ouroborous

Thanks for asking this question. I'm being sleeved on Thursday and I'm a worrier. I know that the most likely complication from the surgery (aside from dehydration) is a leak, so I was wondering what it felt like so I could tell the normal aches and pains from a leak. It sounds like a "if you have it, you'll know it" situation -- it doesn't sound like the symptoms are at all subtle.

Yes, I think you will absolutely need this. While we all hope to eventually ditch the CPAP, on "the way down," you'll still need it for a while, and if your pressure is too high, it can impede your sleep as much as if it's too low (in fact, if it's too high, it can even cause a kind of apnea known as central apnea). The problem is that most insurance plans won't spring for a sleep study more frequently than 6 mos to a year. Even if they do, your copays may be exorbitant if you have crappy insurance like me (who says high tech companies all have great benefits?) Fortunately, most CPAP's can be adjusted by their owner if you know the magic code (usually it involves holding down certain buttons while you power it up). You can search on Google for the info on how to set yours. Note that technically you're not supposed to do this, only the doctor is. Practically speaking, however, it's a necessity. My girlfriend has already had to lower her CPAP pressure 4 times since her November sleeving, and I bet she's nearly ready to go off the machine entirely.

My girlfriend (who was sleeved in November) had quite a bit of hair loss, but it's coming back in strong and healthy. She's still quite self conscious about it, but I can tell that it's growing back. I know it must be scary, but just keep in mind that the hair loss is not baldness, it is a temporary thing, and that it's hopefully a small price to pay for a lifetime of slim good health! Think of it this way: you can always wear a hat to cover temporarily thinning hair, but a hat won't help your diabetes or cancer or coronary artery disease. Edit: as a guy who shaves his head, I'm probably not the MOST sympathetic ear on this, but still... it's temporary!

I'm hoping to eventually "wean off" the omeprazole (which is great, huzzah for generics!), but I won't even try until 6-12 mos out, and even then not without talking to the doctor first.

Well, even without reading the research, I assumed that there were homeostatic mechanisms that would lead to a "rebound" effect when coming off the acid blockers. My intent for a long time has been to take the PPI's for a "while" (3-6 months, say), and then, under doctor supervision, begin a process of weaning off them. This just firms up my intentions.

My surgery is on Thursday, early in the morning. I'm starting to get nervous! On a positive note, when I weighed myself this morning, I weighed 319.6 (down from 330). That must be an error, because I can't believe that my low carb (but not low fat or low cal) diet made me lose 10 pounds in a week!

So, I'm curious what people are averaging for excess weight lost. Most of the medical journals and sites I read about the VSG are pretty consistently saying 60% EWL. However, the anecdotal numbers my surgeon mentioned, as well as the weight loss tickers around here, would seem to indicate that the percentage lost is higher than 60% -- closer to 80-90% is what I'm seeing (I see a LOT of long-term sleevers who are at or below their goal weight). For reference, I'm 6'1 (well, 6'0.75") and weigh around 330. My "ideal weight" -- with a BMI of around 25, is 185'ish. That means I have 145 lbs to lose. So, 60% of that is around 90 lbs, but 80% is 116 lbs. I'm hoping for 100 lbs, but I'm curious what the "real" numbers are. I'm sure that the surgeons/surgical centers want to inflate the numbers, but again -- the tickers around here would seem to indicate that 80% is a much more reasonable target. Anyone? Edit: you can calculate your BMI here. To get the amount of "excess" weight you lost, figure out what a weight corresponding to a BMI of 25 for your height is, subtract that weight from your starting weight to get your "excess" weight. The amount you lost divided by that last figure is the percentage of excess weight lost.

All really good advice! Thanks! I think I'll do okay, since my girlfriend will be with me for the first four days (Thurs.-Sun.) and helping me to remember to do things like sip and walk, even when I'm tired or have cloudy brain syndrome (CBS).

Yeah, that's one real benefit of dating another sleever: I get someone to ask "is this normal?", and we don't have to worry about one of us eating fast and trying to "keep up."

One week from today, I will be in recovery from my 7:30am surgery and probably still in pain and woozy. Since it's an outpatient procedure, I'll be back home by now, but the hospital where they do the surgery is less than 15 minutes from my home. I hope I have a smooth recovery; my girlfriend's recovery was almost trivial (and she had a more involved surgery than me, repairing a huge hiatal hernia at the same time). Trying not to freak out...

To be honest, it's probably better to get this done earlier rather than later, especially if you have a family history of obesity. It's extremely unlikely that things will get better, weight-wise.

I figure that for the first 4-6 weeks, I'm not going to eat much. Just enough to "keep body and soul together" and get my Protein in. That plus the hydration will be enough to keep me busy! After 6 wks, my surgeon says, your stomach has >90% of its original structural strength, so the risk of actually HURTING yourself from overeating is much lower. I'm WAY more worried about leaks and injury than I am about not getting in that one last bite...

