CyclicalLoser

I'm 4 weeks out tomorrow, but I've been more or less putting the brakes on when drinking. Today I was distracted and drank 17oz in less than an hour. No problems whatsoever - no feeling like I'm going to throw up, no weird abdominal issues, no strange sounds, gas or anything. Only difference is the liquid disappeared faster than normal and my urine was nearly clear. I talked with my surgeons office about this a while back, namely that I was able to drink much faster than 1oz over 15 minutes. They weren't concerned with my ability to drink twice to 4 times as fast. I've always been able to drink fast. Even with my lap band, I could consume 20oz in less than a minute, so consuming 17oz in less than an hour is still very, very slow for me. I'm worried I'm somehow doing damage or stretching the pouch, but like I said, I don't feel anything abnormal. Is this normal/okay only 4 weeks out?

I don't know what degree you are going for, but should it work out, you can check out some online colleges. I did my undergrad at WGU and finished my Masters at Champlain University in December of last year (Quite a bit older than 27 LOL). WGU is extremely cheap, Champlain is exactly the opposite. Both of the schools did not have "live" classes, so you could work around bad days and so forth.

This is a long shot, but I would imagine you're open to any ideas. When I had my lap band, sometimes when I ate too much, I would get radiated pain into my left shoulder. Occasionally, it would happen even if I wasn't eating. It turns out that in the case of the lap band, sometimes it would rub against the vagas nerve, and cause those pains. Now I realize you don't have the band, and so far, since I had the band revision to bypass, I have not felt the pain, but maybe there is a possibility that when you are drinking, something is hitting the vagas (or some other) nerve. I don't think that is something that is going to show up on conventional imaging, but maybe an MRI? Again, just a thought. If you search for vagas nerve, you will see it is somewhat common with the lap banders.

Your first several sentences are exactly what I felt, although to be honest, I am still (After 10 years) trying to find a complete remission of anxiety. I don't think the average person understands how much these mental issues physiologically affect someone. Many a friend had an isolated bout of anxiety and as I walked them through it, they would often remark "Boy you're good at this" and then after it was over "Is this literally what you deal with, all the time" - Yep. Sucks doesn't it? I wouldn't wish these things on anyone. And frankly I wish mental disorders didn't have such negative connotations against them.

On the Gatorade G2 issue...I travel all over the country because of my Job (Including Alaska). It is part of my normal routine after landing to get some drinks because I don't like water and I don't like paying hotel chains $4 for a drink I could buy elsewhere for a buck. In the past, I always first looked for Vitamin Water, but they are very hard to find - CVS stores are a hit and miss, and Wal-mart usually has it less than 10% of the time. So my fallback was Gatorade G2, but as of lately, that is almost nonexistent in CVSs and Walmarts. I am convinced that vast areas of the country simply do not like low calorie beverages. In a pinch, I will buy half liter spring water (No purified for me, can't stand the reverse-osmosis taste) and dump in crystal light or hawaiian punch packets. They aren't particularly tasty because they do not really dissolve, but it beats a full sugar replacement. I haven't traveled yet for work after my surgery, but I'm already forming plans. Like it or not, I think crystal light is going to be on the menu.

I have just a small update, I got the Celebrate Chewables in "Citrus" flavor. I think I like them better than the watermelon, but it's kind of like saying I like drinking motor oil better than asphalt.

This is my favorite one, although I'm in the pureed stage - Italian Cheese Bake 1c low fat ricotta cheese 1 large egg 1/4 c parmesan cheese 1/4 c reduced fat mozzarella cheese 1/2 c marinara sauce 1 tsp italian seasoning 4-second olive oil spray (Note: I personally like it with more marinara and more italian seasoning) (Makes 4 servings) directions: pre-heat over to 400*F. Beat egg in lg bowl, mix in ricotta and parmesan and italian seasoning. Spray 4 ramekins with cooking spray. put 1/3c of cheese mixture into each ramekin. top with 1 Tbsp of mozzarella and 2 Tbsp marinara. Bake for 20 minutes. 140 calories | 12g protein | 9g fat | 3g sat fat | 6g carbs | 2g fiber | 5g sugar | 350mg sodium Of course the above depends on your exact ingredients. I use fat free cheeses and it is a little bit less calories.

