Sajijoma

I understand your fear. I had it too directly post op. I drank an entire mug of chicken soup broth strained of noodles in like 15-20 mins with no problem. I was like OMG my pouch is too huge or I stretched it out or what if I burst it open and all that liquid in my drain is actually chicken broth! ???? I spent a lot of time looking and obsessing about it, but ya know, liquids roll right out the pouch, but when you get to purée you'll physically feel the difference when you eat. I'm on soft foods now and will transition to trial and error full diet on Christmas Eve. Honestly, I can't even hold a full 2oz and I was so worried in the beginning!

I didn't have one prior to my rny in Nov either and when he didn't give me one, I asked him why. He said that it has shown not to be that effective at shrinking the liver or making the surgery any easier and all it did was put undue stress on the patients. He also said that the general consensus is that the liquid diet is complete useless unless you had a 600lb patient or something and that would be just to help them get their weight to a lower start to prevent complications associated with that extra weight. He said that he believes the majority of surgeons will be dropping the liquid pre op diet over the next couple of years.

Your insurance will probably dictate what and how much you have to lose. My insurance (Aetna) required that I have no net weight gain for my 90 day program. I did better than that. My NUT helped guide me through and I put a nice dent in my weight pre op. I went from 429 down to 386 on surgery day and it didn't feel like I was dieting. It was more of a ok, this month I want you to leave 10% food on your plate and eat protein first and legs aim for 10 mins of exercise 3 days a week. Then the next month we worked on it and went to leave 20% and exercise for 20 mins 5x a week and so on. It really helped. For me, I can usually lose 5-10lbs dieting before it stalls out, so to lose as much as I did and not even have a liquid pre op diet is amazing! I'm now 1 month out and have lost over 70lbs since that first appt in late June. It's been wonderful!

Leading up to my surgery, I became a basket case! I couldn't sleep well, I was worried about things going wrong and my biggest fear was that I would die and leave my 7 kiddos without a mom. The day of surgery though, I walked in there and I was zen. I don't know if it was the prayers to God to take away my fear and protect me and my family through the surgery or if it was just some inner peace or whatever, but when I went back for surgery I was absolutely calm and cool and had 0 fears. My surgery went smooth except for some trouble staying oxygenated after waking up from the pain meds suppressing my breathing, but really my recovery was quite easy! I went home without needing any pain meds. I'm 1 month out as of Dec 9th, and I don't regret it at all! I'm down 2 top sizes and one pant size and I can move around more and do more and I feel great! There is a period right after surgery where I had regret because I had to deal with my head hunger and my "we always do this" attitude, but it got better. It really is like being reborn to some degree.

I can't do the heavy milk based whey protein drinks because post op, I've become lactose intolerant, but I do the syntrax twisted cherry. It tastes like cherry coolaid honestly. The Blue sky is good too. All the syntrax are lactose free and sit really well for me. It's also getting to be hot chocolate weather and I got some protein enriched hot chocolate from mybariatricpantry.com it's not my super favorite thing, but at just a month out, anything too warm still hurts the pouch and I feel weird making it into some iced chocolate-Tay LOL

I always carried my weight proportionately around my middle with thinner legs. Since surgery, my top has thinned out and I am now more bowling pin shape! ???????? I'm only a month out so I know it will change more, but I never pictured my once ample heavage(it was beyond cleavage) disappearing seemingly overnight. Your body will probably change shapes several times as you go through your metamorphosis, but try not to get too hung up because this is just temp. After we get done chiseling the new us out of the fat, we could be anything!

I had rny on Nov 9th and as of today(yesterday actually) my pants that were a laughing stock and wouldn't go over my knees are now on my waist and closed! I tried them on last week and I could get them up but not closed and this week, they are closed! So excited! I changed out all of my clothes in my closet too and bagged and tagged the old stuff that is too big for the Goodwill! I have lost 1 pant size and 2 top sizes now! It's starting to get exciting!!! ☺️

@@MsCyrus hi! I am from Highlands Ranch and actually had my surgery at Skyridge. Great surgeon, great NUT, great all around experience. I had RNY on Nov. 9th of this year!

