Jenfs5

Ok I tried the yogurt by itself and it did not give the gas pain, but I did notice today that I had a little bit of gas pain. So I think it is just from eating or maybe a combination of foods. And ass for eating I posted this in another spot but I want to post it here too so I can get more feedback. One thing that i have been eating is pureed chicken with some salsa a little cheese and a little bit of refried beans ( i found a use for them...LOL) It is actually really tasty, and when I am at work and people come in the break room they ask me what it is because it smells so good. I am not sure if I am eating too much or not though. What I have been doing is cooking 2 perdue perferct portions chicken breasts ( I think they are 6 onces each) and then pureeing them and splitting it 3 ways to make 3 meals so I guess that is about 4 ounces each. Then I add the salsa, cheese and refried beans. I have been also eating green giant frozen green beans with almonds ( but have not been eating the almonds) and I eat half with lunch and half with dinner and have a SF jello with lunch and dinner. Does this sound like it is on par with what you guys are eating?

One thing that i have been eating is pureed chicken with some salsa a little cheese and a little bit of refried beans ( i found a use for them...LOL) It is actually really tasty, and when I am at work and people come in the break room they ask me what it is because it smells so good. I am not sure if I am eating too much or not though. What I have been doing is cooking 2 perdue perferct portions chicken breasts ( I think they are 6 onces each) and then pureeing them and splitting it 3 ways to make 3 meals so I guess that is about 4 ounces each. Then I add the salsa, cheese and refried beans. I have been also eating green giant frozen green beans with almonds ( but have not been eating the almonds) and then I eat half with lunch and half with dinner and have a SF jello with lunch and dinner. Does this sound like it is on par with what you guys are eating?

Yeah, I too moved to mushies about 2-3 days earlier than my week three. But I told the doc and he was ok with it. The bad news is I ate a cookie today :thumbup:. My sister made these cinnabon cookies and they just looked so good and it was the last one so I ate it. I feel guilty but I sure did chew chew chew... I am also starting to notice that the amt I was eating and was fine with is now starting to not seem like so much. And I am feeling like I want more food. I have not felt anything that feels like restriction yet, I think I have been going on just the swelling and will power alone. But now I am afraid that it is not enough and I do not want to gain any weight back. I sure have not lost any since last week which in itself is a huge bummer. On the bright side though I have decided that I actually like my chicken pureed better than eating it regular..LOL. I was never much of a meat eater because it gets all stuck in your teeth and I did not like chewing it. So I may just keep on pureeing my chicken forever. Today I had my pureed chicken with a little salsa and cheese and it was yummy. Other days I have been just putting a little bar b q sauce or honey mustard sauce on it to give it a little flavor. I bought some refried beans but I am not quite sure what to do with them. How is everyone else eating their refried beans?

Yeah my doc says to eat no less than 20 min and no more than 30 but I only get 3 small meals with protein drinks as snacks. I actually have been eating pretty slowly so that it takes me the whole 30 min to eat the half of a pureed chicken breast and a jello. But today I did not eat any yogurt and I did not get that gas pain... so I am thinking that it may be the yogurt for me. I will try yogurt by itself tomorrow and see if it happens

I agree with restless, definately sounds like something is making your blood pressure drop quickly. It is pretty common to happen from time to time when you stand up quickly. It has a name but I cant think of it right now, something to do with changing positions and the blood pressure drops. But if it is happening frequently or when you are just standing and doind something else then you need to get it checked.

LOL, I never did take my steri strips off. I was told to wait until my two week follow up to have them removed. But my stomach still looks a mess. I had some waterproff bandaids on over my steristrips when I went to the waterpark and had a reaction to them. Well when I got the steri strips off I noticed I had a reaction to them too. so I still have these 4 huge red blotches all around my incisions. It was pretty bad looking but is finally starting to fade, maybe another week or two and maybe they will be completely gone... :thumbdown:

Maybe I will try that. Although I am beginning to think it may be the yogurt. I went to the movies today and instead of the delicious yummy smelling popcorn :thumbdown: I got a mcdonalds fruit and yogurt parfait and had it during the movie and I noticed the gas then too. Maybe I will try and skip the yogurt or eat it by itself and see if it happens again. But it is good to know I am not alone in this, I hope it goes away soon.

