Tiffykins

Nausea is typically only a temporary side effect, and I only had it with other medications like antibiotics, or when introducing new foods through the post op diet. The throwing up thing typically occurs early out while your stomach is still swollen and you have to chew it well so it can go down. All of the horrible crap with the band is nothing like the little things that are minimally bothersome, and typically very temporary with the sleeve. The band vs. the sleeve is like night and day.

Today, I had a parent/teacher conference with Caysen's reading teacher. She has not seen me since November/December, and I've dropped another 30-35lb since then. Anyways, she told me, not only do you look fabulous, you carry yourself so differently now. She also said " you have a sense of peace around you, and you seem softer, not that you were hard before, but you seem more at ease with yourself and you sound happy." Now, this woman knows I had surgery, but we've never discussed my weight or my surgery in depth. She's never really talked to me about my appearance even though we've been working together with Caysen's school stuff since we've been here. So, it was awesome that she was able to sense these changes in me even with minimal face to face contact.

Carla, many congrats on your sleeve, and rest up. Your body definitely needs it. Sip, walk, rest then repeat often. Take care of yourself, and we're all cheering for you ! ! !

I have not ventured into making these yet. It's supposed to storm here this weekend so maybe I'll give them a try tonight. I've fallen love with the Thomas Bagel thins. I've several of the ingredients in my pantry for these. John was stubborn about trying them when I went out of town, and he probably wouldn't have eaten them unless I was here to encourage it. LOL

I have never been a fan of breakfast food items. Is it that you don't want to eat breakfast foods, or is it that you feel more restriction in the morning and it's more difficult for you to get food down? My tastes changed significantly as well. I found myself eating leftovers from the night before dinner, or making other options for my morning meal. I ate a lot of deli meat with cream cheese rolled up, I had to get creative, I over-seasoned food, I did anything to make stuff taste better. I also found having more savory flavors helped since sweet stuff was just too much for me. Do you like Spinach, eggs and cheese? You can make quiches in muffin pan. There's a lot of ideas on allrecipes.com for variety. I know it's tough, but it does get better.

I lost 1/2 of my hair. Pre-op I had significantly thick, coarse hair. I started losing around 3.5 months post-op, and it finally stopped shedding around 6.5 months. There isn't really anything that can be done to stop it, but you can help the new growth. Many use a hair/nail/skin supplement such as Biotin. I never took it on a consistent basis. I actually chose to use Folicure extra care shampoo. I had new growth coming in before the shedding stopped. Here's an interesting article on the causes of it. Anyone that goes through a major surgery, and then major dietary change have hairloss. Telogen Effluvium: eMedicine Dermatology I have tons of new growth popping out of my head everywhere. It's growing in stick straight, and my flat Iron gets worked overtime to tame my chia pet hairs.

I know I definitely didn't get Protein in until I got to full liquids/mushies. I tried my best, but my surgeon was more concerned with hydration than protein consumption the first couple of weeks on the post-op diet. In theory, 2oz of liquid every 15 minutes over the course of the day should get you the 64oz of fluids. Now, once I got to mushies, I found it really difficult to hit my 64oz. because I had to wait 30 minutes after eating to drink. But, it does get better as each week passes.

My surgeon and everything I've read said 60-70% EWL the first year with maintaining around 55-60% further out. I've lost 145lbs in 11 months with the first 113lbs dropping off in the first 6.5 months. I bet once more studies post on the sleeve we'll get better numbers for EWL.

That's absolutely fabulous news ! ! ! You're gonna love the sleeve, and keep us posted on your progress with getting a date set. Many congrats.

Pretty much what your doctor said is what my doctor said. I have found that there really isn't room in there for food and liquid. I can take some small sips if I'm eating something spicy, but honestly, it's not like drinking. It's really just a couple of sips essentially just enough liquid to wet my whistle. I know that I could not drink and eat simultaneously. It's uncomfortable, and I have to get my calories, Protein in so I'll sacrifice the drinking during meals to ensure I get what I need from food.

I had to stop it too pre-op. I think it has to do with the fact that we'll be getting anti-coagulants pre-op, and post-op.

We very well may plan a trip down there this summer when the kiddo goes to Texas for his summer time with his memmie and pappy. . . We'll have to see if John can get leave approved since his colleague just got tasked for a deployment. I feel horrible because they literally have 8 days to prepare, and it came out of the blue just like our deployment happened last year. But, you know if we head down that way, I'll be calling upon you for sure ! ! !

