theantichick

I had a hard time on puree/soft to get enough food and Protein in. I started adding unflavored Protein powder to anything that it would mix into. I froze Syntrax Protein drinks into ice-pop tubes to boost fluids and Protein intake. I kept up with the Protein shakes to give myself a good protein base to work from, and added the puree/soft foods on top of that. I ate stuff like refried Beans with cheese, lots of greek yogurt, and made up Protein Powder with 1/2 the liquid to make pudding. I also found later that Fairlife milk has quite a bit more protein than regular milk, so I've switched to that to boost my intake. It's hard to get all the protein in to start with, and the calories stayed very low for me until I was on a full diet. My doc said my #1 priority is fluids, and my #2 priority is protein, and for the first 2-3 months post-op that's all she wanted me worried about.

I did the paid version of MFP because it let me decide what macronutrients are on my dashboard. Calories don't matter to me other than passing interest, I focus on the Protein and carbs now.

While it's possible, because there are serious complications and higher risk because of obesity, here's my experience.

In my circle of friends, a person died several years after having some unspecified WLS. (No one really knew WHAT our friend had done, but the person who was with her at the facility was NOT impressed with the surgeon/facility.) She never followed through on the post-op diet plan, and had a number of health issues. She hated that she'd had the surgery, and said she had issues with food intolerance and other problems every since. However, she lost very little weight and like I said had lots of issues. While I haven't seen her medical records, as a nurse I can tell you that it's incredibly unlikely that she died as a result of the surgery, or even its complications.

Another friend of mine lost his sister several years after a gastric bypass. He insists that her health was compromised by the surgery and she never really recovered from it. Again, I don't have access to her records, and didn't socialize with her so I don't even know the extent of her post-op issues, but it's very unlikely that the surgery caused the death that many years out.

I personally know two people who almost died after lap band due to severe infections. I know three people (including one of the ones with the infections) who ate around their bands and were actually worse off from having it.

So I had some friends who had deep concerns about my safety for the surgery. But the sleeve is not the bypass or the band. The bypass can result in some issues with nutrient absorption that can cause long-term health problems if not properly managed, and the lap bands are particularly prone to infection because it leaves a foreign body in the person. The sleeve has a very good safety record. There can be some long-lasting complications, like reflux, but severe complications are not common, and are usually manageable. Also, over time all of the WLS's have become safer because the surgeons learn more about what works and what doesn't. Once I educated them about the difference between the surgeries and the safety record of the sleeve, they quit trying to scare me out of it, and have been very supportive.

My sister had the sleeve several years ago, and then had some complications with the skin surgeries. She also tends to go on and on at length about things with everyone who will listen, so everyone in the family has been subject to her monologues about food and diet and the surgery. So my parents had concerns about the complications, not realizing that her complications were actually from the skin surgeries. And they were worried that I would become "no fun" to have dinner with anymore. Once I cleared up the confusion about her surgical complications, and assured them that I have no reason to lecture anyone about what I'm eating or why or to police their eating, they dropped it.

My dad also didn't understand why I couldn't just quit eating stuff that's bad for me, and exercise. He was able to drop his excess weight (about 50#) that way and keep it off, because he's a very disciplined sort. Once I showed him the new science about set point and the pressures and drives the hormone system does to keep the weight on, and the evidence that the surgery re-sets the set point and blocks many of the hormone drives, he understood why I was doing it.

Bottom line, you are doing this for YOU, and for your health. If you and your team are good with the plan, ultimately that's all that matters. You can try to educate people, because many times their concerns or objections are based in things they've heard that aren't quite right. But don't let them get you off track or convince you not to do what you and your medical team have decided is in your best interests.

I had it a lot at first, and still burp quite a bit but it's not as often as right out of the gate. I theorize that it has a lot to do with the new structure of the sleeve. Used to be our stomachs were huge bags, so once food/liquid was past the opening at the top, it had all this room to go. Now it's like a cylinder, and if you've worked with pouring liquid into tubes like cylinder beakers in a lab, you know that it tends to trap air bubbles (well, thick liquid anyway) more than a flask beaker. I figure that our sleeves do kinda the same thing.

