CyclicalLoser

I'm going to have a potluck for your post! Just kidding. Kudos for working in that setting, both with the temptations and I can't fathom the abnormal things you see. I love the movie "Awakenings", maybe that is close?
Maybe try to separate your work area from the food, even if it's moved a few feet. If you sit a lot, I bet if they are outside of an arm's length, that will help! Maybe when you have the potlucks, you could bring in a crock pot with some shredded chicken or some other healthier option. Never know, might even start a trend with your co workers "Wow that's really good! It's only xxx Calories?"
BTW, I have a family member that is a PsyDoc (Psychologist) near Seattle.

I live on the side of a mountain, seriously. 150 feet of elevation from my house to the other side of the neighborhood. I used to do "the long loop" which was right around 2 miles, but sometimes went into the next neighborhood (Even more elevation changes) and did about 3-3.5 miles.
Post surgery, maybe a week out, I did the "short loop" which probably has 60 feet of rise and about 0.8 miles. I did that with a cane for a few days, but then stopped because it is so hot here right now (100+ degrees F). When I decided to walk later in the evening, I got up to 2 miles, but then started having some incisional pains and stopped for a while. About 2 or 3 days ago, I resumed the short loop again.
I don't know how much that helps, but I think it's better to go slow and not injure yourself, then to push yourself until something bad happens and then you're out weeks not doing anything -- but that's just me.

The best defense is a good offense. Better to come from you first than through the rumor mill and have to clear up the untrue gossip. I let a lot of people know why I was going to be gone. In some cases I kind of had to as I wouldn't be working on their stuff for 6 weeks, and then others might have heard about it (Our rumor mill is exceptionally fast) so I freely tell them.
This might sound crass, but I've taken the attitude "I don't care what one thinks of the decision or what one thinks of me". There are exceptions of course (God > Family > Friends) but just about everyone else falls into the "don't care" bucket. I know, I sound very shallow here. When I was younger I would care and so forth, but now I realized it really doesn't matter if frank or sally think it's a bad idea, or jim thinks I'm taking the easy way out. Sooner or later, we'll drop so much weight and our diets will change a lot, and people will put it all together.
I kind of think when people try to keep it a secret, it adds so much drama trying to keep the genie in the bottle. Life's too short to go through all that trouble if you ask me. For fun, I told a nosy supervisor I was having surgery to surgically remove my head from my rear. He replied something like "Excellent, we've been wanting you to get that done for years!". I then told him the truth, and he asked me if it was "hush hush" and I told him nope, go ahead and tell whomever you want, it doesn't bother me.
I'm sure it will go down like this: you'll get nervous first, tell people, they will react however, you will get excited about the surgery, come back after FMLA already losing a lot of weight, people might notice and they will say what they want, and at the end of the day you're going to feel great. (Wow that was a long run-on sentence!)
Aside from that though, on a technical level, I'm almost positive whomever "leaks" the FMLA paperwork has violated HIPAA and confidentiality, "reasonably expected privacy" laws. If you really don't want it to get out, you could tell him/her that you don't want others to know, and that by law the HR department can't disclose to other people. S/he'll get the point.

Have you thought about a pizza "replacement" - bear with me. Maybe take pizza sauce and some low fat cheese, along with (very soft) vegetables and bake them? It would not be the same thing as you won't have crust, but you'll have everything else.
I posted a recipe a few days ago that I find a great replacement for pizza and other Pasta dishes. It has Ricotta, Parmesan Cheese, Mozzarella, marinara, one egg, and a few spices. You eat it with a spoon, but I look forward to it every day. If you break it down into the servings, then each one is right around 150 calories, about the same as a Protein Drink.
I was really missing my staples probably around where you're at, but now I seem to be fine without them. I can't explain it other than I suppose I wrapped my head around it finally.

Hmmm, I did see that Cinnamon was one of the helpful herbs. I wonder if a sugar free, saliva promoting breath mint would work?
...And I would have thought camel breath was from smokers...

Hmmm, I did see that Cinnamon was one of the helpful herbs. I wonder if a sugar free, saliva promoting breath mint would work?
...And I would have thought camel breath was from smokers...

