MacMadame

WOW you answered a LOT, thank you. Although I have no idea what the foamies are..... inlighten me?

Here's a thread on foamies:

http://verticalsleevetalk.com/general-sleeve-surgery-discussion/553-lets-discuss-foamies-sliming-3.html

What happens is that your body thinks it's choking so it makes tons of saliva to help wash whatever it is down. But there isn't any room for all that saliva so it just makes everything worse!

Hi! It's good to have some people farther out here. Sometimes I feel lonely. :thumbup:

I still do this at one year out. Just not very often compared to the early days.

Most people can go off their PPIs eventually. I don't know why I've been having trouble. I was actually okay for two weeks when I went off the prilosec but then it came back. Sigh.

I've found trail mix to be a slider food, unfortunately. I stopped making it (I was using it on long bike rides). I still have nuts in the house, but I haven't been into them lately so that's okay. When I start going nuts with them, I stop buying them for a while or buy the kind Mr. Mac likes but I don't.

Well, I'm going from memory. So take it with a grain of salt. :thumbup:

But most people 6 months out or less were reporting 4 oz. or less. I was 5 oz at 7 month. Once you got past 6 months, people were reporting 4 to 6 oz. At one year I was 6 oz.

So I think I can eat more than most people. But I want to redo my test because I didn't have a big tub like you are supposed to. I had two individual servings. So I wasn't sure how much Water to pour in (i.e., were the line was).

Thanks for reposting that. I am at work and don't have my bookmarks handy!

I found shakes would fill me up early on. They still do but not as much. Sometimes this has to do with how fast you drink them. They are supposed to be drunk as fast as a glass of milk and I just can't do that. It usually takes me an hour to finish on! I do make them super thick though, like a smoothie.< /p>

There are studies that show that patients who attend the support groups do better than those that don't. But statistics are not predicative for the individual. :thumbup: You have to do what is right for you.

Dr. Jossart does the San Francisco support group every month. I don't know if he does any others.

If you prefer interacting with Tara and Amy, I would set up a series of reoccuring appointments with them. You can visit in the office or it can be a phone consult. They have people they call every month, even every week. It's part of what we paid for so you might as well use them, is my philosophy.

I really like Dr. C. But we have a similar sense of humor. You may warm up to him, if you go to the support group meetings. You can see a different side. Nicole goes to those meetings too and she's very nice. I think she had bypass so that makes her "one of us."

There also may be other groups in your area that are open to all patients regardless of who their surgeon is. Maybe one of those will be scheduled at a more convenient time for you.

Online support is great, but I find I need the in person support too. They can both work together.

A BMI of 39 is not actually that high. It's only obese, not morbidly obese. We call people whose starting BMI is around 40ish or less "lightweights". (It's that ironic? I certainly never thought of myself as "light" at 223 lb and morbidly obese.)

Some surgeons require a pre-op diet for everyone, but some surgeons only require it for people with a BMI of 40 or higher. Some don't require it for anyone, merely strongly suggest it. Being a lightweight, it's much less likely you'll be required to do it.

Losing weight is a good idea though. OTOH, it doesn't have to be a liquid diet and you don't have to lose much. Anything low carb will do and just losing 10 lb. will make a difference in lowering your surgery risks and easing your recovery.

I see my surgeon all the time. He runs the seminars and support groups. So I saw him several times pre-op, including for my surgical consult. I saw him in the hospital post-op. I see him for my follow-ups, of which I've had more than they say you will, and I see him almost every month at the support group.

I have had two c-sections and an open surgery and this one was eaiser than those. I don't know how it would compared to a lap hysterectomy though.

You will have lifting restrictions for at least a month. Something like less than 25 pounds and then you can lift more as time progresses. (They all vary on the exact details.)

I didn't feel particularly sad about not being able to eat. I was pissy from week 7 to 12, but that's because I was on regular food, but could hardly eat anything, and I kept overeating and getting the "foamies" which hurt. One I could eat more and once I slowed down in my eating, everything went much better.

I went back to the gym at 2 weeks out and started running at one month out. I was back to work at 1.5 weeks out, but I think I should have taken two full weeks. But lots of people go back at 1 week and are fine.

Um, did I miss a question? :cool:

Proton pump inhibitor. It's a class of acid reducer such as prilosec, nexium, prevacid.

Blood clots are rare. They know how to manage them better these days. You'll get a shot of something in the OR to thin your blood and there will be other precautions they will take (they vary from surgeon to surgeon).

