I got sleeved on February 8th in Taipei, Taiwan, by one of four physicians who handle VSG there. My doctor was a young gun at it. He wasn't the most experienced but he was the most progressive possibly and my family knew his boss well, so he came highly recommended. I work and live in Hong Kong, so Dr. Wang Wei of the Taipei Medical University Hospital got my business. The total cost was also a great bargain at NTD $ 180,000 or USD 6k+/-. My Taiwanese citizen's insurance covered another USD2k aside from the cash paid. Interestingly, pain medication post-op was optional at around USD200 for the morphine drip, which post-op had I not paid -- it would have made the experience 10 times worst. Overall, the pain was tolerable and short lasting, especially with the morphine drip covering about 24 hours. I had my follow-up in office check on February 15th. It was noted that the weight dropped from 98.6kgs to 91.4kgs in 7 days, mostly due to awful pure liquid diet averaging under 1,000 KCal per day. By 16th February, I was back in Hong Kong and back at the daily grind. I haven't had any contact with the physician, except for 2 phone calls I placed to the office about 2 weeks post-op to ask about issues with vomiting after eating.

That's mainly the subject of this thread, my wishing to share my experience with eating post-op and what I learned about VSG on my own after 60 days.

The best event I can describe my experience with my sleeve is by an afternoon snack I had after picking up my teenage daughter from school at a local food court in Hong Kong. Now, as you all know -- there are lots of restrictions post-op with VSG. So, it is quite useless to discuss the restricted diet, although there were lots of trials and tribulations there for me personally as well. So, I will describe this afternoon snack which was the very first public eating experience post-op for me, after I was by schedule allowed to eat solid foods.

Anyways, before my VSG my daughter and I always enjoy an afternoon snack together. My child is a very picky eater, and most of the time -- she probably didn't eat her full lunch due whatever reason. Pre-VSG -- I would order whatever she was having -- either a cheeseburger and fries set or even sushi, pending our mood and location. So on the first day I was allowed to eat solid foods besides the semi-liquid diet I had been drinking 3 meals a day. And I ordered: 1 set of 6 Japanese Gyoza (similar to Chinese pot stickers) and a frozen smoothie of fresh Mangos. I ate just 2 pieces and left the remaining 4 pieces along with about 80% of the smoothie for my daughter when she arrived from school at the food court. Within 10 minutes of eating those 2 Goyzas and part of that smoothie, which I would estimate at no more than the recommended 100 grams overall weight/volume of food, I was in major discomfort. The feeling is similar to having two lead balls rolling around in a gym sock, except the sock .. is my sleeve/new stomach. Promptly, I walked to the closest toilet and offered up what I ate. I walked back to the food court to find my kid was still working on the remaining of my order. After 20 minutes, she took the smoothie to the car to drink on the drive home.

Skipping forward about 5 weeks to current day, which I find myself 65 days post-op. Yesterday, was the first opportunity after that last visit to the same food court. So, just to test out any progress I had made with the new sleeve/stomach .. I ordered the same exact 6 pieces of Goyza and a 8 ounce smoothie. This time, my daughter had her snack of ice cream already, so I set out to eat the whole order on my own. Now, when I started eating, to be honest -- I was expecting to run off to the toilet at any time. Surprisingly, when I took down 2 pieces, then the next 2, and the last 2 .. the pressure from the sleeve I was expecting -- never materialized. I drank about the same 20% of the smoothie and ate slowly. But after about 20 minutes -- I finished the order, and proceeded to walk to the car with my child for the drive home .. still expecting to have to stop on the way at a toilet in case the urge to vomit takes over .. and behold .. made it all the way to the parking level, and along with the walking .. the need to throw all that food out .. never came.