Hey chickee, glad you decided to come back to the darkside ummmwaaahahahaha ! ! !

This is my understanding as well, but the digestion and breaking down of the food definitely starts in the mouth, and is followed through with the stomach, correct?

I also wanna throw out there that a lot of the shrinkage will obviously depend on each of our body types, and how much weight we had to lose, how much we started out at. When I sat down, my stomach would cover the top portion of my thighs. I did carry a lot of fat around my abdomen, but it didn't drop down between my legs if I were sit down and open my legs. Like when I was pregnant, OMG, my stomach dropped so low, especially when the kiddo dropped. But, I was super round, not beer belly. I would post pictures of it here or email them, but after the recent youtube escapade, I'm way too leery to share anything that "exposed" on the internet at all.

Just to clarify, I was not implying that your surgeon is lying or that you shouldn't trust him. I believe this is going to fall under the same category of "per my surgeon" kind of like the soda post sleeve thing, or pre op/post op diet guidelines. Only 30% of RNY patients dump, so maybe we can hope that percentage will be considerably less with VSG. I agree with the motility/transit time. But, look at the consistency of the foods discussed here that caused those issues. At 5 months out, I could have 1 glass of wine, and I was pretty well toast. Now, give me about 4-5 heavy poured rum/cokes, and I might catch a buzz. I do not drink on a regular basis. I might have a glass of wine once a week. By glass, I mean 4oz of a nice Riesling. So, it's not like I've been knocking them back and have built my tolerance back up. It's just different now for me. Obviously, liquids (ice cream/alcohol) are going to hit our intestines faster, and that's where the absorption of glucose occurs. Since it's liquid sugar hitting our intestines, I'm sure some of our bodies are gonna be pissed off. Luckily, I haven't had those issues. So, for me, I can see how the liquid sugars could hit the intestines quicker and cause dumping symptoms because there is very little digestion of sugars by the stomach when they hit the pyloric valve. Plus, our sleeves are much smaller than that big ole stomach we had before surgery that allowed all that ice cream to sit in there for a bit before moving on as quickly. If we saw consistency of dumping with carbs (these stick around a little longer in our tummies), or other high glycemic index foods, I think it make more sense to me. Again, let me say that I'm not arguing, just giving my thoughts on the subject. Also, if we look at people that discuss the dumping symptoms or nausea, it's with liquid sugars, cake icing, ice cream causing these symptoms. Now, I'm all interested to find out if DS patients have this issue with dumping. I mean they have the sleeve, a little rerouting, and some switching going on. So, I'll talk to a few of the DS'ers that I know on OH, and find out. The little bit I do know about DS, they do not dump based on the same theory that the sleeve keeps the pyloric valve intact. Do you dump every time? Do you dump on carbs? Like pizza crust, potatoes, other carbs? I know we've talked about your issues with ice cream and some super sweet slider food stuff, but I don't remember if you get the same symptoms with carbs or maybe fruit? Does regular milk cause you issues as well?

There's several members on OH that have reported leaks out much further out than the 4-6 weeks with VSG and RNY. Grant it, they had some slight symptoms, but not the big red flag waving symptoms. One patient was 4 months out (it took this particular patient almost 1 year to heal and 5 other surgeries), and the other was 7 months out. You can search the members profiles if you would like their screen names, I will share the 2 that I have bookmarked via PM. I'm not going to blast their names all over this forum because it's just inconsiderate. Or, you can go to OH, and use the search feature with "leaks months out" or "vsg leaks later". The stories are out there, you just have to be willing to find them, and you'd be surprised at what you find. I told Tiffany this via PM, and the only reason I did not want to share this out here is because people will freak out. But, it's a fact that it can and has happened. I know it sounds preachy or whatever, but that is why I think it's so absolutely ridiculous to advance the post-op diet more quickly than prescribed by your surgeon. Grant it, I realize they are not gods, but my thought process is that they've been doing this stuff a lot longer than I have been, and well, I probably should trust their experience since I trusted them to excise 85% of stomach out of my body. For me, it's a pretty simple concept, but hey others have done and haven't had any issues. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.

