The Greater Fool

This is something I went through and I agree, it isn't as fun as it looks. For me, it was connected to me eating to fast, which translates to not chewing well enough. Things got stuck, or nearly stuck, and off I go to the private party room. This can irritate the surgery and cause swelling and/or be exceptional sensitiity for days Don't worry, you very likely are not harming your surgery. Things eventually worked out, I kept focusing on doing it right and it eventually became my new normal. Keep focussing on doing it right. Good luck, Tek

Our plans are different. Some allow smoothies others don't. My plan says no drinking calories, so I couldn't drink a smoothie and stay on plan. What does your plan say? Good luck, Tek

I am one of the lucky ones that dumps. I dump on both sugars and fats. It turned out to be quite the educator, and honestly, something I hoped for pre-op. Back when I had surgery, dumping was more of a 50/50 proposition because bypasses were often more distal than today. I dumped more early post-op because a small serving of fruit was quite a bit compared to the small amount of anything else I ate. As I was able to eat more toward my plan, along with experience, dumping decreased. All these years later dumping is now just part of the joy of being me. Good luck, Tek

Welcome to the forum. In order to offer meaningful advice, folks need to know details of your eating plan (if any), exercise plan (if any), your compliance, what you feel are your problem areas, height, weight at surgery, and any other information you believe may be useful. Also, what has you surgeon to say? The folks here are tremendously helpful and will go out of their ways to try to help. Good luck, Tek

I don't think a therepy session is the solution for which you are looking. I'm shocked and dismayed by the questions posted here by early post-ops. Everything should have been covered by their program team. Nay, it should have been pounded into their patients heads. What to expect, possible problems, the diet, and every other last detail. Twice. Unfortunately, many programs fall terribly short on information. Another unfortunately, some patients simply don't listen. The combination can be heartbreaking. Let's you and I rule the world and make some changes! Tek

Hard to be wrong when you take both sides. I expect that with time the Psych eval will go completely away. Back in the day it was considered necessary and some people were even turned down or delayed in favor of therapy. Being bumped was a legitimate concern in my program, but I fooled them completely. Now it's a rare case that the psych eval changes anything. Some programs have patients take a psych test online, no shrink. It's a box to check on a list. Insurance will eventually want to save that money. Or maybe not, it may save them more as a stumbling block on the way to surgery. See, I can take both sides too. As for actual therapy before or after surger, I'm torn. Requiring therapy is a bad idea. If the patient isn't completely engaged and prepared to be honest in therapy it's a waste of time. The therapist only knows what they are told. Carp in carp out. You can't require engagement or honesty. I agree that therapy for most of us would be benificial with the above caveats. Well, not for me, of course. Good luck, Tek

Surgery is a stress on your body that often causes hair to fall out. Suppliments won't change it. My suppliments started with a basic multivitam, iron (slow-FE), Calcium, and B-12. The basic multivitamin is because the first few months we are often on a virtual starvation diet so it's to make up that deficiency. After the first few months we were expected to eat adequately to cover typical requirements. Iron, Calcium, and B-12 additionally because Bypass patients are known to malabsorb iron, calcium & B-12. Any and all other suppliments were/are in response to deficiencies in blood work. Times have changed in the last 20 some-odd years. I haven't. Good luck, Tek

Your goals are yours to decide. After all, you're the one doing the work and living in your body. The way you've been handling it seems cromulent. Different folks choose goal weights for different reasons: It was a weight they liked in the past; or what the Doc says; or what a chart says; or what their spouse says; or it seems reasonable; or it's a nice round number; or whatever. For me, I had a lot of weight to lose so putting a final number on it seemed unrealistic to me. I figured I'd ride the ride and see where I was when I got there. Ultimately I went by how I felt rather than a number on a scale. Don't make the mistake of allowing yourself to be pushed into someone else's goal for you. This way leads to frustration and can turn a perfectly respectable success into a complete failure. Keep doing you. Good luck, Tek

