2goldengirl

I think the difference is in the defintion of "healed". Different tissues in the body regenerate at different rates. And everyone's body has a slightly different capability to heal than someone else's. Generally, the younger you are, the faster you heal, with some limitations. The inmost layer of your stomach is the same tissue from our mouth to the other end. It turns over very rapidly, so it heals first, that is, it makes new cells to replace the old ones. The rest of the stomach takes a little longer. But it has a good blood supply, so it can heal over and you can have new tissue all along the outside of your staple line (the side that's facing your other organs) in four to seven weeks. Then scar tissue forms along the cut edge. That takes the longest. In general terms, parts of your body with a good blood supply heal fastest, areas without one, the slowest. This is why tendon and ligament injuries take so long to heal, tendons and ligaments have no blood supply.

You don't say which state you're in or what kind of insurance you have, nor your BMI. I'm asking because Blue Shield of CA has changed their requirements for *** members and no longer requires the six months. That said, part of the purpose of the six month period is actually designed to set you up for success. It provides time for you to develop the tools you will need post-op. I hear you on being ready when you're ready. Some of us have been fighting the weight loss/gain battle since the 1960's. Sometimes it seems like waiting even another day is wasting time. But the truth is, working on the mental part of having surgery can, and should, start at any time. My surgeon referral got delayed two weeks after I found out my insurance had changed requirements. I'm learning all I can in the meantime, and spending time tracking my intake and really monitoring my hunger against when I choose to eat something. Sometimes I am convinced that those of us who eat for reasons other than hunger have trouble delaying gratification. If I'd figured this out decades ago, I might have had different outcomes. Good luck to you, I hope this helps!

You're on Day 13, so I might try adding some protein powder to your yogurt - the unflavored kind. You can get a nice protein hit that way.

Late afternoon to early evening can be a tough time for me, too. I think it's partly that I get hungry - it's usually twice as long between lunch and dinner as it is between Breakfast and lunch. Add to that trying to muscle through the last part of my workday and my commute, and it's a time of day when I'm most likely to deviate from my plan. I learned something by accident the other day, though. I got the 3PM munchies, and I really wanted to stay out of the Snacks that are always around at the office. I had some vanilla Protein powder with me, and I put it in a cup of decaf coffee. 25 gm of protein totally did away with my munchies until dinnertime! Now I bring some in my lunch bag every day. Working on your relationship with food (and with yourself) is a must-do for success. While you're doing that, something like a protein-heavy snack at your vulnerable times may help you. I'm pre-pre op, but I figured I may as well spend the time between now and the next stage learning a few things. I wish you success!

I am gobsmacked. What an accomplishment! I'd love to hear more about the changes you made in your thinking along the way - both about yourself, and about your relationship with food.

This isn't something to bring, but something to do. If you are a coffee, tea, cola, or Mtn. Dew drinker (that is, you use caffeine), decaffeinate yourself BEFORE surgery. This is easiest to do over a few days - either cut back on how many cups of your caffeinatated beverage gradually, or change the mix of caff/decaf in your coffeepot. Caffeine withdrawal can give you a wicked headache that pain meds often don't touch, and can make nausea postop worse.

The headache may be caffeine withdrawal. Have you been a coffee, tea, or cola drinker preop?

Self-funded plans can determine benefits outside the "norm", depending on which state you're in. I did have one County employee plan I managed for that didn't cover any bariatric surgery. They considered it a cosmetic procedure, despite being one of the counties in CA with the highest obesity rate. Go figure. They self-administered. I'm in a self-funded, but not self-administered, plan. It's a school district. They bought health plan coverage and administration from Blue Shield, but my pharmacy plan differs from other Blue Shield plans. A lot of school districts are self-funded, at least here in CA.

@@Pillar2butterfly, I just want to say, this is a totally awesome post! Thank you! We are human. We will never magically avoid making mistakes once we get WLS. They don't sprinkle fairy dust on us in the OR and magically change all our former habits while we're under anesthesia. It's a process. One we keep learning each day. And there is a powerful lot of unlearning we have to do as well. Under stress, humans have a huge tendency to regress to old, familiar patterns, our internal auto-pilot. It takes less resources than more recently learned behavior. That said, having learned what behaviors not to repeat is wonderfully valuable!

I think you should do something to celebrate! Buy yourself flowers or have a pedi or a new pair of shoes. This is a big deal!

Congratulations, that is a fantastic achievement. What are you doing to celebrate?

I did attach a copy of the policy to my post - so that anyone can have give to their surgeons office that as proof. The 5-day turnaround is a requirement by CA law for *** plans for routine (non urgent) requests when all necessary information is received at the time the request is submitted. That part isn't just Blue Shield.

That depends on what your surgeon and NUT tell you.

I've wondered the same thing, and I'm afraid there is one huge difference that only surgery provides: the portion of the stomach that is removed is the portion that secretes ghrelin, the hunger hormone. It's the removal of these cells, not just the physical reduction in stomach volume, that accounts for the big difference so many feel - they just "aren't interested" in eating, so they're able to eat for fuel, instead of entertainment, relief of boredom, emotional needs, etc. One big reason for me wanting the surgery is to achieve mastery over hunger.

Moisture as in storing them? They've never hung around long enough to find out, my husband can't stay away from them . If you mean do you have to dry off the leaves after washing, I run them through a salad spinner. Oh, and I use parchment on the sheet pan. You can also season them differently - add a little sesame oil and soy for Asian flavor, parmesan and garlic salt, hot pepper flakes, you get the idea. You can do the same thing with chard leaves.