Those are affectionately called IsopuKe in our house. Even my husband thought the devil invented them, and he likes just about anything. I definitely could not drink them post-op. But, some people like making mini popsicles with it in ice trays, or those plastic freezer pop things you can buy at Wal-Mart.

I agree 100%. During rapid weight loss, our livers are tasked 10 times more than during our pre-op life. Throwing Tylenol on top of it, in my opinion, is just asking for your liver to work even harder. I've had the same thing happen with my liver enzymes spiking after taking Tylenol at a mid-dose 500mg every 8 hours (3 times a day) for excessive pain related to a jaw injury/tooth pain. I was single mother with a small child, I could not miss work, therefore I could not take narcotic pain killers. I started puking, sluggish, lethargic, and feeling horrible. Went into my PCP, low and behold my liver enzymes were off the charts. Went off the Tylenol, a relative loaned me the money to have the teeth issue resolved because dental insurance offered through my job sucked, and it was considered oral surgery. Anyways, once I went off the Tylenol, my liver enzymes returned to normal levels. Now, with that being said, my family has a history of liver problems. So, could that have contributed to the issue, definitely. That is why I chose the sleeve over RNY for my revision.

I've used the one on sparkpeople for recipes before I just started throwing stuff into myfitnesspal for entire recipe nut facts. On the bison, it's YUMMY. For me it's not gamey, and I eat venison which can be pretty gamey if it's not cooked properly. For me, Bison is a bit sweeter than ground beef or venison. It's not like sugar sweet, it's kind of difficult to describe. If your tastebuds have changed post-op, I'd wait a bit before trying it and being turned off. But, it's excellent, in my opinion. It's difficult for me to find it here, and I've considered ordering a bulk order of it from here: High Plains Bison - Your Premiere Source for Buffalo Steaks & Buffalo meat It's not cheap by any means. The one time our commissary had it in stock. I paid $6.95/half pound. Yes, $6.95 per half pound. I found it at Publix (our higher end grocery store here), and it was over $8.00 per half pound of ground bison. They have frozen Bison steaks at our commissary, but I'm leery to buy frozen steaks that I can't completely "see" and inspect. I'm just weird like that. So, I haven't ventured into buying bison steaks.

This is the very reason I refuse to go off my Prilosec. I'll be 11 months out in a couple of days, and personally, I'm perfectly content on my PPI until I'm further out. I'm not willing to risk the acid or false hunger issue that many encounter when they go off the PPI. Many congrats on your loss thus far, you're doing fabulous ! ! !

Get counseling first. Honestly, if you are not obese, but have a compulsive, volume eating disorder, I would not suggest surgery. Not to mention that, unfortunately, not every sleeve patient loses their hunger. Many people find that their head hunger is much more intense post sleeve. They want to eat, but they can't so they eat things that go down easy. Even though we have a sleeve, we can still suck down a 2000 calorie milkshake if we want. If you have these compulsions, and can't eat 6lbs of broccoli, what will you turn to in order to feel satisfied? Or, you could find ways to cheat the sleeve. It's not difficult, I promise. I'm the poster child for "what not to eat post sleeve", but I'm not the norm, and have not had any issues losing. They operate on our stomachs not our brains. You could end up being miserable, and possibly not be satisfied with surgery if you do not address the eating disorder. If you do choose to have surgery, just remember that none of the surgeries will fix head hunger, or your compulsions to eat large amounts of food. I understand hunger. I was hungry all the time as well, but I also knew that after 4 pieces of pizza that I'd had enough. I know this probably isn't what you want to hear, but after being through the surgery. Processing all of the emotions that come with it, I can honestly sit here and tell you that this surgery alone will not "fix" the eating issues you acknowledge, and want help with managing. Unfortunately, just removing 75-80% of your stomach isn't going to change the way you view food.

Thank you much. I'm 5'2" short LOL.

I literally searched for almost 3 hours, I called over 10 consignment and formal wear stores, bridal shops etc, in attempts to find a purple/magenta/greenish color bolero/satiny shrug to wear with this dress because I absolutely hate to wear black. I would say almost 85% of my old wardrobe was black, charcoal grey or dark brown. I love to wear color now, and while black is a staple in any woman's wardrobe, I refuse to let it dominate the closet anymore. Thank you so much for all of your sweet comments. You can and will get to your goal with the sleeve.