Well, Monday 3/21/11 was 3 weeks for my sleeve and I had to be readmitted to the hospital for dehydration and testing. I hadn't eaten or drank much at all and it finally caught up to me. I tried but everything made me sick just the thought or smell of food made me gag. I had to do the leak test and thankfully it was negative. Tuesday morning I had to do an egd and they stretched it out a little to try and help. I'm finally back home and pray that I can keep up my fluids and vitamin levels. REALLY don't want to go back again! Anyone else been through this with helpful advice? I just don't get why some people have it so easy and then its so much harder for others...

Try lots of different ways of getting in fluids -- different flavours and temperatures? Maybe warm or hot tea will go down easier than cold Water or drinks? The water is the most important thing, you have to get that down.

Bottom line is: You might just have to really force yourself through it, despite the unpleasantness. It's a self-perpetuating thing -- the more you don't eat/drink, the more you don't want to (any anorexic knows this), so you are the only one who can make yourself get past this. It's literally a matter of using your own will to overcome the problems. Hold your nose and drink, if that's what it takes. No one can save you, but you.

The good news is twofold: One, it does get better -- it seems a huge mountain, but once you're on top of it, you realise it wasn't anywhere near as high as you thought it would be, nor as difficult to climb, and Two, you CAN TOTALLY DO THIS.

So do it.

Good luck and hugs to you.

I could not drink anything at all for the first 2 weeks!!! My dietician told me to eat sugar free popsicles, that went down so easy. Third week I was able to drink liquids like nothing. Hope you doing good now.

I agree! The easiest thing for me to eat was popsickles. I downed lots of them in the hospital. At home when nothing seemed to go down well, popsickles always went down easily. I did NOT eat sugar free! Your poor body does not need that nasty artificial sweetener. You should go ahead and eat the sugar kind unless you are prohibited to because of medical reasons. I did not eat or drink sugar free anything! I may lose the weight a little slower, but I'm not eating any more chemicals than I need to.

Crushed ice, Popsicles, broth...these helped a lot.

Thanks to all...I'm doing a lot better. No pulp orange juice has helped a lot I drink it as a meal & its loaded with potassium. I never liked it before but now I crave it