WitchySar

Had my appointment with my PCP and I was down another 10 lbs. Thank you for the snack ideas. My dieititian wants me to eat 3 meals and 3 Snacks a day which I admit I've been having trouble getting all that in. Definitely need to work on my head. It's hard for me to feel right eating so much through out the day. I discussed this with my PCP and she was very helpful actually. Thanks for all the support.

***I just realized where I posted this. This probably isn't the right section for this. Sorry.*** I can not shake the feeling of hunger tonight. I have tried all my tricks for head hunger and still the feeling persists, including stomach rumblings. My PCP put me on a low carb diet and I’ve only eaten 7 net carbs tonight so I have some wiggle room (try not to go over 20 net), but I hate the thought of eating more. I feel like I’m failing if I do. I’m not, right? I’m just hungry and there’s nothing wrong with eating when actually hungry. Ugh, this stupid diet and having weight loss goals that I have to meet for someone else is messing with my head. When I lost weight before on my own if I was hungry I would eat something and not worry about. I was the only one concerned with my goals, no one else would be disappointed in me. I lost well over 100 lbs that way. This time though since it’s monitored by my PCP and my surgeon I feel terrified about putting anything in my mouth. I have a weigh in with my PCP on the 3rd and one with my surgeon on the 9th. I'm so scared of letting them down or having them be disappointed that I didn't lose enough. My surgeon said he would like to see me lose 10 pounds before surgery. That's it. It's not a hard goal, I know that, and yet I'm so worried about not losing at every weigh in. Has anyone else felt like this? I'm so afraid of failing, I hate being monitored by other people. I've always had a problem with disappointing people (I blame my childhood) and I feel like this is playing right into that.

I already have a therapist and believe me this will be discussed at my next appointment. I was doing fine until my PCP said 5 simple words. Words that most anyone else would love to hear, but instead for me it was doom. "I'm so proud of you." Ever since I was a kid the moment someone would tell me they were proud of me I instantly would do ANYTHING to never disappoint them. And I'm losing weight okay right now. I will easily reach the 10 pounds lost that my surgeon wants. He wants it by December, I'll probably have it by the weigh in on the 9th. I wish someone would just say "Not bad." instead of telling me they're proud of me. As for my current diet, I'm not on a low calorie diet. I'm on a low carb/high fat/moderate Protein diet. I try to stay under 20 net carbs a day, okay with going up to 30. Today I've eaten 7 so I definitely have room for something else to eat. I've already done all my tricks for combating head hunger. - Read a book - Put away laundry - Watch a show - Watch my fish - Drink more Water - Play a video game - Text a friend And through out it all the hunger has remained. That tells me I'm actually hungry. I just am having a hard time telling myself that it's not going to disappoint anyone if I do eat something. I have a lot of food allergies so I lot of the easy go-to Snacks I can't have. Like Peanut Butter or nuts (as an example, I'm allergic to a lot more than that). And yogurt is far too high in carbs, my PCP wants me to stay away from it and dairy as much as possible. I'd love some other snack ideas though.

So you had to get approved before you could do your six months? Ah, that's a little different from mine. I have to do the 6 months first and then toward the end the surgeon submits to insurance for surgery approval. I'm hoping December.

How come you can't have the surgery until next June?

Caramel is by far my favorite Premier Protein flavor. I hated the chocolate.

I was chatting with someone who mentioned that after having WLS their food allergies lessened a LOT. I was wondering if this is common? I have a lot of food allergies and would LOVE to not have them anymore. Has anyone else here seen their food allergies go away or lessen after WLS?

So, I have bipolar and because of that the counselor at the surgeon's office and the surgeon require that my regular therapist and psychiatrist both fill out a paper stating that they believe I’m stable, understand fully what I’m getting into, have a support system, etc. I took the papers in to my therapist appointment today and she said she’s not allowed to sign anything. She sent an email to her supervisor who said she doesn’t think they fill those out at all. OMG! The surgeon said he can’t do surgery until he knows I’m stable and they sign off on it. My therapist said she’ll continue to push on getting it filled out and she believes I’m perfectly fine for surgery, but now what? I seriously hate the clinic I go to. If they refuse to fill out the forms I’m screwed. I called the counselor at the surgeon’s office and explained what’s going on. She said she’d give them a call on Monday or Tuesday and talk to them. I hope she can get through to them and get it done. I do NOT want to be denied surgery just because this clinic doesn’t like signing papers. ARGH!!! If they still absolutely refuse to fill them out I will ask the surgeon's counselor if I can meet with her monthly instead. They will be able to get my records from my therapist and psychiatrist so they'll at least be able to see that I'm still being seen. If that doesn't work, well, I guess I'm heading off to Mexico. I've already been cleared for surgery there. I just REALLY don't want to spend my entire tax refund on that.

