Ed_NW

My son did the sleep study and was given a CPAP machine with the nasal pillow mask. It didn't work for him and he would knock it off of his face while sleeping. He ended up going back for a video taped sleep study and they changed him to a BIPAP machine and a full face mask and the quality of sleep he gets now changed his life according to him. I think if you have a serious problem with sleeping you can work with the sleep Dr. until they get it right. It could be that you sleep fine and they are just doing the typical judging a book by it's cover diagnosis.

I did an at home one first and which was with this wrist monitor.. and they said that came back that i had mild sleep apnea.. HMMM.. then they made me do the in-house one this week. I agree think its a way to make money out of insurance as i have not had to pay a penny out of pocket for any of that. They got my insurance to approve before i did them.

I am so glad I found this forum and took people’s advice. I was scared, anxious, sad, confused before and after surgery but I already knew I was going to feel that way. Lol 😂

Best advice...
1)stay on top of pain med routines. DO NOT WAIT!!!
2) I made sure to ask for anti nausea meds prior to surgery and after. Has saved my life!!!
3) walking is going to alleviate all the built up gas...so get that ass up and walk lol 😂
4)forcing myself to stay on schedule with hydration. Whether it’s Water, popsicle, juice, Protein water, Soup. Honestly, it has helped me a whole lot.
5) my support system. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster but having family and friends that are supportive has really helped. Forget about the judge mental ones. Leave them out of this!

Just wanted to say thank you to all the people that have shared their stories and reached out to me. I am so grateful that this forum exist. It has really given me a place to feel safe!

🤪😀

Bugs the heck out of me to think they're just trying to make money off of me. The place where I did my sleep study lost my records so my insurance was trying to make me do a new sleep study as a prerequisite to getting my WLS. I think I found a way around it.

Ed

My son did the sleep study and was given a CPAP machine with the nasal pillow mask. It didn't work for him and he would knock it off of his face while sleeping. He ended up going back for a video taped sleep study and they changed him to a BIPAP machine and a full face mask and the quality of sleep he gets now changed his life according to him. I think if you have a serious problem with sleeping you can work with the sleep Dr. until they get it right. It could be that you sleep fine and they are just doing the typical judging a book by it's cover diagnosis.

I've used a cpap or bipap for about 10 years now. I've tried the half mask and some other masks and they all left marks and sometimes sores. The nasal pillow is the only one I can use. The fact that a machine blowing air up your nose will give you relief from sleepless nights still amazes me. I wish I had one when I was a teenager.

I always say I'm putting on my scuba gear when I strap on the cpap mask (haha). I'm glad you made it through surgery and hopefully on your way to a new you.

I've used a cpap or bipap for about 10 years now. I've tried the half mask and some other masks and they all left marks and sometimes sores. The nasal pillow is the only one I can use. The fact that a machine blowing air up your nose will give you relief from sleepless nights still amazes me. I wish I had one when I was a teenager.

That's good its worked for others.. i have no trouble sleeping though. I did the sleep study earlier this week and they gave me the cpap before i even did the study! Like I said I think its an insurance requirement issue.. ugh.

I agree with you. The sleeve seems to be the least invasive procedure. I (probably like everyone facing this surgery) watch tons of videos on WLS. I was watching some videos yesterday from a Dr. John Pilcher https://youtu.be/pQidnZEhDoc and he mentioned something that I found interesting on this subject. Both surgeries have the same long term weight loss sustainability success rates. Both have similar food restriction benefits with different side effects if you over do it. Bypass has dumping syndrome witch doesn't sound like something I want to deal with being a driver (dizziness) and the sleeve has acid reflux that I think can be more manageable. Of course a person should stick to the program but poor choices are what got me in this mess.