Cymbalta is a SNRI's, of which I've only taken Effexor. Being that it is in capsule form, I would think that you could open the capsule and consume the "beads". If it is an extended release, perhaps there is a standard release version. Otherwise, you might be able to either increase your dose, assuming a certain percentage lost due to malabsorption, or take a smaller dose at multiple times of the day. See my posts above for lamotrigine/lamictal because that has really helped me. If I remember correctly, lexapro/Escitalopram was a small tablet (I took it for years a while back). If the small tablet isn't an extended release (I don't recall there being such a thing when I took it), then you should be able to crush the tablets, even though it will probably taste awful. What is strange to me is that your Serotonin receptors are getting hit pretty hard twice as Cymbalta and Lexapro affect it. While I'm far from a doctor, but maybe you could avoid cymbalta and instead take a larger does of Lexapro and a NRI (Such as wellbutrin) separately. This might help with the dosing. Your psychiatrist or pharmacologist is probably going to know the most, however I doubt most of them specialize in treating people post RNY. I would do some of your own research on the absorption issues based on peer-reviewed medical journals. To make it easy, include "NIH" in your googling as the National Institute of Health usually pays for, or is affiliated with the research -- That's where I found info about Lamictal needing the stomach to absorb the meds (Until Missouri-Lee's Summit found the sublingual version). I hope you can get them figured out!

I'm curious for those people that are a few weeks out - I'm recovering quite well, no food or vomiting issues, and after an initial bout of loose stools, I'm back to constipation as we're somewhat used to. (I got the okay today to take a chewable fiber pill so long as I get enough fluids in). Anyways, all of my incisions are healing good, and the dermabond is coming off as the doctor said it would...but...a few days ago I started experiencing pain in my lower torso, next to my biggest incision. It happens to be the incision that is "dented in". The pain feels a bit like a tear and it gets worse when rolling around in bed (I'm a side/belly/back sleeper LOL) and when bending over a certain way, and getting into/out of a car. I would describe the pain as instantaneous and 4/10, but as soon as the posture is corrected, the pain goes back to zero. The pain has gotten worse over the last few days. I've already left a message for my surgeon's office, so I'm awaiting what they say. I already wear an abdominal binder, but find that if I press the area in (somewhat hard) the pain is lessened a bit). I think this sounds like an internal hernia, but I wanted to see if anyone else experienced this and what happened. Did you have to undergo a second surgery to fix it? Or general anesthesia to suture it up? Or simply "try not to move" for a few weeks while it heals? I haven't done anything that I can think of that would have caused this, other than I think I felt it first when I twisted in bed transitioning from my back to my side.

It has a lot to do with mathmatics if you ask me. Allow me to use myself as an example. I'm 5'9 and probably have a 50" waist even though pre surgery I crammed myself into 48" waist pants. According to https://www.health-calc.com/body-composition/waist-to-height-ratio, my waist should be between 28 and 35 inches. Suppose the most correct answer is 32" which is about the middle of the range. So knowing that area of a circle is pi*r^2 means that I should have a cross-sectional area of 804 square inches. I realize this is not a proper way to compute this because we are more oval than a perfect circle, but I think this assumption will hold for this example. We know that the density of fat is constant, no matter what we weigh. So, as a means to estimate this for me, we do a bit more math. According to https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm, the average of the "normal weight" BMI is 21.7, which is 147 pounds. So going by my highest weight of 303, I am 156 pounds overweight. At a waist of 50", my area is 1963 square inches. So I need to lose 1963-804 = 1159 square inches and 156 pounds. Knowing this, we can approximate (for me) that each square inch of excess weight weighs .13 pounds. (I realize this is impossible for a 2-dimensional measurement to equal any volume, but in reality, the math here assumes a cylinder of height 5'9, and that figure represents a square inch * 5'9...But again, bear with me here) So, now to the fun part. Let's see how much weight I need to lose to go from a 50" waist to a 44" waist (A 6" difference, which I would say is probably the minimum for one to notice). 50" area = 1963 from above. 44" area = 1520. So weight loss needed ~ (1963 - 1520) * .13 = 57 pounds. Now, lets see what it would take to go from 38 inches to the "perfect" number of 32 inches (Keep in mind, same 6 inches off the waist measurement) 38" = 1134 32" = 804 So weight loss needed ~ (1134 - 804) * .13 = 43 pounds. In essence, it is much easier to lose inches off your waist as you get closer to your ideal weight. Now, for those that disagree with my 6" assumption, you could calculate this another way. Suppose that instead of an arbitrary waist measurement, it is a percentage, such as 10%. In that case, I would need to reduce my waist 10% = 5" at 300#. But, if I needed to lose 10% of weight at 38", then I would only need to lose 3.8#. So my numbers above would be even more exaggerated. I won't do that math for those, but rest assured, it would show it is even easier as you get close to the ideal weight. I think any yo-yo dieter here would have probably noticed this as well, it takes a long time to go from a 50 to 48 inch waist, but much less time to go from a 40 to a 38 inch waist.