Well, if all goes well, one week from now I'll be home from surgery -- in pain, doped up, and past the worst of it. I can tell I'm going to need a valium or something!

The bottom line is that VSG is WAY safer than being obese is. WAY safer. Even for young people, your risk of dying from obesity is a ZILLION times higher than your risk of dying from an uncomplicated laparoscopic surgery like VSG. So if people are arguing that you shouldn't get the surgery because of the risks, you should point this out. Of course, the "safest" way to get skinny is through diet and exercise. But for this, you have to factor in the 95% failure rate. When you do this, the safety numbers drop dramatically and VSG starts looking good again.

I did a little research and most of what I read concurs with Tiffykins response -- the conventional wisdom is that there IS no dumping with VSG. However, stomach transit time is dramatically reduced with VSG (which is one reason why alcohol can affect us so strongly). Dumping isn't just the result of no pyloric valve, it's the result of basically zero transit time into the intestines for the RNX crowd. If our stomachs empty super-fast post-VSG, we could get all of the symptoms of dumping, even with an intact pyloric sphincter. So I think it's possible that there could be a bit of "dumping lite" with VSG. Of course, we're not SUPPOSED to be eating high-sugar foods or drinking alcohol, so you could argue that even this "dumping lite" might be a blessing in disguise, forcing us to eat healthier! Again, I'm not a doctor, just going off of what my surgeon told me.

All I know is that my surgeon specifically told me that dumping DOES happen to a percentage of VSG patients. I don't understand the mechanism either, but I'm inclined to trust my surgeon's word :001_smile:

It's dumping. Sadly, you can get dumping syndrome with VSG, too. I'm mildly annoyed by this fact, because NOT having dumping was one of the things that attracted me to VSG over gastric bypass.

My girlfriend was sleeved in November, and she was my inspiration to get sleeved in a week. So yes, there are people who do this with their significant others. I think that like almost all "self improvement" type projects, it helps to have someone else who's going through the same stuff as you!

Oh, thanks for reminding me -- I gotta ask for that Valium, since I'm a bit of nervous patient!

My surgeon said no NSAIDS (after the surgery) but only large pills. He said that large pills can get a little "stuck," and the result is that all of the medicine is released in one location, right up against the stomach wall. He said that can result in ulcers. So, from what I understand of what he's saying, it's not that NSAID's are specifically bad for lap sleeve, it's just a mechanical thing. But the end result is the same. I always preferred Tylenol anyway; my PCP said that the liver toxicity is way overplayed; unless you OD on them, Tylenol is very safe.

I'm sorry to hear about your complications, brother. Hopefully it's nothing life-threatening, and you'll make a speedy recovery!

One thing that I wish was discussed more often in the media is that obesity is not -- and should not be -- a moral issue. By this I mean that we shouldn't treat fat people as "bad" and thin people as "good." Yet, I recently read a study (Perception: Skinny people aren't lazy but overweight people are) about how cultural perception is that fat people doing the same thing that thin people are doing are perceived as "lazy." Here's an interesting discussion of this point, coming from a libertarian angle; the idea is that it's YOUR body. If you want to wreck it through being obese, that's your business, just like if you choose to smoke or drink. There is a counter-argument that there are social network costs of being obese, but these hardly justify the shaming. We don't shame people as extensively for not wearing their seatbelts, and yet the costs to society for this behavior are also large. davidinman(.net) Obesity, Morality, and Shame My primary care doctor said to me (some years ago) that we'd all be better off once we learn to treat obesity as a medical issue, not a moral one. In other words, if you're very fat, you're not a "bad" (lazy, dirty, slothful) person, but rather potentially an unhealthy one. By doing this, we can stop shaming people who, let's face it, are already ashamed enough, and we can start actually treating the causes and effects of this illness.

Well, the truth is that this IS the easy way out. The thing is, it's also the SMART way out -- the other "ways out" don't really lead "out." That's like saying that not crashing your car into a wall is the "easy way out." Yes... technically... For anyone who knows the amount of work required post-op, the pain, the cost, the restrictions, the fear... it's not EASY. It's just EASIER -- not to mention safer, and smarter -- than the constant merry go round of dieting. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I know! I have been hungry ALL the time. Fortunately, my diet is not low-fat or low-calorie, just low-carb. I've discovered that skim milk string cheese are essentially zero grams of carbs and these have been my savior (plus sugar free Crystal Lite when I have a sweets craving; I never used to have sweets cravings until I couldn't have sweets any more!)

They make home nugget ice machines. Sadly, the cheapest one I could find was around 3 grand... Some day, when I'm rich...