Creekimp13

They are a common problem for people who have weight loss surgery. If they are calcium oxalate stones...avoid foods high in oxalates and make sure you're taking your calcium correctly for your situation (talk to your doctor) Avoid red meat. Lower the salt in your diet. Best wishes:)

My doc wrote a note that my vitamins and shakes were medically necessary, and I was able to get reimbured through my medical savings account. Not exactly covered by insurance....but at least pre-taxed dollars...and I have a ton of money in there that I'd like to get back in my pocket:)

The gas is CO2..... it will diffuse through the peritoneum (lining the abdomen) into your blood stream. This takes some time and the dissolved CO2 in the form of carbonic acid can be irritating and can cause pain under the diaphragm or deferred pain into shoulders. Walking helps the breakdown process, and helps work gas bubbles to the peritoneum so diffusion can begin. The narcotics you'll be on right after surgery generally slow your gut down and you won't fart for a day or two. Laparoscopic gas doesn't leave through your intestines anyway....it is metabolized out in your blood. Big deep breaths help. Walking helps because it promotes increased respiration...which will help. "Gas" sounds like burps and farts...but it's not in this case.

I was thinking the same thing...

Shelby, you'll probably be ok...but for the love of Pete...don't sabotage yourself again. Surgeons have been known to close you up and refuse to do your surgery if your liver hasn't shrunk. Not saying this will happen to you....but it's worth doing everything in your power to comply and not mess with this one. This is a real safety concern. Eating PB and J on impulse when you know it's gonna make your liver swell up again...is crazy. It's dangerous and self destructive. No carbs means no carbs. I understand being naughty and cheating...everyone eventually does.....but yeesh....your surgery is on the line. No rebellion is worth playing with fire this close to surgery. You'll probably get away with your indiscretion...but you have no wiggle room left. Zero. Time to be a model patient.

Oye. Tons of carbs and sugar in a PB and J...and the whole point of your diet is super carb restriction so your liver can shrink and be safer in surgery. Truthfully? I might actually consider puking for real in that situation. Not a great choice. For anyone else considering cheating on pre-op diet....cheat with protien or non starchy veggies. NOT CARBS. Otherwise, you've just shot yourself in the foot. Better yet...don't cheat. I know it sucks, but don't sabotage yourself!

Congrats!

We were forbidden to drink more than 4 ounces per hour for the first week....but afterward, we were told we could drink more if it was comfortable....and I could definitely drink more at that point.

Propofol is often used....sometimes called "milk of amnesia" by surgical staff because it's thick and white...and patients don't remember much. I concentrated hard on TRYING to remember anything I could (cause I'm weird) and I do have a couple of fragmented memories of nurses patting my back and telling me "you're doing great! good job!" while gagging a little. Woke up very rapidly and had a nasty sore throat. Was super quick. Hubby took half a day of work off, and we went to lunch on the way home.

Been there. It IS horrible! Sorry:( Will get better:)

Tab up at the top Patients-----My Surgery-----then to the left....Progress

It really is! Hang in there and keep working. You'll make it!

Maybe if you eat more calories, you'll have the fuel you need to exercise more and boost your metabolism? Talk to your doc/nutritionist. Best wishes:)

Woot! Nice work!

Reduce calories. Add exercise. (or boost what you're already doing to more challenging tougher exercise) Tomorrow is a new day!

I eat TONS of Splenda (Sucralose). I love it and I don't worry about it:)

Chicken breast, mushrooms, onions, peppers, zucchini, yellow squash....stir fry this with a little olive oil, a little reduced sodium soy, and a little Montreal Steak Seasonings. Eat with a quarter cup of brown rice. The super healthy crowd pleaser that everyone asks for. I don't think I'll ever get tired of this dinner. Yum:) Watermelon for dessert:) Yay Summer!

BigViffer, Awesome results! I think, for me anyway....one of the bigger keys to increasing fitness and getting that stubborn scale to keep moving...is being very very active and picking challenging workouts. I think heavy lifting qualifies:)

You look ten years younger and super healthy:) Good work!

Woot! Nice work!

