Sajijoma

Those are night terrors. I have a couple of kids who suffer from those and sleep walking. My husband's side of the family is plagued with terrors and animated dreams. My husband even had one once where he thought he was fighting for his life but really was beating me pretty bad. After that night I forced him to get help it I was leaving and our de put him on some anxiety meds that helped. Apparently high stress and anxiety makes the terrors or animated dreams more likely to happen. Maybe you had stress and anxiety over the weight and by losing it, that was lifted from you and they stopped.

@@India928 thank you. You make a very valid point and actually reminded of how they have butted into our lives telling my husband who later told me, that they declared we shouldn't have more children because they declared it and because it's unfair to them to have to buy birthday/Christmas presents for all our kids. Yeah, that's definitely the kind of crap I can do without...I think I'm back solidly behind the "none of their damn business" thought again. Thanks for reminding me of what I blissfully knocked out of my mind! That would have been a disaster!

They have always been very controlling and shall I say "strong personalities" I guess if I'm not telling my own side of the family, I could use that as my reason for not telling them too(when it comes up in the future). Definitely feeling they are going down in the hernia repair column.

Good advice. I just really don't know if I should tell them or not. I mean, on one hand they will find out or figure it out one day when I go from this huge down to a relatively normal size and am eating like 2oz of food and all, and I'm sure they'll be happy for me(more for my hubby and kids than me myself) but they will get their feelings hurt that I didn't include them in my decision or tell them anything. It's the lead up to surgery that I'm anticipating will be very frustrating and hard, because I remember how incredibly "well meaning" yet insensitive they were when our oldest son had a brain tumor and needed surgery to save his life. They did everything I mentioned above and stopped just short of saying that we earned it by not believing exactly the way they do and that they could heal him without surgery. Just kinda stressful.

I've been trying to decide who, if any, I will be telling about my bypass surgery before it happens. So far, my list is pretty small. I've told my best friend since I was kid, my college room mate who is 1yr out after bypass, my husband and our kids, I plan on telling my brother's wife because we are super close, but not the rest of that side of the family, and really not much beyond that. I don't want to tell the whole world, and I've decided on my "cover story" as "I'm having a small hernia repair", because it's not a lie, I will be having a small hernia repair at the same time. My Problem is my inlaws. I wasn't going to tell them at all, and I'm still not sure I fully want to, BUT I do know that if I don't mention it to them, and they find out later, they will be angry and stew over it. Like I didn't trust them enough to include them type thing and how dare I do something potentially life threatening and not tell them. I'm just not sure what to do. Do I tell them and have to spend the next 3 months being bombarded with "diets to try instead of surgery" emails and pamphlets over "what to do when surgery fails" and anecedotes about a friend of theirs who had the surgery and it didn't work or it worked too well and she starved to death and other unlikely stories while also being told that my weight could all be solved if only I knew the proper way to pray(because I'm Catholic and we don't know how to pray the proper way like they do) and prayed to God to remove it from me and then pretend he did and walk around like it happened until I see the change. I'm just not sure what to do at this point. I don't want to hurt their feelings or have them feeling excluded, but this is a HUGE super personal thing for me and it's right up there with talking about sex lives in my opinion. It's great to have one, but everyone doesn't have to know the details especially inlaws. So, what should I do? What would you do if it were your inlaws? Would you tell them and let the chips fall where they may or would you NOT tell them and let them get upset and feel not included? I wish there was a third option that didn't involve having to do either!

I'd like to reach about 145 as my ultimate goal. I think that's what the doctors would say would be my ideal weight for my current height of 5'9.(apparently have lost over an inch with my back issues)

I talked to my surgeon about what to expect from the recovery, because I have to have a plan in place with 7 kids. He told me the recovery will be very similar to my gall bladder surgery. So, what I had then was my abs completely were sore like the day after doing about 100 too many sit ups, and on the side where my gallbladder had been it felt tender like I had been kicked in the ribs, but I was up walking as soon as the anesthesia wore off. It was sore for a few days to the point you probably wouldn't want to get down in a floor, but I could take walks outside and less than a week after surgery we took a cross country trip and I didn't have any pain or discomfort at that point. I actually didn't take pain meds other than ibuprofen when I got home, because I was a new nursing mom and I needed to get back to her before I lost my supply so by day 2 I was basically pain free and doing well. So hoping lightning can strike twice and I can have a recovery as fast as that, although that was 13yrs ago at this point and I'm older so who knows.

I'd just ask her, "exactly which part is so easy? The liquid diets? The getting your body cut open and having major surgery? The fear of severe stomach cramps if you eat sugar? The fear of choking on a piece chicken because it's too dry? Please enlighten me and tell me which part was easy, because (and this is where I'd drive the point home with a mean glare) it isn't easy and you need to shut your mouth!"

