Midwest Grateful

I'm 7+ weeks post-op from Gastric Bypass/RNY. I have zero appetite. I've spent over a month in the hospital because of infections, dehydration, etc. Since I wasn't getting results from the surgeon's facility post op, I decided to see my PCP for help. Best decision! Small changes (doubling my nausea meds, etc.). I may even receive IV fluids when necessary, maybe even from home, if possible.
I realize the part of my stomach that communicates with the brain has been removed. I don't see an end in sight. I was told by nurses at the hospital that this aversion to food and drink is not unusual; for some it lasts months, or even years (I'm going on 8 weeks). It sounds like this improves with the sleeve, but has anyone else experienced this long term after a gastric bypass?

Thank you, @PNWGAL. From your mouth to God's ears! I'm almost 8 weeks post-op and still struggling. They said I'm losing weight too fast. Still, I didn't do this surgery for weightless. I did it to help my health and some complex issues. But it's not working out the way we thought. Hopefully we will see great results soon. Take care!

I definitely had a rough patch for about 6-8 weeks after surgery. I wasn’t able to eat enough food and I became very lethargic and weak. It did subside though. The anti-nausea meds were a godsend. I don’t think it’s too uncommon for you to still be feeling this way. Hang in there!

I'm 7+ weeks post-op from Gastric Bypass/RNY. I have zero appetite. I've spent over a month in the hospital because of infections, dehydration, etc. Since I wasn't getting results from the surgeon's facility post op, I decided to see my PCP for help. Best decision! Small changes (doubling my nausea meds, etc.). I may even receive IV fluids when necessary, maybe even from home, if possible.
I realize the part of my stomach that communicates with the brain has been removed. I don't see an end in sight. I was told by nurses at the hospital that this aversion to food and drink is not unusual; for some it lasts months, or even years (I'm going on 8 weeks). It sounds like this improves with the sleeve, but has anyone else experienced this long term after a gastric bypass?

Your body is likely still producing the same amount of stomach acid for your smaller tummy as it did for your much larger tummy. Plus you aren’t eating much & what you’re eating (shakes, then purées & small portions) doesn’t require as much acid to break it down as part of the digestive process. A PPI, as everyone has suggested, is your best bet until you’re eating more soIid food & larger portions & your body has adjusted to your new needs re acid. Over the counter antacids don’t really help as they may sooth the symptoms of excess acid (heart burn) not the cause. PPIs reduce the production of the acid.

But do speak with your medical team.

I was required to be on a PPI for the first 3 months after surgery. I'll reduce my dose for months 4-6 and after 6 months, I think I'll completely go off it- with my doctors blessing, of course

I also agree with everyone above. Leave out the Pasta and rice, bread, pita etc and you will have more success on your weight loss journey. All of those are a hard no for me simply because they are not good for us. Plus if you eat them often, your body will crave them.

I've lost a total of 60 lbs! Fifteen was during the preop diet and 45 since surgery on May 1. So flipping excited. I haven't done pictures yet. We do those the first of each month.

Good Morning! I'm new here. I had my gastric sleeve surgery on July 26. I'm having pains mostly on my right side, but nothing I can't push through. Still have occasional pain in my left shoulder but I think its getting better. I'm waking a total of 30 minutes a day, but broken up. I'm doing well getting my Water down but the Protein Shakes are hard. I'm ready for total healing to be complete. Thank you for letting me share.

Finally. Surgery day is here! God, I can't do this without You.
I completed my 14-day clear liquid sugar-free and caffeine-free diet along with some Protein Drinks. I didn't cheat once. That in itself is a miracle! I've lost 10 lbs. during this time, and 25 lbs. overall (since January 1st). I was placed on prednisone (steroid) twice this past Spring, which set me back. It causes. much weight gain whenever I'm on it and it takes many weeks to get the weight off. So as I was losing, I'd gain weight while on that medication. So frustrating, but it's behind me, hopefully forever.
These two weeks really prepared my mind for this journey moving forward. I will work to continue strengthening this new mindset. Not easy, right? I appreciate the input this forum - you beautiful people - has provided. I hope optimal health and strong minds for you all.
Onward! 💟

Finally. Surgery day is here! God, I can't do this without You.
I completed my 14-day clear liquid sugar-free and caffeine-free diet along with some Protein Drinks. I didn't cheat once. That in itself is a miracle! I've lost 10 lbs. during this time, and 25 lbs. overall (since January 1st). I was placed on prednisone (steroid) twice this past Spring, which set me back. It causes. much weight gain whenever I'm on it and it takes many weeks to get the weight off. So as I was losing, I'd gain weight while on that medication. So frustrating, but it's behind me, hopefully forever.
These two weeks really prepared my mind for this journey moving forward. I will work to continue strengthening this new mindset. Not easy, right? I appreciate the input this forum - you beautiful people - has provided. I hope optimal health and strong minds for you all.
Onward! 💟

Surgery was successful. Pain I could definitely do without. But 🎶 I’m still alive 🎶

Day 8 of my 14-day liquid diet/liver cleanse. It's not as bad as I thought. I made sure no food is sitting in clear sight, which helps a lot. And it's a good thing I like sugar-free Jello! Looking forward to getting this surgery behind me. I'm scheduled for gastric bypass next Tuesday, with the sleeve as a Plan B (depending on how extensive the scar tissue is from previous abdominal surgeries). Onward! Hope everyone is doing well!