"Brought to you by Carl's Junior" "Time Masheen" "Upgradde" I love that movie, so many good quotes. Thank you for confirming I'm not the only one here with a sarcastic sense of humor!

Have you tried Brawndo? It's got electolytes! I apologize, if you've seen the parody film "Idiocracy" you will recognize the tag line. (There is no such thing as Brawndo). In all seriousness, I found Gatorade zero at Sam's club in a 24-pack variety of 3 flavors. I haven't tasted any of them because I've been drinking the premier protein tropical punch because I need the protein, but my family likes them.

Gracias and Danke Sehr for that by the way. So far 100mg of morning ODT is working much better. It doesn't taste like I'm crunching dishwasher detergent pellets and the discontinuation symptoms have completely went away. Thank you again. Interestingly, my Psychiatrist said that it came out first as ODT and that in general ODT is the "purest" way to get absorption into one's system.

I'm still tweaking my dose, but the bottom of the line, you want to find out where the meds are absorbed, and then you want to find out if there is a sublingual or patch you can take. I take Luvox and Lamictal. The Luvox seems to be okay, and my research did not indicate absorption issues with RNY patients. The Lamictal is mostly metabolized in the stomach, which we basically don't have. Another person on the board told me that it was available as a sublingual, and after meeting with my psychiatrist, I am now a few days in with the sublingual and the discontinuation symptoms have went away and I generally feel better. If they are capsules, you might be able to mix them in with food. You also might be able to take a smaller dose several times a day. If they are "extended dose" meds, then I think you should switch to the standard form. At the end of the day though, I think you need to be prepared to experiment (Of course at your doctor's permission) to find the right combination. I wish you the best!

For me, as of right now, my gas is relatively quiet and doesn't smell like anything. I'm not eating regular foods yet though, so that might change. I will say, when I had the band it was the same though, most of my gas didn't have a smell.

singerliny, I currently take the Celebrate Multi-45 vitamins per my doctor. I can't say I like the watermelon flavor, but I have the citrus on order. Nevertheless, it has 45mg of iron in each pill and does not contain the calcium. The 500mg of calcium I take (3x a day) is via calcium chews (My "candy" for the day LOL). They have several different iron amounts, 18, 36, 45 and 60mg. Like I said, I'm not a fan of the flavor, but it does make it easy because you just have a vitamin and a calcium supplement instead of fistfuls of pills LOL. https://www.celebratevitamins.com/shop/multi-with-iron.html

At the end of the day I think your post illustrates the best in a bariatric patient. The intense thought process considering all of the possible complications for getting, revising, or removal of the surgery. Going into this blind after watching a few "My 600# life" shows is about the worst thing one can do (And yes, I watch the show myself). It sounds to me that your mind is in the right place - considering what is going to improve your life the most, and yet doing lots of research on it. I applaud you for your research and I am very sorry for what seems like an awful number of years. I'm only 3 weeks out from my revision from a band to a RNY, but there were a number of reasons I went with a RNY over the sleeve. One of which is the possibility to do a reversal. Yes, it is not without complications, and no, it is not a complete reversal, but yes, it is still possible. With the sleeve? not so much. I would imagine that something as complex as a reversal would be quite variable between patients - what reason for each reversal is probably drastically different. So while I do think it is really good to see how outcomes were, I would postulate that your surgeon is probably going to be the best to trust. I was told that my surgeon was very "conservative" when it came to revisions. I was told he would go in and remove the band, and if things were really bad from scarring, he would not do the revision, and instead allow me to heal for 3 months before coming in and doing the revision. Maybe have a frank talk with your surgeon and make the same request. Maybe when he goes in, there is an obvious problem that can be fixed without actually reversing the procedure? Just throwing out another idea, if there is someone in your life that you trust your life with, consider filling out a medical power of attorney, and have a long conversation with them about your desires. Then, if doing the surgery the doctor would have a person to turn to and present both options...Your medical power of attorney, knowing your intents, could make the decision instead of a doctor who has spent an insignificant amount of time with you determining your interests. For my revision surgery, I did the above with a family member, so I'm not recommending something I didn't do myself. I will be praying for you and I wish you the best outcome, no matter what needs to be done to improve it!

