Wheetsin

Why yes, yes it is!

I don't think dye will make your hair fall out, but you will have medications/chemicals in your hair and they can affect how your hair reacts: perms may release, color can take differently, etc. I'd say call the salon and ask - many stylists have their own guidelines for when they will/won't do hair - he or she will be able to tell you best.

If you haven't seen it, there's an entire forum here dedicated to band -> sleeve revisions. Lots and lots of us have been down that path. My best answers below in blue.

"...those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

Generally if you don't have a fever you will be OK. But please do call and ask. You're already doing better and Friday is lots & lots of hours away. I did not have a stomach bug, but 3 days before my surgery I woke up feeling like I was getting a major sinus cold.

BTW, I had to re-read "13 years after having my daughter" when I saw your pic, because unless you had her when you were like 3, you photograph seriously young. (That's a compliment)

Wow - I don't know if I should say "congratulations" or "I'm sorry." (it's always happy, but you seem like you really didn't want it now) See how long your supervised diet will be valid for, and how soon after pregnancy he will do the procedure. Then just work hard to keep your focus during pregnancy. That's such a hard time to not pack on the pounds. And I don't mean the expected pounds, I mean the "I can because I'm pregnant" pounds!

I'm a 2 time WLS patient and I didn't get it. So none of y'all feel bad. I'm still not getting this whole wipe with a spoon thing. So - you wipe. Then what? Just throw the whole thing away? Or do you actually somehow unwind the paper once it's all poopy? What if you "slip"? Do you use the concave, or convex side? Does a wooden spoon really add that much reach? (Yeah, I'm analytical...) I have asked my husband to do a lot of unsavory things in the nearly 15 years we've been married, but wiping my butt is not one of them. That could be a deal-breaker in my household!

..and don't forget the public service. I'm sure a LOT of husbands out there are VERY glad their wives are reading these books.

But you're always going to have some amount of poop in you...

Ok found this on a hospital list for WLS: God, get a family member to help?! I'd rather just use the "jet" setting on my shower head, if I had to.

I'm not sure about the wooden spoon either. I know a lot of super MO folks will use wooden spoons (because they're cheap and can be tossed) to help wipe themselves. Fortunately I could always take care of that without kitchen utensils. StrangelyNormal - I was wondering about that, too. Now I'm on a mission.

Spice doesn't bother me one bit. I love a hot bowl of hot & sour Soup (add vinegar & sriracha to actually get it hot and sour). Still love my jalapenos, and Cayenne, and Thai food (I always order it spicy+), salsas, etc. The spice doesn't seem to bother me at all. Something like milk or a banana will get my GERD going long before vindaloo. Onions/pickles never bothered my GERD (and still don't). And I still have the occasional "sneak" of a sip of vinegar, pickle juice or Worcestershire sauce. No problems. Unfortunately, that's all irrelevant, It's very much a "wait and see" game.

So all you ppl who weigh pre & post poop... are you just curious about how much your poop weighed? Do you want to see if your scale is accurate enough to detect the difference? What's your motivating factor?

Yeah, I feel you. I still cook for DD and DH. I may nibble, but usually even the nibbles hang around longer than I want them to. It's a a rare evening that I can comfortably eat. Maybe along the magnitude of 1x per month or so. Dang it! They always want me to sit at the table with them too. Ok, let me sit here... *whistle* I want to cook for them - that part of it doesn't bother me. And it's not that I mind not eating. I have no problems going out and just getting a drink. It's just that when I feel that way, I don't want to see/smell food.

Sorry, I don't read your blog, but I'm always willing to share my opinion on a book. The books themselves were not good. Poorly written. Didn't make a ton of sense. But considering the author got her start writing Twilight fanfic (equally horrible books IMO), I didn't expect a national book award winning author. I expected a cheap thrill. But I didn't even get that. Maybe the books were so poorly written that it distracted too much from the sex. IDK. But the sex scenes were (IMO) boring. The same thing over and over. It's SAHM soft core BDSM porn, right? For a bunch of people who dig missionary with the lights out, sure. But I don't think it's unusual for people to experiment sexually. I've talked about these books with many of my female companions and none of us learned anything new. I mean - getting tied up with a necktie? That's not risque, IMO. That's not taboo, or uncharted territory. That's practically Disney. But I know that I'm not your "typical" female, nor are the majority of my female friends. So many women are blushing over this book and going into hormonal fits and IMO it's just silly. Good for the author for bringing something into the public mainstream. I just got tired of flipping through page after page of the same sex over and over again. Seriously. I'd flip 2 or 3 pages, then read a bit - are we still not there yet Ok... And I'm sorry, but seriously. What female orgasmed when they lost their virginity? That's how we know it's fiction.

