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Hello @Bypass2Freedom I used the Spire group too. I had wonderful care and was totally happy with my team. I stayed in hospital 4 days because of a few minor issues I was having and then a 5th day because of a power cut in my town. They said I couldn't go home to a cold house. No extra charges were levied either. I had zero pain. The head nurse and the dietician gave me their personal phone numbers in case I had any problems or questions along the way. My pre op was 3 weeks of milk and veg basically but your surgeon may want different. They asked me to take dressing gown, nightwear and slippers to the hospital. No need for a long telephone charger cable in our hospitals. Take some lip balm. My surgeon was against protein shakes so after my op I had milky coffee, home made shakes and Bovril or broth to drink. Puree was not for me, I had either tinned or home made soups sieved or mashed any lumps. When I came home I bought a bed wedge because I got reflux. I needed a thermos cup because my hot drinks were always going cold. It takes a long time to drink anything in the first few weeks. With Amazon having next day delivery, if you need something its so quick, its pointless stock piling stuff you may not need in advance. The hormonal changes are something that I had. I was very tearful and had full on PMT. I was 60+ so it came as a shock to me. There have been a few people on here who have become pregnant very quick after the surgery. If that's a problem then a chat with your GP might help.

@ShoppGirl Thank you for your reply I have therapy every week, but was going to start looking for more weight-related therapists in my area as I am extremely worried about coping with the emotional eating. I am sorry to hear about the struggles you have had, and I hope it all works out for you. Pureed food sounds like the worst stage! I, like you, feel that pureeing 'normal' foods probably is gross haha! Hospital bag is actually one of the things I do need to think about! I shall add those to my list, thank you

I didn’t really deal with a ton of hormonal changes as far as I can recall but yes I have heard that many women do. I am an emotional eater too and not to scare you but I have gained my weight back and I’m contemplating a conversion. If you have access to a therapist to get to the bottom of the emotionally eating. I STRONGLY suggest it. There aren’t any in my area so I am working with my regular therapist but I don’t know how well it is working. One of my questions for the surgeon is if he can make some calls for me and find someone who will try to fit me into their schedule. As far as tool or equipment I had sleeve and didn’t need much. I bought those little cups that your dressing comes in at restaurants for the very beginning just to measure things out and store in fridge but you can use anything that is the right size. Some people do use a blender in the purée stage. Personally puréed food that isn’t normally purées kinda grossed me out so I didn’t use that. I did buy a few flavors of shakes and keep others ready in my online cart for my husband to pick up if I needed him to. I did buy a scale but honestly don’t recall using it much. One thing that someone told me that you didn’t ask about was what to pack for hospital. I found pajama pants, a sleep mask and a extra long phone charger to be helpful items that weren’t on the list. The pants come in handy when you get up to walk since the gowns are open on the back.

I feel like I have asked so much, yet I still have things I want to know! Like: what kind of equipment did people order beforehand e.g. scales, blender etc Also, I have heard that women struggle in particular when it comes to the hormonal changes immediately post-surgery - how to prepare for that? It is daunting to think about how to deal with food cravings when I am an emotional eater, and I will need to find a different outlet! Thank you so much!

lol. You reminded me of the sugar free gummy bears I didn’t have an issue with them but I didn’t like them so I didn’t have but one maybe two. I sent them home with my friend who was living a couple of hours away so she ate the rest of the pack on her way home 😂 . She now buys those instead of bothering with fiber or laxatives when she is constipated she swears they work better. I am really hoping that my sleeve is still okay. That’s one of my questions for the surgeon is what happens if he goes in and it’s bigger than it should be. He is the one that don’t it and he is known As an excellent surgeon but For whatever reason I could eat more than I should’ve been able to at every given stage from day one when I was drinking without any issue. I also had very little pain post op so maybe I just advanced through the stages faster because of less swelling or something?? At first I questioned whether they even did the surgery but I definitely do haxe Restriction it’s just not as much as some peoples Anyways, I definitely need to save this post for future reference. In terms of all the dining out options and potential trigger foods this is such valuable information!!

That’s funny as I wondered if being empty nesters now had changed how you ate. More date nights. Lol! All the food you & A make look pretty darn good to me.