I spent a lot of time going back and forth between gastric bypass and gastric sleeve trying to decide which to have. I ultimately decided on the sleeve, but I think there are pros and cons to both.
From what I read, and these are all statistics, not personal stories, so of course there are always exceptions to the statistics. Statistically, gastric bypass patients have a bit more weight loss than sleeve and maintain a bit closer to goal. Gastric bypass is a hair more successful at sending diabetes type 2 into remission than sleeve, but both can be effective. The sleeve creates a high pressure system which can exacerbate GERD to an unmanageable point so it is rarely recommended for people who are already diagnosed with GERD.
However, once you are past the initial major complication of sleeve (staple line leak) there seem to be few major complications to contend with. The main one seems to be GERD. But in gastric bypass there are statistically more serious complications that can develop later in life.
This could be due to the fact that sleeve is a newer procedure and there is less statistical information available that bypass, or it could be that it actually just less likely to have medical complications down the road.
It's such a personal decision and based on so many factors. I wish you all the best in making your choice!

@Ed_NW - I had the reflux really bad the first two solid weeks. I decided to change the time of my meds this week and suddenly the reflux is gone. I'm crossing fingers and hope it stays that way because I never had issues pre-surgery.

I always say I'm putting on my scuba gear when I strap on the cpap mask (haha). I'm glad you made it through surgery and hopefully on your way to a new you.

Is this a good look for me?

Thank you for saying so! I appreciate it. I actually have never written it down and re-read it. I have been through a lot but I've survived and now I hope to thrive.

Surgery went well. I will share more about it tomorrow

Thanks for opening up like that. It takes a lot of courage to share your struggles in such detail. It will help a lot of people facing the same uphill battle. I hope everything goes well for you today.

I mentioned id give more details about my day of and intake. It was pretty much like any other surgery. I arrived 2 hours early and they gave me Zantac, nausea meds, I also requested the patch for nausea. They put IV in and that took a few tries. Then the nurse anesthetist came in and gave me my first “cocktail.” Almost immediately they were wheeling me back and I was waving to everyone as we rolled past. That’s the last thing I remember!
I woke up in recovery and immediately felt the gas pain and pressure. I had my husband rub my back and kinda pound on it a little like burping a baby. Then I think I slept. I was moved to my private room after a short time in recovery and then I slept most of the rest of my time there except when someone came into my room or when I was walking laps.

Thanks for opening up like that. It takes a lot of courage to share your struggles in such detail. It will help a lot of people facing the same uphill battle. I hope everything goes well for you today.

So, I have promised to share my story with anyone who is interested. I’m not simply a bariatric surgery patient. Feel free to ask questions about what I have gone through. I am not shy about talking about my travails and have lots of experience with surgery in general. The photos I am sharing may be disturbing to some people. I am scarred and have an ileostomy. If you are squeamish, you may want to skip the photos.

Here we go… Get your popcorn, this is a very long post.

My name is Andy. I turned 52 in early July. I am single and live alone with my dog. I’ve been heavy most of my life. But, my journey is about my chronic illness and the effects it has had on me and my body.

I have Crohn’s Disease. I started having symptoms when I was 15. It got really bad when I was in the Navy, but it was in 1990 that I was first hospitalized because of it. I was, at first, diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and started on medication. This seemed to help for a while, but it kept getting worse. In 1995, when my doctor said I had to start taking Prednisone again, I opted to have a radical surgery to “cure” me by removing the organ of choice for this autoimmune disease. On April 20, 1995, I had the first of three major abdominal surgeries at Northwestern University Hospital, in Illinois. I had my entire large intestine removed and an internal pouch was made out of my small intestine to take the place of my large intestine. The surgery took almost 12 hours to complete. It was done open incision; laparoscopic surgery of this type was not perfected until the early 2000s. (My youngest brother had this exact surgery performed in 2012 laparoscopically. Crohn’s disease runs in my family.) This pouch was connected to the exit and I had a loop ileostomy for three months while the internal pouch healed. Yes, I pooped into a bag hanging from my stomach for three months back then. Then, after the three months, I went back in for another surgery where they closed the ileostomy and dropped my intestine back inside. Things went well for a couple of years, then I got sick again.