"Clean living and not suffering stupid questions." Tek

It's your body, you can count whatever you d*** well please. You are on your own track. No one else has ever been on your track. If your medical team has an idea of "on track" then they are comparing your track to everyone else's tracks. That's their issue, not yours. Comparison sucks the joy from life. Good luck, Tek

About 21 years ago I weighed over 700 pounds when I decided to have surgery at 43. The writing was on the wall: By 50 I would be dead or wishing I was. With surgery I had solid chance at losing enough of my weight to live a more active, healthy, happy, and longer life. Because of my weight and health issues, Doc said I had a 1 in 20 chance of dying on the table. I had a 100% chance of dying in too few years. I didn't even have to think about it. Surgery went fine. I'm told I didn't die. I followed my plan. I worked on my mental health. It took about 3 years to lose just over 500 pounds. I am healthier, happier, and ridiculously more active beyond anything I imagined. Life is still full of ups and downs. Some ups and downs are the same, some are vastly different. The current ups and downs are better. Much better. Good luck, Tek

Hello Christine and congratulations on your retirement. Nice to run into fellow traveler that had the full cut, though my team called it 'open.' For me the full cut / open surgery with accompanying staples were the worst part of the whole process. Once the staples came out I was a happy camper. Since we're in Rants and Raves, I'll dip my toe into rants... I somewhat agree with your frustration with the changes in nutrition and supplements over the years. So much of what we're told more and more is pulled out of thin air, or from studies taken out of context, or study results that are exaggerated beyond reason, or just conflicting information that people just didn't think through. We're bombarded with all this 'new', 'critical' information that is neither new or critical. It's just the same old stuff packed in a way that will get clicks. People are still looking the buy or sell a new magic bullet to solve their weight and other problems they didn't know they had. It's the same old mundane nothing that does not match up to the hype. First world problems. Good luck on your repairs. Tek

When it comes to virtually any human behavior or endeavor there are people that from the very first exposure love it more than life itself and those that believe it is the worst thing in existence and can't grasp the appeal. Many of the former simply can't understand the latter's aversion and vice versa. There are people that take up behaviors or endeavors they hate in order to fit in just as there people that avoid behaviors or endeavors to fit in. And those that do or don't do things to not fit in. We all only have the actual experience of what is going on in our heads. We have no experience of what other people experience in their heads. This is a major stumbling point of being human. If another person seems to love a behavior or experience as much as I do I still can't know their experience. Nor can I experience their hate or disgust. We are each stuck in our own heads. Empathy can only get us so far. Empathy allows us to intellectually understand that people have reasons for doing things just as I have reasons for doing similar or analogous things. Empathy doesn't cause me to experience what another person experiences. So, while I intellectually understand there are different strokes for different folks, I will never experience those different strokes the same as different folks. People are freaks. Well, not me of course. Good luck, Tek

Why don't you like all the foods and drinks I like? I can't see how you don't like something I find so enjoyable. Different strokes for different folks. Good luck, Tek

Enjoy. Tek

Tell us of your eating and activity programs so that we may give rational advice. For example, how many meals per day? Consisting of? How compliant are you? What activity program do you follow? How often? How are you performing compared to program goals? Additionally, are you tracking your eating and exercise? How consistent are you? Surgery addresses short term over-eating pretty successfully. However, 'grazing,' which is constantly eating smaller amounts over a longer period of time defeat our restriction component pretty effectively. There are actually other similar traps we may fall into without being aware. So, let us know and there are tons of folks that will fall over themselves to help you out. Good luck, Tek