Thank you!! I am incredibly happy. Getting my Vitamin D from 13 to almost 100 has done wonders for my depression. The extra energy DOES feel amazing, especially because I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I never really expected the surgery to impact that favorably. The first 4 weeks were hard energy-wise. I remember how exhausting even taking a shower was until I was past a month out. Bariatric surgery is major surgery and it takes our bodies a while to heal from that. Add in our dietary restrictions as we slowly incorporate food again and it is a great recipe for fatigue. I'd say by about week 8 the nausea disappeared and I noticed I was gaining energy steadily. I could stand in the kitchen and cook. I could go for a short walk. I could shower and actually leave the house without a nap first. I had not been able to do those things in several years so it was a striking difference. Hang in there!! It is a good sign you feel about back to normal energy-wise right now! Yes, according to everything I've read, the goal is 50% by 6 months for a DS surgery, so I'm ahead of my goal. I really hope things continue on steadily. A lot of people lose a chunk early on and then taper down slower after month 3. My body doesn't like to follow general trends, so I stalled out for most of that time and then suddenly my weight loss sped up! It is quicker now than it has been since about a week post op. Isn't that funny? Everyone's body has its own rhythm. It is so, so hard to trust that, but it seems to be true the more people I see go through this surgery.

Caffeine is usually restricted for the first few months in a virgin DS/SADI surgery to help prevent dehydration. You may not have this restriction put on you since you already have your sleeve and should keep food and fluids down fine post-op since they probably won't resleeve you unless yours was done wrong. Even if they put you on caffeine restriction, it is only for a little while. There is no reason to restrict it long term, it doesn't harm the digestive system. My partner loves to dine out and we don't have kids, so I've been eating out since a month after surgery. I am careful with my choices, the first thing I ate out was grilled swordfish and sauteed green beans. It was fine. I've since eaten Thai curries (mild), pho without the noodles (they put veggies instead), sashimi, fajitas with guacamole and cheese sauce (no tortillas, rice, or beans), steak (ribeye is my favorite and digests better now than it even did pre-op), wings, traditional Chinese food (nothing fried, no rice), Peruvian chicken, the list goes on and on. I try to stick to protein/veggie options. Anything I wanted to eat at a restaurant I tried to have a version of at home first to know how it would affect me. I tolerate most things pretty well, though it seems my digestive system prefers baby spinach over iceburg or romaine lettuce, but that's not a huge sacrifice. And I can't eat beans at all, but I never really tolerated them pre-op either. Also I try not to have too many cruciferous veggies at once (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage), as they cause bloating, but I had that problem before surgery too. (I have had IBS and an inflammatory bowel disease since I was a teenager.) That said I try to make healthy choices in general whether eating out or eating at home. DS patients don't really need to restrict fat because we malabsorb so much of it (regardless of what the dieticians tell you) and SADI patients can eat a moderate amount of fat as they malabsorb a moderate amount of fat. Too much fat in one sitting can cause diarrhea, but you'd have to really make an effort to do that, and any bariatric surgery other than the sleeve can cause that issue. Coke Zero does not have sugar alcohols in it, it has Splenda, so it is fine from that perspective. Carbonation is only an issue if it bloats your sleeve. However, it can cause you to be hungry faster, or cause gas due to the air bubbles, so it isn't the best habit to have long term. But it won't piss off your intestines. I switched to unsweetened iced tea and carry Splenda or Equal packets with me! Sugar alcohols are things like erythritol, xylitol, and malitol. Allulose can also cause gastric upset depending on how tolerant you are of it. I can usually have a little of any of those, but more than a tablespoon and I'll be in the bathroom half the night. 🤣

I had my surgery on the 13th as well, although my surgery was the sleeve. So here we are, a day away from our first week with our new internal mechanics. Iʻm just going to take a minute to congratulate us both for being brave enough to do this. While I understand that the "food onboarding" process differs from procedure to procedure and even surgeon to surgeon, I hope youʻll consult with your surgeon or program before you eat solids. My program considers sugar free jello a liquid. Would that suffice? I get it, believe me. I made my husband go to our local Pho restaurant last night and buy me just Pho broth because I couldn't stomach one more sweet drink. Regarding meds, I had to switch a couple that were time release to rapid release so that they could be safely crushed for daily consumption. Did your doctor tell you that all medications and supplements had to be liquid, chewable, or crushed for the first month? Mine did, and while the chewable vitamins and calcium are a treat because I get to chew them, crushing the others and trying to mask their awful taste with a protein shake is disgusting. I'm not getting used to it. Like you, I'm not in any pain and for the last two days, even the gas has been minimal, so I must've finally expelled all that surgery gas. Again, congrats on your big decision and hang in there.

Hey how are you feeling? I'm 8 days post op ready for food lol 😆

Every surgeon is different, but with my program, I was allowed to start soft proteins on Day 7 after a chat with the nurse to make sure I was getting my hydration in and feeling well. I had great luck with tuna salad made with low-fat mayo, yogurt (I did Oikos Triple Zero, but eventually the artificial sweetener taste turned me off them), oh, and cottage cheese was an absolute delight! I made a poached egg and it went down nicely, so then I tried a deviled eggs (yum!) and finally scrambled with a bit of cheddar. I was also allowed refried beans and ground chicken/turkey (which I made with some taco seasoning). After a week of just those items, I was allowed to slowly add in some veg, fruit, and finally grains. This is much faster than what my surgeon allows for sleeve, by the way. He explained that the healing is different between sleeve and bypass, so I was happy to be able to get back to real foods faster. My only issues with vomiting came from reheating some salmon (way too dry) and another time of eating a bit too fast without properly chewing every single bite and waiting long enough between bites. But otherwise, I'm at 4 weeks as of tomorrow and I'm pretty much able to have any types of food, including raw veg. I have a tiny cucumber, tomato, shredded carrot, and edamame "salad" with most of my lunches. As for pills, I crush or sprinkle all of mine over a couple tablespoons of applesauce. Except for vitamins and calciu, which are chewables and have been fine.