But the main thing you can do to prevent blood clots is MOVE. Get walking ASAP and make sure you move around as much as you can as soon as you can.

hair loss is a side-effect of all WLS, not just VSG.

Mine started very early, probably due to hormones, and then around 7-8 months out, it slowed way down and now, at 12 months out, it's a trickle and some days I don't lose any in the shower.

I have very thin hair and no one but me noticed my Hair loss. Well, my hair dresser finally noticed at my last haircut, but no one else. Thank goodness!

Some quick notes:

-everyone does not have to do a pre-op diet. It depends on your surgeon and your starting weight and your medical issues

-acid reflux can make you think you are hungry. Getting on a PPI can really help with that

-some people report being totally hungry while on liquids. liquids don't have a strong restriction feedback loop that more solid food has which tells your brian you ate something and should be full. Most people who experience this feel much better once they start on mushies or sometimes they don't feel better until they are on solid food

Some people take longer for the swelling to go down. I could only do 1/2 to 1 oz. at at time at 7 weeks out and only 1-2 oz. at 3 months out.

But I did supplement my "meals" with Protein shakes and other liquids so that I was getting the calories and Protein I needed to have adequate healing and energy.

Thanks. :001_tt2:

LapSF is one of the top programs in the country. They do all the surgery types and have been a pioneer of the sleeve, doing as many as anyone in the US and publishing papers on it. They've put a lot of effort into perfecting the operation too.

If you like blunt doctors who won't coddle you and will push you to lose all the weight you can, there is Dr. Cirangle, my surgeon. If you like a surgeon with a gentle bedside manner, there is Dr. Jossart. So you can pick what style works best for you.

Oh, I will say that the office staff can be disorganized. You need to keep on them sometimes.

MacMadame,

I tried everything to NOT have to go through the classes. Its a Kaiser REQUIREMENT.

Did you appeal to the DMHC? They always make Kaiser overturn the requirement in every case I know about.

So all this drama got me to come back and say "Hi!"

So, Hi! :thumbdown:

My 1 year anniversary is tomorrow. Whoot whoot to me. My son is 18 next week. Um, yeah? I promised him my old car, but he still doesn't have his license.

I got a triathlon coach! Hopefully this will improve my performances next season and get me through the Half-ironman next month.

Bariatric Resource Center: A4 The Cottage cheese Test, BSCI Articles, A4

It's really easy to do. You can do it anytime you want to know how big your stomach is. I did it around 7 months because a lot of people were doing it and we wanted to compare. I may do it again tomorrow on my one year surgery anniversary.

since I've been able to lose 28 lbs on my own, I may not even get the surgery after all

Which is exactly why they make you do it. Of course, statistics say you'll just gain it back again. When I was going through this, I asked myself "what about this time makes it different from all the other times I lost weight and gained it back?" and my honest answer was: nothing.

The way I look at it is: I didn't get WLS to lose weight. I've always been able to lose weight just fine. I got it because I wanted to keep it off. I've never been able to do that before. And now, with my sleeve, I've got a prayer of maintaining because I'm not hungry all the time. That never happened to me when I lost weight via diet & exercise alone.

Btw, in CA, you don't *have* to do 6 months of classes or lose 10% of your weight. You can appeal to the DMHC and have those requirements waived. That's because there is no clinical data supporting these practices and showing they lead to better outcomes.

Mine is getting worse.

What about eggs and cheese?

Kaiser up here is weird about the VSG. Get your mom to find out which places *really* do it. Some say they will but when you try to get it, they always have some reason why they don't want to. Luckily, this is changing, but it often depends on which surgeon you get referred to. I friend of mine who lives in Santa Rosa had it done at Kaiser as one of their first patients in her program. I'll ask her what program she used. (I'm guessing Richmond.)

Anthem Blue Shield and UHC absolutely don't. Cigna and Aetna have been known to but only on appeal.

You should eat no more than what your sleeve holds. :svengo: This is another thing that varies. Some people's stomach don't get as swollen and they are eating 3-4 oz. right away while others are struggling to eat 0.5-1 oz. But eventually the swelling goes down and you can eat more, plus there is some slight relaxing of the tissues.

Once you are a year out, a lot of people can eat 4-6 oz. of food and some can eat 6-8 oz. It really depends on what the food is though. Plus how fast you eat and how well you chew.

My Spanx doesn't hurt. Maybe the stuff they have in Australia is more like the old-fashioned girdles?? I rarely notice I have my Spanx on.

I also use compression shorts & tops from UnderArmour. They are designed to exercise in so they have a lot of give.