Almost a universal complaint. We're losing our insulating layers!

I work from home 2 days a week, and used to have my workspace set up in my living room in front of a window. This last weekend I had to clear out the spare bedroom and move my workspace there so that I could better heat it up with a space heater because I'll get too cold to work, and even get a Migraine from being so cold.

For me, it's mostly a good thing, because I was always the one who got hot and sweaty all the time, and was miserable. So given the option I'd rather be cold because I can use heated throws, heated mattress pads, socks, etc. to get warmer but there's only so far you can take off clothes in public and not get arrested. LOL.

And, of course, I'm in Texas. We only have about 1, maybe 2 months of real cold here (just got through a vicious cold snap) but on the order of 6 or 7 months of insane heat. So I'd rather be more comfortable in the heat and have to layer up for 1 or 2 months.

I had seven kinds of hell on the pre-op diet, and my surgeon wasn't even very strict with it. Mine was 2-3 Protein shakes a day, with a list of fruit and other healthy Snacks allowed, and a balanced meal. Basically a Slimfast diet with better shakes. But it was SO hard to keep even to that. I worried that I wouldn't be able to follow through with diet changes after because it was so hard. But after surgery, my cravings and intense hunger just really went away. So don't think that you can't do this just because you struggled with the pre-op diet.

Now, I will caution you, once you've had the surgery, please please please stick 100% to the diet instructions your surgeon gives. The diet progression post-op is not only to lose weight, but more importantly to protect your healing stomach and let the new sleeve structure figure out how to deal with foods by starting on liquids and then gradually moving to firmer and firmer foods. (See my rant about it in my signature - I'm not a doctor but...) Once your surgeon clears you to a full diet, it's no longer a safety issue and is a success issue, but those first couple of months post-op are crucial. We get a LOT of people on here who eat all sorts of things they shouldn't very early on, and it can be very dangerous.

Good luck!

I had never heard of an issue with cinnamon being toxic, so I did a little research. There is no solid research about it, but the cassia cinnamon (which is cheaper than "true" cinnamon - Ceylon) does have a toxic substance in it, and there's no regulation about the quantity. It appears that not everyone is as sensitive to the toxin as others, so there's no "safe" amount of cassia cinnamon defined. For most casual flavoring such as in breads and such, I doubt it matters a whole lot. But after reading the articles I could find on it, I will say that I'll be spending a bit more to get Ceylon cinnamon from now on, for all my cooking/baking. If I were doing smoothies or something similar, I'd be certain that I had Ceylon cinnamon for it, which has a great deal less of the troublesome toxin. It's available on Amazon, and I would suspect at organic food suppliers or higher end baking suppliers. Maybe even at the regular grocery store, I'll be checking.

Thanks for tipping me off to this! And while I adore cinnamon, I would agree that 1 tsp for an individual serving of anything would be WAY too much for good taste. I'd reduce it regardless of if it was cassia or Ceylon. However, several of the articles I read also said that the Ceylon cinnamon has a less sharp and more balanced flavor. I'll be interested to see how it changes my baking.

Don't take too much stuff to the hospital. You'll need very little of it.

If you're having pain, stay ahead of it... let the nurses know when it's starting up again so they can get your pain meds to you before it gets bad.

Walk, walk, walk. And once they let you have fluids, sip, sip, sip.

And try not to stress. The hospital staff do this all the time, they've got your back.

Regarding the CO2 - I know they try to get as much out as they can, but sometimes residual amounts remain that causes discomfort. I don't know what my surgeon did - she said she does her leak test in the OR, and I know there has to have been Water involved but I don't know if the Water was on the inside or outside of the sleeve. So that might have helped get the gas out. Or maybe I was just lucky - but I didn't have any of the shoulder/chest gas pains that so many people report.

I took three weeks, and I'm very glad I did!