LOL The food rage is real!! I did 2 weeks of a modified diet pre-op (shakes and a small meal at dinner of protein and veggies), then one week of full shakes only before surgery. And then 2 weeks of liquids only post-op. Needless to say when I was finally allowed food I wanted to cry. LOL I was also a little afraid to eat it! But I did and everything was fine. In retrospect I'm glad I stuck so strictly to my surgeon's guidelines. I healed VERY well and that time on fluids only really taught me a lot about how I react to being hungry and how to manage being hungry. It also helped me understand true hunger from head hunger---they are not the same thing, but man can they feel like the same thing! But for real, I was really cranky at times during those fluid weeks and there were some short tantrums... 🤣

I take a lot of vitamins, more than that list. My advice is to buy these containers, enough for a month, and dose out all your vitamins for the month. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08QR78YP3/ I spend about $200 every other month. You could do it a bit cheaper depending on the brands you buy (for instance, Citracal Petites are more cost effective than the bariatric calcium chews and both are calcium citrate) and which ones you take. I take a lot because I had some deficiencies pre-op. But they all fit in those cases! I just grab my little container for the day and carry it around with me. I set alarms to remind me to take them. I put my meds in with the vitamins. The way I look at it, my junk food budget is now my vitamin budget, and I feel a lot better taking those vitamins than I ever did eating junk food! LOL

I strongly advise you to stick with the plan your surgeon gave you regarding food. Your stomach and small intestines have been cut and sewn back together, there are a lot of sutures in there that heal best without particles of food irritating them. And believe me, you do NOT want to compromise the healing of those sutures. I know it is hard to do nothing but drink. I was on fluids only for the first two weeks, no pudding, no eggs, nothing but fluids and my stomach couldn't handle protein shakes so I lived on broth, flavored water, and eventually I could do lactose free milk. But I got through it and so will you!! As hard as the changes are to our bodies, it is the head game that will do you in. You are strong. You can do hard things!! You only get the chance to heal once, so heal as well as you possibly can! I ate sugar free popsicles and crunched on ice when I had the urge to chew. This time without food is a very short time in the scheme of things even though it feels like an eternity. Find things to do to distract you from your hunger. Head hunger is miserable but you have to see this through because if you don't get control of the head hunger now it will drive you to eat around your surgery once you add food back in. The surgeon had me taking pills by mouth the day after surgery. It was a struggle but I understood it wasn't harming my stomach to take them, just go slow, one at a time, and give space between each one. But only take what they told you to take. You don't want to add anything extra that could irritate those healing sutures. ❤️

Yes, you have to take more vitamins than you did with the Sleeve. The most common to supplement are a multi twice a day, calcium 4-5 times a day in divided doses, and vitamins A, D, E, and K which your bariatric office will tell you to get in one ADEK supplement, but often you have to break down into the individual vitamins as labwork dictates, depending on your individual absorption. You'll have labs drawn several times the first year, then yearly afterwards to make sure you are getting enough vitamins and iron. But yes, vitamins daily are a way of life for SADI patients. It is also smart to take a probiotic, and sometimes you need extra B1 or B12. Learning about macros is important! I highly recommend tracking your food through the Baritastic app, it will track your macros for you. Don't be surprised if your dietician is useless about things. Sadly, a lot of dieticians don't understand the proper eating routines for a SADI or DS patient and will give you advice meant for a RNY or Sleeve patient. That is why support groups like the Facebook one are so important, because the veterans of these surgeries often know a lot more about them that the surgeon or dietician do. I know a lot about the SADI because I considered it before going with the DS surgery. So ask whatever you want and I'll see if I can answer it!

