onikenbai

Pickles!?! What a strange exception. I assume dill pickles only as the bread and butter pickles are full of sugar?

The amount of caffeine in a tea really isn't significant, so I wouldn't worry about hunting down caffeine free diet iced tea. We are generally told to avoid caffeine, but moderate consumption shouldn't really be a problem. One cup of coffee a day probably won't make that much of difference one way or another. You may also be told to steer away from coffee in general, but that's not necessarily due to the caffeine. There are oils in coffee that are extremely irritating to the stomach lining and those are NOT removed when making decaf coffee. If you have a touchy tummy, decaf will be just as bad as regular.

There's a lot of variables which need to be considered when choosing which surgery is best for you. Your starting weight, co-morbidities and your lifestyle all are big factors. RNY does take the weight off faster but you will likely be severely restricted in what you can eat for the rest of your life and you will be at risk for malnutrition forever. Bands can slip or leak and can be frustratingly slow. DS has a high rate of complication. They all have their downsides. Which surgery is for you should be a decision between you and your doctor, not you and your friend who is not a doctor, nor does she play one on TV. I have friends who have had RNYs, VSGs, bands, DS... the whole range. Each of us tends to be on the side of promoting our own surgeries as the best out there because that's what was the best for us. Keep doing your research and take opinions with very large grains of salt. Eventually you'll figure out which is the best for you.

Mine is about an inch below my xiphoid process right smack in the middle. It's nowhere near any of my incisions and was nowhere near any of the bruising after my surgery. Your port location may remain a bit of a mystery until your first fill but trust me, you'll find out eventually.

It's a common phenomenon for you to not feel the feel for a few days. I asked my surgeon why and she just shrugged her shoulders and said it's one of those things. I have the same thing you do: I get a fill and for a day or two I actually feel like they've taken out fluid. But on day three or four it kicks in with a vengeance. I do not pretend to have any actual answer as to why this happens, it just does.

I got told chick pea. Straw seems a little small, but then again, they come in all sorts of sizes! Your band will tighten if you become dehydrated. This is why many of us are tight in the morning: we are slightly dehydrated from not having had anything to drink all night. Try upping your Water intake and avoid caffeine.

Stop drinking coffee as it won't be doing you any favours at this point. It's not just the caffeine, the oils in coffee beans are very irritating to the stomach lining. If you already have swelling and irritation, the coffee is just going to make it worse.

Cut out the rice and corn now. They are both serious sugars and are adding to your hunger rather than curbing it. Cooked carrots are also not your friend. My pre-op diet was entirely food as the shakes came back up faster than they went down. If you want pre-op friendly foods, the list is: Yes boiled/baked chicken or fish (no teriyaki or marinade) avocado -it has good fats & oils all the veggies you can eat raw or cooked fat-free yogurt -plain or coffee nuts in moderation occasional egg or two but not fried tofu coffee/tea/crystal light etc. spices milk light cottage cheese No sugars -white, cane, brown or honey, it doesn't matter fruit -it's all sugar even if it's "natural" Pasta bread rice potatoes or root vegetables cooked carrots cheese fats -including butter, chicken skin, cream Soups noodles fruit bottom yogurt tomato sauce, ketchup, marinades juice

Wise, wise nutruitionist. Mine did not suggest this, but I had a go at some of the shakes ahead of time, only to find myself writhing on the floor in agony ten minutes after the first mouthfull. Yep, I was allergic to ALL the shakes. I tried different brands, the non-soy, non-dairy, gluten-free everything and no go. On the first official day of my 3 week pre-op diet we had to overhaul the whole thing to exclude shakes. It's entirely possible to do the pre-op diet with food only. I managed to lose 31lbs in 30 days of pre-op diet and my liver was fine. There were massive amounts of zucchini and chicken broth involved. I dare anybody to eat 1000 calories of zucchini in one day... You can make a diet-friendly snack with a cup of unlflavoured greek yogurt, minced onion, dill and all the celery you can find. The greek yogurt is thicker so it is more like sour cream and less like yogurt. Dill overload helps too. Of course, you should check with your nut before diving in. I often wonder if the doctors and nutritionists have ever had a go at following the pre-op diet. I wonder how long they'd last? My GP had a go at it once and only made it to day three before she snapped. She nearly bowed down in reverence when I managed to make it the full three weeks without going postal.

Or three... Good thing there was an empty cup in my car because the sliming came back about a half hour after I thought it was all finished! Ninja slime... came outta nowhere, wreaked havoc, and then disappeared into the night.

Ugh. Had my first serious slime today. Not fun. I thought I knew what sliming was, but nobody mentioned projectile sliming! I was under the impression that you were able to spit it out, not that it would come hurling out with little warning! :biggrin: And what's with the zero food coming up? I was expecting to cough up a bit of something that I hadn't chewed quite properly but no. Slime, and nothing but the slime.

