Hi all! Im thinking about having the sleeve done. Ive done reserch and my doc says im a canadate and will help with whatever i need.....i guess i want to know from real people the good and the bad.

Thank you so much!!! Im reserching now...and i cant spell lol! Thats y im here. Ive seen web sites that say there is dumping with sleeve and there is not.....i dont know. All i know for sure is im sick of my knees feet hips and back aching all the time. Im sick of being treated different because im fat. Im sick of eating and in a half hour being hungry again.

How long does it take one to get back to being able to eating normal? And can you have carbonation? Im leaning tward the sleeve.

I am 16 months out from surgery and down 80 pounds. I have never had any vomiting, and I haven't had the dumping symptoms either.

That doesn't mean I am completely in the clear. If I eat too much or too fast, my chest feels horrible. This is only happened to me twice.

I have severe degenerative arthritis in my ankle, and before surgery, I was in pain almost every day and regularly took medicine to control it. Since surgery, I am primarily pain free although there have been times that I've needed to still take medicine (usually when I was very very active). It seems to be getting better as I lose more and exercise more.

I don't eat normal, but I can eat pretty normally.

How much I can eat of something depends on what it is I'm eating. I eat less of things that are high in Protein.

There hasn't been anything I can't eat, but there are things I don't eat because they don't feel good when I eat them. Breads and potatoes were my two favorite things before being sleeved and now I rarely eat them. They fill me up too much. I can have a bite or two of them, but I usually prefer not to.

My diet has changed permanently. I eat protein first. I can eat portion sizes now that won't make too many people question my eating habits, but I don't do that all of the time. There are days, even 16 months out, where a meal or two is a Protein Shake.

I can drink carbonated pop, but I rarely do. I didn't drink it very much before surgery either.

If someone is having a birthday or another type of celebration, I can eat some cake or pie or whatever it is. I am usually pretty satisfied with just a bite or two. I don't eat donuts (same reason as breads and potatoes).

Most things that are bad for me are usually things I don't want to eat anyway. My biggest exception to that? Popcorn. I also still like Frito Lay Wavy chips WAY more than I should. I like salty more than sweet, so your experience may differ.

BTW, I'm in Michigan too, and I had my surgery done in Alma. The same surgeons also work out of Midland.

I don't know if i just stumbled into Michigan people or if this directs me to people in my area. I just had sleeve on Tuesday in Alma hospital and found this app today. Looking for information and support. Any suggestions?

thank you Linda S! :-) also, Linda S and elyod59 how did you like it there? would you reccomend the surgeon/care you recieved?? how long of a stay was it for you, and how much time off from work did you have to take??

My surgeon was Pilkington who works in Mt Pleasant and Alma. He was great. His nurse had the surgery and she recommended Alma to us. She works in Mt Pleasant but said Alma is better and I was very impressed with them. Very friendly and lots of one-on-one attention. I'm planning 2 weeks off of work but I'm a truck driver with very physical demands

Did you have any complications? What was your experience there?

I didn't really have complications with the surgery but my body was slow to process the gas they inflate the belly with. This caused me a great deal of discomfort and some severe pain but the nurses said this was not typical.

I was very happy with alma and my surgeon. I stayed two nights and three days, which is normal. The practice is on the conservative side when it comes to care, which I didn't mind at all. This means it will be about 12 weeks after surgery before all diet restrictions are cleared (it progresses, but much slower than most people on this discussion board).

I was off work for two weeks. When I did return back to work, I was tired at the end of the day. I'd fall asleep around 8 p.m., which is unusual for me. That lasted a week or two, but it wasn't horrible.