Arabesque

Beautiful china & cutlery @NickelChip. Such lovely patterns. I love vintage/antique cutlery & china too. I have my grandmother’s best china she got when first married so about 70 odd years old. It’s not an expensive collectable brand like Wedgewood, Spode or Royal Doulton but beautiful & very special to me.

As @ChunkCat said you should be fine in any city which is likely where you’ll be while studying. These surgeries are performed just about everywhere these days. Find a good general practitioner (PCP) & then they should be able to refer you if you need/want. The PCP will be able to request & monitor your blood work & ensure you’re not missing out on any thing or your levels aren’t dropping too low or getting too high. They could refer you to a good dietician as well. Actual follow ups with your surgeon differ. I saw mine for the first few months & then his colleague took over & I still see her almost 5 years later. I saw him again two years later when he took my fall out though. Some never see their surgeon again unless there is an issue or a concern. You don’t need special bariatric food or vitamins after surgery. Just good, healthy, nutrient dense food the more natural & low processed the better. Some surgeons recommend specific brands for the pre & post surgery liquid stages but generally any high protein shake (pre made or powder) will work. (My cynical side says they likely have a marketing deal with that shake company.) I only had shakes for 2 weeks post surgery & I bought Atkins cause it was easily accessible at my grocery store - lol! Just check the sugar content (real & artificial) & protein content & calories. Same with vitamins, look for quality brands & check how much of each vitamin they contain so you’re not double dosing. Your blood work will help inform what vitamin supplements you actually need. All the best.

Definitely not in liquids. All you might be able to do is try a peanut butter flavour powder & add it to your shakes. I wasn’t allowed peanut butter until maintenance. Though it has protein it’s not a lot & it’s high fat (even the natural ones) & often high in added sugar. I enjoy a teaspoonful as one of my snack options now but my fat intake is low & sugar is very low so I can get away with it. Check with your team/dietician as to when you can add it & how much you can have.

Love, love, love the denim skirt. The jumpsuits look great on you. The one with sleeves is my favourite. Personally I avoid jumpsuits. The whole stripping down to go to the bathroom thing. And I had a couple of close calls in public toilets back in the day trying to balance & not let the jumpsuit touch the scary floor in any way. Shudder! LOL! There are some really lovely & tempting denim pieces about at the moment. I’m looking forward to wearing a charcoal denim trench I have which honestly I bought a couple of years ago & haven’t worn yet. I have too many clothes!

Yep, baby spoons or teaspoons. I used to sort of just dip my teaspoon in - nowhere near a spoonful. Think of the teeny taste a child will take of a food they don’t like or have never had before & think they won’t like. Your purées may be too thick for your healing tummy to tolerate yet. Try adding more liquid (water, stock, gravy, milk, etc.) & thin it down to a thick pouring consistency like custard or thinner for a while & see how you go. All because your plan or doctor says to move to the next stage, sometimes your body just isn’t healed enough to move on. It’s not uncommon for people to step back to the previous stage for a couple more days. We all heal at different rates. Keep it slow. Leave minutes between bites. Don’t be surprised if it takes 20 or more minutes to eat that 1/4 cup. And if you can’t eat it all, that’s okay too. It will get easier. A lot if this may sound like a bit of a faff but there is a lot of good learnings in these seemingly strange behaviours we’re asked to follow. For example taking small bites helps you to appreciate & think about what you’re eating. It takes a good 20 minutes for your full signal to get through to your head. Eating slowly helps to make sure you’re not eating to excess. So the message you’ve had enough gets through before you’ve eaten way more than you actually need & aren’t ever at the OMG I’m stuffed stage. It helps you to reassess & avoid that mindless shoveling in of mouthful after mouthful of food in a short period of time.

Drs Weiner & Pilcher are great. Lots of information of their sites & you tube channels. I’d probably avoid a lot of social media around weight loss. Bad advice, scary stories, etc. just to garner attention. I stumbled upon one that actually showed you how to purée burgers & fries to eat two weeks after surgery & how to eat around your surgery. Just horrifying! This forum is great. Supportive, encouraging & a wealth of experience. Was so helpful in the beginning & I still learn things about post bariatric surgery life. Personally, the sleeve has been wonderful for me. Do I have a few little idiosyncrasies? Yep but my tummy was fussy & a bit sensitive about certain things before so nothing really different. I lost all my weight & more & have basically kept it off for 4.75 yrs. Never ever been able to keep weight off for any length of time even a month. Does it take continued work? Hell yes. This is a forever thing. Can you eat the same as you did before? No. But why would you? I mean that’s how you (& we all) ended up obese in the first place. That’s not saying you can’t enjoy things you used to. You’ll focus on how much of it you eat. How often you eat it & even look for healthier, more nutritious versions of those foods. You’ll work out a way of eating that is sustainable, doesn’t limit or restrict you & allows you to live & enjoy your life as you want. Are there risks? Sure but there are with any surgery. They’re not common because the risks are very low (I read appendectomy is higher) & often are related to pre existing conditions. Sometimes issues are discovered before of after surgery because of the more intensive medical testing we undergo & then monitoring. Sometimes it’s just our own body & how it reacts which you can’t really predict. Most are easily remedied or manageable. I didn’t have any comorbidities before my surgery (though they were very likely in my future) so I can’t share my experiences with that. Do lots of research on reputable sites like those of the above doctors’ & here. List down your questions & take them with you to your surgeon. Ask for their statistics & experiences too. All the best with whatever path you decide to follow.

