Holly McQuillan

Hey everyone, I'm about 4 1/2 months post surgery. I never had trouble with acid reflux/heartburn BEFORE surgery, but since the surgery, it has been REALLY bad. It always happens in the middle of the night when I'm sound asleep, I jolt out of bed with a sour burning taste in my throat and then I usually gag/spit up some yellow acid (like the xenomorph in Alien) and it just feels unbearable for about 15 minutes or so and then goes away. At first it happened about once a week, but now I'd say it's more like 2-3 times a week. They put me on 40 mg of prevacid or one of those pills right after surgery and I took it for the first month, but then I stopped because the reflux didn't seem too bad and I was worried about the side effects. So of course it came back and that's when it's been getting worse. I just got my rx refilled and yesterday was the first day of starting back on medication, but last night I still woke up with the reflux from hell. I have mentioned this to my doctor, and he basically said "drink more, eat less, get back on the prescription". But I'm worried about this acid either causing esophogeal cancer or literally burning a hole through my esophagus. Maybe that sounds silly, but that's what it feels like and I've already had Breast Cancer, so I am worried about being susceptible to other forms of cancer. Anyone have experience with this and advice or anything that stopped it completely? The assistant in the Doctor's office said that the hernial repair they did during the surgery usually helps with GERD/Reflux, but I told her I never had issues with it prior to the surgery and she sounded surprised. Thanks for any suggestions.

Ha ha...thanks for appreciating my humor!

I think you should be fine to do some walking around. I just hit my 4-week mark yesterday and I've had plenty of energy/mobility since about 6 days post-surgery. Again, everyone is different, but I think by 3-4 weeks post you likely won't have any trouble walking around. I think the biggest problem might be sticking to the diet/protein shakes at that point. If you have a plan in place to be able to make your shakes while on vacation, that will help. And depending on how much walking/running around you do, you might get exhausted more easily. But I could walk 2 miles now if I chose to (though so far I've only been doing 1 mile at a time due to unrelated foot pain).

Hi guys - So I'm 2 days out from my sleeve and I"m feeling pretty freakin' awful. I feel SLIGHTLY better today than I did yesterday, but I don't think the pain killer "block" (?) that the doc used is helping me. He said it usually keep people from feeling much pain for 3 days, but that it doesn't work for everyone and they have no idea why it does or does not work from case to case. My left abdominal area is SUPER sore/bruised. Standing and sitting is when it hurts the most. AFter I do stand, it feels very tender for a minute, but then subsides a bit. Of course this is to be expected -- I'm just wondering if some of you didn't feel that pain due to the pain medication received during the procedure? I'm afraid to try my liquid hydrocodone -- I did try it once yesterday and threw up almost immediately. For that same reason, I'm also worried about drinking my Protein shake and the Water. It just seems hard to keep anything down, although since I've started taking the zofran more regularly, I haven't actually vomited. But right now I sure feel like I want to. Anyways....I'm just curious to hear what other people's experiences in the first week post-op were like? How soon can I expect the bruising pain to be much less noticeable? And do you think 2 days post op I'm okay to shower? I think my doc said to wait 2 days and I read somewhere else that you could shower immediately after. I'm definitely ready for a shower -- at least, that's what my fiance tells me! Just tell me I'm not in this alone and it will get much better sooner. I've always recovered quickly from other procedures (nothing as big as this one though) and I really didn't expect to be as miserable as I am right now. Thanks for any advice or support you can offer!

@@blizair09 What a great re-cap with some wonderful insights! Thanks for sharing! I love traveling and can't wait to do more of it post weight loss. I have always felt like a semi-active person stuck in fat person's body. I say semi-active because I love Water activities and exploring new environments, but doubt I will ever love running or long, difficult hikes. As you know, I'm only 2 weeks post-op, so I have a long way to go, but I'm happy to see that you were able to make the new lifestyle fit into an exotic vacation and still have fun. And to LOSE weight on a vacation is practically unheard of! congrats!

Hi - I'm so ashamed of myself and disappointed and frustrated. Hoping some people out there can give me some hope that not all is lost. I'm 2 weeks past surgery today and am supposed to do liquid diet for 1 more week...then 4 weeks of pureed food and then finally on to solid foods. I've MOSTLY been sticking to the Protein shakes/liquids/jello, but I have had a few moments where when trying to eat only the broth of some chicken noodle Soup, I snuck a few noodles and small chicken chunks. And then over the weekend I had my first restaurant experience (to soupplantation) where I not only had some small amounts of soup, but also a couple spoonfuls of chocolate soft-serve, some mashed up kidney Beans and crushed hard-boiled egg pieces, and about 3 nibbles of white bread. I didn't go overboard in quantity, but I know I shouldn't have had any solids and definitely shouldn't have gone near the bread or soup noodles. The bigger problem is that from a week prior to surgery, I've been daydreaming about pancakes (they weren't even my biggest food love pre-surgery...usually it was ice cream or anything chocolate), but now pancakes seem like the end-all be-all. And Pasta with marinara sauce is the other food that keeps creeping into my mind. I don't want all this effort and pain to be for nothing. Does anyone have any good/helpful suggestions on how to quit obsessing about food so much and based on my cheating behavior this week, do you think I'm doomed or is this fairly normal and are there a lot of stories about people self-correcting and still succeeding after giving in to temptation?

Torriluv - I feel your pain and shame. I'm 2 weeks out right now and am supposed to be on an all liquid diet still for another week, but I've had a couple of cheat moments...mostly involving eating some Soup noodles, soft soup potatoes or tiny nibbles of bread, but also 2 chocolate mints that were put in front of me that I didn't say no to. I feel that I am constantly craving bread and pancakes even since a week before the surgery and I just keep daydreaming about when I can have a pancake again. I'm so disappointed in myself considering it's only been 2 weeks since surgery and I'm already thinking this way. I too felt a bit nauseated after my cheating and have really enjoyed seeing the pounds come off on the scale, so I'm hoping I too have straightened myself out.

@@ShinyLady - Congrats on pulling through! Okay - glad to know that I'm not the only one having a hard time keeping stuff down. I do actually feel almost human right now--- hoping this lasts for awhile and I continue heading in this direction!

So my surgery is scheduled for Wednesday this week. I'm a 42 yr old female - 5'5" and about 320 lbs; BMI >40 I started my liquid-only diet today and I'm sooooo hungry. I don't really like the taste of my Protein shake (Bariatric Advantage - strawberry), but I've tried to force as much of it down as I could. I had some beef broth, lots of Water, a sugar-free popsicle and am waiting for my Jello to solidify, but my hunger pangs get especially bad late at night. It's making me obsess about whether or not my cravings will go away after surgery and how quickly they go away. I know MOST people's go away, but of course today all I could find were stories about people whose cravings didn't go away and they managed to eat much more than they should have been able to less than a week post surgery. I really hope that is not the norm and I'm praying that my cravings not only go away, but go away FAST! Does anyone have any positive experiences to share about this and can anyone tell me how soon they noticed no hunger pangs post-surgery? Any advice for the next 2 days or immediately post-surgery? Holly