TheRev

That little pain pump made me a happy little bundle of newly carved up flesh. LOL
Seriously, I had a timer on my phone that went off every 8 minutes to remind me that "YO! ROB! Get your happy juice flowing again!"

Joking aside, it's a process. The first few days can be rough as your body tries to get used to what just happened to it. Rest, fluids, meds. You'll come out the other side!

No sermon here, but I quit about 3 months before the surgery.
I was smoking about a pack a day - 2-3 packs if I was drinking - and had been smoking like that for ~21 years.

I'd started to cut back a little and had been using a vape. It really helped me ease back on the smoking. My surgeon though said no nicotine whatsoever if I wanted to get sliced and diced, so I stuck to the vape and only used zero nicotine juice. Not gonna lie; the first few days were rough but I pushed through by gorging on sunflower seeds and carrots.

I've had maybe a dozen puffs since the middle of June and my surgery was in the middle of September. Honestly, ... f--- I feel great to be free of the smokes. I DO still smoke other things, but my surgeon gave me the unofficial go-ahead to enjoy that after a couples of weeks post-surgery.

I had to snag some new winter clothes and I had to drop 2 sizes down in shirts and I'm only a month and a half post-op.

Life ain't half bad. [emoji41]

Guy Fieri is to food porn as German scat films are to real porn. There. I said it.

Someone had to.

I personally dig Zimmern and Bourdain. Man, I could watch Bourdain all day long. Dude's a majestic asshole and an amazing writer.

Sounds like me! I'm a month and some change post-op and I honestly don't remember ever feeling this good. I've dropped 50+lbs since the start of the liquid diet pre-op and the weight is falling away. It's pretty f-ckin' awesome, yeah?

I'd think you'd want to focus on high Protein Meal Replacement bars for hiking. That kind of thing is relatively light, dense in nutrients, and won't take up too much pack space. Canned meats would work, too, and things like dried or toasted edamame would be an excellent trail snack. Remember, protein is always the first thing you need to focus on!

Happy trails!

Prescription? Well.... Yeeeeeah, no.

I had flashes of anxiety here and there (thank goodness for herbal remedies!) leading up to the surgery, but a few days before this kind of calm and optimism settled in and I was Ready To Go.

Why?
I'm dropping pounds left and right, I took my last blood-thinner shot yesterday, and they moved my diet up to mushies.

Can we talk for a second about that.
I want to introduce you to my Lord and Savior Scrambled cheese eggs. They came back into my life last night and my eyes were opened to the Beauty and Joy that is Life. Angels sang, cherubs fired arrows, unicorns f*cked to Barry White songs, and Everything Was Right and Good in the world.

Yeah... I'm in a good mood. What?

If you drink milk, switch to FairLife. It's like 13 or 14g of Protein per cup, so you could make sugar free pudding with that, plus add in a scoop of unflavored Isopure or Unjury and that would add another 21-25g of protein to the batch.

I'm an IT manager for a medium-sized company and I PROBABLY could have gone back in after a week, but I'm lucky in that I have a lot of sick days saved up. I don't HAVE to go back in until Wednesday, but I'm spending my days walking around the neighborhood and I'm f---ing bored! I'll probably go in tomorrow just to get back to normal a little quicker.

I had the same problem. My surgeon's office told me to schedule an appointment with my sleep doc so they could adjust my ResMed pressure down for awhile. Unfortunately, the next appointment available was like 2 months out soooo...

I figured out how to bring up the clinician's menu on the cpap and talked to my surgeon about recommended pressure, set it to where he thought it would be best, and am sleeping happily now. I DO have a horrible dry mouth problem, though, but I can deal with that.

Edit: For the record, I also downloaded the data from the SD card in my machine and read through my own nightly reports to see what the past few nights have been like compared to pre-op - specifically, apnea events where I stop breathing, and even at a lower pressure I'm statistically where I should be event-wise. If you're a data nut/IT geek like me, google around or hit reddit for instructions on how to do this stuff. It's pretty cool to be able to see your own health in datapoints usually reserved for clinicians.

Mind you, I'm not diagnosing or making my own health decisions based on that data, per se, but I DID chnge things according to my surgeon's recommendations which I'll follow up with in 2 months at my sleep doc's office when they can spare 10 minutes for me.

The ONLY problem I've had post-op (11 days post-op) is that when I lay down on my back to sleep, I get a strong ache that comes in waves in my chest cavity... like it starts in my diaphragm and moves up to my shoulder blades. I'm guessing it's the stapled portion of my stomach lying against other anatomy, but it's pretty unpleasant. It doesn't stop me from sleeping as it generally fades away (or I fall asleep) after 15 minutes or so. Anyone else experience this?