I'm so glad you mentioned sushi because I LOVE sushi and wondered if that was doable post op. Probably not the way I stuff it in my mouth, but still doable!

Our insurance makes us use express scripts for anything that's not needed ASAP so maybe you could try online or mail order pharmacies? Usually you either mail them the script and they mail the meds or your doctor can call it in to the mail order pharmacy. With ours they have our credit card on file and charge and send the meds with no problems and you can have it overnighted if you need it in a short period of time.

I was ok from my tumble, but I was definitely in a lot of physical pain to add to my emotional pain when it happened for many reasons. just glad I didn't try to drive or something. It's funny how it's all wibbley wibbley timey wimey stuff when you are trying to sleep. Haha I go through conversations from 5 years ago and say "hey! Why didn't I say something" or "I wonder if she ever found Kelsie's shoe" it's funny how right as I'm suppose to go to sleep this always happens or music lyrics blare through my brain. Hard to sleep when the brain has been deluged with the Belly Button Song all day long and thinks you'd like to just hear it one more time!(look it up on YouTube under Rhett and Link and then belly button) all their songs stick to my head and replay at night.

Before killing him in his sleep with a pillow(I know I considered it w/ mine LOL), try approaching it another way. When I told my husband I wanted WLS he told me to just go on a different diet and maybe it would be different.(I'd been on one for a year at that point and had lost 3 lbs). He got angry, he cut me off and wouldn't let me talk, and he even tried to pull out the kids and use them as a weapon saying that I would be stealing away their Christmas presents to pay for it. I couldn't get through to him speaking, so I wrote him a long letter and told him at the end after he had read this, I wanted him to come talk to me. I poured my heart out in that letter. I didn't hold back. I told him why I needed this, how it was going to help me, how it would effect all of us for the positives, how my life expectancy would grow, I wouldn't live in fear of getting diabetes, and all the statistics I could find on wls from survival rates, 5yr survival at my BMI range without wls, my fear of dying I front of our kids from a heart attack, just everything I kept inside. I told him how important it was for me to have his support and not feel like I have to choose between him and my life. They should be 2 things that go together. I basically had to sell it to him. It wasn't because he didn't care or was trying to be insensitive to my needs. He honestly did not understand my struggle and was afraid I was going to do something hair brained to try to get skinny at a huge cost of money and possibly my life. We used to watch 600lb Life together and there were several people who died. By explaining my side and giving references to websites with facts, he was able to research for himself and see that it was a good idea. You can still eat out after wls, but instead of buying 2 entrees, maybe you buy one and split or or if he's not a sharer, maybe buy 1 entree and one healthy appetizer as a meal for you. You just need to get both your sides heard and come to an understanding. When I was done, and then we were done talking, we both knew this is what I need and he's behind me. He actually surprised me the other day and said that he doesn't want me to wait til Christmas if I get approved earlier so I could be on the road to a healthier me sooner. Last night he gave me a magazine that listed some good family friendly hiking trails in our area, because I'd like to be able to go on nature hikes but my weight makes it hard to even stand for 30 mins at a time much less enjoy a hike! It didn't all happen over night, but as he began to let it all sink in, he's really become a big supporter for me getting this done.

Congratulations for taking that first big step. If you have GERD, your surgeon is probably going to recommend you go with the roux en Y bypass, because both the sleeve and band can make GERD way worse. Also, for long term data of sustainable results, the bypass has better results and better results at resolving diabetes, sleep apnea, and other co morbidities. If you have just a bit to lose, like 70-100lbs you might look into other options like the vblok which is kind of neat, but for someone like me, at 410lbs, that's not going to really put a big enough dent in the excess I need to lose. One of the things that settled me on the bypass vs sleeve is that the sleeve is defeatable and if you sneak a piece of cake or have some ice cream, it's going to go down and you are going to gain weight and all this will be for naught. If you have the bypass and you try to sneak that cake, you are flirting with dumping syndrome which for me is the monkey that's going to slap that food right out of my hand, because I had something similar whenever I ate high fat, spicy, or dairy laden foods after having my gallbladder out and that pain was so intense, there's no cake worth even flirting with that possibly happening. Also, if you developed some complications later on, the bypass could theoretically be taken down, but with the sleeve, that big chunk of your stomach is gone and there's no going back if you need it. You just have to deal, so that's another thing to think about.

