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Tomorrow, I will be 7 weeks post op (October 18)!!! This has been an amazing journey to date. I have committed to making this work and have lost over 20% of my excess body weight!!! PreOp 465lbs, now 405lbs. 1 rough 45min stretch post-op the first night home, needed pain meds but only took twice once home. Slept in my recliner the rest of the night, felt much better than flat bed. Diabetic Meds - Gone!!! Acid Reflux - Gone!!! Back Pain - Gone!! Knee Pain - Gone!! Blood Pressure - Down below normal ranges!!! Cholesterol- Down below normal ranges!! Blood Sugar/A1C - Down to normal ranges!!! Wearing clothes that are 3-5 years old!!! Walking stride is improving and moving faster!! Doing 45min of Cardio on Elliptical!!! Walked in the mall in the first couple of weeks!!! No Fast food in over 3 months!!! Not hungry, no cravings!!! My wife has stated that I have a positive disposition and have tackled this in the right manner. Doctor and nurses all say I am making great progress. I have moved beyond the purée stage and working to learn the soft diet stage. Taking my time!!! Advice to others.... 1 - Go to Support Group before/after surgery and get comfortable 2 - Find a person to share progress. 3 - Go to the grocery store and read labels. 4 - Walk, Walk, Walk - Advance to cardio machines if you have access 5 - Water, Water, Water 6 - Protein ( I started Protein shakes 2 months before just to get use to them) 7 - Be Patient (Trust the process) 8 - Vitamins and supplements 9 - Plan ahead (this was my weaknesses prior to surgery and one day after - I learned quick) 10 - Challenge your tastebuds to try new healthy foods!!!! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Hi Derby, Thanks for responding to my post. I went to my surgeon today and I'm hoping to get approval by next Thursday. He gave me a date for December 23 or possibly the 21 if another patient does not get approval. I to am a teacher and would love to have my surgery done while on Christmas break. I will need to start my 2 week fast this coming Thursday to be able to have my surgery. I plan on calling Humana on Monday. I am so prepared for this to happen. I am thankful that Humana made me wait the 6 months. It gave me time to do my research and make a sound decision about having Lapband surgery. Do you have a date yet? I live in St Petersburg. Dr Huguet is my surgeon. I really like him and feel comfortable with him. He has a very compassionate way about him. Let me know where you are in your journey, Hope to hear from you soon.

I am there with you, my last fill was from 6 to 6.4 I can eat as much as I want if I eat slowly...if I am hungery and eat fast, I get stuck....sometimes bad, that is why I know the band is there...went for a swallow test over the holidays and the tech. asked if I had had a fill, I just laughed, I know I need another one....I am practicing not eating between meals...but I can not get hungery or I eat fast and get sick....bad sick....It hurts...so I try hard not to let it happen....I know I need more fill...what was your surgery date? Mine was 10/13/08...wow that seems like forever ago....

Yes, i had this too. Yesterday was my first full day at home after my bypass. Ive noticed its better already. First couple of days felt like I was in a half dream, half awake state anytime i tried to sleep. Propping myself up, doing the walks and taking deep breaths regularly helped it improve quickly. Slept 4 hours straight last night, awake for an hour than 3 more. It gets better fast!

I started about 6 weeks ago, I replaced one meal a day with a protein shake, then 2 meals a day. Then I went straight into my pre-op Liquid fast (5 Optifast shakes a day) I opted to start that a week early for 3 weeks instead of 2. I lost about 4 pounds just doing the protein shake meal replacement, and I have lost 7 this week doing the first week of Optifast. I expect to lose 3-4 more in the next 2 weeks prior to surgery. That's around 15 total (about 2 months), maybe a little less. This way I could ease into it and it really didn't shock my body to go from eating to liquid fast all at once. I just started breaking bad habits one at a time and it's been pretty painless.....

Realistically, its all you'll get in for the first six weeks or so - very hard on liquids and I know I had loads of restriction for about 8 weeks after surgery. Long term though, you need to eat more than that. It wont hurt you in the short term and you'll lose fast!

For me, that meant I ate too fast or did not chew well enough. That is the only time I had that problem; which by the way was on multiple occasions. It is a learning process. I now go slower. My worst time was at work when I didn't pay attention to the time or I was really hungry and ate too fast. I now play games on my phone while I am eating at work. I make sure I play with my dominate hand. If my hand it busy with the game I go slower eating. It has been a great tool. Not saying this is necessarily what is causing it for you, but it was definitely my problem. If it lasts you should speak to your MD.