I disagree with the idea that goal weights aren't important. If having a goal weight motivates you, go for it.
I had three goal weights. My first was to get to "overweight" BMI. My second was to get to "healthy" BMI. My final was to get to Ideal Body Weight. I ultimately achieved all three and got down to 146.5.
Now, in maintenance, my goal is to stay under 150. So far so good.
Having an ambitious goal weight really pushed me during the final months when the weight loss slowed and it would have been easy to back off.

This might make you roll your eyes, but I like to say that you don't choose your goal weight -- your goal weight chooses you. You can't just pick a number and will your body to get to it. I feel strongly that the non-scale victories are far more important than the number on the scale. I wanted to lose enough weight to get rid of diabetes and hypertension, to wear non-plus size clothing, to fit into a restaurant booth, to walk up a few flights of stairs without ending up winded and drenched in sweat, etc. If you get to that point and the scale says 10 pounds higher than the arbitrary number you picked, so what?
That said, when I had my psych evaluation, the psychiatrist wanted me to say my goal weight (probably just to make sure I had realistic expectations), so I went with the average weight loss for gastric bypass. There are a lot of online calculators for this, and I think I used 70% of my excess weight to arrive at a specific number (I ended up losing 100% of my excess weight). Here's another calculator that uses a lot of data from actual WLS patients to give more precise predictions based on more specific parameters:
https://mbsc.arbormetrix.com/Registry/public/calculator/uiCalculator/7?menuId=1013

I sure hope so. I know I need to get back my positive attitude (like during my pre-op dieting, when I lost about 30 lbs in as many days). It's just hard with all the other things happening to me right now with the weight loss stall, insomnia, night cramps, skin issues, and lack of energy. I really just want everything to balance out already. Thank you for the encouragement, though.

you're not very far out yet - you may change your tune about the bypass. The first few weeks can be rough, regardless of the surgery type.

I was four square opposed to WLS because I told myself that if I got serious I could do it with diet and exercise. The problem I kept running into was I could go a week and be completely compliant with my plan, but it only took one moment of lost focus and the resultant binge undid the whole week of perfection. Eventually an article about weight loss turned out to be an article on WLS and my interest was piqued. I then began my research.
Back when I had surgery VSG was not a thing. My choices were Lap-Band, RNY, or DS. I researched each thoroughly, to the extent that when my surgeon asked my preference and why I was able to go into detail about each procedure and why I chose what I chose.
Initially I wanted the Band because it was 'less invasive' and it could be easily reversed. I decided 'less invasive' was not a reason to have one surgery and not another, what was important is which surgery would give me the best results. In relation to the Band specifically, after some soul searching I knew that if things got hard I would sabotage myself until the Band just had to be taken out and I would be worse off than when I started. While the other surgeries can technically be reversed, it is much more difficult and only done in extreme circumstances. Basically, no matter what happened I would have to make the best of it, which really is my default outlook. I needed a surgery that was forever.
So I was down to RNY and DS. The DS generally had better long term results. Back then their was no restrictive aspect to the DS it was totally malabsorption. There were also many reports of some patients losing too much weight and having issues getting up to a healthy weight. Even then surgeons were getting better at preventing that, so this was probably not going to be an issue for me. But, DS folks often talked about being able to eat anything in just about any volume and still losing weight. This was a problem for me, because I was a binge eater and I wanted to change my habits and I didn't feel the DS would push me in that direction.
Here I am at the RNY. I wanted the malabsorption to give me that slight edge to get my digestive system on board with my goals. Of course the restriction was what I wanted to teach me to limit my portions and prevent my binging. I also wanted the 'complication' of dumping as this would keep me away from sweets. Binging and sweets are a bad combination and I felt the RNY would address both. So I chose RNY.
As it turned out I do dump on both sugar and fats. It took an amazingly few dumping episodes to learn to stay away from sugars and fats, so that problem was addressed quickly. It also took amazingly few episodes of one bite to many to learn not to, so my binging was addressed. I got everything out of my RNY that I hoped I would. Here I am 20 years later, and my restriction is still in full force. Eating to plan is so natural and normal I don't even think about it.
Good luck,
Tek