Very normal. Weight loss is never a consistent straight downward line on a graph. It goes up & down. Zigs & zags. Some weeks you lose a lot. The next not so much & yes you will stall. Stalls are an important part of your weight loss. It’s the time your body takes to reassess your new current needs & then adjusts your digestive hormones & enzymes, metabolism, etc. accordingly. Weight loss puts a lot of stress on your body so think of this time as when your body closes the door, pulls the covers over its head until it is ready to face the world again. The stall will break when your body is ready. Don’t push it or force it to break & stress it more. Just let it ride it out.

All low cut bras are out for me. All this wrinkling skin on show (more than I actually have too). It’s full cup & only full cup for me. Don't get me started on moulded strapless. OMG I can put half a fist in the top of them. Than goodness I found a bandeau strapless that went to an E cup. Not perfect but better than anything else I tried.

I agree. A PPI will be your friend for a while. Your gall bladder used to manage stomach acids entering your stomach now it’s not there to do that job. Consequently, you are likely are getting more acid than you need at the moment giving you reflux like symptoms. I had a lot of diarrhoea for a couple of months until it settled because the excess acid was aggravating my bowel. The struggling to eat could be a stricture like @ChunkCat suggested. It’s not really a gerd symptom nor related to your gall surgery. And yes, get in contact with your surgeon to find out what’s going on. Did the same surgeon who did your sleeve do your gall?

I agree with @ChunkCat. And also add, yes it is difficult to hit those protein goals as you move through the first stages & you’re eating so little. On purées (cause I couldn’t stand to continue on the shakes) I ate a high protein yoghurt to boost my daily protein intake. (You can make it into a drink by blending with milk which also gives you additional protein). Don’t worry too much if you’re not hitting your protein goal every day in this time. As long as you’re close to it & getting closer you’ll be okay. It’s one of those things that gets easier as you progress. It’s likely you’ll lose some hair from around three months regardless of whether you reach your protein goals from the beginning or not. It’s your body reacting to the stress of the surgery, anaesthetic, hormonal fluctuations, etc. And it’s just an acceleration of your usual hair loss cycle. It lasts about three months. And your new hair is still growing at the same time you’re shedding just at its usual rate. It’s quite common after many major surgeries, periods of stress, child birth, menopause, etc.

The empty upper slope of our breasts is so difficult to do something with. Add in the little bit of loose skin I have there as well it’s limiting. I actually stuff my proper bras with a tissue or two to fill out the excess fabric in the top. Crazy to think stuffing my bra was something I never ever had to do but now … I even looked at prosthetics but they’re not right shape. Can’t believe no one has developed something yet because many women have the same problem after breast feeding, Not everyone wants to get implants or have a reduction.

You must be pleased to be home. How long is the recovery time expected to be? Do you notice any difference yet? A few people I know who’ve had various heart surgeries all have said said they didn’t realize how much they’d deteriorated & struggled until after their surgeries.

You’re not consuming all that much so you don’t have that much to poop out. I never worried if I didn’t go everyday but if I got to a third day then I’d take something. Yes, once you’re eating more & a more varied diet including vegetables & some fruit, things do ease a little. But constipation does seem like a thing we just have to manage in the long term. Thankfully it’s more of an occasionally thing not an every few days thing now for me at least.

Oh no it shouldn’t be like that. You should only have itching around the wound sites. I’m glad you’re getting some medical help.

Oh yeah. They’re a big thing. I still get attacks usually if a food is coarser than I expected (some vegetables can be too fibrous some days). And sometimes if something sits a bit more heavily in my tummy. Some people rarely experience them & others, like me, are a little more sensitive & have them more often. I can go for months without experiencing one & then oh no. As I said I feel fine after I’ve bought up the offending mouthful or two & often can go back & finish my meal (avoiding the offending component). Had an attack last night with mince. Yes mince. Yet I ate it the night before without a problem. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was advised 1/4 - 1/3 cup from purées so that much of the oatmeal & that was all I could physically or wanted to eat. I could eat more soups if I still kept them thin (diluted them) so like a cup but sipped over some time. I’d check with your team to see what they recommend. They may say 1/2 cup but physically you can only eat 1/3. Some teams have requirements for the period of time you can eat like no more than 20 minutes for a meal. (I wasn’t given time frames hence my long sipping just those portions.) Of course it depends on what you can tolerate in the end. Go slowly & only eat until you have had enough (not full). It takes a good 8 weeks to be fully healed so until then your nerve endings aren’t able to send you accurate signals to advise you are full or are eating too much. It’s why portion sizes & time frames can be so helpful during this time.