So, the moral of the story -- you just need to give your sleeve sometime to adjust. Although the doctor never told me and I figured things out on my own. When you have your stomach reduced by 75%, the post-op sleeve is not only just smaller volume-wise .. the stomach lining not only needs time to heal .. the lining itself by my own experience .. is the part of the original pre-op stomach lining that more than likely had not made contact with much food. It is sort of a "virgin" lining. In addition, the pressure after food enters this narrow sleeve is many many times PSI post-op compared to pre-op when there was ample space in the stomach. Things not only fill up fast, the pressure is incredible and thus it quickly becomes painful when you eat near its 100% capacity.

From the above "experimentation" I ended up performing through a period of about 5 weeks .. food and liquid that could not be tolerated roughly 1 months post-op, was easily tolerated 2 months post-op. No doubts about it. The food and drink and patient were all the same.

Now, having share this little bit of success -- what I can tell you all is that I still experience urges to vomit. It comes at all times with all kinds of different foods and drinks. There are certain food items that my sleeve still protests to .. to include -- steamed white rice. Now, that's a serious problem for an Asian person in Asia. Although for today's snack -- I had 2 sushi hand rolls along with 2 regular sushi's -- all had rice in them. They all held after eating with no much of an urge to relieve them from the sleeve. Unfortunately, I had more vomiting at dinner after some pan fried beef, chili, and Soup. So, there is still quite a lot of volatility with the sleeve for me and I must watch what I eat. I would estimate that between the first food court experience and the one yesterday -- I must have had to vomit up over 60% or more of everything I ate -- the problem with the pressure and pain from the sleeve sometimes there is just no action left to take except to go to the toilet and let the food out to relieve the discomfort.

Hopefully, at 90 days post-op -- I will have better experiences to share.

Cheers to all~!

Steve in Hong Kong.

This is an interesting thread! I was headed down the band path when I first decided on WLS, and when I started learning about all the sliming, and PBing (productive burping...the band catch phrase for vomiting b/c they say it's not like 'normal' vomiting) I decided that the band was not for me. I *hate* to have food come up the wrong direction...I always have. So after researching and learning about the sleeve I decided there was less of a chance for food coming back up.

I personally have not thrown up in any way at all since being sleeved (that includes the normally-vomit-inducing anethesia...I was given a patch behind my ear to reduce the risk...yay.) I did have one incident involving homemade mini-turkey meatballs when I planned on eating 4 and actually ate 5 and I *thought* I was going to have them all come back up but the feeling passed after about 20 minutes. It was uncomfortable, but I was relieved that my sleeve kept everything down. I think I was about 8 weeks out at that point.

I just wanted to say that everyone is different and I'm glad we can all come here and share our experiences. I guess no one really knows how their new sleeve will handle a variety of food until you try it. If I was personally having an issue with vomiting often, I think I would probably make a chart of the type of food, how much, and when and also the drink is an interesting angle too, so I would probably chart that in there too, how much liquid, and how close to food I'm drinking, etc. and try to figure out ways to eliminate the vomit. But that is just me, because I *hate* to have things come back up. So I'm sure I would get anal about making sure it doesn't happen.

Thanks for all your posts and comments, and hope more people find this thread interesting.

A good point was brought up .. vomiting COULD be related to eating speed and not chewing enough.

Although we all have been briefed on how to eat post-op, and I do make a conscience effort into chewing thuroughly,

I probably most likely don't always chew ample before swallowing, so it is worth it to discuss this, and may be

put more efforts into developing new technical skill. Perhaps even putting a cooking timer on the table when

eating to make certain of the chewing time and in between swallows.

But like the title of the thread -- it's all about getting to know the sleeve and make the proper adjustments, so

we can all have quality of life post-op. To be honest, although I am enjoying the weight-loss, I have noticed

that my relationship with food has changed substantially. And not always for the better. Not over-eating or

gaining weight, being more healthy is the purpose. I must admit -- a lot of the previous enjoyment of food

items .. has gone away. Case in point -- we used to enjoy a single slice of pizza after-school. Now only

my daughter enjoys that ... I can't and I don't. I have ordered slices along with her -- I just can't keep it

down, regardless of how many time I chewed and how long I waited before swallowing bites. It is the

type of food, I have noticed, that post-op -- I CAN'T enjoy anymore. And I miss that, to be honest, and

do count it as a degradation of quality of my life.

