DangerMouse007

Yeah, I had the same feeling about 2 months before my surgery. I started freaking out and googling RNY Complications which made it even worse. I ended up getting over it after a few days though. I had never had any kind of major surgery before; I hadn't even ever been to the ER for anything in my life. So I was definitely scared of the unknown. However, my surgeon was amazing, the surgery itself went smoothly, and I'm fairly happy with the results.

Just realized I started this thread just a little over a year ago. Nice! Unfortunately I haven't had much to add. I gained a little bit of the weight I lost from the wisdom tooth extraction nearly 2 months ago, but nothing major. My weight seems to be fluctuating between 249 and 253. I've noticed that when it does get up to 253, then I'll go a few hours of urinating like crazy and end up around 249 or 250. As mentioned before, I'm a little disappointed that this seems to be my "equilibrium" weight for now. I've been around this weight for nearly 4 months now so I imagine now it's a matter of more exercise and maybe stricter control of my diet (which I've said before). While I am happy to be down to a size 44 waist (down from size 64 two years ago), I still have a lot of belly fat. A lot! It would be nice to get rid of as much as possible. Anyway, Happy Holidays all!

Twice? Damn. I live in Upstate NY, and I want so bad to go, but those ticket prices are ridiculous.

This is how it worked out for me: Month 1 - Meet with surgeon; Meet with Pulmonary/setup sleep lab study Month 2 - Met with cardio to set up Stress Test; Meet with nutrionist; Sleep Study; Meet with psychiatrist (some require 2 visits; mine was only one) Month 3 - Meet with Surgeon's PA Month 4 - Meet with Surgeon's PA; Received CPAP Machine Month 5 - Meet with Nutrionist; Do Stress test and follow-up with cardiologist Month 6 - Follow-up with Pulmonary on CPAP usage; Pre-procedure blood draw; Meeting with Surgeon's PA If that gives you some idea.

I imagine everybody goes through them in one form or another. I believe it's the body's way of adjusting...scientifically speaking. I think there's some kind of post or article detailing the reasons...scientifically. I know somebody where I work that lost 310 pounds with the gastric sleeve in 2 years. He told me he refused to deal with stalls so he did whatever he could to break out of them as quickly as possible whether that was increasing physical activity or changing the way he ate, etc. If it works, great, but I'm not too sure about that. Stalls really do suck and are very discouraging...until all of a sudden the weight melts away again...

Oh, yeah. Next week is my regular six month endo appointment. I already did my blood work last week (after the oral surgery because I totally forgot it needed to be done). I received the results Monday morning online (thank you, Labcorp for setting that up and for doing it so quickly since it normally takes more than a week!). My A1C was 7.0 which is the lowest it's ever been since I was first officially diagnosed with Diabetes 10 years ago (and probably my lowest A1C since at least 2002/2003). Obviously it's still not ideal...not by a long shot since it highlights that I'm still rather dependent on insulin medication. Everything else on the lab report was normal although it mentioned that I might be a little dehydrated. I'm not sure how it's measured, but I did the blood work two days after my oral surgery, and I can tell you I was in no mood to drink much of anything after my wisdom teeth were removed.

I discovered a new diet! It's called The Wisdom Tooth Extraction Diet!! I've had amazing results in just one week post-extraction. I've lost 6 WHOLE POUNDS in 8 days! Ugh...all joking aside, the weight loss I've experienced after my wisdom teeth were removed last week has me wondering if I was really in a stall or maybe just eating too much, if that's such a consideration as gastric bypass patient. After the removal, the first day I was told to just eat cold, liquidy foods. I mainly ate yogurt and Protein smoothies mixed with blended frozen fruit. I was told I could switch to smooth foods on the second day, but I was really in too much pain. I also didn't really have much of an appetite. Even now, 8 days later, I really don't want to eat. I have to force myself to eat. I still feel some discomfort chewing as well especially on the lower right side of my teeth; not really painful, just annoying. I had a couple days where I guess I bit my inner cheek which became swollen and made the whole ordeal even worse. As a result of that chewing discomfort I would end up swallowing my food without chewing it well. This resulted in my feeling fuller way faster than I normally would. Thus I would eat less. So why question the stall? Well, eating much less with no appetite these last few days did result in a 6 pound weight loss. I had been stuck pretty much in the same weight range for two months before the teeth removal. Would I still have lost 6 pounds had I not had the oral surgery? I doubt it. As I do get my appetite back, and ability to chew without discomfort, I'll see if I end up gaining that six pounds back. In the meantime, I'm left to re-evaluate if even the little food I had been eating during my stall was really too much still.

I think the Vitamin Shoppe has them as well. They were my only choice during those post-surgery days. However, I would highly recommend trying a few flavors before hand even though there's a chance your tastes will change right after the surgery. I liked pretty much all but one of the flavors I tried. Unfortunately I can't remember offhand what that was since it was over a year ago.

Not much to update. I'm now nearly two months into a nice long stall. I hit 247 back in early August, bounced up to 260 inexplicably, and I've been hanging around 249-253 since then. It's incredibly frustrating especially since I still have quite a bit of fat around my stomach that I really, really just want to go away. And it's just not going anywhere right now. Tomorrow, 10/4, I'm going into get my wisdom teeth removed...something I was told needed to happen 21 years ago. With the weight loss, I've also committed myself to getting other things fixed including my teeth. I don't have any pain, but I had gone to see a dentist a few weeks ago for the first time in...well 21 years. He gave me a list of several things that needed to happen to get me back to truly healthy teeth. One of those required that I get at least the bottom left wisdom tooth removed. So I'm getting all of them removed. It seems the post-op diet is pretty easy; cold, liquidy foods, then smooth foods, then eventually working myself up to normal foods. I'm nervous but feel good about doing this. It'll be interesting to see if I do end up losing a little weight after my appointment tomorrow, at least for the next week or so as I recover.