You may want to look into what FMLA means at your facility. For me is it only protection of my position, I would still have to use my accrued time for pay.

I wish you the best!!

That's what I'm thinking because it's no way I can be able to function because I work at home the post office I'm a clerk

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There is no way I could have been at a job where I stood all/most of the day before 3 weeks or so. I was so incredibly fatigued, and that didn't start getting better until I got on soft foods.

I always feel like obesity is similar to food allergies, clinical depression, and just a host of other things most people haven't personally experienced. Some people just don't get why you can't just "cheer up". You know - haven't you ever tried not being depressed? Taking a brisk walk always gets them out of a funk, so it should work for you, right? Wouldn't, you know, not sitting on the couch eating donuts just fix your weight?

Amen. I have auto-immune arthritis (rheumatoid/psoriatic). If I had a dime for every time someone has told me that I'd be fine if I'd ... take/eat tumeric, stop eating nightshades, go gluten-free, go paleo, just exercise through it (which incidentally flares me up so I can barely move for 4 days), and so on and so forth - I'd be a lot better off financially than I am. Because they hear "arthritis" and think it's like their grandmother's arthritis and I just need to move my joints and use BenGay. They don't get that this is a whole-body disease with inflammation and joint damage, and is a LOT more than just some aches and pains.

I will also point out that the "normal" amounts of food people eat are ridiculously huge. American society has a VERY warped view of what a "normal" serving of anything is. I look at the amounts of food people eat now, and think "where the heck does it all GO?" (Of course, I know how stretchy a normal stomach is, but still, it's a LOT OF FOOD.) While my servings may be smaller than true normal, they're not THAT far off.

I do occasionally miss being able to pig out at my favorite Mexican or Italian food restaurant. But that regret is incredibly brief, because I am learning to eat slowly and REALLY enjoy the food. So I can't eat ALL of the things I love every time I go, but I can have ONE, and I can come back and have another thing another time. It certainly wouldn't be worth the 70# back on my aching joints, and my inflammatory factors out of control, and having to sleep with a CPAP, and all the other medical problems that are slowly resolving as I lose weight and start moving more.

Your friend is putting the things in her life in a different priority than you are the things in your life, and she doesn't understand why you don't value food the same way she does. If she's overweight, then there's a decent chance she has an unhealthy relationship with food. I've been working with a therapist for almost a year now on emotional eating and learning a new relationship with food, and it really does change your priorities. Food is fuel for me now. Often it's really enjoyable fuel, no one says you have to quit really liking food. But I much prefer what I have now - getting my emotional needs met by the people in my life, instead of from the ice cream and pastries.

Your friend may "get it" someday, or she may forever think you've made a bad decision. Live the best life you can, and the rest sorts itself out. She'll learn to deal with it, or she'll fade out of your life. Either way, you'll be fine.

I have had reflux issues over the years, but mostly related to stress and food choices. Always manageable with a PPI/antacid. Because of meds I need to be able to take for my auto-immune condition - NSAIDs and steroids - the sleeve was a better choice for me. We decided to take a chance with the reflux because of the other pressing medical needs. So far, so good (knock on wood). No reflux issues, and I'll be on a PPI forever because of the meds I take for the auto-immune.

So there can be other medical reasons that point to a sleeve over a bypass. However, given the serious risk of GERD, if I didn't have the other medical concerns, I likely would have decided to go with a bypass rather than risk the reflux/GERD. It might be worth discussing with the surgeon why he thinks reflux won't be an issue with your sleeve, and what factors he is considering with his recommendation.

While not as good as a powered blender, the Blender bottles with the wire balls in them do a decent job of mixing powders.< /p>

As @@JamieLogical said, every surgeon is different. Until there is clear and convincing evidence from multiple studies that there is a "right way" to do something, doctors tend to rely on a combination of their training and personal experience with patients to decide what the protocols will be. Having worked in a teaching hospital, I will say the things doctors tend to be obsessive about are the things they personally encountered that were totally messed up with a patient in their internship/residencies and made an impression. LOL. The doc that saw the one in a thousand odd side effect or adverse reaction for a treatment or medication as an intern will forever stress about that treatment/medication.

