MacMadame

I had glue. My incisions are healing much better than any other surgery I've had so I'm happy about it now. When they started itching, I wasn't so happy.

It does make sense. I have Spanx that are technical way too big that fit me fine. I only get rid of them when the legs go down my legs so far that you can see them peeping out when I wear shorts or skirts.

I've tried a million templates and right now I'm working on creating my own. So it will soon look much different!

2 miles in 40 min. sound about right. That's 3 miles per hour and a lot of people start at 2 or 2.5 mph so you are already ahead of that.

Two weeks is about right for the 3 week stall. I actually know people whose entire weight loss went in two week chunks. They'd lose for two weeks, then stall for two week and repeat. That would have driven me crazy! Whenever mine slowed down, I would look at my logs and there would always be something in there I could improve... drink more Water, consume more Protein, exercise more ... so I'd do that and it would pick back up again.

Men don't look at me differently. I think they see me as a pal and still do. But people -- of both sexes -- are MUCH nicer to me. That surprised me.

You know, I have some ziplock bags that WASa sent me that are made to cook food in the microwave. I should try those! I had some chinese food the other day and it had a sauce and the sauce made things all soggy. I was sad.

Yeah, my spouse started out being a butt. I tried to be logical about it. I answered his points, but he kept bringing them up. I finally had to tell him that I was doing this no matter what and that, as my spouse, he could be supportive or he could shut up. He thought about it for a day or two and said he would be supportive. As for the points he brought up: 1) Need is up to the individual. Your medical team and you think you do need it. 2) So-and-so is So-and-so. You are you. 3) This surgery is as safe as any routine surgical procedure and complications are rare. There are plenty of surgeries you could be schedule for that he wouldn't even think this about. People think about it for WLS because they still think of it as some optional thing that is more about vanity and not about curing a disease 4) It's not losing weight that's the issue, it's keeping it off. Clearly, you didn't keep off the weight you lost on Atkins As for telling people, what I did was frame the discussion so as to discourage negative responses. I portrayed it as "I'm doing this wonderful thing for myself and I'm so excited and let me tell you all about it." This seemed to work for me. I did wait until I was only a few weeks out from surgery to tell more than a handful of people though. I wanted to limit the period of when they could be giving me a hard time, if people decided to do that anyway.

Usually that's because your vagus nerve got overstimulated. My surgeon says most people can tolerate it around 2-3 months out. But we're allowed to try anything because everyone's different. Papaya enzymes and meat tenderizer also work. Can't say I'm enthusiastic about downing raw meat tenderizer so I haven't tried that, but I have a bottle of papaya enzyme pills I got at GNC and I do use them occasionally. I carry some in my purse along with my other pills.

If you eat yogurt, you are taking probiotics. Just not in a pill. :001_wub: I take a pill once a day and I'm now taking it twice a day. I got mine at GNC. I doubt it will make me be able to drink milk, but I think it should help with the gas situation. :lol0:

That's awesome!

When I had these dreams, it usually meant that I was being too strict on my eating (I was on regular food when they started). I am guessing that you are just missing these foods because you are on liquids and it will get better once you move to softs and then regular food.

I was sort of that way. But I also thought I looked FANTASTIC as soon as I had lost a certain amount of weight. So I was shashaying around in my size 14s thinking I looked like Twiggy. :001_wub:

I know penty of people with BCBS Fed who got a VSG covered. There could be two things going on: 1) The clerk made a mistake. This happened to me ALL the time when I was dealing with insurance and calling them. You'd call one day and get one answer and call another day and get another answer 2) Your company may have a variation on the policy that makes it not covered for you even though it's covered for other people at other companies You just need to keep pushing. Insurance companies behave like this because they COUNT on you to give up even if you were in the right. ETA You aren't screwed. There is an appeals process and you can and should take advantage of it.

The pain I have is in the lower back on the left. It's right where the bottom of the lung would be.

I figure if I eat it 3x, that's good enough and I'll throw the rest out, if it's not something I'm in love with.

Osteoporosis is a well-known side-effect of partial gastrectomies. Hence, the recommendation to supplement. There is less intrinsic factor too. For a minority, this makes it harder to absorb B12. Another rare, but known side-effect that is related to nutrition is anemia. However, most of the micronutrients are absorbed in the intestines so having a small stomach shouldn't be a big issue. I haven't been able to find any studies showing any other common nutritional issues with partial gastrectomies when I was doing my sleeve research. (There's always that one guy that everything happens to, of course.) I searched on partial gastrectomies because there is more data on them. The problem with that is that these partial gastrectomies are often done on people with a normal weight and/or the pylorus valve gets removed. That makes them slightly less applicable to us. But it's the best data I've found. (I found 6 pages of results -- about 25% of them relevant when using "partial gastrectomy" and 4 entries, none of them relevant when using "vertical gastrectomy" as my search term.) Here is an example of the sort of study I found: [Nutritional evaluation in patients with total and...[Rev Gastroenterol Peru. 2008 Jul-Sep] - PubMed Result CONCLUSIONS: Malnutrition was not an inevitable consequence of a gastrectomy and may be prevented. The incidence of anemia in this group of patients has high, while other biochemical parameters such as albumin level and total Proteins were not so affected. This study included people with Total Gastrectomies and they were the ones with the most problems, btw.

I agree. I know a few thin people with really dysfunctional relationships with food. The dysfunction just keeps them thin instead of making them fat.

People steal your lunch at work?! :001_wub: Or is it just that your family gets to them? I have to throw a lot out as my family doesn't tend to like the same things as me and I can't get to them all in time some weeks. I like Chevys, but twice in one weekend? It was a bit much, really. :thumbup1:

Here you go: Gallbladder Symptoms

My program recommends 3 meals a day too. Though my surgeon says in the support group meetings that 3 meals and a snack should be fine. I don't necessarily agree with it. I think it's a fine starting place for most people immediately pre-op, but then you have to see what happens. What happened to me is that I need to eat 1800 calories a day and I can't do that with only 3 meals. :thumbup1: And my surgeon did tell me to try having a morning snack when I was complaining about not getting my Protein in, so obviously he is okay with having Snacks in certain circumstances.

Actually, it turns out it isn't. :thumbup1: When you consume caffeine, you do pee more in the two hours afterwards, but you don't pee more in a 24 hour period. So it just changes the time you pee, not the amount. Congrats, ash!

Good for you! What makes people think that telling them your plans is a license to critique said plans anyway? I don't get that.

Can you share a meal or bring home leftovers, Jane? Today I went to Chevys (Mexican) and had an appetizer that I could actually eat all of it. It's a chicken skewer and a shrimp skewer on a bed of veggies (I told them to hold the fries). Usually I bring home the extra and bring it to work for lunch.

That's great... now comes the next phase: going nuts shopping because everything fits and looks good!