Hammer_Down

For me, it's a water retention issue. A few days before my period starts, my rings become tight on my fingers and I feel bloated. A few days after and my rings will slide over my joints easily.

I guess I grew up in the same culture. I was once grounded for 2 weeks for lying Ronny nother's face about a phone call. When I left the room, she *69ed that thing immediately and it was game over. I was held to high standard regarding honesty and integrity, and no one at home ever cut me any slack. A lot of people don't like me because I refuse to butter their behinds. I state my opinions openly and honestly, and if I don't know what I'm talking about I admit it freely. In return, I hold others to a high standard. I don't ask for advice unless I really want it. If my doctor, lawyer, friend or family fed me a bunch of vague platitudes when I asked for their opinions I would be pissed. If I wasn't ready to hear the truth, I would not ask for it.

I don't know whether it's true, but I have read that ghrelin, the hunger hormone can stay in your system for up to 30 days after the surgery. However, i could find no evidence that ghrelin, an amino acid, is fat soluble and thus remains in the system after the stomache is removed. In fact, I can't find anything at all in scientific literature to support that claim that is made on this forum. Perhaps it is the incision healing that is causing a pain similar to hunger? At only 17 days, my surgeon's plan still has me consuming full liquids only and only making the transition to more substantive foods a few weeks later.

I think there is a clear distinction between sitting in judgement and enabling behaviour. Adults should be able to criticize behaviour without being accused a bullying or sending someone off the emotional deepend. I worked with youth in a Cadet program, and most of my 12-18 year olds could handle criticism better than some of the people on this forum. We taught the. No excuses, take the advice and make the correction and move on. No hard feelings. I consider food to be a bonafide addiction. Withdrawals, denial of the problem, denial of the consequences, inability to accept the finality of quitting, inability to imagine life without the comfort foods they are so addicted to. When I see people seeking validation for cheating their "rehab" from food addiction, I mentally replace the Halloween candy, chips, or whatever with alcohol, smack, crack, cocaine, meth, morphine, heroin, cigarettes or whatever. If someone was attempting to quit one of those addictive and destructive substances after years of abuse and destroying their health, how understanding would you be? "it's ok, a little won't hurt, get back on the wagon tomorrow, we all have setbacks, it happens to everyone, try not to be too hard on yourself, etc etc" Or maybe a "what the hell are you thinking? Are you crazy? Why would you set yourself back to day 1?" Just my opinion.

19 days should be fine unless you are eating cigarettes instead of smoking them. I would order some nicotine/continine panel urine test on eBay or Amazon for peace of mind. You'll be nervous enough going into the surgery, and drinking a gallon of Water to try to dilute the test the day of surgery is not only an obvious to the tester, but will make for a terrible surgery day trotting to the toilet every 30 mins for the day. No surprises, no problems.

I don't know anyone who smokes and developed ulcers (just anecdotal evidence, not scientific). I have a few friends who are pretty heavy drinkers (no shortage of those in the Maritimes) who have ulcers and stomache problems. My understanding was that the risk of clotting was the reason that smoking is a big no-no during and after surgery. The same reason that the surgeon's wanted a detailed list of oral contraceptives, as they often cause blood clots. Smoking and taking beth control is a huge no-no because you are compounding risk. They wanted us up and walking as soon as we could after surgery to reduce the risk of ordinary blood clots or possible deep vein thrombosis, a potentially lethal clot in the legs.

You need to clarify what, exactly, they are testing you for and why. There are 3 substances that could be ordered on the test from your surgeon: 1) Nicotine itself, which passes out of urine in a few days. 2) Cotinine, which is a metabolite produced when your body processes nicotine (I would suspect this is the more likely test, as most nicotine will be broken down into this metabolite) Cotinine is detectable in urine for about a week. 3) Anabasine is a metabolite that is produced ONLY when you use tobacco products. Nicorette, e-cigs, Nicoderm etc will not show a positive test for Anabasine. Only cigarettes, cigars, chew, snuff, etc will. This test. Ales the most logical sense, since it is smoking that causes blood clots after surgery and not nicotine. hair tests are very expensive, and you would need to be clean for a minimum of 90 days to pass a hair follicle. Blood tests have a much smaller detection window, hours instead of days. Urine testing is cheap, easy, and instant. You can buy a home urine test yourself on Amazon for any substance(s) you like for a few bucks. If you're concerned going into the surgery, I would do so for the peace of mind.