We see it in all areas of medicine. I had to have a knee reconstructed, and given my penchant for medical research, I went into the orthopedist's office with a number of detailed questions - the primary one being which major rehabilitation plan did he model his from (there were two major schools of thought about rehab from those who originated the surgery in Norway). I freaked him out a little. LOL.

My surgeon doesn't do an extensive pre-op diet unless she sees signs of liver enlargement. She asked me to do a "modified liquid fast" for 2 weeks - 2-3 Protein shakes during the day, with fruit and a couple of other kinds of healthy Snacks approved, and a "sensible" meal for one meal of the day. But there was no strict requirements for it, no calorie/fat/carb limits or anything. Then, of course, the standard nothing by mouth the night before surgery.

I noticed almost right off the bat post-op how much louder and more "talkative" my sleeve seemed to be. It's still more noisy than it was pre-op but now at 4 1/2 months, it's not as noticeable as it was in the first couple of months post-op.

I am in IT, so I drive a desk and have work-from-home options.

I had surgery on Wed, started working from home the following Monday, returned to the office a week after that (3 days a week, the other 2 are at home).

I had only been in my position about 10 months, so I had very little PTO built up, and did not qualify for FMLA protection. So I was trying to minimize my time out of the office.

I REALLY wish I'd taken that first week completely off, then started working from home the 2nd week which would have been 12 days post-op, and then started at the office 19 days post-op.

That first week was rough, even working from home. I had very little pain and no actual throwing up, but intermittent nausea and felt like it was a full time job just trying to get my fluids and Protein in. I made it through, but I wish I'd had a little more time off to recover first.

I try to always have a bottle/cup of Water with me. I have to have my Water VERY cold, so I use insulated cups and carry one everywhere. I also make sure I have water flavoring drops with me all the time, because I get tired of plain water, or sometimes I'm somewhere that the tap water has an odd taste. I have also found that I drink more when I use a straw (OK'd by my surgeon, and I get less air trapped with a straw than without) so I use insulated cups with straws. I'm thinking about getting a custom RTIC, because everyone I know is carrying them now and says they are AWESOME for keeping drinks cold all day.

I can even whip up a little arm sleeve thing similar to some belly dance costume pieces I used to make, with spandex lace if the batwings get too flappy.

I've seen TV ads for a long-sleeved, shrug-type top, probably midriff-baring, made from sheer or lacy stretch fabric, designed to hold in flapping arms. They're shown worn under sleeveless dresses for evening or day. IMNHO, they looked pretty cheesy as clothing, but might work for whoring around. I don't recall the product or company name, but I think it's the one that had advertised a bra that looks somewhat like a sports bra, is a pullover and appears to have no support but the claim was that it gave great support. Maybe someone else will know the name.

Yeah I've seen them, and will probably order a couple, but they don't have the color/fabric options I want. They look a lot like the choli tops I made when I was building my belly dance costumes. I found a place online to get spandex fabric including stretch lace, so I'll start experimenting. Maybe it'll even be a side business! LOL.

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For anyone who doesn't have good information about post op care and diet from their surgeon, I highly recommend Alex's big book. It's good basic information. Along with some judicious Google research you should be able to make your way through. It's not right that surgeons are apparently not always giving good comprehensive after care instructions, no matter if it's state side or not, insured or self pay. But we as patients have the responsibility for our care. If you didn't get good info from your surgeon and team, go find it. This is not something that you should "wing it" IMHO.

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@@suzzzzz Hello friend! Happy New Year to you as well

You're talking about taking responsibility for your actions and that's not behavior that's seen very often around here. It drives me NUTS the way folks want their poor choices validated.