Yeah when I was doing my liquid diet it caused my period or maybe spotting to start a few days before surgery which was a week earlier than it should have been. Luckily I do not get heavy periods and I was fine without any protection and after I was up a moving around I just put my underwear back on and I was good to go.

OK, I have a question for everyone who is at mushies or beyond. I am having terrible gas pains after I eat my mushies. It is so bad that it actually hurts to stand up after I eat and then walking around is very uncomfortable for a while too. Is anyone else experienceing this? If you did, does it eventually go away? Am I doing something wrong? I am not eating very much at a time, usually a little pureed meat and then either a SF jello or a yogurt and that is it. Pleae Help......

Wow, still on liquids for two more weeks..thats a bummer. I only had to do liquids for 2 weeks and then moved on to mushies which is where I am currently at. But look at it this way, the longer you are on liquids the more you will lose initially. I know that my loss has either slowed way down or maybe even stalled already. I know it will move again because I still am not eating very much, but I sure did like it when I was seeing a pound or more a day.

Thanks, I will check that out.

Yeah I keep doing that same 2 pound thing too. Isnt that soooooo annoying?

Hi guys. Well I had my 2 week follow up today and got my steri strips removed. I was kinda nervous to go see the doc because I was afraid he would yell at me. I did something I was not supposed to do :ohmy:. This past weekend I went to an indoor waterpark and rode the waterslides..YEs I know I was only 8 days post op but I felt fine by then...LOL. Well I put waterproof bandaids over my incisions and steri strips to try and protect them. Well turned out that I had a really bad reaction to the bandaids and I had these HUGE RED ITCHING WELTS where the bandaids were.. I have been putting benadryl lotion on them and they had gotten better but were clearly still visible. So I just told him that they were from bandages I had put over them because they were seeping and I did not want to stain my clothes...LOL. But what is even funnier is that his wife works in the office and I had called her and told her what I did and what I should put on them, she told me that I had better come up with a good story to tell him and not tell him I went to the waterpark :thumbup:. she could not believe that I was ok enough to climb all those stairs and go on those waterslides ( she has been to the same place). But anyway the good news is that he was not upset and I have lost 9 pounds since surgery YAY. Now I just go for my follow next appointment 5-27-09 and if I have lost 8 or more pounds then no adjustment, but if I have lost less than 8 pounds then he will give me an adjustment. I ate pureed chicken last night and tonight and have had no problems so far. I cant wait to find different pureed foods to eat. Anyone got any suggestions?

Jukebox, yeah I keep feeling the same way. I want the weight to fall of faster because I know I am not eating as much, but it has slowed way down to the point that I have not lost any more weight in about the last 4-5 days. I know that is not a long time but I still want it to be faster..LOL. Well it is back to work for me today. Hopefully I wont be totally exausted by the time I get home tonight. Has anyone else found that they have no energy? I am good for a few hours and then I get so exausted that I feel like I just have to lay down and take a nap. I am assuming it is because of a combination of having surgery and still not eating much/mostly liquid diet and I also was sick for the past few days with a cold. the cold is starting to go away so I am hoping to get some energy back soon. I go in for my follow up appointment this Wed the 29th and then hopefully I will move on to mushies...YAY

I stayed over night and I am glad I did. the IV pain meds were great as was the hospital bed for sleeping. The first night I tried to sleep in my own bed I had a really really hard time due to the gas and then getting out of bed was very painful. At first I did not want to stay overnight but my doc requires it so in the end I was very glad I did.

Yes the chocolate truffel is very good with milk and i never tried it with Water, cant imagine it would be nearly as good...LOL. The 12 pounds I have on my ticker is from the start of my journey to surgery day which was about 2 months. I have since lost 5 more pounds but I have not put them in my ticker. I was kinda waiting to see what the scale says at the doctors office on my two week follow up which will be on the 29th. So hopefully we will see a big jump on the ticker soon :crying: And your 11 pounds is great too. we just have to keep plugging away until we get where we want to be. Let me know how your post op visit goes. I know I cant wait till I can eat mushies either....but I have no idea what I will eat...LOL

Wow, that is odd that the soup would make you nauseous. Especially since ginger is supposed to be an anti nausea spice..LOL Oh well I guess we all react differently to certain foods. I personally have just been buying campbells light soups and straining everything out of them. I have not moved on to the cream soups yet but boy I sure cant wait till I can. I have been craving creamy tomato soup..YUM.

