afraid it'll be harder to say no to the singing siren.

Everyone is different, and there's always the chance for complications, but by the time I got home, I would have been ok to take care of myself if I had to, but I was so tired that I needed my hubby to wake me up to take my meds and drink my drinks. Maybe a friend would be willing to stay overnight for the first night or something just so you know if it's something you can handle.

Hi..what kind of insurance do you have? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using the BariatricPal App I have Aetna and from the time it was submitted to approval was about 3 days in total. Just keep calling them to check on the status. It seems to hurry it along.

My surgeon was amazing! I was geared up expecting to be talked down to-as I have been in the past, but I didn't have that experience with my surgeon. He was kind, caring, thorough and never made me feel like I was a loser or less of a human being for being in my condition. My PCP was also amazing and she was so happy for me when I walked in her office for my yearly checkup over 100lbs lighter than last year.

Congratulations and good luck on the start of you journey!

My program doesn't allow snacking. We are suppose to eat 2-3 meals a day and if we feel the sensation of hunger to drink more water and try distraction, but no snacking.

Sprouted bread isn't doughy and won't gum up the pipes. I was using it, but since I seem to be carb sensitive,I've had to change course and drop all that and just go with basic plain protein and leafy veg til I can break my stall.

For each 25lbs, I buy a piece of jewelry. Either a ring, a bracelet for my new smaller wrist, a necklace or something that costs the amount I lost so for 25lbs I bought a $25 ring and for 50lbs I bought a $50 ring etc. the day I reach my personal goal of 170lbs, will mean I can buy something $269 [emoji4]