I moved to California and started a new job in 2002. When I found a new gastroenterologist in southern California, he did some tests and said I did not have ulcerative colitis, but Crohn’s Disease. (The difference between these two irritable bowel diseases is ulcerative colitis only attacks the large intestine, but Crohn’s disease can attack any part of the digestive system.) This doctor started me on an infusion medication called Remicade. This was the first medication that ever really worked. I took it for about 14 years until I developed antibodies to it. I kept taking it even though it was not working because the doctor never had me tested for antibodies.

In 2014, I moved to Idaho. I found my current gastroenterologist, who is the best doctor I have ever had. He put me on Humira. This is a self-injectable medication that also worked for a while, this time about two years. When he saw that the Humira was no longer working, he ordered a blood test that would see if I had antibodies to it. This is when I found out that I had antibodies to both Humira and my previous medication, Remicade. I was then switched to Cimzia, which never worked. I just keep getting sicker and sicker. (The worst part of having Crohn’s disease is there are no outward signs that you are sick. I looked fine but felt like crap all the time. No one at work believed I was sick)

One of the side effects of my surgery in 1995 was scar tissue in my small intestines where the ileostomy was. Because of this, I periodically have small bowel obstructions that usually require hospitalization. To date, I have had 17 small bowel obstructions. These usually clear themselves while I am in the hospital, by not eating anything (NPO) and having an NG (Naso-gastral) tube inserted up my nose and down into my stomach, to remove any contents using suction.

Let’s jump ahead to last year – May 2017. I had yet another small bowel obstruction. I was hospitalized as usual, but this time it did not clear. I had been in the hospital for two weeks and then they decided I needed surgery to clear the blockage. When I was talking to the surgeon before the surgery, he said I had a 90% chance that I would come out of surgery with a permanent ileostomy. This was not the case. In this second major open abdominal surgery, the surgeon was able to remove scar tissue strictures from the outside of my small intestine and they immediately inflated and the blockage passed. I got lucky. The surgeon told me that if I had another small bowel obstruction, he would be forced to remove my internal pouch and give me a permanent ileostomy.

In August of 2017, this is exactly what happened. A bit after 4 am on August 21, 2017 (yes, the day of the total solar eclipse – I’ll say more about this in a minute), I went to the emergency room and was admitted about 8:30 am for yet another small bowel obstruction. I had been up all night throwing up and getting sicker, so I was exhausted by the time I got to my room. About 10 am, the nurse came in and asked if I wanted to go out to the parking lot and watch the eclipse. I was so sick and exhausted that I said no and slept through the entire event. (I live in one of the areas where people came to view the event (eastern Idaho) and I missed the entire thing because of this damn disease…) When the surgeon came in later that day, he said that he had scheduled me for surgery on Wednesday, August 23, 2017,, for the removal of my badly diseased internal pouch and give me a permanent end ileostomy. So, again, I poop into a bag.

So, on August 23, 2017, I had the third major open abdominal surgery. One thing to note here is this was the third time I had been opened up in the same place – from just above my belly button, vertically down into my groin. My wound had barely healed from the surgery in May and the surgeon was cutting me open again. This ended up being a long recovery.

There were two issues with this surgery: the first was the placement of the ileostomy. The surgeon placed it in the scar tissue from my ileostomy that I had back in 1995. This has caused issues with the seal on my bag.

The second issue was the surgical wound. While I got much better since the badly diseased part of my small intestine was surgically removed, the wound did not want to heal. I was in the hospital for over three weeks and eventually sent home on with a wound vac. This device keeps constant suction on the wound and removes any blood and body fluids from the wound, preventing infection and speeding healing. The problem with my wound this time is it was not closed properly and it took over four months for it to close enough for me to stop using the wound vac. I was able to finally return to work in January of 2018.