Oh hon, I'm sorry you are struggling so much. I know you are getting tired of hearing it, but it really does get better. I had my share of pity parties for myself over not being able to eat the things I love, barely being able to eat anything at alll, not getting to enjoy a large meal out with my husband... I have even been sad and frustrated that I can't comfort myself with food when I'm sad and frustrated! But I'm 5 months PO now and it's just so much better. I wish I could describe it to you in a way that could penetrate your 17-day post-op brain, but I can't. And when I was in your shoes, there is nothing anyone could have said to me to convince me that I'd ever feel normal again either. Just hang in there and take care of yourself. Don't push yourself too far too fast. Meatloaf (I assume made with beef?) and veggies is a lot to expect your stomach to handle at 17 days post-op when you've only been cleared for mushies. Don't push it. I know you want to and the temptation is there because you just want to feel "normal" again, if even only for a minute, but you really need to take it slow.

Yeah, I play on my phone or read a lot when eating alone. It does help IMO. I am only allowed to eat for 30 minutes, but distracting myself helps me not eat too fast

Hi, It's a process. You prepare your body pre-surgery by drinking liquids which is very hard to do but not impossible. I did it..trust me! Anyway, after surgery you don't want to eat anything, I mean anything. Water is tough to drink. Ice-pops were my friend. 17 days out and I feel great-don't feel like there is a foreign anything in my body. I do feel a sensation of fullness when I eat and if I eat fast or don't chew well, things get "stuck" and it's very uncomfortable but overall it's really not bad at all but you have to follow doctor's orders to a "t". Good luck to you.

It helped me to put it into perspective. We are on a long term journey. We didn't gain the weight overnight, and it will take a long time to lose it. The band is a tool, but there is a process to getting it to the right place where the tool begins to help you on that journey. I had absolutely no restriction until my first fill, and that was hell from being hungry all the time. I was losing weight, but I felt it was only because I was "dieting". The band was doing nothing for me. I had 5cc added to a 15cc band this past Monday. I experienced my first restriction when I ate my lunch a bit too fast. It was a great day when I felt that first bit of restriction. I suspect that I will need at least 1 to 3 more fills before I start feeling some real restriction each time I sit down to eat. Hang in there. What you are feeling is totally normal. Have faith and you'll be in the green zone before you know it.

I guess everyone is different. My sister had her gastric bypass surgery around 15 or 16 years ago. She can eat, but still has trouble with certain foods such as ketchup, ice cream, rice, and yogurt. And she said pasta fills her up extremely fast. My mom on the other hand had her surgery like 13 or 14 years ago and pretty much can anything except for rice regular sodas, and ice cream.

Thanks you !! It's all so exciting !! Ha until you try eating a egg to fast and bad things happen. Lol thank you !!!

I am 2 months post op. I have lost 30 pounds. I eat what ever I want only in very small quantities. I log every bite I eat into myfittnesspal.com. I usually don't eat more than 700 calories a day. I usually walk at least one mile a day. I have no pains and no problems. Most everyday I eat three small meals, eat a very small snack and drink a Protein drink. I don't think I am losing as fast as most people but I am losing. My surgeon is amazing!! I didn't have a catheter, I didn't have drains of any kind no problems. I highly suggest not eating anything for 10 days preop, only drinks and Protein shakes. It makes your recovery so much easier. If you have questions I would love to help. T

I also have been off diabetes meds since the day of surgery. Every fasting BS I've taken has been in the 75-100 range. I will have my first labs done in 2 weeks. For the first time, I am looking forward to the results. I have felt shaky a few times. However, when I then test, I am safely in the normal range. I once heard that when someone who has had higher blood sugars over time begins to have more normal blood sugars due to treatment, that the normal sugars can feel like lows. I have no idea if that is actually true and I don't remember if I heard it from a reliable source.

wishing you health and fast healing. Don't let it get you down , try to stay positive.

