MacMadame

You really need to be on a PPI and not Zantac. So something like prilosec or Nexium or Prevacid. Most surgeons put you on them for at least a month up to six months. It takes a while for your brain to get the idea that it doesn't need to produce so much acid and you'll be miserable during that time if you aren't on a PPI. Things like Zantac and Pepcid AC work differently and therefore usually aren't enough.

I say it's Water weight. If you watch The Biggest Loser, they always bitch about how, after the big loses in week 1, week 2 is a bitch and people even GAIN. The thing is, when you first go on a diet, your body depletes your muscles of glycogen to get its energy. But, after a while, it figures out this is a long-term deal and it starts burning fat instead. It takes 4 lb. of water to store a lb. of glycogen. So the first week or two, you lose 4 lb. of water for every lb. of glycogen you lose (usually 1 or 2) and then the next week or two, you put all that water back on. In the meantime, you are losing fat just fine, but the amount of water you put back on may mask that.

You left out the part where you came here telling people we didn't need WLS at al, that you'd found "the answer" and had lost 90 pounds listening to Tony Robbins/Tony Roberts/some motivational guy.... You are definitely re-writing history here. You told us your band was never installed properly. That's a mechanical issue even if the erosion happpened later. :ohmy: You know that's not what everyone is saying.... Not necessarily. For example, the sleeve and bypass have simliar weight loss stats. One is restrictive-only and one also has malabsorption. It's not as simple as malabsorption vs. restriction. That was what I was trying to say. They all work to some extent, much better than any diet program, but you want the one that is going to work the best for you and that involves personal preferences/values/choices that a surgeon can't really decide for you. The surgeon can't decide if you are one who will be lax about coming in for fills/unfills or if you are one who will come to hate having a hunk of plastic inside you or will go nuts eating sweets when it turns out that you are one of the many people who gets a bypass but doesn't dump. They can't know how you evaluate the risks of malnutrition with bypass vs. the risks of not succeeding with the band. There are people who think they must have a DS because it has the best EWL stats and that's the most important thing to them. There are people who think it's crazy to get a bypass because after 12-18 months, you start to absorb most of your calories, but still malabsorb Vitamins and minerals and you have a stomach that can't be scoped floating around inside you. Others think the long-range complication rates for the band are unacceptable. Some people think the sleeve is the greatest thing since sliced bread and others can't get over having part of their stomach permanent removed. Everyone evaluates these benefits and risks differently. That's why it's a personal choice.

He should be doing that now!! DO you want us to come over there and kick him in the butt until he does? :ohmy:

What drive me crazy is that my husband knows I research everything out the whazoo. But if I suggest he do something, like take Omega-3 capsules to help with his cholesterol issues, he acts like I'm trying to poison him and says (in a snotty tone of voice), "I'll ask my doctor about that." This drives me crazy both because I hate his doctor and because he should know by now that I know what I'm talking about. Of course, his doctor tells him it's a great idea so now he's willing to do it. The other thing he does is ignore suggestions I make and then later on he'll say "my doctor/this article I read says X, Y or Z. Don't you think that's a good idea?" and of course it's the same thing I've been telling him for months that he's ignored.

Well that's what my surgeon says. It came up in a seminar/support group meeting. But the whole liver-shrinking thing is controversial IMO. For one thing, if Patient A weighs 400 pounds and is told to lose 40 before they have surgery which gets them down to 360 and now surgery is "safe" for them, then how can you tell Patient B who weights 250 pounds that they have to lose 25 lb. or surgery isn't safe for them? That is why many surgeons don't require a pre-op diet for their patients who weigh under a certain amount and other surgeons only recommend weight loss -- because it does lower your risks -- but don't absolutely require it or only require it for their highest BMI patients. Then we have the ones who, if they tell you to lose 10 lb. and you show up for surgery and have "only" lost 9.5, they will cancel your surgery! Personally, I think that's RIDICULOUS!

Have you tried protein coffee? You make a protein powder sludge and mix it in instead of cream. You can use unflavored or a flavor that goes well with coffee. A bunch of my friends do that and it sets them up nicely for the rest of the day. Me? I don't like coffee... :tt2:

I would ask him why.... RnYers can't take NSAIDs because it increases the risk of ulcers and they have a blind stomach that can't be scoped so getting an ulcer in it would be bad. Plus the new connections between the pouch and the intestine are prone to ulcers. That is not the case for us. Our chance of getting ulcers actually goes down because there is less stomach tissue. As for crushing your pills for 3 months.... if you can eat a chicken breast or handful of nuts, why can't you swallow a pill? Once your staple line has healed, there is no reason not to take pills. And so forth and so on.... :ohmy:

