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time after meals when you can drink



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For some reason, I am having more trouble with this since sleeve surgery than I did with the band. I am more thirsty for some reason.

Is it still one hour after meals before you can drink? I don't know what I did with my paperwork from Dr. Aceves office.

I am wondering what they other doctors tell their patients too. I know with band surgery, some patients were told they could drink in 30-45 min.

I've been watching the clock, and it's harder to wait than it used to be. Is it an hour after you finish eating or when you start eating?

I try to stay busy so the hour goes by faster, but it seems like I am checking the clock all the time now.

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I believe they advise not drinking 30 minutes before and after eating.

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For some reason, I am having more trouble with this since sleeve surgery than I did with the band. I am more thirsty for some reason.

Is it still one hour after meals before you can drink? I don't know what I did with my paperwork from Dr. Aceves office.

I am wondering what they other doctors tell their patients too. I know with band surgery, some patients were told they could drink in 30-45 min.

I've been watching the clock, and it's harder to wait than it used to be. Is it an hour after you finish eating or when you start eating?

I try to stay busy so the hour goes by faster, but it seems like I am checking the clock all the time now.

According to my paperwork that I got from Dr. A., "Never drink liquids when eating solid foods. liquids should be avoided for a period of 45 minutes before and 45 minutes after eating solid foods or meals."

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Oh good. 45 min after a meal is a little better than one hour.

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I do drink right before my meals and tried both ways. I had the same dinner 2 nights in a row and drank prior to eating one night and did not drink for an hour before eating the other night. There was NO difference in the amount of food I could eat. I do wait @ 30 min after eating to drink.

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My surgeon says we can drink right up until eating. I looked up how the stomach empties and I think he's right. I found nothing to suggest that drinking up to 0-5 min. before eating would hurt us.

But 45 min. after is a minimum time, from what I've read. The stomach hardly empties at all for the first 20-30 min. after you eat and then it start emptying rapidly so that 90 min after you eat, it's emptied half it's contents. Which means programs that say to wait only 30 min are really pushing it IMO.

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My surgeon says we can drink right up until eating. I looked up how the stomach empties and I think he's right. I found nothing to suggest that drinking up to 0-5 min. before eating would hurt us.

But 45 min. after is a minimum time, from what I've read. The stomach hardly empties at all for the first 20-30 min. after you eat and then it start emptying rapidly so that 90 min after you eat, it's emptied half it's contents. Which means programs that say to wait only 30 min are really pushing it IMO.

So, is the purpose of waiting to drink after meals to stay full longer?

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Yes, that's the main purpose long term. Short term, you also want to make sure you are getting enough food so that's another reason to not drink right with the meals. But waiting is to make sure the food doesn't flush through.

We have a pylorus valve, so it's not like having a band or RnY and being able to literally flush it through easily. But the pylorus valve opens when liquid/mush hits it. So drinking with meals makes our food mushier faster and when the mush or liquid hits the valve, it opens because that's a sign the food is ready to move on.

This means if you eat something like dry meat, taking a few sips of Water to help it get down is not going to totally derail you. Adding a few sips of Water to dry chicken doesn't turn it into mush. It turns it into moister chicken. But when you add a lot of water to a meal that is already turning nicely into mush on schedule, you get a much thinner mush that leaves the tummy sooner.

This is true pre-op too. My son always give his dh a hard time about drinking with meals because he says "the only reason to drink water with your meals is to fit more in."

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I am told to stop drinking 15 minutes before eating and wait 45 minutes after eating to drink. I am 2.5 months post-op and I find it to be a habit now.

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I usually need a few sips of something right after I finish eating a solid. It just makes me feel better. Not alot - just a couple of sips.

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I usually need a few sips of something right after I finish eating a solid. It just makes me feel better. Not alot - just a couple of sips.

Me too - just enough to get the taste out of my mouth.

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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. summerseeker

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        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

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