About 2 weeks ago I started having lots of pain and vomiting while eating solid foods. At first I thought I was taking too big of bites or eating too fast. I have finally come to realize something is not right. Doc is sending me for Upper GI. Has anyone had a blockage before and can you tell me more about it. This is the most painful experience. Thanks, BB

I thought this article was very interesting: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/08/08/gastric_bypass/ My big fat obnoxious former self I'm glad I don't weigh 571 pounds anymore. But I miss my big-girl righteousness and bravado. By Rebecca Golden Aug. 8, 2006 | The best thing about weighing 571 pounds is eating whatever you want. You don't worry about gaining five pounds. You know that it won't make a difference. You know that starving yourself and losing five pounds won't make a difference, either. The futility of the situation creates its own inertia. At 571 pounds, I thought nothing of drinking all the cherry Coke I wanted. I ate triple cheeseburgers and Dutch apple pie and quiche Lorraine. Weighing 571 pounds should have meant that I had diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease at the very least. I had none of the above. I drove a car. I worked. I never became permanently fused to a plaid sofa. Burly firemen never had to remove a picture window from my house so they could haul me away to the hospital. Still, I longed to do ordinary things. I missed having the ability to get up off the floor unassisted, to sit in booths at restaurants and to ride in Japanese cars. I missed other things, too. I missed having a job that took full advantage of my various skills and talents. I found it difficult to convince newspaper editors that a 500-pound woman could cover whatever came up in the course of a day. I missed having a boyfriend. I found myself at the age of 33 trapped in my mother's house, disabled and alone much of the time. I had no idea I weighed 571 pounds; household scales don't go above 350. I found out my weight one day at the pulmonologist's office. His very efficient electronic scale spelled it out for me, the number writ large in neon green lights. That sort of a number comes as a huge shock. You try to deny its significance. If you're me, you leave the doctor's office, head directly to Wendy's, and buy a Classic Triple, large fries and a cherry Coke. You eat this meal in your car, and you cry like a little girl. I'd had wakeup calls before. Five years ago, I weighed 525 pounds, and managed to slide into denial about this fact. I did nothing about my weight. But something about this new number, 571 pounds, disturbed me profoundly. It may have been the proximity of the number to 600. I had told myself in the past that 525 pounds was barely 500 pounds at all -- really fairly close to the 400s. But 571 pounds? I finished my cheeseburger and started researching gastric bypass surgery. I stopped eating fast food and drinking soda pop and made an appointment with a surgeon. I joined the Y and stuffed myself into the world's ugliest bathing suit -- a backless, braless "swim dress" with matching underpants -- so I could do Water aerobics and swim laps. My Russian surgeon required me to keep a journal of everything I ate, to eat six times a day and to take Vitamins. I learned that after surgery I would need to do these things for the rest of my life. I developed a taste for Protein bars and grilled chicken. My doctor had no idea of the irony-fraught historical ramifications of my operation: He was as a descendant of Cossacks disemboweling the granddaughter of Russian Jews. Still, when the day of surgery arrived, I let some people cut me open and rearrange my guts. I woke up and saw the scar for the first time. An eight-inch line of steel staples divided my torso. I walked the hospital halls, putting in 10 circuits a day, 10 times past the nurses station where my caretakers snacked on Doritos and sugar Cookies. I admired the knitted Christmas stockings and construction paper decorations lining the corridor, but I made them take the candy cane off the door to my room. Now, seven months later, I can clasp my hands behind my back when I stretch after aerobics. I can ride in a Hyundai Elantra. I can sit with my knees together. I can cross my ankles. I've even taken to man shopping on the Internet. We postops take extraordinary pleasure in the suddenly ordinary. Wiping your ass? That is a red-letter day for some of us. These are victories, sure, but also the sort of clichés that abound in the world of gastric bypass. Everyone takes the same "after" picture: They squeeze into one leg of an old pair of fat jeans and mug for the camera. It is my effort not to become a weight loss surgery cliché that is my deepest struggle apart from my continuing love of food. One of the only good things about weighing nearly 600 pounds is the sense of uniqueness it bestows. People had no trouble remembering me. I was a rare, elusive creature. But, day by day, as I dwindle down, I become more and more ordinary. Weight used to define me, even manufacturing my personality. My whole persona, the boisterous, obnoxious fat girl, lent me an aura of toughness. As the weight comes off, I find myself changing inwardly, becoming more feminine and more delicate in ways that both delight and terrify me. When walking down the street makes you an object of pity and disgust at worst, and unfettered curiosity at best, you need a certain amount of righteous hostility. But the battle armor doesn't fit anymore, so I go out into the world without its reassuring heaviness. I have lost some of my dense outer layer of crankiness. These days, I'm a bit more open, a bit more hopeful in my presentation. And yet, I despise the idea of losing my big-girl righteousness as I lose the weight. People like to tell prospective bypass patients they'll become a whole new person. This never appealed to me. I never hated myself. I hated some aspects of my body (breasts should point up, e.g.) but never the inner person. But like it or not, that person has changed. Losing 180 pounds will do that to a girl. As I move forward in a drastically altered body, the inner fat girl diminishes. Much as my body troubled me, I can't help feeling nostalgic about that girl. I hardly think about Cherry Coke and fast food anymore. But that girl's scrappiness and general bad attitude saved my life a thousand times. I'm going to miss her.