Sounds like ketosis, the metallic taste is a dead ringer. Ketosis is the state of your metabolism switching from Ironing glucose as a primary fuel source to burning fat. It can be burning stored fat, or dietary fat and most likely a mix of both. Your body contains approximately 300g of glucose "on hand" stored in your muscle tissue. Once you cut your carbs, those stores get depleted and your body turns to an alternate fuel source, fat. Your liver generates 280g of glucose every day for brain function and cellular functions every day regardless of your diet, so there is no danger to remaining in ketosis. When fat cells are burned, there are by products called "ketone bodies" or ketones created. There are 3 types of ketones, and you can buy urine strips that will test for 1 of them. When you first start ketosis, your body sucks at using ketones and so that "spill" over into urine. The longer you remain ketogenic, the more efficient you become at burning them. Beta-hydroxybuterate is one of the ketone bodies that has been shown to have very beneficial results on the heart, and is a preferred source of fuel for the brain. While initially in carb withdrawal and your body can't uptake ketones properly, there is a syndrome known as "keto flu". But after the initial withdrawal subside and your body adapts to using ketones as well as fats for energy and fuel, there is evidence of increased mental clarity and acuity as well as dramatic improvement in heart conditions. Sorry if this is more info than you wanted, just chewing the fat, so to speak.

I should probably keep my comments to myself regarding not following your surgeon's plan for post op. It seems just incredible to me to disregard medical advice and start eating solid food just 2 weeks after having most of your stomach removed. If radical surgery isn't an incentive to follow the plan, what IS an incentive? But I digress. Regarding the emotional rollercoaster, fat cells were previously thought of as sort of stagnant (it was at one time believed that once fat went in, it stayed there until it was burned created "old, dangerous" fat). That is totally debunked. Fat circulates in and out of your cells all the times, constantly rearranging and being replaced with new fats. It has also been discovered that fat that is extremely hormonally active. All kinds of fat soluble hormones end up stored in the fat, inside the cells. Estrogen is one of them. In men, estrogens stored in fat cells often result in some "feminizing" features, such as developing breasts or "manboobs" and softening of chin lines. In women, a sudden abdundance of estrogen is equally disturbing. But in different ways. Excess estrogen greatly diminishes sex drive in men and women. Estrogen dominance in women is linked to extreme rage, sometimes violent behaviour and extreme emotional volatility or becoming emotionally labile. Estrogen dominance can mimic the symptoms of some personality disorders, like Borderline Personalty Disorder and antisocial tendencies. It's important to have someone to talk to, and activities to distract while your hormonally active fat cells are being depleted and all the pent up fury within is being released as well. It can be very overwhelming, and not just for the patient.

During pre-op, I was using Premier Protein shakes from costco. At 30g protein each x 3 per day, plus 5g of Fiber (a bulking agent in stool, not necessarily something that will help stools pass through easier) I became royally constipated very quickly. I took a senna laxative I had in the cupboard, which did nothing. I asked my pharmacist mom what she would recommend (she is virulently anti-drugs - prescription, OTC or off the shelf) and she recommended Magnesium Citrate supplements. Magnesium is a natural stool softener, and it is one of the 4 most important elements that must be balanced in the body (Sodium, potassium, Calcium and magnesium). I took them for a few days and VOILÀ! No problems since.

I am feeling the effects of the perfect storm - nerves healing up, off pain meds completely (have to be drug screened for work and most pain meds are not approved) and beginning the healing process while learning what and how much my new stomach wants and needs. The good news is, from what I've read there's nowhere to go but up as I start to heal and mobility improves. I am following my surgeon's plan to the letter, because I am terrified of complication that would result in more time off work than I can afford.

For what it's worth, we quit smoking 3 months before surgery, giving up coffee, alcohol, and carbonated drinks at the same time. The plan was to knock those habits so that during preop we wouldn't be struggling with food withdrawal, caffeine withdrawal, nicotine withdrawal, wine withdrawal and Diet Coke withdrawal all at the same time and end up killing each other before the surgery even happened. We went to a vape shop and bought a cheap vape to try. We did not like it. We were both cigar smokers, and used to much smoother and aromatic smoke than cigarettes and the vape burned and made us cough, plus sometimes "spittle" from the atomizer would burn our lips or tongues So we went to a different shop and said "Look, I don't know anything about vapes except that I hate this one we bought a few weeks ago. Can you recommend something smoother, bigger clouds, won't burn my mouth off RANDOMLY?" He put together a mod (the bottom part that holds the battery), tank and atomizer that would maximize what we wanted - full flavour, smooth vapour, no back spittle through the tip. Costed about the same as 1 month of cigars for 2 people. I never plan on smoking again, I was quit for 5 full years before last winter, and ideally I'll quit vaping eventually too. Until then, it's odourless, flavourful and since there's no combustion it is not depositing the harmful tar and carbon like cigars and cigarettes. The surgeons at ALM had no issues with e-cig use, before or after surgery since blood clots are not linked to nicotine, but specifically to smoking tobacco.