I had 2 liquids. The first was slightly thicker than Water and bitter as hell. The otger was chalky and thick like a bad shake.

Buckle up ...

They also have chocolate pb, strawberry pb, grape pb, and banana pb. That stuff is fantastic! I mix it in every shake I drink.

I'm 9 days out and have 2 full weeks off.

And I'm freaking bored out of my mind. I've been walking different parks around me, but I end up back home in the laptop covertly doing work stuff. I'm likely going to go back into a few days early.

It ain't an orange whip, so don't expect anything you'll order a second round of.

I apparently own the record of probably the "worst case" my sleep doc had seen of complex apnea. I've been on cpap for years rocking a high pressure around 21. I recently got a new machine that's more effective and my pressure was changed to 16.

I was told not to use my machine for the first few days and then to have the pressure lowered or cut in half and then slowly raise it to normal over the course of a week. I figured out how to get into the clinical settings of my machine and do that myself.

Moving forward, my surgeon seems to think that after a year I should get a new sleep study as my apnea would likely be resolved, but my sleep doc is much less optimistic.

It's not terrible, but I failed. The doc said there was just a trickle going through and he couldn't be sure everything was good. My surgeon, though, said thatsince I was downing my liquids and shakes that I was good to go. Happily, he was right!

I'm doing a a chewable D and the bariatric bundle from Tespo (gettespo.com) which is 1 men's multi and 2 bariatric blend a day. Quick and easy liquid shots when I get up and before I go to bed. They may be a tad pricier, but the convenience is fantastic.

I travel a bit for work, though, so I also have the Celebrate Calcium Plus to toss in my suitcase when I get back on the road.

I have a tub of the Celebrate Calcium Plus blah blah blah, but I'm going to be using my Tespo almost exclusively since they came out with the bariatric bundle. If you don't know Tespo, it's pretty freaking cool. My nutritionist hadn't heard of it but after she did a little research she gave it the thumbs up. It's not the cheapest Vitamins, but I'm a gadget fan and already had it on the counter, so why not!

The gas pain is by far the worst. The only thing that helps is walking and moving. It goes away after a few days and I found the more I walked the better I felt. I also needed to sleep with my an extra pillow or two - if I was flat then the gas seemed to come in waves and it was really uncomfortable.

Otherwise take all your meds in schedule and the discomfort from the cutting and slicing is minimal. Don't be scared to ask for pain meds. If they give you the self-administered pain button, ask how often you can dose yourself and set reminders on your phone.

Basically, when you're in the hospital stay high.

@@HopefulInVirginia - I've been obese since birth.

My pediatrician put me on a diet when I was in the 4th grade.

I was always teased in school, called "Big Boy" or "Big Man" by strangers. I can feel the judgement whenever I meet someone. No matter how gregarious, funny, personable, intelligent, witty or whatever I try to be, the word "fat" is almost always the first way someone would describe me to someone else.

And then let's talk about moving through crowds, trying to will my body to be smaller to fit between people at concerts, how uncomfortable seats are in stadiums or music venues and how they leave bruises on my thighs, or bus seats, or airplane seats, or booths at restaurants, or not being able to find clothes at normal stores, or any of a thousand daily reminders that I'm morbidly obese.

Four Decades of that.

Diets never work, exercise can only do so much when you get so big. It's an awful Catch-22.

And now.. there's hope. There's real hope. I see myself making progress EVERY MORNING. I look in the mirror and I see Myself in there - fuzzy, undefined, mostly obscured, but I'm there. I'm in there encouraging myself to keep going. To use this tool I've given myself and to embrace the person I've always thought deep down that I was.

Be Proud of taking this step. This is seizing control of your own life and health in the best way available to you. Someone thinks you're taking an easy way out? Well that someone doesn't know the decades of mental anguish that being obese puts you through. They can't appreciate your pain and never will. What they think is inconsequential.

I'm not even a week post-op and I know this is the best decision I've ever made. I'm a 40 year old man and I get teary-eyed when I think about who I'm going to become in the next year, of what I'll be able to do, of how I'll feel about myself. That joy is a thousand times more potent than the snide remarks of some ignorant twat.

I'm on day 6 and I'm a bit more sore today than I was yesterday, but I pushed myself a bit yesterday afternoon with extending my walks and shooting for 3 miles. No biggie - the dilaudid mixes well with my morning coffee.
I've had no issues with fluids or shakes (or even thicker shakes blended with ice for a Protein milkshake type of thing). I feel amazing. And the scale showed another 1.5 pounds down from yesterday.

Hi everyone! Haven't had time to read all the posts but prayers for everyone! Please pray for me too. My surgery is tomorrow, 7:30AM!

Thanks!

You'll do great! Do what the docs say and get ready for a new life, my friend!