Hi all!! New to the board; glad to be connected to others who have had this procedure. My question is-- I had Plication done 2/27/12...did fine post-op with really no discomfort. However, have started having sharp, intermittent, "colicky" pain in left upper quad of abd and under breastbone. Seemingly unrelated to food/fluid intake. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, did you find it to be gas? What helped? (Had a normal abd CT scan yesterday in ER) Thanks ~~Lisa

It IS considered ELECTIVE surgery. So many doctors & insurances have stricter guidlines on it. Unlike a surgery that you might HAVE to have where they can't afford to play with your life to wait till your healthier. While I cannot see where smoking can have any effect on the band whatsoever IT CAN have an effect on how fast you heal, or the % that YOU MIGHT have complications. Cause there are very well documented facts that come with smoking that CAN be of concern to the surgeon. Smoking can reduce healing. Nicotine causes the blood vessels to constrict, retarding blood flow to the body. This can also cause the raising of blood pressure too. The build up of the tar and everything else in a smokers lungs often means we dont have the same lung compacity that a non smoker has. Therefore after surgery complication of pnumonia can be higher. Fluid buildup in the lungs after surgery is a COMMON problem that they normallly address after every surgery for smoker and non smoker alike. This build up can also cause a smokers lungs to not be able to utilize the oxygen as well lowing the % Of oxygen in the blood stream which again retards/slows healing. I am a 29 year hard & heavy smoker. And yea I have had nunmerous procedures in the past that smoking hasn't hurt. But I probably didn't recover as quickly as I could have. But I have decided that living past the age of 40 is something I am now going to strive for. So one of the things to go is smoking. I know it's gonna be a challange. And it won't be easy. But dangit my health is worth it. Any day now I gotta go pick my first batch of Patches (Ins wont cover chantix, Waiting on the dr to call em in to pharmacy) And start on that adventure. While not all surgons will insist you stop smoking, many of them will. And honestly they have good reason to. While I know that many like to place the blame on 90% of health problems on smoking they do have some valid reasons for doing so. It all boils down to the fact that smoking does nothing good for our bodies, and if your serious enough to consider surgery for weight loss for your health continuing smoking just don't make alot of sense(at least not to me). Why do something so drastic as elective surgery to improve one area and then refuse to continue to keep improving your health?

I have 4.2 in my band and a lot of food comes back up. Could I be eating too fast?

jlweb23: Wow! Sounds like you had quite a rough time! So sorry! Hopefully you can take it easy for a few weeks and just let yourself heal. It sounds like your stomach really needs that time to heal so I would follow just what the doctor orders (liquids) and let it heal. Also I know how tempting it is to want to take the kids to the zoo when you wake up feeling great, but don't over do it - - I literally had to force myself some days to chill and not get over excited when I was feeling good or I would definitely overdo it. For a change in liquids from your EAS protein drinks (I like these too! fast & good protein), you can blend some other protein drinks (strawberry fatfree yogurt with some vanilla protein powder and water/ice, etc) so you're still doing liquid but also getting your protein. Watch that belly button too if it is still oozing any yuck - c/b infected so I'd keep an eye on that. Lots of water and REST REST REST! You're losing so keep the faith!!

@@619Raf Hello, I'm a type one diabetic and sleeved. normal range is 70-120 fasting. I now have more low blood sugars after surgery. I use my insulin once in a great while. My dietitian gave me advice that if my blood sugar drops to drink watered down orange juice. When its watered down it doesn't upset my tummy as much. I also have glucose tablets with me when I'm out of the house.

Ever since my fill (2.5cc) I really can't tell if I'm restricted. On the one hand, if I eat too fast, don't chew enough, etc. it causes me PB problems that I didn't have before. On the other hand, I still feel like I can eat too much. I just had a salad and ate more than I thought I could. I'm so confused!