I'm not sure what the basis of that the book's hypothesis on weight loss stalls is, because most doctors agree that weight loss is not linear. There are many documented instances of stalls occurring during long term fasts (15-30 days), so it's certainly not that they are always caused by too many calories, too many carbs, too much Protein causing gluconeogenesis (your liver will convert any excess dietary protein to glucose). Often a stall in the absence of cheating is accompanied by movement on the measuring tape as your body re-proportions your body fat. Eating more sodium, for instance, can increase Water retention. Eating inflammatory foods can do the same. Not resting properly can devoid your body of the chance to heal inflammation and cause the scale to pause. Stalls are more like a month or 6 weeks with no off plan eating and no weight loss, not a couple of days.

No one said anything to me about eating spicy food and there was nothing in the pre and post op diet information I received. Spicy food has never bothered me, so i didn't think to ask. Post op day 4, I went to the grocery store across the street from the hotel in Tijuana and bought some spicy ramen cups and strained the broth off because I found the broth at the hotel to be unappealingly bland. It didn't cause any issues (that I'm aware of, day 8 now). I've never had chronic heartburn, diarreah or hiccups or anything from spicy food, so I thought nothing of it. In July, I was in South Korea, Japan and China and they prepare VERY spicy food and I couldn't get enough.

I think you're on the right track! I can't say it never happens (how would I know?) but I have yet to read about people who follow their surgeon's plan to the letter and don't have success with this procedure. In my own past experience, I lost a great deal of weight and became over confident that I was "fixed" and could eat the things my naturally thin friends were eating. Foods crept back into, and it became harder and harder to stick with the diet that had allowed me to drop the weight in the first place. Foods crept back in, and weight crept back on and before long, I was back to square 1. I keep reminding myself that I will never be metabolically "normal", no matter how much weight I lose. I will always have to avoid starches and sweets to keep my weight down, sleeve or no sleeve. The difference (I'm hoping) is that the restriction in my sleeve will keep any transgressions to a minimum and 1 meal will not sabotage a week of religious adherence to my diet. Best of luck to you!

I'm a little against the grain on this, I guess but it was on sale here earlier this week and we stocked up. We're just finishing Clear liquids and going on full liquids tomorrow, but anything from the clear liquids phase is good for full liquids as well. The caveat is that I really enjoy broth. I was a serious coffee drinker (truck driver) for many years, and gave it up a few months ago once I was set on the surgery. So A nice, salty cup of broth with some cayenne pepper added for zing is one of the most enjoyable parts of my pre and post op routine. I fill a mug halfway and nuke it for a few mins, and broth stays good on the shelf for months or possibly years.

Like many others, I didn't tell anyone until immediately before the surgery. My wife and I told her parents about 2 weeks before we left for Mexico. They were curious about why we would plan an anniversary trip to Tijuana instead of the Rivieria Maya or some resort somewhere. We were very well researched, to the point that I think they were worried about insulting us with banal questions like "Isn't Mexico too dangerous to visit?". I told my own parents last night, a week after the surgery was done. My mother is a pharmacist and I knew she would be worried sick, no matter where we were going. She is adamantly anti-drugs, and won't even take Tylenol because she knows how toxic many drugs are. Naturally, she didn't exactly approve of my choice. I riddled off all the prescribed meds we brought home, and she gave me advice on each one and any side effects I might have. But ultimately, she said she was grateful because she wouldn't have slept a wink had she known why we were in Mexico. No one else knows. I won't lie about it if they ask, but i plan on keeping it to myself.

I paid out of pocket for my procedure, and I knew that if my liver wasn't shrunk down sufficiently, the surgeon would be going in and not doing the procedure. No refunds once he's in there. That was a great incentive to keep me on track, plus I didn't find the pre-op diet to be that challenging. I wasn't hungry, and was super excited about the procedure. I want to do exactly what my surgeon told me to, because it would be a shame to go through all of this for naught.