Depending on individual anatomy, the band can end up rubbing the diaphragm and irritating it, which would result in pain every time you inhale. This is definitely a check with your doctor situation. It could be a passing thing which will resolve itself when the swelling goes down, but a hole in your diaphragm is a much more serious matter that can result from ignoring something like this.

Pilates. It's all about the belly.

I had my first two fills only a week apart, and they were fairly aggressive fills too. The first was 4cc and the second 2ccs. If you have zero restriction, which is highly possible after your first fill, why wait? You had your surgery only two days after I did and I just had my fourth fill today. I'm now going in 1/2cc increments until I get to my sweet spot because I'm not looking forward to not being able to swallow my own spit either. That happened today with one of the people getting filled, but the overfill was caught before she got out the door. My doctor makes you camp out in the lobby for a while after your fill to prove you can get a cup of Water down. Because it was caught so early they only had to take a bit out, not do a complete unfill.

Both have an equal degree of suckage but after your surgery you have the added pressure of all the people who know why you had your surgery to be scrutinizing you and making comments like "Well....?!?" as they stare at you. Maybe it's just me though.

Hey, it could be worse. You could live in Canada where there is zero chance of you getting covered for lap band and you have to pay the full $18K yourself.

I've had my third fill now and am still hungry. It may take a few to get you going. I have another on Monday and I'm hoping this one will get me serious restriction. I have only a tiny bit now after my third fill. The slow start is just one of those things we have to deal with. It's a bummer, but the alternative is an RNY or a DS, which is what a lot of us are tring to avoid.

It sounds like food poisoning. If you were fine before you went to bed I doubt you were stuck.

Step away from the scale.:tt1: Put a towel over it or something. Now don't go near it for the next two to three weeks. Healing is not the time to be watching your weight go up and down like a yo yo, which is what it is probably going to do.:thumbup:

Zucchini, eggplant, avocado, celery, RAW carrots, baked fish, baked chicken, lettauce, raw cabbage, squash, green peppers, non-fat yogurt, milk. That is what I ate for three weeks. Zero shakes. You can make a decent snack out of celery stalks in a dip of plain yogurt with tons of dill and onion in it. No sugar, fats, potatoes, rice, cooked carrots, misc. tubers, corn, starch, cheese or yogurts with fruit on the bottom.

As I'm allergic to ALL the shakes (and yes, I have tried the whole lot) I had to modify the pre-op diet in a big way and have an all food pre-op diet. It is possible to stick to the pre-op instructions while still eating real food. I ate a lot of home made chicken Soup. Had to be home made because the store bought didn't fit the bill. I got low-sodium chicken broth and threw in a ton of zucchini, eggplant, celery and chicken breast, and just the smallest amount of squash for sweetness. Add lots of basil and presto, diet-conforming real food. No cooked carrots, rice, noodles, potatoes or other stuff that was strictly off limits. I did ok by losing 31lbs in 30 days, and I was hungry only the first two or three days as I adjusted. If the prescribed pre-op diet is making you dizzy and crampy, and you're going to cheat anyway because of it, talk to your surgeon to see if you can get some approved actual foods to eat.

A big part of it is that boredom eating is much harder. If you are determined you can do it, but it is hard to stuff an entire cheesecake into a golf ball. I still eat chips on occasion, but only about 5. After that there's no room at the inn.

No, there doesn't appear to be one single right way to do it. There are an awful lot of similarities among methods, which is why we're all pretty much unanimous on the badness of eggs five days out. The length of the liquids and mushies phases, exactly what foods should be eaten when, and when you can move back into full food is variable depending on surgeon. For me I did a week of thin liquids, a week of full liquids like pureed bean Soup and then mushies. I've heard of some people doing a full four weeks of liquids before going on to mushies. It all depends on your surgeon.

It's just Water. Your weight can vary as much as 10lbs depending on your hydration state. Right after the surgery you were super hydrated, then you probably lost a lot in the day or two after, and now you're building it back up again. Plus, when you starved your liver during the pre-op diet you dumped a huge amount of water weight. Now you're probably eating carbs a bit again so your liver is stocking the carbs back up. It takes 2x the water to store 1 unit of energy. Water is very heavy. I would say anything your scale tells you within two-three weeks of the surgery should be taken with a large grain of salt.

It's a bit early for you to be eating solids, even eggs. Tomato soup I don't really see the problem. At this point you want scar tissue to form and cement your band into place a bit, and for this to happen you don't want any pressure on the band. If you're eating solids you may get pressure on the band and you won't heal properly in the right place. Short term gain but long term detriment. You're going to be hungry and there isn't a lot you can do about it. It's just a phase we all have to go through. My instructions were pretty much limitless liquids after the surgery to kill the hunger. You can puree more substantial Soups like bean and bacon to help a bit.