BlackBerryJuice

I called in late June to book for August and August was basically empty. So at the most, about a month's wait - I'm sure I would've been able to get in faster, but had some stuff going on on my end til August.

Thanks....I was actually able to get semi-decent sleep the last 2 nights (about 6 hours total, but actually quality sleep), so I'm getting there. I do have to say, this Supradol stuff definitely messes with my mind. It's supposed to be just an NSAID, but when I took it during the day, I felt really loopy and was even slurring my speech a bit. And at night, I have weird dreams and last night I even had a hallucination - I woke up because of noise on the street, and as I was waking up, I saw this strange man standing right by my bed - it was so real, my heart almost jumped out of my chest. Then as I stared at him, he just kind of dissipated.....TERRIFYING. They totally put something other than just NSAIDs into this stuff in Mexico.:wink0:

So as I'm struggling to get enough protein on the clear liquids phase, I remembered an old article in a bodybuilding magazine that mentioned that one can use pasteurized egg whites as a source of protein to mix with other drinks. I just tried 1/4 cup of them with 1/2 cup juice and I can't tell the difference in taste or texture, but I'm getting 7 g of protein with my drink! You should be able to buy a carton at any major grocery store (just confirm they are pasteurized, so you can have them straight out of the carton).

That's a nice thought, but I think all of these fat-suit experiences on various talk shows and studies such as those that showed that obese women holding a Diet Coke received better retail service than those holding a regular Coke have pretty much proven that weight is the #1 issue at hand - not your internal happiness.

So I'm on day 7 and my skin is the clearest it's been in ages! I used to always have problems with rosacea (which always flared up when I ate crap, so my face would be all red and covered in bumps), and with little rashes on my back, chest, and stomach. :bored0:Now all the body rashes have disappeared and my rosacea is nearly gone! Skin cells turn over completely in about 21 days, so I suspect that towards the end of the post-op diet, I'll be ready to model for skin cream ads!

Calories are easiest to get with drinks and fat. Juices, peanut butter, avocado are good options that are easy on the stomach. Good ways to get in protein without having to chug another protein shake is to put some in your oatmeal (my favorite pre-surgery breakfast was oatmeal with 1% milk, chocolate protein powder, and peanut butter - can't wait to have it again!) and to add pasteurized egg whites to your liquid meals, such as broths, jello or protein shakes - of course, make sure the liquid is not too hot, or else the egg whites will cook!

I think it just depends on what your doc told you. Mine said to crush everything. As much as I want to question everything he says, I trust his expertise with the sleeve, so I'm not going to veer away from his instructions unless he ok's it. But if it works for you, hopefully he'll give me the green light, too!

Thanks...I've e-mailed my doc about it, but somehow I suspect he won't ok it until at least the soft foods phase, which is 2 weeks away. Plus, after checking out my multi, I realized I should also be taking iron, as my multi doesn't have enough, so add that to the list!

Icuprapril and I were sleeved by Dr. Aceves (Mexico) a few days apart.

OK, so I feel like a nursing home resident...I feel like I spent half my day drinking some sort of dissolved pill or swishing some pill around my mouth waiting for it to dissolve. I even went and bought a pill crusher that had a picture of a male model who clearly is NOT part of my demographic (he had a combover and was wearing a turtleneck...oh boy). I've been taking: 1) Nexium 2) Biotin 3) B12 4) Chewable multi 5) liquid calcium/vitamin D 6) Birth Control 7) Pain reliever before bedtime Since I can't just swallow a pill like I used to, these take up literally hours of my time. Plus some of them, like the Calcium supplement, have to be taken several hours before or after another pill, so I have to space them all out. Please tell me how soon it's ok to start swallowing small pills whole! I feel like my entire day is centered around shuffling to the kitchen and back to grind and swallow my pills. The only thing I'm missing is a hand-knit cardigan and a walker (already have cats).:frown1:

I had a very different experience with depression back in 2005. When I first started feeling blue, I thought I could turn things around by making healthy changes, basically, same stuff you outlined in your post. However, it didn't work, and over the course of a few weeks I deteriorated to the point where every time my alarm went off in the morning, I'd start bawling. Getting out of bed to go to the washroom was something that would require two hours of convincing myself to do it. On days I made myself get out of the house, I was having obsessive thoughts about crashing my car into houses and trees every time I was behind the wheel. I even didn't have an appetite - the only time in my life I didn't have an appetite and didn't have some sort of stomach bug to blame! Thankfully, I took the step of going to see a counselor and then a shrink and went on Prozac, which made an amazing difference in only 2 weeks. So while taking good care of yourself with proper nutrition and sleep is very important, the significance of pharmaceutical intervention should not be underestimated.