I am one week post op. I flew from San Diego, to LAX, to Newark to Nova Scotia on day 5 with my wife, who also had the surgery the same day. On day 5, while waiting for our flight in San Diego we logged about 3 miles of walking, including our luggage (we carried our bags on, because we were nervous with al the connections that a bag would get lost). We were home by 5pm on day 5 and had today to recover and relax. Tomorrow we go back to work as long haul truck drivers, working literally 24 hours a day (we both drive) for our regular scheduled 7 day non stop run. We're off pain meds (obviously, truck drivers are subjected to drug tests) and feeling fine. We don't manually load or unload freight from our trailers, so the only physical part of our job is getting in and out of the truck, fueling procedures and the 30 mins a day or so of inspecting and keeping our rig in top condition. Time will tell what our energy levels are for 12 hour shifts back to back to back, but physically we both feel fine.

Thanks for your encouraging words! It's too bad that your husband's experience didn't measure up to your expectations, and it sounds like it left a little to be desired. Perhaps because of Tijuana's proximity to the border, everyone we encountered spoke excellent English. (I suppose if that were true though, everyone in Vermont would speak French). Unfortunately, without getting to go and scope things out for ourselves before making a decision, we have to put a lot of trust in advice and opinions from perfect strangers, on the internet no less. I hope your husband fares better with his new procedure than the lap band, and I can genuinely say that I would have been freaking out if I had been left in the dark for hours about my wife's condition after her surgery. It was very reassuring that they seemed to sense my concern and made every effort to keep us both informed throughout the day on the others' progress!

We just returned from Tijuana yesterday. As a truck driver, I have frequented some of the seediest areas in large metropolitan areas all over the USA. On 2 occasions I have been sleeping in my bunk in the trunk and awoken to ringing gunshots (once in Baltimore, parked curbside outside of a barbed wire fence with a trailer full of beer) and once in Chicago (parked in an alleyway beside my customer's locked up facility with a trailer load of car tires). The Chicago Tribune has an online violent crime map that details all sorts of crimes, like homicides, rapes and violent robberies. That week alone there had been 5 shooting deaths in a 1 square mile radius of Parklawn, where I was parked. My truck and trailer has Canadian plates, from which anyone could figure out means I am unarmed. What I'm trying to show is that I have to laugh a little when I see people making claims about how unsafe it is in Mexico. At no point did I see homeless encampments or feel unsafe walking the streets of Mexico. The same cannot be said for many neighbourhoods I have visited in Houston, Birmingham, Miami, Charlotte, Baltimore, Newark, New York City and Boston. My friend was robbed at gunpoint after using an ATM in a service plaza in Connecticut when someone followed him out to the truck parking lot. The principles are the same: I don't flash money around, I mind my own business and I stay aware of my surroundings at all times when I visit the USA. I followed those same principles in Mexico and at no point did I feel unsafe.

In my own previous weight loss experience, I lost 100lbs over 18 monthts doing keto. 250 to 150, and I had virtually no loose skin. I only started working out at 15 months, and had already lost 75lbs so it wasn't because of working out. Slower weight loss may be frustrating, but in my experience it is better in the long run!

The smell from gas is caused by the gut bacteria digesting elements of your food (or Protein shakes, in this case) and letting off gas. It could be that the shakes contain a protein or Fiber that your gut flora can't properly digest, so maybe switching shakes would help. Also, drinking more Water should make the material in your intestines move through quicker and could help.

I was unnerved by the idea that a bypass would involve rerouting and resectioning my intestines. Knowing how dangerous "leaky gut" syndrome is and how crucial your bacterial flora is for overall health made a gastric bypass too risky for me. The more I read about long term Vitamin and mineral deficiencies, "dumping" syndrome and the increased risk of procedure itself turned me towards a less invasive procedure. The long term differences in success between VSG and bypass are quite small. There are, of course, some health conditions that make one or the other more preferable for some patients and this is just my own opinion formed from my own reading.

We were told the rule of thumb is when you are able to tolerate eating solid foods indicates that your stomache is healed up, and excercise can be introduced slowly, in the same way you reintroduced foods. Take it easy, if it hurts - stop. Build up slowly, especially after a few weeks of minimal activity you could risk hurting the surgery injury or developing a new injury to joints. I plan to start lifting weights as soon as I can, as I've never enjoyed cardio. I loved seeing my progress week after week, and loved how capable I felt in my day to day routine. I was amazed after lumping a 60lb box of cat litter up the 4 flights of stairs to my apartment without feeling out of breath or slightly fatigued, for example.