OK. First, your body carries fluid (mostly water) in lots of different compartments: inside cells, outside cells, in your bloodstream, outside your bloodstream, all over the place. Your body seeks balance between fluid held inside and outside all those different places. What happens when you have surgery? First, you are deprived of fluid coming in to your body from food or drink for a number of hours beforehand. Then, during and after surgery, you get liters of fluid pumped into your bloodstream (it goes into a vein through your IV, remember). You still aren't getting fluid by the usual means - through food and drink - for some time after. Fluid that you normally ingest gets absorbed during the process of digestion. It gets filtered into your veins through the blood vessels throughout your digestive tract. IV fluids get dumped directly into a vein without that filtering. So right there, your veins are going "hey! that's a lot of Water there!", and they get the rest of the cells working to move the extra from inside the veins to where it belongs. And then you have surgery. Things get moved around, and cut, and jostled. Swelling happens. Swelling is (among other things) the movement of fluid from inside the cells, where it belongs, to outside the cells, where it has leaked out because the cells are damaged and send cellular cleanup crews to work on that. So we have fluid going into and out of places where it doesn't belong on an everyday basis, because surgery isn't an everyday event. It takes time for the body to get it's fluid balance back. That process is commonly known as a postop fluid shift. Some folks take longer for this fluid shift to resolve than others, but it happens to everyone, it's just a normal part of the way our bodies work. For the first week or so postop, our bodies are just trying to deal with the trauma of surgery. They are not interested in our weightloss goals. That's as it should be. I hope this helps!

First of all, I'm truly sorry that your self-esteem has taken such a beating over your weight, and from such an early age. Don't believe everything you read, especially over the internet. Everyone's experience is unique to them. Are you getting counseling about your issues with food? Because your post sounds a lot like the kind of "all or nothing" approach than can lead any of us into self-defeating behaviors where we cycle endlessly into feeling awful about eating "wrong", then eating even more because we feel so awful and guilty and hopeless. You can and should get help around these issues during the time you are waiting for your esophagus to heal. Look for a therapist that works in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and you can learn to "reprogram" those automatic conversations you have with yourself and change the cycle. And the "point of working out now" is because you reap benefits from working out no matter what your weight is. Good luck!

I'm a fool for kale chips - kale, tossed with a bit of olive oil & coarse salt, bake for 30" at 300. Crispy, crunchy, full of vitamins, and fiber.

They injected carbon dioxide into your abdomen during surgery to separate your organs, I'm surprised your surgeon didn't tell you this beforehand. That gas has to disspate, and it will, within a couple more days. Getting up and walking helps - even though I know it hurts!

This is not a stall, it's a completely normal postop fluid shift. Stop driving yourself crazy and stay off the scale. This has been one of my standard lessons to postop clients for decades, no matter the kind of surgery they had.

I applaud your courage in putting this very difficult post and issue out there, and in getting the help you need. My hope is that you will continue to internalize that you are so, so much more than what you do, or don't eat, or any number on any scale. I wish you nothing but good health and success.

I'm so very sorry to hear this. It must be a very unsettling and scary time for you and your family. Everything beyond taking care of yourself has to take a back seat now.

As a few others have said, people who have not fought obesity as long as many of us have have a completely different perspective. I plan to tell very few people ahead of time, because I don't want the topic to be the center of attention as I've witnessed it inevitably becomes. I, too, want to keep my focus internal, because this is an inside game. My energies will need to be spent on making changes. I don't want to explain myself or try one more time to educate well-meaning but seriously unhelpful folks who try to second-guess what is a very personal decision. I'm not afraid that my decision will make friends who also struggle with their weight "feel bad", we're adults and responsible for our own choices. What I decide to to afterwards remains to be seen. It isn't likely to become an issue until after people notice that my weight loss has gone beyond my usual yo-yo pattern anyhow. I plan to to take four weeks off work, and my coworkers may wonder what is up, but beyond saying I need to have some surgery, that's as much as I'm sharing on the front end. I work with a bunch of other healthcare professionals and I frankly just don't want the input.

Thank you for bringing this up; wrapping my head around this notion is a mind bender for me. Looking forward to responses.

Warning, i'm preop, so take this as it comes I feel ya. There is a part of all of us, I'm sure, who resent that we have to monitor every little stinkin' bite we take or pay the price in a weight gain. And there have been times when I've franklin fallen off my plan out of sheer rebellion at the relentlessness of it. I've spent the past year simply trying to be more aware of what I'm eating and why, quite deliberately trying to get the oughts and shoulds out of my thinking. And the real truth is, being overweight is just a pain in the posterior. It's inconvenient. it's uncomfortable, it's expensive - and that's without taking into account that it's gotten harder and harder to keep my blood pressure under control and now my blood sugar is creeping up, too. I've decided it's worth the relentlessness to get my health and energy back. I want to retire in the next couple-three years, and dangit, I want to enjoy it. I want to be able to travel and hike around Europe and simply bend over to tie my shoes comfortably and not wince at photos of myself. If I have to buy new clothes, I want it to be because I've either worn out or fallen out of love with the ones I have, not because I've gotten too big for them. I'm just plain done with that. I don't know that this will help you, but you've come this far, surely it's worth the the effort!