Haha, omg, I got Ambien at the hospital and I had the WEIRDEST dreams ever. I mean, I always have strange dreams, but those really took the cake. One night, I dreamt that the doctors and nurses took the 3 of us who had been sleeved on the same day down to some basement in the hospital and then started performing some crazy Rosemary's Baby-style rituals - I dreamt that our hospital beds were made to spin in circles with us in them, to some bizarre music... yeah, I'll pass on the Ambien, thanks!:frown1:

Hahahah, I like this idea. I was actually thinking of just saying my boyfriend financed it as a gift or something (he makes enough money for it to sound plausible). I ran into a classmate at the clinic the other day as I was sweating buckets in a paper gown (I had some hot flashes the first few days after anesthesia), so since I looked like crap, I had to tell her I was recovering from surgery, but I said I had my gallbladder out. Then she started asking me all these questions about gallbladder surgery (which I know nothing about), so I had to be all vague and general, haha.

If you're gonna be in Edmonton before your surgery and would like to meet up to assuage any fears, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Your friend sounds like a Type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetic, so yes, the VSG should get to her the point where she's off her pills. Type 2 diabetes is basically a case of your pancreas not producing enough insulin to match the amount of sugar/calories you are consuming - just think of it as your pancreas being unable to keep up with your food intake. This is the reason why a lower-calorie/sugar diet helps Type IIs - your insulin demands drop, and your pancreas is actually able to meet them. So by eating less and eating healthier after the VSG, your friend's diabetes should go away. Type I diabetes is another story - you will probably need less insulin, but I wouldn't expect it to be cured for good.

That's impressive...I don't find the post-op liquid diet to be that hard, but I don't think I would've been able to do a pre-op liquid diet...I wanted to kill everyone in my path that one day before surgery where I had to fast for my blood tests, lol.

I've talked to my doctor about my usual insomnia (the one I had before surgery) - I don't have sleep apnea or any other physical issues, and after exploring my family history, she concluded that this is simply a hereditary issue. I do have some sleeping pills that I can take, but she warned me that they are addictive and produce residual insomnia after, so I've reserved them for times when I've had several nights of insomnia preceding a big event and absolutely HAVE to be rested - I've raised the issue originally because my insomnia got so bad, I was missing mandatory classes after not sleeping for like 70 hours straight and getting into trouble with academics because of it. Right now, I'm off from school, so I don't feel like taking the pills, as I don't have very much stress during the day, so I'm just toughing it out. Plus this feels different from my usual episodes - hard to explain, but it's just not the same insomnia I experienced before the surgery. I mostly just wanted to see how long I should expect to be having this and if it might be simply a matter of getting the hospital sleeping pills out of my system.

I've told my family, my boyfriend, and 5 close friends. I want to tell everyone, but there's a little issue. I'm a student who receives a lot of need-based grants, as I've lived away from my parents for 10 years and receive very minimal financial support from them. Part of those grants is financed through everyone's tuition, so there's definitely a contingent of people in my class who are very bitter about anyone who receives need-based scholarships (not that any of these people need money - I have classmates whose parents bought them $1 mil condos to celebrate their acceptance to medical school!). If these people find out I used some of my money to travel to Mexico for the surgery, I'm going to have so much venom spewed at me, that it's just not worth it (mind you, all it means is that I'll be graduating with $160K in debt rather than $150K...haha). I think the stress of keeping it secret from most people will be less than the stress of dealing with that BS. One thing I'm considering is simply telling people I had it here in Canada for free after being on the waitlist for a few years and just not telling anyone about the waitlist.