I trust my NUT completely. As soon as we started talking, I knew right away that she wasn't in it for the money. She was in it to help me succeed and just happens to pay her bills doing so. That makes a HUGE difference. I've had dieticians and nutritionists whose only goals were to berate me or make me feel wholely inadequate with comments like "You can't tell me you know how to eat a healthy diet and weigh what you do. You don't know anything!" or when there's no weightloss accuse me of cheating on the plan, which I haven't. Or just treating me like a total imbecile and pulling out the plastic food portions and having mock dinner parties and then saying "well, you don't really eat like this otherwise you wouldn't be here." Having that trust and faith and just general feeling of being able to be open and honest without judgement from your NUT is paramount to success in the process. This is the person we are going to rely on to teach us how to eat and live with our new pouch. The rules are different on the other side and we can't just be expected to wing it. If we can't take their advice and follow their guidance knowing it's what's best for us even if we can't fully understand that point, then I don't know how it can work. If they aren't listening to your concerns and answering questions, that's a HUGE problem. There should be no unanswered questions. You need to know how they came up with this particular approach. I mean, what are you going to do post op when the NUT says nothing but liquids for 2wks and then slowly add in soft foods like thin cream of wheat or cottage cheese and you say, but I don't feel that wheat is a good food for me, so I'm going to go with......Teddy grahams soaked in milk to make it go down and after that rely on any pain to tell me what foods I should eat because my body knows better than him/her. That can be kind of dangerous if your NUT didn't take the time to explain WHY there's this progression and what could happen if you jump too fast. This is all just an example, not saying this is your problem at all, but just showing how important that trust and guidance is. If you can't get it from the NUT you have, you either need to find a new one, or pay for a second opinion elsewhere. My insurance only allows for my PCP to oversee the 90 days of supervised diet, but I decided to pay the extra to get a NUT I can trust and work well with. Sure my PCP wants me to be healthy too, but all she relies on are books and manuals and eating charts, whereas my NUT that is costing me dearly, has ditched the charts and is working with me as a whole person. I don't know how I could hope to make it through this process and succeed if I had to do it without her.

I had my gallbladder out too and my surgeon told me that they would actually use my old scars as a road map and that it made things easier. As for the hysterectomy, I don't think that will really cause too much issue, as long as there aren't too many adhesions. They only need to be able to make it to top part of the small bowel, so if they gave you a lower transverse cut like with a csection when they did it, it'll probably not be an issue at all.

@@Smye I look at the financial "set back" as an investment in the future. Just think, you are up fronting the cost now, but this later will save you from having to shell out for other surgeries to repair knees and backs and the cost of diabetes and the testing strips and not to mention the plus sized clothes all cost a butt ton more so for the price of that one hiddeous tent shirt that cost $110 you instead buy a $10 top at target in the regular section and put the diff towards the bills.

Thanks for the suggestion! I actually love hummus and wondered if that was going to be allowed. I haven't made it to that appt yet where we discuss the details of the after op diet. I did choke down some cottage cheese a few nights ago, but I was just angry/sad the whole time. It totally still feels like a punishment. I'm going to try a couple of more times to break that association, but I honestly don't know if I can. My therapist thinks I can, but she has way more faith than I do at this point! So from a behavioral psych point of view I'm sure it's an association that can be broken.... I guess I'm wondering why it's important to. I don't mean that the hold that the past has shouldn't be worked on I guess I'm just wondering if there aren't more important things to work on than cottage cheese. However, if your therapist hasn't suggested any desensitization exercises, you might want to either discuss them or look some up. As a basic idea though I wouldn't start with actually eating the cottage cheese (which I get may sound like a waste) but just having it on your plate regularly and particularly while you're having a really nice time with people. Then maybe have a bite or two with something that you really like flavor wise, again, regularly, and particularly while you're having a fun time with people you have positive associations with. Basically the idea is to just get used to having it around until it doesn't cause you anxiety and then increase the exposure bit by bit. Jumping into eating full portions of it from the beginning sounds like a less optimal plan in terms of potential success. We've been working towards this goal for a long time actually. Buying it and just owning it was a big deal. It's not even really about the cottage cheese itself, but about the amount of emotional hold I've given this inanimate object.(so says the therapist) So we've bought it, looked at it, touched it, played with it, and that was all fine in the confines of therapy, but the moment it was time for me to buy it myself and bring it home and work up to eating it without anger or pain attached, there I drop it. I can't move past it and in doing this I can see that I haven't gotten past my past. I understand my mother is mentally ill, I understand that she wasn't responsible for all of her actions, but that hurt and anger and especially the pain are still in there. I have just transferred that emotion to the object of my torture(the cottage cheese). So there is my problem. I need to not associate it with my past so that I can actually work on the deeper issues, but I just can't move past this one. Maybe it's just not time yet. I know it would be beneficial from a post op diet standpoint of I did, but there are so many other options that I might just leave this pot simmering on the back burner awhile longer.