My understanding is that your band eroded. That isn't a case of picking a procedure that didn't address your eating issues. It was a case of mechanical failure. Now, if you want to say that the band isn't "less invasive" like it's marketed to be due to your experience, I can see that, but saying it didn't address your issues smacks to me of re-writing history and IMO is misleading. Please leave the moderation to the moderators. It is not against the rules to quote a post that you are directly responding to and there is nothing inherently rude about disagreeing with another poster. As for the topic of this thread, here is my opinoin: The job of health professions is to provide their medical expertise so that you make an informed choice and don't make a decision based on fear or misinformation. But medicine is a partnership and your job is to provide the expertise on you. No one else knows you like you do and that's an important part of the equation. And HH, I completely disagree that it's the job of our surgeons to influence us to pick one surgery over another. Unless you have medical concerns that preclude one surgery or another, they all work. So it comes down to personal preference and which one you think will work the best for you. There are some surgeons out there who are married to one procedure or another and, gee, everyone who comes to their office is a great candidate for it. Imagine that! :tongue2: When these health professionals recommend a bypass or a band, it's a completely meaningless recommendation because it really has nothing to do with YOU and everything to do with THEM. But there are other health care professionals who are more balanced and their recommendations mean something. The trick is to know which you are dealing with and that's where your self-knowledge comes into play. If your NUT and counselor were spot-on in their understanding of your issues, it is well worth it to listen to them. If they are just giving the generic "if you like sweets, you should get a bypass" advice -- which is overly simplistic and not necessarily true for everyone -- then their advice is meaningless.

I can't believe how behind I've gotten! Beth - skipping meals can impede your weight loss.

Yes, it hurts because there isn't room. It hurts the same way that eating too much food hurts. It doesn't really "push through" the food. That's a RnY thing because they have no pylorus valve. However, the pylorus valve is designed to open up when liquid and mush hits it. Adding Water to your food turns it to mush faster so the pylorus valve opens up faster. This was true pre-op as well. My son, who is underweight, constantly gives his dad a hard time about drinking with dinner. He says the only reason to do that is to fit in more food. Smart boy. :001_smile:

That's great! I was just reading your thread about being denied yesterday and wondering what had happened.

That's what I was going to say!

I use water. The whole drinking with your meals thing is a guideline, not a law. There are really good reasons not to drink with your meal, but there are good reasons to take vitamins with food (they work better). So I use as little water as possible and I take them right before I eat. That's my compromise between the "don't drink with your meals" principle and the "take your vitamins with food" principle.

If you are having trouble with mushies, you definitely shouldn't advance to the next phase. In my program, there are timeframes but it also says that you need to be doing well on the phase you are in and that some people take as long as 3 months to get to regular food.

But the reason your liver shrinks is because you lose weight. If you don't lose weight, your liver won't shrink.

Also, at least in the early days: #3. It hurts.

Well, shoot, today my leg is all stiff. I don't get this. It's just a bruise.

My work blocks the Spanx site. But not sites that sell Spanx. Moron blocking software.

It's when your body produces too much saliva in a vain attempt to get the too much food you ate to digest faster. The saliva tends to foam up. There isn't room for it in the sleeve either so it just makes everything worse. Some people call it the slimies instead. In Brazil, they call it "alien spit." :mad0:

That's funny. Don't be J though. I had to get a new one because some skank stole my old one. So I had to pay $200 about a year before I was ready to. I'd much rather have my own phone back and then use that money for something else.

Tried to do a long run yesterday to make up for doing nothing on Sunday. My knee that I scraped on the bike hurt and then they closed the gym and made me go home. Blah.

I got a new iPhone! I got a hot pink case for it too. Heh.

All the surgeries give you a reduction in hunger due to restriction. So you do get hunger control and that's why they work. (WLS works 75-90% of the time compared to dieting which works about 1-5% of the time.) With RnY, I've been told there is a ghrelin reduction by "experts" but I've found two studies that say there isn't any significant reduction. So I think it depends... But my surgeon, who is a big proponent of the sleeve, will tell you that he sees the hunger reduction of RnY falling off over time and that it's not as complete as with the sleeve. For me, I knew my main problem was a raging appetite due to having too much ghrelin so I wanted a surgery that addressed that directly and not indirectly.

I started on regular food at 7 weeks out. My surgeon had me wait longer than normal because of some things going on with me. (Hiatal hernia repair slowed down my recovery a bit.) I thought eating regular food was going to be great but that was the beginning of my pissy period. I was eating "regular" food but the amounts were TINY. It was really frustrating. Also, I went to Las Vegas the day after I started regular food and spent the weekend with a bunch of RnYers who were all around a year or longer and they all could eat SO MUCH food compared to me. So that just made it worse. Oh and I also had some episodes of the foamies because I was eating too fast and, occasionally, too much. But at about 12 weeks, I could eat more and that was good and I got over my pissiness. I think the problem is that I thought regular food == regular life, but, in the beginning, you just don't have a regular life when it comes to food. That takes time and healing. Now, you may not have my exact experience, but just be prepared for it not to be the most wonderful thing ever.... that comes later.