I bought so many knickers & bras as I lost weight cause of the sizes I dropped through. Baggy knickers & saggy bras are the worst. Buy the bare minimum. Who cares if you’re washing every couple of days. I did get properly fitted for bras on the way because of back pain - bras that fitted & back pain went. (I’m larger too & also need cups wider than many make.). I also bought Bonds/Hanes bralettes for around the house. They’re cheap & I can get them from the supermarket here in Australia. I went to Target for knickers. I didn’t/don’t wear any compression underwear so I can’t help you with that. I donated my proper bras as I dropped sizes. Couldn’t with my knickers though. All the best with your continued weight loss.

Some of the shakes can cause constipation because of the extra fibre many contain to fill you up - it can bind you up. So I’d probably avoid the Benefibre pre surgery - it’s great after surgery. Try a stool softener to get things moving. For the diarrhoea check if your shakes, popsicles & jello contain sugar alcohols. They’re sugar alternatives used to sweeten many foods & drinks. They that end in ‘ol’ like xylitol, sorbitol, etc. They’re renowned for causing diarrhoea (bloating & cramping) if you consume too much. How much is too much differs person to person. It can become a bit of a cycle. Diarrhoea then constipation cause you’ve cleaned out your bowels. Then diarrhoea again.

My other thought was stomach acid. It’s built up over night & you haven’t eaten to use it. The pain is a cutting type cramp but for me it’s more across the centre of my abdomen rather than upper abdomen. I can get it if I haven’t eaten in too long. (I used to have it a lot even pre surgery because I tended to over produce acid.) If it is stomach acid a PPI at night will help. The gall used to regulate the amount of acid entering your tummy so not having one may be part of the cause. Is your poop a bit smelly? The excess acid can give it a strong smell. My sister in law & I both experience sudden onset cramping & then usually diarrhoea due to not having a gall. It’s like the acid builds up then aggregates the bowel & then diarrhoea can occur. It happens to us every month or so. Just musing. No expert.

The itching can be your wounds healing. All the little nerve ending refiring feels a bit like crawling ants or itchy. As long as there’s no swelling or redness or pain you’re okay.

I think this was the foamies not nausea. It likely was from eating too much soup (being full & heavy) & then lying down so the soup was lying in your tummy. The foamies causes excess saliva (often thick & gloopy) & then you can bring up what you ate. It will occur if you eat something that is too dry or coarse or eat too much or too quickly. The food gets stuck (hence the saliva to try to ease the stuck food down) or literally overflows back up. The zofran won’t help with that. But you’ll feel better after bringing up what you ate.

Hopefully the upper GI will show something though you may also need an ultrasound/scan to rule out gall stones, pancreatitis, etc. as well. I’d rather go in & see the doctor than do a Tele health call especially something like this. They can do examinations, you can show them exactly where the pain is, etc. Hopefully they’ll find an answer soon.

Cupboard/freezer pie. Minced beef, vegetables & puff pastry from my freezer & tinned tomatoes & lentils from my pantry. Just used fresh basil, parsley & an onion. Made enough for 6 serves so some will go back into the frezer. Ate about 2/3 of this but all the pastry. It’s odd. I struggle with bread, pasta & rice but can eat some puff pastry. Nit a lot but some. 🤷🏻‍♀️ (Watching UK celebrity Masterchef while I ate dinner as you do.)

Fortunately most of these are not permanent effects though very annoying at the moment. The only exceptions are the constipation which may always be something that occurs at times. And feeling the cold can continue. Head hunger will be a constant battle - surgery doesn’t fix that. It just seems worse at the moment when your diet is so restrictive. You always want more the things you can’t have more. Most of the others pass over a few months once things become more settled. Hormones start to rebalance, energy picks up, you’re eating more & a wider variety of foods, etc. Watch the blood pressure drops though. Get up slowly, avoid too warm showers, keep your fluids up, add a little extra salt to your diet. Add some soluble fibre to your shake, a soup, a smoothie, etc. to help with the constipation. Try not to let it get away from you. I’d take a stool softener if I got to a 3rd day without movement.

Dr Matthew Weiner just did a post on his IG account (poundofcure) today about the pill trials - not that successful yet. Terrible nausea with one & consequently participants dropped out early. Yikes! There are a large number of companies developing them though.