Hi ShoppGirl, I replied to you in the DS forum. You'll probably find the answers you need in the Facebook group I'm in. It says it is for the Duodenal Switch, but we also have plenty of SADI patients in the group and we have veterans of both surgeries in there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1799552573392212 I highly suggest joining that group and posting your questions. Regarding gas, yes, the SADI can have gas issues if you eat too many simple carbs. And eating too much junk food may make your bathroom visits rather unpleasant. I had the DS done about 4.5 months ago and I don't usually have any gas issues and my bathroom visits are pretty normal except my stools are pale colored now due to the fat malabsorption (perfectly normal). But I stay below 50 total carbs per day and eat about 120 grams of protein a day and about 100 grams of fat. With the SADI or DS surgery you are more focused on your macros than calories because we malabsorb a portion of everything but simple carbs. If you keep your carbs low after the SADI you will lose weight better and maintain weight better...and you should minimize the side effects. You'd also want to stay away from sugar alcohols and you might find that some foods digest differently, like lettuce or other leafy greens. Usually most SADI or DS patients learn within the first year what their trigger foods are and learn to eat them at home at night or not at all.

your doctor was talking about a stricture. About 5% of bypass patients get those (sleeve people can also get them, but it's a lot less common with them). It's been nine years for me, but I don't remember if I felt super full or not. I just remember feeling really nauseated or like I had GERD after eating, and after a while, I couldn't keep any food down - it'd all come back up. I had one at four weeks out and another around eight weeks out (they almost always occur between 1-3 months post op - very rare after that). It's an easy fix if that's what it is. They can stretch it out with this balloon-like thing when they do the upper endoscopy. It's quick and painless - and you'll feel A LOT better afterward.

Yea. He said it’s definitely a more aggressive option than the bypass for revision with a few more risks but better weight loss for most people. I read somewhere that when you eat the wrong foods that it causes gas pain and bathroom issues which if that’s true I think as much as it would not be fun it may be just what I need to remind me to keep making the right choices. Also If I understood correctly it does more to reduce the hunger hormone which was definitely my biggest issue. From day one with the sleeve I was able to eat more than expected at every given stage. I just chose not to and that was easy while the hunger was gone but when it came back it came roaring back so I lost most of my weight and then gained it all back like a yo yo. In the beginning I was still eating all the right foods but I was starving so I ate more than I should have. I am really hoping that this procedure the hunger hormone remains less intense for good.

same. i like to cook at home as well. though truth be told, i think i get more joy out of the planning and actual cooking than i do of the eating of it. i guess cuz i'm not the best cook, and my stuff is not nearly as pretty as the food prepared by professionals lol. funny enough, for the past couple years me and Mr. have been going out to eat - or taking out - MUCH, MUCH more than we used to...which our relative empty-nester status is mostly to blame. it's just so much easier and FUNNER to feed ourselves from outside than for me to cook for us at home (especially since i don't eat much and i like to eat/taste lots of different things). though today i'm currently slow cooking a pot of bbq ribs for dinner to be served with mashed potatoes and salad as the Kid and her friend are coming over. you should smell my house right now! yum....

Hi Everyone, Hope you all are feeling and doing amazing. Quick question???? Did anyone have a feeling of being super full or not being able to "digest" regular food between 6-10 weeks post op? The feeling started around 6.5 weeks out and I just feel so UGH... Like anything I eat was just sitting at the top of my stomach. I also have issues being "regular" in the bathroom so I thought it was that. I was able to fix that and the bottom of my stomach got relief but the top still felt full. I was having a hard time eating or drinking only cause I always felt full like overfull. Reached out to the doctor and he said that sometimes between 6-10 weeks scar tissue can develop where the stomach and intestine are attached which can constrict. Has anyone had this and did it go away or get better after 10 weeks? I switched to primarily a liquid diet and it is better but still feel ugh. I feel like Violet in Willy Wonka. Doctor is doing an upper GI x-ray just to be safe but that is a week away. Just want to get ideas from you all. 🙂

I hate liquids lol I want solid food

I wanna fight EVERYBODY!!!!! LOL I'm kidding but I'm sick of liquids. I did a week before surgery and now 4 days after surgery that's 11 days. I want solid food. *has adult size tantrum Okay I feel better now lol

Me too Lostmom. I was in surgery on the 13th. Your team has you on clear liquids longer than mine did. I was clear liquids the day before through the two days after surgery, so I moved on to full liquids yesterday (Saturday). And I agree about the pain. It's almost non-existent for me aside from the gas (which is also getting better). I do crave real food when I'm hungry but as soon as I'm full from my 4 oz. of protein shake, those cravings subside. Keep us updated on how things are going. I like the idea of a, "surgery twin".

I had Vietnamese last night for the first time since my surgery. I had forgotten how much I like viet food - the clean, fresh flavours. I had prawn salad which I always enjoyed. I ate 5 prawns & the very small disappointing amount of cucumber, carrot & lettuce & a little of the mint. Bought home a bowl 2/3 filled with 2 leftover prawns & all the noodles. My brother & his family eat far too much takeaway. Eating with them twice in the last two weeks is why I’ve eaten takeaway twice too which I rarely normally do.

Southern Indian Chole Batura (my favorite), What’s everyone’s favorite regional food?