My curiosity got the better of me on this and I found an article that follows the rough details you've given. http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/northeast-tarrant/article4115524.html Yeah, this is a mess. I don't know how the hell they could misidentify the abdominal aorta...it's a garden hose. Yikes....yeah. There, of course, could be a lot of information missing. Could the patient have had very unusual anatomy? (some people do) Could his abdominal aorta have had an aneurysm that made it hugely distended? But yeah...you nick that thing and the whole abdomen looks like a bucket of blood in seconds. If they hadn't sewed it shut, he would have died. It's horrible that it was misidentified. It sounds like there were a lot of people involved and the ball was dropped rather spectacularly. It would still be very interesting to get your doctor's side of the story. If this happened in 2014 and your doctor is still a licensed doctor and surgeon....there might be more to the story (and her specific involvement) than meets the eye. My advice? Find a board certified bariatric surgeon at a major trauma center hospital that is a center of excellence. Ask your doctor how many bariatric surgeries they do each week, and how many they've done in their career. It should be a lot....and your doctor should be willing to discuss his/her rates of complication. Yeah, I totally get why this would be unnerving to you. Best wishes.

The one big S....STARVATION:) You've been on a starvation diet...you're going to continue to be on one for a while...and starvation causes HUNGER. Actual real bonafide honest to God hunger. Concentration camp hunger. Dying of starvation hunger. Donner pass hunger. Sally Struthers Children in Africa hunger. Not only have you deprived your body of the calories it lives off of everyday for basic metabolism for a couple of weeks on your presurgical diet.....you have now added the massive caloric demand of needing to do lots of repairs (healing). Some people don't experience hunger after surgery. Hormones? Nausea? Luck? Many others experience extreme hunger. I could have chewed my leg off. And it's tough...because it's extremely important that you follow your instructions to the letter right now. Just have to take it a day at a time. You'll make it. After I started eating around 1000 calories a day, I felt a LOT better. I eat about 1200 calories a day now...have no hunger. It gets better. Hang in there!

What is the source of this "report"? It's bogus. The aortic valve is pretty much in the center of a person's heart. To puncture an aortic valve, you'd literally have to stab someone in the heart. And it would kill them. Bariatric surgeries are abdominal. There would be no instruments in the thoracic cavity. The other fishy thing about the story is this absurd claim "The surgeon was required to pay 1500 and go thru additional training." No. This is not how it works. If someone loses their legs after surgery and medical negligence is found, the surgeon's insurance company pays out about 50 million dollars. A board would review the surgeon's actions and they would either keep their license or lose it. There would be no "additional training". Please check your source. You either have your details VERY mixed up....or you are being scammed. If you have a link to the report, I'd love to read it. I'm not suggesting a serious internal bleed isn't possible. It is. But the much more likely cause would be a spleen bleed. If the aorta were involved, it would be the abdominal aorta (far, far away from the aortic valve)....but I can't imagine the patient living to be transferred to another hospital. Talk to the surgeon. If she's still practicing, chances are good there is more to the story than meets the eye. (or, it's a grossly misreported incident)

It starts off feeling very small due to swelling and inflammation. I'm 5 months out. I easily eat 4 ounces or so at a time. About a half a cup. Maybe a little more...particularly if the food is a slider like yogurt or oatmeal or protein bar. My meals are typically about 200 calories. And I eat 6 of them a day. LOL:)

Blood clots happen. My brother in law lost a leg in an emergency aortic dissection surgery. His surgeon is brilliant, the top of his field, and did absolutely everything possible to avoid problems....and it was just bad luck. It happens. To even the very best of the best. Even when you're doing clot preventative treatments...it can happen. Sometimes luck is just bad. Another cause of leg loss after surgery might be an extremely bad infection....which, again....can happen. It shouldn't, and we hope it doesn't. But it happens. Rather than ditch your surgeon, maybe you should talk to him about what happened? We like to think of these surgeries as completely safe, but they really are not. As surgeries go...they're quite safe....but they're still major surgery. And major surgery carries risk. A certain number of people will have a very bad experience. Odds of a bad experience increase with multiple factors. That said....remaining morbidly obese is not safe either. It carries major risks, and there's a reason that tricky word "morbid" is in there. Weigh the benefits-vs-risk. That's all we can do. Make the best call we can, and cross our fingers. If picking a different surgeon helps you sleep at night....by all means...do. But remember....there are no guarantees.