Back to my gastroenterologist. I went to see him in Februar 2018 for a checkup and an intestinal scope, called a sigmoidoscopy. This is basically the same as a colonoscopy, but they use a much smaller device. It is about the same size as an endoscope. When this procedure was over, he said to me that I needed to lose weight. (He basically says this every time I see him, about every three months) This time, I was sick of hearing about it so I asked him for a referral to see a dietician to help me with my weight and my eating.

About a month later, I get an unexpected call from a bariatric surgeon’s office near where I live and was invited to a seminar. I went and after the presentation, I went to ask the surgeon a couple of questions about whether or not I was a candidate based on my surgeries. She said that it was not out of the question, but she would need me to make an appointment to be sure. I was seen in late March 2018. When I met with the surgeon, she asked me to lift my shirt and show her my abdomen. She took one look at my scars and said she could do nothing for me. She referred me to a bariatric surgeon at the University of Utah, who I met with on June 29, 2018. Because I had already started the journey, according to my insurance, back in March, the doctor placed me on the fast-track to get everything done. Since June 29th, I have had 14 appointments in Salt Lake City, about 210 miles south of where I live.

During this first appointment, I also talked to the bariatric surgeon about my other issues and he referred me to a colo-rectal surgeon, also at U of U. I met with him on July 20, 2018. We discussed revision surgery on the placement of my ileostomy and the removal of internal scar tissue around my small intestines on the left side of my abdomen. He said that these things need to be done and that he would coordinate with the bariatric surgeon. The bariatric surgeon was more hesitant and needed much convincing. I finally was able to talk him into performing both sets of procedures during the same operating room visit. I was finally approved for everything and am scheduled for surgery on September 6, 2018.

In early August of this year, I was finally approved for yet another Crohn’s medication – Stelara. This, by the way, is the second most expensive medication in the United States, behind only Harvoni (which is used for hepatitis C). Stelara costs about $20,000 per dose and I have to inject one dose every two months. So far, it is working.

So, to recap – on September 6, 2018, I will be having a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, performed laparoscopically (prepped for open, but he is going to attempt laparoscopically first) by Dr. Volckmann as the first procedure performed. While I am still under and after Dr. Volckmann finishes, Dr. Pickron will come in and perform a revision on the location of my permanent end ileostomy and attempt to remove as much scar tissue from my small intestines as he can. This will be performed open, through the same incision location and scar tissue that has been used now three previous times.

I am also posting photos of what I look like without clothing, with privates blocked out. Since my surgery on August 23, 2018, only my doctors have seen me this way. And the last photo is of my "surgery" haircut. I hate to deal with my hair in the hospital so I just cut it all off before I go in.

If you have made it to this point, thank you for reading my story. I have never written it all down before and as such, have never shared everything with anyone.

At the hospital, waiting for the nurses.

Hi I just joined today after just getting the approval from my insurance company for gastric sleeve surgery! Woohoo! The approval process took almost a year which seemed to take forever and now that I got approved, time seems to be flying by. I'm feeling excited but now doubt is creeping in as I look forward to my November surgery.

I am in less pain today. The walking has helped and I was finally able
To burp! 4 big burps already. Yes I have spirometer and it is difficult but it does help for sure. I just passed my leak test! So they should be giving me clear liquid something soon. Maybe a popsicle? I don’t know. They have been controlling pain with morphein so I slept most of the night unless someone was in my room. Has anyone heard from @frustr8

Hi,
I'm new to the forums and in the starting stages of obtaining a VSG. Just looking to see if there are any other men who were above 400 (or even close to 500) pounds before starting this journey and how life after surgery has been. Did you suffer any complications from surgery due to your size? Did your doctor make you do anything extra or warn you of any possible issues? Did you lose more rapidly than average patients? Did you lose any motivation when you had lost enough weight to lead a fairly "normal" life, even though you might still have a good amount of excess weight?
A little background...I'm 31, 5'10", and honestly can't bear how difficult my weight has made my life. Just this weekend my wife went alone to her sister's engagement dinner at a restaurant due to my fear the chairs wouldn't be supportive enough. (I typically avoid restaurant situations unless there's a booth with a table I can adjust, ideally half booth/half chairs.) I've avoided flying for a couple years, will only attend theatre or sporting events where I can be guaranteed an aisle seat, etc. It seems like in the last 60 or so pounds many social situations involving sitting have escalated from very uncomfortable to more or less unbearable. Healthwise, I have hypertension and am very likely will be diagnosed with sleep apnea once the results of my sleep study last week come in.
Look forward to hearing from any of you have started in similar situations.