Not pathetic. I'm weighing on Sundays, naked, before eating, AFTER I've lost my initial "wake up" weight. I always weigh about 2# lighter once I've been up for an hour or so, than when I first wake up. I take poops when I can get them, so unfortunately I really have no say in whether I weigh before or after I poop.

My daughter (she will be 4 in a few months) was looking at an OLD work ID picture. OLD from pre-lapband, even. I was around 400 lbs. I had a major, major round/pie face. She was like, "Mommy? Is that you?" I told her it was. And she said, "You kind of look like you. But kind of not. Did you got a new head?" I recently straightened my hair, and cut it into a completely new style. I'd been wanting to for a while, but wanted to wait until my face had slimmed down a bit. So I've had the new style for a bit over a week. And I keep hearing, "Oh, I love your hair! It makes you look so much thinner!" And as I posted on MFP - Oh, or maybe it has something to do with the 85 lbs I've lost in the last 4.5 months, you jackhole!

BTW, I truly feel like I eat all the time. Between breakfast (which I eat around 7:30) and lunch (varies, usually sometime between 11 and 1) I normally have at least one small snack. Maybe two. I'm not hungry, but I need more calories. A snack may be a handful of almonds, or 1/2 - 1 Protein bar, or a piece or two of Jerky, or some turkey pepperoni chips, or whatever. Then lunch, and between lunch and dinner (IF I eat, which is rare, dinner is around 7:30) I normally have another snack or two. I probably eat 6 - 8 times a day, and STILL linger under 600 calories a day, most days. It's HARD to eat enough. And I can't just count on my capacity increasing (I've been told more than once that due to the severity of my revisional scar tissue, I will likely hit my peak capacity 4 - 6 months out). But I already feel like I'm eating all the time. This is a balancing act I'm still trying to learn.

A few more things to keep in mind. The density of the food absolutely matters. Your body size matters. I thought restriction with my sleeve would be consistent - but it's not really. So things like day, time of day, etc. really matter. I've pretty much given up dinner. It's just not comfortable for me to eat at night and I don't want to risk the reflux by pushing it (that's part of why I'm still not up to a realiable 600 cals/day even at 5 months out). Size of your stomach matters. They remove the fundus/greater curvature, but some stomachs are longer than others. Volume-wise - probably under 1/4C for me most of the time. There have been a few exceptions. I also do not count my intake as "what I can eat in 20 minutes". I count it as "however long it takes, until I'm satisfied or think I just need to stop." It can matter if you're a revision, too. And the location of your scar tissue.