My nutritionist kind of scolded me because I was taking things really slow, and was getting maybe 400 calories on a good day. He told me that I should shoot for 800 for the first couple of months and that my general lethargy would subside once I got to at least 600. I'm 3 weeks out today actually, I have noticed my weight loss slow quite a bit, I swear my digital scale "remembers" the weight from yesterday and if you're within a few ounces, it displays the remembered weight. I say this because if I grab some extra weight, the number will change, and then if I dump the same weight, the number usually changes +/- of the remembered weight. I'm a pretty OCD person, but I work heavily against my OCD, so now I write down the identical number and magically a day or two later I lose an entire pound. I'm still under 600, but I started integrating pureed foods into the diet, which taste pretty good, so that has helped. I suppose my answer doesn't help at all, but giving you what's happening to me since we're in kind of the same boat.

I was told I had a few choices, an unjury product, a bariatric advantage product, or the celebrate product. I'm taking the watermelon flavored vitamin by celebrate and it tastes bad. Not terrible, but definitely bad. I need to look into those fusions...I think they specified a gastric bypass specific one.

Tomorrow will go fine, actually, it will go faster for you than anybody else. What seemed like a little nap for me turned out to be 8 hours for my family that were with me. Try not to be anxious. Maybe take a hot shower to wear you out? I know you probably can't take any meds, so that's all I can think of. Do your best not to focus on it, try to think about anything else. If you have the TV on (Or your computer or phone ) studies have shown that the blue spectrum of light given off prevents your body from releasing melatonin, thereby keeping you awake.

There is a small possibility you are now lactose intolerant. Give it a few days, but if it still causes gas and you are the opposite of constipated...then you might have the same problem as me. You could also water down the protein drink in case it is a viscosity problem. Just a few ideas.

I was addicted to Vitamin Water Zero "Squeezed" Pre-Surgery. LOL I was addicted for about 7 years. Once I got out of the hospital, I started drinking it, and I didn't like it very much. I would say it was not really any better than aspertame or sucralose flavored drinks. I even tried one with ace-k. I basically haven't found anything that I really like, but the premier protein clear drinks actually taste the best to me (+20g protein is a great extra). But to get back to your question, no, I don't think it caused any issues. Maybe some gas, but I say only maybe because I'm only 2.5 weeks out and I'm still trying to figure out what foods like me LOL.

Wow thank you Ronnysgal - Not a lot to argue about that, if it isn't absorbed fast, then the money (and nutrients) are literally going down the toilet. I noticed a number of the recipes provided by the program's nutritianist supplied us with a lot of recipes and they did call for unflavored whea protein isolates. The good news is that the premier protein clear drinks have only whea protein isolates.

I heard that about greasy foods. I (used to, now?) love BBQ/smoked food. Smoked Brisket was my downfall in general but it is incredibly fatty. Smoked Tri-tip was my "healthy" go-to. I've had what I think is the full gamut, the california emulation of the south, real kansas city BBQ, real Texas BBQ, and carolina style (In virginia though). I've had it in other places as well, but they were just emulations. I'm hopeful that I can throw a chicken breast in the crock pot and add some liquid smoke to the broth and that it will satisfy the BBQ urges. So far the unjury chicken broth is working great and I've migrated to the premier protein clear drinks.

I also went band to bypass. I had the band for 7 or 8 years, can't remember. I've had the band "opened up" (No restriction) for several years. Got so tired of choking. My hospital wanted to let me out the day later (1 night stay) but after a round of dehydration and general (pretty bad) pain, they held me another night. I was in my early 30's when banded and now early 40's. My pain tolerance is lower than it already was. Will it hurt? Yeah, and it hurt more than I expected the first 2 or 3 days. After that, it got a lot better each night. I woke up to less pain each day. I stopped the pain meds about 3-4 days after hospital discharge if that helps. Mt surgeon said that I had a lot of scar tissue, so my surgery time was 5 hours. I was in recovery for 3 hours, and then up to the normal rooms. I expected 5 incisions like with my band, but I had 7. Two of them were about 1-1.5 inches long. 2 are pretty far out on my sides, not as concentrated in the center as I would expect. I did have robotic assisted surgery, so maybe that is why the extra incisions. My port was on my left side and was flipped pretty good, but oddly the two larger incisions were on the right side. It is a bit unusual to go from "only eat 3 times and no snacks" to "eat at least 3 times, with snacks in between". I am consuming about 400 calories a day right now and just got "a talking to " by my surgeon as he wants me to up it to 800 calories. I give that as an example for how little I want to eat. Expect tastes and smells to change. I think having the band already prepped you for what to expect and I'd wager that the doctors and nurses would agree us revisionists generally freak out less about things post-surgery. I am very glad I did it, and I'm sure you will as well!