Has anyone experienced problems with sleep in the first few weeks? Since the surgery, I've only been able to sleep a decent amount on one occasion (about 7 hours total, with one episode of waking up). I spend most of the night tossing and turning, and when I do sleep, it's very shallow sleep - and I'm only getting maybe 3-4 hours of it. I have a predisposition to insomnia, but even so, this is not normal for me. I don't have much pain/discomfort, so I don't think this is what's keeping me up. The only thing I can think of is that I'm weaning off of the sleeping pills they were giving us at the hospital, but I don't know how much longer it will last. Anyone else with sleeping issues out there? I'm hoping this will go away ASAP, as I need adequate sleep to heal faster....

Hello fellow Albertan - I went camping at Rocky Mtn House earlier in the summer and enjoyed it quite a bit! Re: air trapped in the chest. I didn't have any of that post-op gas pain in my shoulders that some others referred to, so if you have good analgesia (I had a spinal in addition to general), you might not experience it at all. As far as later on - I do feel trapped burps in my tummy sometimes, but they feel no worse than my pre-surgery burps did. I just try to let the air come out, but even if I can't, the discomfort usually subsides after a few seconds. I've got lots of air coming out the other end, though, haha. Re: losing weight pre-op. I was almost the same weight as you are (200-202), so I didn't HAVE to lose weight. I actually ate whatever I wanted for the 5 weeks after getting my surgery date without feeling guilty. I put on a few pounds and went into surgery at 208, BUT I had completely gotten the whole ice cream - bacon - cheesecake - Kit Kat thing out of my system. During my last week, I didn't even have any Desserts even though they had them available for every meal at my school caf - I just didn't want them anymore. Less than a week after having the VSG, I've already dropped those residual pounds. Of course, the better you eat before the surgery and the less you weigh, the easier the recovery will be and the less you'll need to wait to get to goal weight. So while I of course wouldn't endorse a free-for-all for a month before the surgery, I wouldn't beat yourself up if you are unable to lose weight. You are not that big, and unless there's a major issue with your liver size that's already been identified, you will probably be fine.

Don't worry about it. I'm on my 5th day post-surgery and I only take a pain reliever before bedtime because I'm a side/belly sleeper, so I end up rolling around and putting lots of pressure on my belly at night, so I need to take the edge off to be able to sleep soundly. I don't need anything during the day. To give you an example of my mobility, today I: 1) drove and walked 4 blocks to my doctor's 2) took the bus and walked 4 blocks to my counselor's 3) drove to a restaurant with friends (had broth from someone else's soup), walked 4 blocks, then we stopped at Petsmart and shopped for about half an hour 4) Drove to the grocery store and spent about 20 mins shopping in there 5) went for a 4-block walk So basically, all the normal stuff except for I walk slightly slower than I normally do, all of this without a painkiller all day. Of course, things like bending down to tie my shoelaces are still a bit challenging, but definitely doable. If your surgery goes well, you should be fine.

This was very inspirational. I haven't experienced some of the issues you mentioned, but I'm sure if I had waited another 5-10 years and packed on another 50 pounds, I would've lived through all of them. Congratulations on taking control of your health and living life to the fullest.

Good luck with your surgery. I'm 5 days out and it's surprisingly easy - both in terms of pain and resisting temptations. Regarding weight loss, I've noticed that folks in the 30-35 range seem to be drop an average of 10 lbs per month over the first 4-6 months (at which point they seem to be pretty close to a BMI of 25 and slow down a bit). There are obviously variables - whether you're exercising, whether you're having sugar-free drinks or opting for things that are higher in calories, whether you're getting enough Protein - but that seems to be the general trend.

That's unfortunate. While we seem to be getting better at finding ways to help people overcome obesity, the amount of prejudice against the obese is still staggering.

OMG, yes! I'm signing up for ballet, modern dance, and jazz this fall. I tried ballet in the spring, but the barefoot jumps were hard for me because of my weight - I was afraid of damaging my feet. It should be way easier once I'm down even just 10 pounds! I'd like to try Latin dance in the spring, if my boyfriend's up for it. I also wanna get my 5K time down to under 30 mins...no matter how much I've trained, I've NEVER managed to run a 5K in under 30 minutes, and I blame the extra weight I've had to haul. I'm sure I'll be way faster once I'm 50 pounds down! I'm tired of having my final results reflect my weight, and not my hard work.