Posting these is hard for me- But if they help someone- I’m all about being real. This is where I came from. Before wls I was at rock bottom in my life. I was overweight, in so much pain, addicted to opiates, in a miserable abusive marriage, terribly unhappy, i could barely work, so hard to walk, so hard to just live. I’d been on or off of a diet since I was eleven. I was constantly binging or starving myself. I’d tried every weight loss plan under the sun and I was totally burnt out. I’d tried therapy, you make it. Perhaps if I’d stuck to therapy that would have worked, but at the point I had surgery I was so exhausted I just needed something sure.
I was totally committed to the surgery although i didn’t follow the rules very well, I’ve never been good at self care. I couldn’t take care of myself well before surgery and i struggled to do that afterwards. It has taken a lot of work to get better at that.
I went in knowing what could happen and that i wouldn’t be able to eat normally again. It was worth it to me at the time.
My surgery had complications but the weight loss was easy due to a severe stricture that I had, plus i was just determined to lose the weight- nothing was gonna stop me. I did really well eating very little for a long time, I was so burnt out on food i was able to break my codependent behavior towards it. Maintenance was really really hard for me, I had issues with wanting to keep losing weight and not being able to stop. I rejected food so hard it was a real struggle to begin eating again and I had to seek therapy for that.
I’m doing well now and so much has changed. I have a very different outlook with food. I’ve also gone through plastic surgery 2x and I’m finished with that. I’m at my 3 year surgery anniversary on dec 4. My start weight was 240 and my current weight is between 130-135. I’m 5’6.
I went from 240 to 120 in about 10 months. My lowest weight was 115- scary. I’ve since gained to a healthy 130 ish. I try not to slide back into the 120s because I look sick at that weight. I don’t try and maintain my weight through dieting anymore, I practice “Intuitive Eating”. While being thin is nice and my weight is something I care about, these days I try not to weigh myself and I focus on overall health and well being. My next goal is to get more active with weight training and exercise.
Surgery is no walk in the park. I had a rough time and I still struggle. But it was worth it for me, as you can see. My weightloss did stall a week or two here and there. I never let that get to me, I just kept my calories low knowing eventually it would start again. During the weightloss phase I tried to focus on my life and stay busy rather than focus on every pound. I definitely ate very very little. I suffered from malnutrition and health problems because of this so I would not recommend it- take your Vitamins and get in your Protein.
Don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad for choosing surgery. And don’t feel bad if weight loss takes you longer than others. My biggest regret is that I didn’t give myself more love before my surgery. But at least I gave myself enough to try and change my life for the better.
 

Prior to surgery I had a number of health issues and as a result, I took 5 types of prescription medicine daily. Those health conditions were resolved by the surgery. But because of the surgery I have to take a variety of Vitamins daily for the rest of my life.
So cost wise, the vitamins are less expensive and more readily available than the prescription medicine I was taking. (Since I had the surgery 5 years ago and because the cost of some of these prescription medicines have shot through the roof in this time - the cost of the vitamins are dramatically cheaper now).
It is common for some individuals to gain weight after they bottom out in their weight loss. It is called the 20 pound bounce. But if you adhere to the program guidelines, you should be able to keep this under control. Generally the surgery RNY or sleeve permanently modifies you stomach. You do not stretch your sleeve or RNY stomach. The tool is still there. If you gain too much weight back you can apply the guidelines and drop the weight.