I just ate a piece of cheese toast. It was a crappy choice. If I'm lucky, I won't eat even more because I was dumb enough to have white bread which I know is a 'gateway food' for me. I own it

Yummmmmmm... cheeese toast. I haven't had that since I was a small child. Of course, I don't think I've seen the cheese my mom used since way back when either. It was a white cheese with some sort of seeds in it. OMG that stuff was awesome melted on bread in the broiler. I wouldn't know where to even start looking for that cheese now. But thank you so much for making me think about it, because now I'm going to be obsessed with it. LOL.

My husband assures me that guys by and large (no pun intended) don't care about any of the stuff women care about. They are getting laid, and that makes it all good in their book. LOL.

I have given a lot of thought to the hanging skin. I know I'd rather have that than the fat, but I don't know that I'll ever really come to love it.

However, I am damned good at costuming. LOL. Quality lingerie can hide a multitude of sins, rolls, and whatnot. And there's nothing like french lace to make you feel pretty, IMNSHO. I will be finding what lingerie styles camouflage the stuff I don't like seeing, and having fun collecting pieces for my "naughty" wardrobe. I can even whip up a little arm sleeve thing similar to some belly dance costume pieces I used to make, with spandex lace if the batwings get too flappy.

I think it's a matter of finding what will help *you* be OK with (or maybe even love) the way you look, and the right guy will love it. You'll have a whole new body to dress and play with, enjoy it!!

There is no revenge like living well.

Just please put a towel down when you sit nekkid on the sofa to watch TV. LOL.

Soo....the first serious discussion with the MOMD (man of my dreams) was that he had to stop sitting on my couch in the altogether. As I am a Brooklyn girl, I pulled no punches. I leaned in close and whispered in his ear...'I can't have my couch smelling like ass'.

I'm still working on him using plates, eating with a little less 'gusto', and general neatness where none existed before. I love him to pieces so these things are not deal breakers...only little flys that I have to swat away from time to time.

More important...is that he's all in with this relationship. Got a call this morning from my son who is moving the family from Jersey to PA this weekend. As I suspected, his friends are bailing right and left and he now needs mom to drive one of the cars to the new house. Probably.

I won't know till 8:30 tomorrow morning when the friend who offered to drive either shows up or does not. Means that MOMD and I have to take the train from NYC to Jersey, head up to PA with the car, help move stuff when we get up there...or for me, help to watch my grandson, and then....take the bus back to NYC that evening because there is no furniture available for us to use to sleep over.

What was MOMD's reaction to all this? Two words...'road trip!'. I think that trumps a little ass on my couch and crumbs on my floor now and then.

Ex#1 didn't see the issue with what he called "skid marks" on the sheets, couch, whatever.

(shudder)

Only one of MANY reasons he's an Ex.

Current hubby shuddered upon hearing the story and made derisive comments about Ex#1's hygiene skills. Hubby would also approach your situation with a "whatever we need to do" attitude. Current hubby is a keeper, obviously.

I couldn't stand the OA meetings. I found them way too rigid.

Only if I eat something that doesn't agree with my sleeve.

I have been working with a therapist for going on a year on my food issues, emotional eating, overeating, odd food preferences, etc. Combined with the new habits with the sleeve, I know that I'm doing better 90-95% of the time than before I started all of this. So if I decide I want a small amount of something, I don't consider it cheating, and I don't feel bad about it.

I know for me, this whole process has led me to realize how messed up my relationship was with food. I'm learning to seek comfort in people and other things besides the brownie box. I am learning to express and feel my emotions instead of numbing them or stuffing them down with food. Along with that, I have to quit letting my old mental tapes assign moral judgment to food. There is no "good" food and no "bad" food, and I am not good or bad because of the food I choose. There can be foods that aren't helpful to my goal of losing weight and being healthy, and foods that are helpful. It's good to keep that in mind. But 90-95% improvement in my diet is HUGE, and I give myself credit for that. I'm not perfect, and it's unrealistic to expect myself to be perfect.

I think most people with weight issues have old baggage to let go of around food in order to have a healthy relationship with it and use it as fuel instead of emotional bandages. For me, the whole concept of "cheating" and "good/bad" food is wrapped up in that, and I'm done with it.