Thanks for the info. I will mention it to my rheumatologist at my next visit. I work in a hospital lab and I have never heard of it, so I will check with our reference lab where we send our tests that we do not do in house and see if they perform the test. I sure hope it works for me, I really do not want to be on coumadin for the rest of my life. My surgeon did actually talk about putting in an IVC filter during the surgery but I did not really want one and I think he forgot about it so I was happy.

I remember when I had to give them to myself. And I am needle phobic. it was the hardest thing i ever had to do...LOL. And they burned like hell too. I dont remember them burning so much when they gave them to me at the hospital this time, maybe because I was on pain meds...oh well who knows.

So far I dont think I feel any restriction. But since I have had only liquid and a little bit of yogurt I am not sure if I could actually tell yet anyway. The good news is that I have only felt hungry once and I just drank another carnation instant breakfast and then went to bed. And sleeping is finally not an issue. The last 2 nights I have had no problem sleeping. IT is a little bit uncomfortable from the gas when I first lay down but then once it settles I feel fine and can sleep. so far so good and I am happy.

i can empathize with you there. I ended up in the hospital 3 years ago with a clot in my arm that went from my elbow to my shoulder. That was without any surgery or anything, come to find out I have an autoimmune thing that makes me prone to clotting. So for this surgery I had to take extra precautions. I had the usual heparin dose that everyone gets when they go into surgery and then I also had Lovenox injections the whole time I was in the hospital and as soon as I came home I was to start taking my aspirin again. Well I wish you good luck and a speedy recovery. Coumadin for 6 months is no fun. I am hoping that the aspirin works for me or I have to do coumadin for the rest of my life and that would really suck.

Well I was tichy right after surgery and during my stay at the hospital. But that for me was due to the pain meds they were giving me. I am allergic to codeine (it makes me itch) and they were giving me dilaudid (hydromorphone) which you are not supposed to take if you are allergic to codeine...hence the itching. But no rashes thank goodness. As soon as I stopped getting those meds my itching stopped. Hopefully all of your itching will go away.

I am starting to feel better. Last night I was able to sleep finally. I still have the gas pains but now they seem to go away when I lay down so sleeping is not an issue. Well I hope it still is not tonight either...LOL. I did not take any pain meds today but I do plan to take one tonight before I go to bed just to make sure that I can sleep. I have actually been hungry today. I have been cheating a little bit. I have decided that I just cant do the protein shakes with water and have been using my fat free lactaid milk instead and I had a little bit of yougurt, in addition to my soup broth that I have been eating. I just hope I dont get too hungry that this stuff does not satisfy me. i have noticed my scale finally going down some and I hope it keeps on going . Good luck to everyone and I hope everyone that has to go to work tomorrow or soon is OK.

Clear liquids means water based things only. So no milk for the protein shake, no pudding or yougurt, no cream based soups. It is actually harder than I thought to stick to that because broth is just icky and it only has 5 calories per cup, so I have been just making regular non creamy soups and eating the broth from that. I am supposed to be on clear liquids for week one, then for week two can progress to full liquids, week three pured foods and week four soft foods. But I may be moving up the full liquid phase a little bit.

Yeah I am having a hard time getting in all of my fluids too. Today I drank about half of my protein shake this morning, I had some water and then for lunch I had a cup of vegetable soup and just ate the broth. for dinner I made a campbells microwavable bowl of soup and just ate the broth and had some more water and crystal light. I just hope I dont get dehydrated. I had to ride to the ariport 2 hours away today to pick up my niece and it was not too bad. I was expecting it to be worse after my horrible night of trying to sleep. I think I might be starting to feel better. The only bad thing is that my pain medicine is these huge pills that I have to cut up into little pieces. My doc does usually give a liquid pain medicine but since I am allergic to codeine he could not give it to me. They were giving me IV dilaudid in the hospital and it made me itch all over but worst of all on my face. Well anyway sorry for the long rambling post, my thoughts are still a little disconnected... I am hoping tomorrow will be much better yet.