I don't have what I would consider an eating disorder in the purest sense, so this advice is not from someone who has battled it. I can tell you that when I was going through the process, the psychologist wanted to know if I ever ate so much I purged. I explained there were times where I wanted to, but I didn't. She simply reasked the question, and when I said no I never actually purged, she was fine. I'm guessing they are concerned about self-destructive
I also would note that it is really dangerous to overeat yourself after any of the bariatric surgeries. I had the lap band before, and yes, I did eat way more than I should have, and I was one of the "lucky" ones, but other people had band slips, esophageal dilation, or band erosion. With this and the sleeve, I would presume staple line leaks would probably be the largest danger, but even the best case would probably be a stretching of the pouch or sleeve.
I have a friend who is an alcoholic. At least that is what he would say to you as soon as he introduced himself. He went through the AA program and hasn't had a drink for nearly 30 years. He explained to me that AA teaches "Once an alcoholic, always one". He was very concerned about transferring his coping method (food) back to that of alcohol. He went into the process very conscious of that, and thus far is doing very well with no problems.
So I'm not saying it can't be done, but I would definitely not have the surgery until you can satisfy yourself, and your psychologist that you have it under control. I don't know if they have Overeater's Anonymous (OA) in Australia, but if they do, you might be able to find some people that had ED and had bariatric surgery, and see what they say.
I'm mostly concerned about you causing physiological damage from even a single "binge" episode. I do say to take all of this with a grain of salt, I'm not that far out there myself.
I wish you the best and hope it works out best for your health. One of these days I really want to visit AU, the home of Holden, which brought us the modern Pontiac GTO and the Pontiac G8...I only wish we could have gotten the Holden "Ute" but that body style doesn't do very good over here.

I got off the phone with my surgeon's office Nurse Practitioner and he asked me a lot of questions. At the end, he told me that I'm still healing and so long as everything is okay, not to worry about it. He told me if the pain doesn't get better within a couple of days they would make an appointment for me so I wouldn't have to go to the ER,
I was also told to slow down on my drinking and he reiterated the 10# weight limit until 6 weeks. I'm very glad he got back to me when he did, I was about 90 minutes away from going to the ER.
Thank y'all for helping me out. It's so strange that this pain kind of came from nowhere.

I was put on a very strict 2 week diet that involved four Protein Drinks plus a normal meal every day. While not required, the bariatric coordinator did recommend drinking a bottle of magnesium citrate to "clean me out" before surgery. She said that she found that it makes it easier post-op. No bowel movements of (larger) proportions, and also less gas.
If you're going to do it though, do it tomorrow morning. It took me several hours to kick in, and I was up most of the night. Doing it now makes sure you're not still in the "cleaning" stage when you come in for your procedure.
BTW, I was a band to RNY myself. It is so nice not to choke and clear my throat every 10 minutes!

There's not much more that I think I can add to what other people have said except that I feel I win the prize for anxiety - I passed out on a routine blood test because of anxiety.
So I can say this, I asked the anesthesiologist beforehand if I could take a xanax because I already knew I'd nearly pass out from anxiety. They gave me the approval to take it 2 hours before my arrival time. In short, it helped quite a bit. It took them 20 minutes to get the IV in for the EGD because I was nervous, but it took them less than 30 seconds to put the IV in when I was on the xanax.
I don't want to sound like the xanax made the anxiety zero, but I think it took it to what a normal person's level of anxiety was. For being put under, they gave me something in the pre-op room and all I can remember is being wheeled out of the room. I don't remember the hallway, or seeing the OR. When I woke up, I was a bit groggy (Kind of out of it and my voice was a little hoarse...not pain though), which they said was because of the tube that goes down your throat. By the next day though, I was back to normal.
Like others have said, you're doing this for your kids. I can tell you as a research fanatic, study after study (Peer-reviewed medical journals) show that WLS has the best results for permanently keeping weight off. Also, at 33 years, you are quite young (IMO) and can heal much faster than someone more senior to you. You're going to do great I'm sure.
BTW, I was as a Wright-Pat baby

Thank you Matt, I really appreciate the feedback. At 4 weeks out, I still feel very much like a freshman wandering the halls just trying to find class

Thank you Matt, I really appreciate the feedback. At 4 weeks out, I still feel very much like a freshman wandering the halls just trying to find class

Thank you Matt, I really appreciate the feedback. At 4 weeks out, I still feel very much like a freshman wandering the halls just trying to find class

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.

"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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

I am 2 weeks ahead of you. I have a low tolerance for pain, but I can tell you that about 5 days after the surgery, 90% of the pain was gone and here at 2 weeks, it feels even better. Getting in the fluids was/is difficult, but I use a stopwatch app on my phone and another app medisafe to remind me of the pills. BTW my recliner was my best friend for the first week or so.
Congrats and be prepared to see an amazing weight reduction every day. I'm about 18 pounds less than my surgery weight.

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!