They will send my records, no problem, but that's not what the surgeon requires. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using the BariatricPal App

Still no news. I'm going to call the surgeon's counselor next week and see if anything has changed. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using the BariatricPal App

One of the reasons I was interested in the sleeve was because my research showed me that I could still take NSAIDs after the surgery. For several reasons I will continue to need them for the rest of the my life. When I was discussing my options with the surgeon the use of NSAIDs never came up but I did tell him about my issues and I'm sure he knows that NSAIDs are needed. But now I'm seeing people getting medic alert bracelets that say "No blind NG - No NSAIDS" and that has me wondering. Are NSAIDs allowed or not after having the sleeve? Or is this another one of those debates like straws?

I don't have to have one. I was worried my surgeon would require it but aside from being day I don't have any other warning signs of apnea, so he said no sleep study. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using the BariatricPal App

As much as listening to your surgeon makes sense the fact remains that stomachs don't vary based on who cuts most of it out. Just because one surgeon prefers one thing and another prefers something different doesn't actually change whether or not it adversely affects the new stomach.

I wonder if it depends on the surgeon then. I would think any surgery would have risk of blood clots so if I could have one surgery without then that would seem like it's not consistent, you know? So many variables when it comes to surgery and surgeons. OP, I really hope they are able to figure out how to get you the surgery.

Is there a reason this particular surgery requires blood thinners? When I had my gallbladder removed they didn't give me any blood thinners.

I'm concerned about the same thing. I'm on 3 BP meds and my blood pressure still is high. I had surgery last year for my gallbladder just fine, so I'm hoping they will let me have this one too. The surgeon didn't mention anything when I met with him. But I definitely understand your frustration.

I was leaning toward the sleeve and after talking to the surgeon he agreed. There are some meds I'll have to be on, pretty much forever, that would be adversely affected by malabsoprtion, so the sleeve was the only choice.

I should have clarified, I have to eat less than 20 NET carbs if I want to lose weight. Net carbs = total carbs - Fiber and sugar alcohols. All the carbs typically come from veggies, nuts, and fruit. Green Beans, broccoli, cauliflower, peanuts, almonds, strawberries, raspberries... to name a few. And on the low carb plan I followed you don't count calories, you count fat, Protein, and carbs. Since it isn't a low fat diet I didn't have to stick with only lean meats. I can tell you I definitely wasn't getting in less than a 1000 calories a day on low carb. When I followed it strictly I lost almost 150 pounds in about a year. Unfortunately I got pregnant so I had to stop the low carb. Gained back about 75 in a year. The rest have come on slowly over the last 7 years. Got back up to where I was when I started low carb the first time. Unfortunately not I'm older, my metabolism is shot even more than before, and so even when I follow strict low carb I don't lose as fast at all. It's still the only way I lose though. As for maintaining a weight high enough for WLS, well I definitely didn't get this high by following a low carb diet. When not dieting I would make horrid food choices and basically eat junk all the time. If I followed low carb strict for the rest of my life I COULD lose the weight on my own. But now it's coming off too slowly and my health has declined too much for me to have time to lose it on my own.

I went through the same thing after having my gallbladder removed. I was in terrible pain, so much so that I couldn't even stand up straight. Everyone refused to give me more than three days of pain meds. I was I tears all the time because it hurt so bad. But hey, gallbladder removal is a easy surgery, right? According to the surgeon and my pcp people are feeling much better after only a couple days. Well I could barely stand up for almost two weeks before it got bearable. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using the BariatricPal App

Weight gain is a common side effect for a lot of BCP. Certain formulations have a higher chance of it than others, so talk to your gyn.

The only way I've ever been able to successfully lose weight is by adhering to a strict low carb diet. If I eat anything more than 20 carbs I actually gain weight. I'm hoping that after surgery I won't need to be so strict on the carbs, but I'm not holding my breath.

There's a chance we'll be getting Cigna insurance in the next couple months. Does anyone know much about them? Are they like BCBS where there are a million and one different plans, or are they pretty uniform all around? We can't get more info about the insurance until my husband is hired on permanently so now I'm worried it won't cover WLS, or will have some ridiculous rule like a 2 year supervised diet, or something.

Thanks for all the answers. I figured it was like other insurances with different plan options but hey, figured I'd ask anyway. The company my husband works for (and is hoping to get a permanent position with) is awesome and treats their employees great. Better than any company I've seen before. So hopefully that will translate into a good health insurance policy too that covers WLS.

Sorry, I just saw this response. Therapists aren't allowed to fill out any forms at all. I had to have a form filled out for medicaid transport some months ago and someone else there had to fill it out. So they fill out SOME forms, but apparently not these.

Hmm, perhaps. I'll ask her about that at my next appointment on the 15th.