Thanks! I need all the cheerleading I can get!

I wouldn't call it guilt, but there is definitely a level of embarrassment. I know if I tell my casual friends that I'm having wls they will totally just think I've taken the easy way out and not realize how important this is for me. It makes me want to keep it to myself and only let a few people in. I've always been a pretty private person as far as my weight and diets go so it wouldn't surprise anyone if I went on another diet and lost some weight. By the time I lose a substantial amount of weight, I might be more open to talking about it. I think if anything I'm more afraid of telling people and then not losing anything and have people talk about me and how I couldn't make it work because I'm just a fat lazy person. That's my biggest fear.

I can relate to a lot of the things you said. I have 7 kids ranging from 13 to just turned 1. I had them all back to back to back with 3 miscarriages thrown in there as well. I never got any of my baby weight off before I was pregnant again. I'm one of those incredibly fertile fat women that most doctors say don't exist. I'm one of those who doesn't lose while nursing either even on a strict supervised diet. I started out my first pregnancy overweight at 200lbs which for me and my height and build doesn't look terribly bad, but it still wasn't healthy. I've been overweight my whole life and putting on 10-15lbs with each one added an extra 70-105lbs and then I was on antidepressants after my late term miscarriage, because I felt so guilty for being so fat and unhealthy that I wanted to punish myself with more fat and misery for my baby dying. I added another almost 100lbs on top of my other baby weight between the antidepressants and sleep eating from the sleep aids to help me sleep. Add on some rebound pounds from my failed diets and I'm sitting at HOLY HELL! 410lbs after I already lost 20! It's hard to realize you've got more than an entire healthy weight person to lose. In my case, I've got 2 people who need to lose weight to lose from my body. The reason I chose to go with a bypass is because I know I can't do this with diet alone. I have been trying that my whole life and it hasn't worked. I just keep getting fatter. I want to live to be able to see my kids grow up. I don't want them to say that their childhood was ruined because we never went anywhere or did anything because I was too fat to do anything. That's my motivation for surgery. It's because my love for them is greater than my fear of dying. I'm pretty certain I won't die. My surgeon is skilled and has a great track record, I don't have any co morbidities so far, and he says my risk is very similar to my gallbladder surgery so given that, I'm taking an educated risk. I'm more likely to die from my weight in the next 5yrs if I do nothing than I am to die from the surgery at this point. At the very least, I'm going to lose this weight and give my kids back the mom they deserve and avoid a future filled with diabetes, heart disease, stroke risk, and premature death that my super obese siblings and parents are dealing with. My father just had a massive stroke at 72 and will never be the same. I don't want that for my family or myself. One of my biggest fears is dying in front of my kids or them finding my dead body. If I can stop this right now, before it gets worse, I can prevent that and prevent them from heading down the same path by keeping them more active with their new active mom. It's worth the shot to me.

Thanks for the suggestion! I actually love hummus and wondered if that was going to be allowed. I haven't made it to that appt yet where we discuss the details of the after op diet. I did choke down some cottage cheese a few nights ago, but I was just angry/sad the whole time. It totally still feels like a punishment. I'm going to try a couple of more times to break that association, but I honestly don't know if I can. My therapist thinks I can, but she has way more faith than I do at this point!

@bigmatt714 I'm starting at 410 and my surgeon definitely agrees with me that bypass is more effect for maximum weight loss at my size. The sleeve can stretch and can be defeated in a moment of weakness, but with the bypass, if you try to defeat it by eating a sugary treat, you will get dumping syndrome and that will keep you honest, because it's very unpleasant.

@@James Marusek thanks. I was really just stressing over this whole thing. I guess what's on paper in the office vs my personal goal at home could be totally diff numbers too. I'd just really like to know what it would feel like to wear a single digit size just once in my life and I didn't realize how badly I wanted that until I was daydreaming about buying clothes. Even if I can't maintain that weight for my height, I'd like to wear it just once.

So at my appt this past Fri., I was talking with my surgeon and he asked me what I envisioned as my goal weight. I had honestly never thought about it and I told him that I honestly had no clue what "normal" would be having been overweight all my life or even the concept of being able to reach it, and we talked for awhile and he wrote down 200lbs in the fields on the worksheet. I've been just thinking about that non stop all weekend. Is he saying realistically this is about where he thinks I will top out given my family history and weightloss history or is this more of a number that although higher than my ideal weight per height would be, it's attainable for me and although I'll probably lose more than that, it's a reachable goal so I can have a place to reach and feel success? Or am I just totally over thinking this whole thing together and should just not even worry what it says on the sheet one way or the other?

@@Daisee68 Oh god that sounds so painful! I hope you feel better now that it's over!