Unforgettable

It's not my cup of tea, but whatever floats her boat Isn't that what we are here for - support?

Have you been eating right, do you have good restriction or do you need a fill, have you been exercising?

The general guideline I was given is 60-80gm/day for women and 80-100 for men. Now that I'm able to eat regular food, I find myself naturally falling into the middle of that range. If I'm a little low, I might supplement but otherwise am able to get it from food. Every doctor and dietician have different guidelines. For instance, one of my dieticians doesn't like to focus on calories that much, she likes to focus more on protein and carbs and only focus on calories if I'm having problems.

You'll be so glad now that that is out of the way!!! I'm sure you did great, hopefully the computer cut off at 75 questions

Walking around is a great way to get your bowels moving. As far as the meds, I'd just advise to talk to your doctor about it, especially if you're taking any other meds - prescription or over the counter. A lot of over the counter meds interact with prescription meds even though most of us think as over the counter meds being "safe" meds.

I take the chocolate flavored Viactiv for calcium. For my multivitamin, I take the bariatric advantage brand. Once I go through this bottle I'm going to go back to a pill. My dietician said after researching for a paper she published, she found that many of the common vitamins, including one-a-days, only had an absorption rate of less than 40%...meaning that you only get 40% or less of the amount of vitamins actually listed. Yikes! She said the bariatric advantage and one other brand that I can't remember showed an absorption rate of 70%. Crazy

thedailyplate.com has a nice one. I've also heard sparkpeople.com does as well

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about it being on my side like my flank or anything like that, just off center some. I have pictures in my profile of my incisions, the largest being the port one. I'm surprised your doc hasn't heard of it, it seems fairly common. I've heard more people who have their ports off centered some than I've heard of those that have it dead center. It's weird how every doc has their own techniques!

If your doc does it under fluoroscopy, you'll have to drink barium solution. There are different kinds, flavors, etc. The one that I drank smelled like vanilla, and it honestly didn't taste half bad at all it actually matched the smell pretty well. That's not always the case. Plus I only had to take 2 drinks. If you don't have it done under fluoro I think they just require water.

Thanks! It was a pain in the ass to jump through insurance hoops but definitely worth it.

Each day it just gets worse and worse. Journaling is definitely not my thing. I've tried both the online versions and pen and paper versions. I decided to stop doing it because I was at the point where I was doing it for the dietician, not myself. I write down what I eat and when I eat but if I don't have the nutrition info, too bad. Like I said, IF (hopefully never) I start to slow down or plateau then I'll go back to doing it for a few weeks for another trend. Otherwise I want to be free from all former diet trends that I have done!

yea each surgeon has a different protocol. The main thing is low carb/sugar. I had to follow a low carb low fat high protein diet using medifast liquid products, not tasty at all!

I went to my seminar and started the 6 month supervised back in September. My insurance changed its mine twice about whether it would be required or not which delayed thigns. I got approved in April, was going to get scheduled for May or June but between already scheduled trips and unable to get off of work, I decided to pick a July date. And here I am :sad:

I don't think I was gasy or burpy afterwards, but perhaps your stomach is swollen from the irritation which is causing it to do weird things. Just a guess. As far as having a bowel movement - did you have a barium swallow? If so, barium can cause constipation. Make sure you are keeping yourself hydrated. If you didn't have a barium swallow where you had to drink the white chalky stuff, then it probably isn't related to your fill. As always, check with your doctor especially if these problems don't go away.

Hey Agnes! I have an 11-cc realize band-c and have my first fill on August 10. I had an empty band, and they filled me with 4cc. I have pretty decent restriction, and think I'm just another fill away from my sweet spot. Good luck!

Some people do not get hungry, whether it be because they were filled during surgery or they were swollen still. I had pretty good restriction, I could last 3-3.5 hours between meals up until my first fill. I wouldn't let myself go longer than 4 hours without eating. Now that I've had my first fill I can go 4-5 hours. So everyone is different. More than likely you will experience bandster hell, where you have no restriction until your first fill and you're working off will power alone. Good luck!

Hey Sonia, Just so you know, they probably won't actually be sticking the needle in your scab. Your port should be off the the side of the incision, not right under. Mine is up and to the right. I had the same concern as well, and was relieved when they didn't even touch my incision.

I started this journey with my 6 month supervised back in September. My experience has been amazing, I honestly have had no complaints! Dr C is awesome, his NPs are great and his staff is so knowledgeable and helpful. I love that most of the office is banded.

Don't get depressed! A lot of docs don't even fill the band during surgery, so you're still ahead of the times :sad:

Hey Jess! You are able to make all of these changes under your 'user cp.' Click on USER CP at the top of the page on the far left, underneath the before and after polaroids. Once that page loads, you can 'edit signature' or 'edit avatar' as well as other options on the left hand side. No need to join a group per se, although there are groups that you can join on here. But you can continue to post as you have been with no problems.

Your body is still in healing mode. Another reason may be because you went from liquids for so long with significantly lower caloric intake, and now you are eating mushies. It's normal, you've lost a great amount of weight so far and the good thing is you haven't gained. You said you've stuck to everything perfectly, continue to do that and exercise according to your doctors guideline, and give your body some time to heal. Good luck!

hahaha samanthazz thanks for the smile, I know exactly what you mean

The purpose of the pre-op diet is to shrink the size of your liver. If your liver is discovered to be too big when opened up for surgery, many doctors won't perform the procedure because there is a risk of puncturing the liver and other complications. The diet is aimed at shrinking the liver to hopefully avoid that situation from happening.

I think it depends on what type of work you do. I'm a nurse and my job requires heavy lifting, lots of running around, not to mention working 12 hour shifts. I opted to take 2 weeks off but was actually given 3 weeks by work. After 2 weeks I could have gone back but the 3rd week definitely helped. My first week back was extremely hard. Even though I didn't lift the patients, I was on my feet the entire 12 hours, running around, and my stomach and incisions were extremely sore by the end of it. Listen to your body. Even if you haven't had surgery, you probably know how your pain tolerance is. Also think about the type of work you do. You probably won't need 3 weeks, but I think it's better to take off too many days than it is to take off not enough days

The barium swallow is not a big deal. You take a swallow of barium while either standing up or laying down and they take pictures using xray. I've had quite a few, the worst part being sometimes the barium is chalky nasty tasting, but I've also had some where it didn't taste half bad. I've never had an endoscopy myself, but I've prepped enough patients for them. They are a more indepth than a barium swallow. You are given drugs to make you loopy so you'll hopefully forget what's going on, but not to where you need a breathing tube or anything. They pass a tube/scope through your mouth into your stomach, it has a camera type of thing at the end so that the doc can see what's going on down there. Sometimes they take samples and sometimes they don't. A lot of times when people 'wake up' after the procedure, they don't remember it ever having started. I'd say the worst part about an endoscopy is having to have an IV started. Good luck! Just remember this is all part of the process to get to your ultimate goal