I went with Bypass because the sleeve wasn't an option back when I had surgery. The lab-band was an option and all the sales points for sleeve now were the selling points for lap-band then. The problems with lap-band weren't well known at that time. If the sleeve was available I'm pretty sure I would have still chosen Bypass. Other than being extremely over weight, my core health was pretty solid, but I could see that about to change. I was a binge eater and wanted a surgery that would restrict meal volume which I believe both Bypass and Sleeve would have achieved. I also wanted the additional bit of malabsorption that comes with the bypass. Then comes the possibility of dumping which at the time I had surgery was about a 50/50 chance. I hoped I would get dumping and as it turned out, I dump on both sugars and fats. It took an amazingly few bouts of dumping to keep my eating in alignment with not dumping. So with restricted volume and very limited amounts of sugar and fats, how could I not succeed? Good luck, Tek

There's a reason when I describe my eating plan it is "3 meals of 3-4oz protein, 1oz veggies, or when I am full, whichever comes first." Typically, I probably complete 1 meal of 5 or 6, and a couple bites in 1 meal of 5 or 6, then the others are somewhere between. This is very normal for me, even all these years later. Good luck, Tek

I owned a home scale, but for the first 18 months or so I was too large for it. I did have monthly follow-ups with my surgeon, so I weighed in there. At my follow-ups the topic of my weight / weight loss was never brought up unless I brought it up, since there were more important things to talk about. The things my Doc paid attention to were how I felt physically and mentally, if I was having any issues or concerns, did anything significant change. The things I also paid attention to was how my clothes fit, my stamina, was I happy. Once I could fit on the home scale I almost lived on it for a couple weeks, as the novelty of it was just too much. Then the novelty wore off. Since then I only weigh at medical appointments when they ask me to do it. One does not need a scale to succeed at weight loss. Home scales can be had pretty inexpensively, I see one on Amazon for $16. If it's a matter of dire circumstances I'm sure your Surgeon or PCP or any of your other medical professionals wouldn't mind if you stopped by for a weigh in. Most department stores that sell home scales would allow 'testing' the scale before you buy or don't buy. Good luck, Tek

Definitely. Pre-op back pain was pretty much constant. About once a month, more or less, my back would 'pop' and would be bedridden for days. Post-op after I lost the bulk of my bulk it has not happened again, about 18 years. The chronic pain also reduced dramatically. Good luck, Tek

3 weeks (to get staples & drain removed), monthly for first year, then quarterly for the next 1.5 years, then annually, then I moved out of state. I was a special case because I started at an exceptionally high weight, so Doc wanted to monitor me much more closely than most. Gosh, as the years go by I feel like my experience and my Doc's philosophy of weight loss is very out of touch with folks today. Good luck, Tek

20+ years later, I never tracked a thing related to food. Good luck, Tek

Not really terrifying... I slept through most of it. Good luck, Tek

I try not to reply to these threads before other folks because my experience is nearly two decades past and my personal experience was anything but normal. But here we are. I lost a bit more than 500 pounds so yeah, I had a little extra skin. I had initially planned for abdominoplasty and thigh-plasty whatever it's Latin name was. Others I would then ponder later. I say initially because after the abdominoplasty I hemorrhaged and died briefly when they ripped me open to fix the problem. I was supposed to end up with a virtually invisible scar, but that ship sailed when they had to open me back up. Once I woke again my recovery followed a pretty normal trajectory for the time: 15 pounds of skin removed and lots and lots of pain. Lots and lots of pain wasn't unexpected as everything I read beforehand indicated such would be the case. And yet the reality of it was a bit overwhelming. After about three weeks, as I recall, everything became manageable and life began returning to normal. I'm not sure how much the methods and pain have changed, I'll leave that to others. I honestly can't see how my experience or recovery would have been different from a woman's experience and I certainly didn't ignore anyone's experience in my research. I lived in Las Vegas, NV at the time I had surgery, but there wasn't anyone in town that was able or willing to do my surgery, so I ended up having it done at UCLA Medical Center in Southern California. So, I can't really name surgeon's that might help you. Good luck, Tek

If they cover the procedure, then aren't they compelled to give the reason(s) for denial? I've often seen simple/stupid reasons for denial that were easily overcome. Even if not simple/stupid it gives a clear target to overcome. But a simple 'Denied' seems like a problem in itself. Good luck, Tek