My visit with my surgeon's PA ended up being a bit more in depth than I thought it would. We spent most of the time talking about my goals and my eating habits. I told her that I felt like I could eat more and more especially the foods I eat which consist mostly of ground meat. She reiterated eating more solid foods and trying to replace ground meat in my recipes with beef strips or tips, or chicken, of course. At the moment, I can't think of making that replacement in any of my mother's recipes! She also mentioned that no matter what I think I could eat I should stick to just eating a one-half cup of food per meal. Now THAT could be interesting. She felt that this, along with increased physical activity, would help me get to my own personal goal meaning losing another 50 pounds or so (if not more). She did mention the low Vitamin D number and prescribed me something that is a once a week 50,000-unit pill. I'm to take that for 2 months and do a Vitamin D test in 3 months. As far as the A1C, she said that people with Diabetes for more than 5 years can usually take a long period before they're essentially off the insulin. Since I've had Diabetes at least 15 years, I very well could still have to take insulin the rest of my life...or get into a more controlled diet situation. That was yesterday, September 6th. Today, she left me a voice mail saying that she had talked to my surgeon after my visit. He recommended possibly taking Saxenda to help lose even more weight. If I was interested, I just need to call them back. I haven't yet as I do a little more research on the drug, but I'm a little...hesitant at the idea of taking something like that AFTER WLS rather than before. It sounds a lot like Victoza which I took in 2011 and lost 60 pounds with before gaining all of that back in 2012 when the Victoza stopped working. In any case, I am thinking about it. Just not sure I want to go back to taking a prescription that's going to cost me a lot per month; currently my copays for the Levemir and Novolog I take is just $10 each. My next check up will be six months from now in March.

I'd be interested to find out if anybody is using Saxenda AFTER having WLS? I had my one year check up with my surgeon's PA yesterday (9/6), and we talked about how much more weight I wanted to lose (I've currently lost 177 pounds but would like to lose another 50 at least). We went over some things to help achieve that goal, but she mentioned at this point the weight loss would be slow at best. Today I received a voice mail from her that when she talked to my surgeon about me later in the day, he recommended possibly taking Saxenda. If I was interested in taking it to contact them back. I haven't yet contacted them back, but I did think it seemed odd to consider taking it now over a year out of WLS.

Today is my annual check-up. I've already seen my lab results for my blood (thank you, LabCorp for providing results online for me to view as soon as they're ready!), but will see what they have to say in the office. I expect it to be a pretty quick appointment. As for the weight, this last Saturday, September 3rd, I had to urinate a lot. A lot a lot!! Sure enough, some of the excess weight I had measured came back off again. I have no idea why I had to use the restroom so much. On Sunday I was back down to 247 on my scale (my lowest to date and what I had originally recorded on August 10th). Unfortunately I bounced again and am back up to 251 as of this morning so I've got that stall bouncing thing going again that I've experienced with every stall. This weekend I also got back on the workout and run pattern that I had abandoned around May do to some outstanding issues. I ended up having to completely restart the C25K program. Last time I used it I was in Week 5, but just completely restarting running again there's no way I could have gone back to that. Week 1 was kicking my butt again this weekend. So I have that going for me once again. Will see what the surgeon says, or at least his PA's. I'm relatively healthy (with a slightly elevated A1C), my blood results are good unless there's something they see that I don't see (I'm not a doctor obviously), and so I don't expect much really.

Yeah, I had lost 13 pounds on the 3 day liquid diet prior to my surgery so I freaked out a bit when I came home after surgery to have gained all of it back. But as others said, it disappeared rather quickly, re: I peed a lot those 24 hours after coming home!

While my one year surgiversary was August 10th, my annual check-up with the surgeon isn't until next Tuesday, September 6th. Last week I went in to get my blood drawn for the appointment and found out that the lab I go to now allows online access to the results. I signed up for it and was able to get all of my lab results since I first started going there back in June, 2014. On Monday I received the results for last week's blood draw. Just based on what I see (and the "normal" readings indicated on there), all of my results were great...except for my A1C which is still elevated. I have a feeling that my diabetes will be with me for life despite the surgery. The only other reading that was off by 1 unit was my Vitamin D. Was a little surprised by that; I went back to all of my Vitamin D readings in the past, and this was the first time it was lower than "normal". As far as the weight goes, I'm still yo-yo'ing a bit, but I haven't gone back down to 247 like I was on August 10th.

What I usually do on my appointment days with my surgeon is weigh myself at home nude (which is what I consider to be my official weight since I've been doing it that way since my first appointment with my surgeon six months before my surgery). Then I will weigh myself just before I leave for my appointment fully clothed shoes and all writing that down. Then, of course, is the weigh-in at the surgeon's office also fully clothed. I kept that record since I first started just to get some kind of a good idea of just how much my scale and the surgeon's scale is different. But yeah, my weight at home nude is what I consider my official weight since I do that way more often.