I'm not sure if by "down there" you're talking about your pannus or vagina, so I'm just going to call them what they are, since I would not say what I'm about to say interchangeably. If that makes you uncomfortable please feel free to insert euphamism of choice. Just use the right one for the right body part! For the pannus - make sure you dry very well after a shower. And use an antibacterial soap while showering. Get as dry as you can, even if you have to use the blow dryer. Apply either a powder, or an antiperspirant/deodorant combo (I use the pomegranate Dove). Not both. I prefer antiperspirant because the powder can sort of paste up. If I ever use powder I use Mexsana, but I've been swiping a line of antiperspirant on my pannus (like chapstick on a smile) for years. You may still get moist, but you shouldn't get wet. You will not stink. And best of all - the deodorant sort of lubricates your skin, so you don't get the skin-skin breakdown/rash. For your vagina - much the same. But I have a question. You say you're noticing an odor. Can you tell if it's from your exterior/outer skin (e.g. labia, or where your thighs meet your groin), or is it from your interioe (e.g. change in body chemistry and your normal discharge)? You can powder if you want to - I don't, but I don't have the same problems you're talking about. If I did, I would. But I would not use Mexsana. It can burn a bit, especially on sensitive skin areas. Make sure you do not get powder inside of your vagina/vaginal canal. Exterior use only. Use an antibacterial soap (not antibacterial like softsoap, but good antibacterial like safeguard) and use a rough washcloth. Everyone wants poufs and fluffy towels, which is great, but they don't do a thing for helping your body shed the dead skin cells, or scrub off the gunk. I buy the cheapest washcloths I can find at Walmart, the bulk pack of white ones for like $5 or $7. They're just about perfect. Anyway. Wash well with antibacteria soap, then I'd probably wash a second time with a feminine wash. Dry yourself COMPLETELY - seriously even use a blowdryer if you need to. Or dry off, then wait a bit, then dry off again. Cotton panties as someone else mentioned, as little dye as possible. Sit with your legs open whenever you can. There's a reason we stick our hands between our thighs when we're freezing. It's WARM. But warm + moist is not a good combo, so you want to give yourself as much opportunity to cool down/dry out (from any sweat) as you can. Don't wear snug underwear, either. Go a size bigger if you need to. If the elastic banding can cut into you, that can make things worse. Don't wear undergarments or pants for any longer than necessary. I.e. instead of hanging out clothed at home, but on some loungewear or a mumu or something. HTH, IME.

I'm about 5 mos out. I can eat more than an ounce or two of some foods, but not all. I average 550 - 600 calories a day.

BTW, I would love for someone who intimately knows the GI system to chime in on the issue of stretchability. I know high level the overall system, but I don't know the composition of the part of the stomach that's left behind. In my mind, it's about the same makeup as -- steak. That's what I picture, anyway. Though it's organ. Yet even though it's organ, it's tough organ. I suspect its ability to stretch is extremely minimal. Yet most surgeons warn us of "stretching" out. I don't know how much this can stretch, and I'd think that if we got to the point where we really overstuffed ourselves enough that we were in danger of stretching, the food would come back up. Or feel really, really miserable until it went down. We will loosen up over time. I wouldn't be surprised if at the 1 yr mark we're still noticing differences in how much we can eat. It's not unheard of for swelling to linger that long, and we don't really know what else we're doing that can cause changes (i.e. does eating a bit too much, but not so much that we're sick, trigger swelling?) I just don't see how we could stretch - noticeably. What's left behind isn't built to be stretchy. But who knows. *shrug*

I'm coming up on 5 mos post-op. There are some times of day, and some foods, I can eat about 1 oz. Others about 4 oz. 4 oz is probably my upper limit on most food (true oz as in weight, not volume like referencing the capacity of a 4 oz cup). But I also tend to eat over longer periods of time. I can eat sashimi in larger quantities, and strawberries/fruit. The fruit makes sense. I rarely hurt any more (my "hurt" = weird stabbing pains up in my throat), though I do often get pressure. I don't really ever feel "normal" when I eat, regardless of how much or little. I think the key is to learn to focus on "no longer hungry" rather than focusing on "full". There's a large margin between the two, and "no longer hungry" will do us just fine. ETA: BTW, I've still never puked with the sleeve.

I had to get off a roller coaster the other day. I'd ridden dang rides all day long, and then the child of the couple we were with wanted to do some spinny teacup-like ride. I'm the designated "spinny" ride person, the other mom is the designated "droppy" ride person. So I take her son over, wait in line, get in, and the dang belt is like 1" from being able to be closed. The attendant comes over and asks if my belt is on (he's asking everyone to show him). I was like, "I don't supposed this is close enough?" Nope, I had to get off. Then the kid threw a fit and started drawing even more attention. The attendant comes over with the measuring stick and ends up the kid was tall enough to ride it alone. But my oh my, we had drawn quite the crowd by that time. Embarrassing? A bit, but really not overly. People know I'm fat. There are lots of things they don't know, that would be much more embarrassing. So I guess it's all relative. I would have preferred it not happen, but I didn't cringe as I had to walk off the ride. *shrug* What I think would be the most humliaiting thing, we're blessedly unconscious for -- our fat pre-op bodies being naked & hefted by others onto the operating table. I don't even want to think about how many people it took to move me in 2006 when I had my lapband (that was my heighest weight ever - 380 - 400 lbs).