For those who were wondering -- I've got a surprise for ya .. I am American! LOL! I was born in Taiwan

but immigrated to CA when I was just 12 years old and spent most of my adult life there .. plus 2 years

in Hawaii. So, F-150's .. I know about them. I used to drive my own 4x4 pick-up in CA.

Please keep your comments going. Like to hear more about how people deal with their sleeves when

things get dicey after eating ..

Cheers~!

BTW -- I didn't force myself not to throw up .. just that it was not possible to even pull over as the roads in Hong Kong, most of them don't even have shoulders. So, happenstance forced me not to throw up. Had I been near a toilet .. I woulda done it just to relieve the discomfort. But having being forced not to throw up -- I know it can be done now. But also I should mention -- not throwing up was definitely NOT an option at less than 60 days post-op -- it is only a recent development that I have noticed I can successfully fight the urge to. Hopefully -- it gets gradually better as time progresses, where perhaps at 6 month or 1 year post-op -- these issues are no longer issues. That's what I'm hoping for anyways.

Also, I don't know what size Bugle, Bogey, whatever you call those skewers they poked into your body to hold up the rest of your internal organs before they go in Laroscopically, but I have only TWO (02) scar holes to the right and left of my navel .. I just know as I was told point blank by my doctor, and he had a model of a sleeve on his desk that shows his sleeves to be about the size of a flash light hold 2 x DD batteries. Not very big .. 100 grams, or the equivalent of a typical Chinese rice bowl is all I can eat at any one sitting.

How about your guys .. can someone do a metric conversion on 100 grams to ounces .. I wanna say that's less than 4 Oz. -- the capacity of my particular sleeve.

Thanks for all your posts and comments, and hope more people find this thread interesting.

A good point was brought up .. vomiting COULD be related to eating speed and not chewing enough.

Although we all have been briefed on how to eat post-op, and I do make a conscience effort into chewing thuroughly,

I probably most likely don't always chew ample before swallowing, so it is worth it to discuss this, and may be

put more efforts into developing new technical skill. Perhaps even putting a cooking timer on the table when

eating to make certain of the chewing time and in between swallows.

But like the title of the thread -- it's all about getting to know the sleeve and make the proper adjustments, so

we can all have quality of life post-op. To be honest, although I am enjoying the weight-loss, I have noticed

that my relationship with food has changed substantially. And not always for the better. Not over-eating or

gaining weight, being more healthy is the purpose. I must admit -- a lot of the previous enjoyment of food

items .. has gone away. Case in point -- we used to enjoy a single slice of pizza after-school. Now only

my daughter enjoys that ... I can't and I don't. I have ordered slices along with her -- I just can't keep it

down, regardless of how many time I chewed and how long I waited before swallowing bites. It is the

type of food, I have noticed, that post-op -- I CAN'T enjoy anymore. And I miss that, to be honest, and

do count it as a degradation of quality of my life.

For those who were wondering -- I've got a surprise for ya .. I am American! LOL! I was born in Taiwan

but immigrated to CA when I was just 12 years old and spent most of my adult life there .. plus 2 years

in Hawaii. So, F-150's .. I know about them. I used to drive my own 4x4 pick-up in CA.

Please keep your comments going. Like to hear more about how people deal with their sleeves when

things get dicey after eating ..

Cheers~!

That is really cool about all the places you have lived. I have a small farm where I keep my horses and drive an F350 dual cab to pull the horses around- but I don't drive that vehicle for much else w/the price of fuel.

Congrats on the weight loss....Keep it up.

You mentioned earlier that you have lost a lot of weight rapidly. How much skin sagging has this lead to?