Apologies in advance for the long post!!
Hello everyone! I had my surgery July 12th! I am a little over a week post op! Here’s a little bit of insight for those interested!
Before surgery I was given a whole bunch of stuff as well as some antibiotics in which I had an allergic reaction to and made me break out in hives. It was super uncomfortable considering I was then wheeled to the operating room shortly after. I couldn’t do anything about the itching as I had to lay in a particular way and kept thinking “I hope they put me to sleep under soon” because it was soooo uncomfortable.
After waking up I could barely open my eyes, and at some point I stopped trying but I was still aware of my surroundings for a bit. I just remember shivering and feeling extremely cold. My entire body was aching and I kept getting these chills of pain run through my body. I was in and out so I didn’t even remember leaving the operating room and into the post op room.
If I am being completely honest the pain was at its highest the day of the surgery and thankfully the medications they gave me were strong or else I didn’t think I would be able to bear it. I pushed myself to walk about 3-4 hours after surgery even though I wasn’t pushed to, I felt like I needed to?? (Idk my brain was all over the place). I just couldn’t stand laying down for all this hours so if it meant walking to use the bathroom to get out of bed then so be it.
I kept trying to push through it and walk walk walk. They were not kidding about the walking and how it helps with gas pains. The gas pains were so bad for me, it felt like bloating(?) just everywhere..the gas pains wow..
My entire stay everyone was super nice and attentive! My surgeon was also kind enough to fulfill my request in taking a picture of my stomach after he took it out! (I personally found it very fascinating!!)
I was finally discharged the next day after being able to handle Water and Soup about 4oz for 5 hours consecutively. And I was very homesick and really missed my bed (and pets).
By day 5 though I felt pretty good and a bit back to my normal self for the most part.
Until day 5 I could NOT stomach regular water. For some reason I could not stand the taste of it?? It tasted disgusting and I had to keep drinking Gatorade or mixing my water with daily hydration flavored packets.
After day 5, I was able to stomach Protein Shakes (mixed with collagen) and was super happy about the progress.
There hasn’t been any complications and for that I am thankful, I didn’t check in sooner as I was busy trying to consume fluids every 15 minutes (I got tired of the timers soooo quick).
An app that has been a staple for me personally is Baritastic, love the easy platform and the visualization of the water goal for the day as well as being able to log in my weight. It breaks down my goal into little milestones and basically an all in one app as I can also log in food and tracks weightloss from before and after surgery as well! I also lets me keep count of the days after surgery and my BMI! Highly recommend this app, especially because it’s free
Apologies for the long post! I wanted to be thorough and detailed especially for those that are still waiting to have surgery! I cannot think about anything else to write but if anyone has any questions, please let me know! I’ll be happy to respond and as open as possible! I cannot wait to start puréed food though!! 😩

Going into surgery now. Nervous but ready!

Day 8 of my 14-day liquid diet/liver cleanse. It's not as bad as I thought. I made sure no food is sitting in clear sight, which helps a lot. And it's a good thing I like sugar-free Jello! Looking forward to getting this surgery behind me. I'm scheduled for gastric bypass next Tuesday, with the sleeve as a Plan B (depending on how extensive the scar tissue is from previous abdominal surgeries). Onward! Hope everyone is doing well!

Just as something to consider: Dr Matthew Weiner (his you tube videos are great) posted this about lunch meats & other ‘protein’ Snacks recently. Maybe try cooking up a little chicken breast or thigh or turkey yourself & freeze small portions to defrost as snacks. You could marinate it, add your own herbs & spices for flavour. I’d sometimes buy a quarter BBQ chicken from the supermarket eat some as a meal & freeze the leftovers in small portions for snacks.
I did eat pork sausages when I first got to solid foods. I got them from my butcher who makes his own & not those mass produced highly processed supermarket ones.
PS - I did run & check my Protein bars for the 10:1 ratio. Mine are little over, oops, but I’m 4 yrs out so not as important.

I had my surgery on Monday. The gas pain in the shoulders was the absolute worse. However my blood work showed that I have some internal bleeding. I had to have a blood transfusion today. They did a CT scan as well today to see what is going on and they confirmed I have blood pooled behind some organs. They also saw a bleed on the CT scan but it was from on the incisions for the surgical tools. HOpefully if my hemoglobin levels out and I don’t lose anymore I can go home tomorrow.

Had my surgery this morning. Doing ok. No incision or tummy area pain (yet). I had a Tummy Tuck 15 years ago so where the big incision is, is half numb from that and I think is helping with that pain now. Gas pain comes in waves but not too bad. Walking on my own. My biggest problem is nausea. Im getting Water and ice down, but they smooshed some pill in water (twice) and got sick each time. I’m pushing right along! Hope my other July buddies are doing well!

Just wanted to check in with the July People. I had my Gastric Sleeve on July 6th. No Complications, as of today I am 14 lbs lights so thats 2 weeks after surgery. I had very mild pain, returned to work after 6 days. Check up with the doctor today and he says Im recovering well and quickly. I been stuck at 14 lbs lost for 3 days now, so I hope to break that this week. My goal for the Month is at least 20 lbs.
I wish everyone else the speediest recovery and prayers as well.
Kinda got to say...don't really like my chewable vitamins that much....may need to look at other option/brands.