I had my surgery on Nov. 9th and the first poo was insanely painful and I thought I was going to die pushing that Boulder out! lol since then though, I've been taking a daily probiotic and haven't had any issues. I usually have an every other day pattern now, but it's not hard or painful at all.

My surgeon does drains for all bypass and sleeve patients. He says that it reduces the risk of infection from 2-5% down to .2% and he wouldn't negotiate not doing one. I had mine for 10 days. It was miserable, but it did have a lot of gross liquid coming out of it that otherwise would have been in my abdominal cavity possibly causing infection so in the end it was a good idea. Don't fret it too much. They show you how to empty it and change the bandages to keep it clean.

I was just wondering this too. My calorie count was 233 and I was dizzy so I had another protein shake (syntrax twisted cherry) so I'm up to 333 now. I'm 3 1/2wks out and in puréed stage.

my surgeon doesn't even offer the DS. He says that it's a highly risky surgery and the complications outweighs the benefits so he doesn't do them. I ended up with RNY and although so am just over 3wks out, I am seeing HUGE differences in my weight especially when I look at my face. I didn't have any co morbidities to speak of, but I do carry a high BMI. I'm losing top down so I have a very thin face now and unfortunately still a lot of junk around my trunk! ???? listen to your surgeon and ask a lot of questions and then together make the choice you both feel will be the best decision. Don't rule out RNY. Malabsorption isn't all bad. It also means you aren't absorbing all the calories and fat you take in which help with weight loss and when they make your pouch, they don't cut out the excess stomach. It remains inside producing hormones so if God forbid you did have a serious complication like esophageal erosion so bad that it needed repair or cancer, they can use that stomach lining to build you a new one. It's always better to graft from 1 body if possible. With sleeve there's nothing left to work with, and I don't know much about DS but I assume it's the same since I believe I was told the sleeve actually was a stage one of making DS.

Oh no! That is so scary! Praying for you that it comes back benign and you can have your surgery rescheduled.

no not really. I tend to stay up late because it's the only time I have to exercise and then after I do I need to relax to get sleepy so I play around on the Internet, shop online, or do laundry and chores. It's life with 7 kids. ????

I feel better knowing this is possible. I was really starting to freak out! My face is so thin looking now and my body is just so...disappointing for the 69lbs I've lost so far. I really wish I could lose some belly or some hips....something!

I had RNY on 11/9 and I've noticed that I'm losing weight from the top down! It's so weird! My face is thin now and I've lost a couple of top sizes, but my bottom half is still the same size! I feel like one of those bopping balloons or something that you hit and it wobbles but sits right back up! Did anyone else lose like this and when did the bottom half kick in?

My NUT and I recently had this talk, because I was concerned I wasn't losing fast enough to "get anywhere".(I just had surgery on 11/9/15). She said that the higher BMI's tend to lose slower BUT that they tend to lose longer. So it may take me 2yrs to reach my ideal weight with strict diet and exercise but it can be done. It bummed me out a bit, but it's nice to know there is no strict "ok you've got 6 months and then everything left is stuck forever".

When I reach the full sensation it is a very subtle spasm in my chest about where my pouch meets the esophagus. One more bite and it will be pain. It's so subtle that I am very cautious not to go too fast or get distracted while eating because feeling it once is enough. In general, I get the sensation at about the 1 1/2-2oz mark depending on the food and density.(I'm in the puréed stage).

When I had my gallbladder out 13+ yrs ago I didn't do anything and my scars faded so far into the background my surgeon couldn't find them all-me either! So this time around I've got 4 tiny slits and a hole where the drain was. I don't think the slits will leave a lasting scar, but the drain hole looks like it's gonna be ugly.

@@rking I'm perfectly fine now. It was all the pain meds causing me problems. As soon as I got off of them, I was all better.

Here's my two cents. You may think the classes sound dumb or stupid and a waste of time, but even if you look stuff up online, a lot of it contradicts itself and is often in the vein of rumor or "I had a friend who did _____" you need to take the classes to heart and commit them to memory for long term success. Most of my classes weren't about how to eat healthy at that moment, but about how to survive the changes I was about to undergo. Let me tell ya, those classes really made a difference immediately post op when I would feel like I had morning sickness or couldn't tolerate my protein shakes or when the desire to just lick food to taste something showed up. I didn't walk out after surgery confused about what was going on, the various stages of regret, funky tastes/smells, desire to chew to name a few, that I would experience because I learned all about those things in my classes. I learned what to do at each stage post op and how to go about it the right way and how I didn't need food funerals because after I reached my goal, many of those things I was "giving up" would be able to have a new place in my life again. There are those who choose not to follow those rules and honestly those people don't succeed. Going in with the mind frame that the classes are stupid and you don't want to have to lose any percentage of weight beforehand is the wrong idea at looking at it and is why you are getting such a negative response. Let me tell you a short story. There was a guy in one of my NUT's classes who had surgery and on his first day out of the hospital tried to blend and eat a taco! He nearly died! The hard shell fragments he "blended" got stuck in his suture line and he ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery to save his life. He also didn't believe our NUT about dumping syndrome and called it BS and tried to eat a king size snickers bar a few months later. It's that kind of behavior everyone fears when someone comes on saying 'hey how can I avoid the stupid classes and not have to lose weight to have surgery.' It sounds like you have no idea what you are doing and aren't at all prepared for what you really need to do to be prepared to be successful. If you think the classes and information are BS, save yourself the money and just don't go down this path, because you need to be able to trust and follow your NUT and surgeon's instructions to the letter especially in those first days, but for the whole long term process. No surgery will do the work for you. You have to show up every day and work hard. The surgery is just a tool to help. It won't do the work for you and you will only get out of it what you put into it and since it sounds like you aren't willing to put the effort in to change and do your best going in, it really sounds like it will be a waste of time until you do reach that point.

I had RNY but I was scheduled for just an overnight stay, but I didn't handle anesthesia well and I didn't wake up all the way for the first day and my lungs were suppressed by the IV pain meds so I needed full oxygen support. The second day they tried to give me oral pain meds to transition off the IV meds but I violently threw it all up each time so they put me back on the IV which brought on massive oxygen drops til I told them I didn't want pain meds anymore. I could tolerate my pain on my own enough and I wanted to be able to breathe without oxygen problems and I knew it was the med causing my problem because it happened to be too when I had kidney stones years ago. To make a longer story shorter, I went in on Monday and stayed til Wednesday. It was really hard for me because I wanted to get back to my baby (he's 17 month now) and my other 6 kiddos, but sometimes the best thing for your kids is to stay at the hospital where you are safe.

When I had my gallbladder out, my surgeon at the time told me it is possible to get stones again after it's gone and the pain would be like a gall bladder pain but less severe. Something about they would take a tube and go down the throat and suck them out. It's been 13+ yrs now so it's hard to remember the exact details, but you might want to talk to your doctor about it.

I am 3wks post op and I've been lactose intolerant since surgery day. The episodes can be really bad if I drink a protein shake that has lactose in it. Even yogurt which usually doesn't have much lactose can set me off. I did find a protein powder that worked for me. It's syntrax. It's both lactose free and gluten free and it sits really well after surgery for me. The twisted cherry flavor has been my lifesaver. I can't say enough good things about it.

The one thing I loved and used most was my body pillow for support. If I just had the hospital issue pillows, my pain would have been much worse. As far as Chapstick, I brought some, but they also provided me with some in the hospital. Beyond basic clothing and slippers, I didn't really want or need all the stuff I packed, such as listerine pocket packs, shampoo/conditioner, body wash, or toothpaste. All that stuff was provided by my hospital so I didn't even need my stuff. All hospitals are different, but call ahead and find out what they provide. You may find it's more than you know!