Hi!

I'm 24 and getting ready for my surgery in February. I live in Seoul, South Korea as a teacher and am trying hard to find everything that I'll need for after surgery.

I'm worried because I'll need to prepare everything and try to recover as fast as possible. I live alone and my fiance works a couple hours away so he won't be around to take care or help me unfortunately. Recovering alone isn't going to be fun but I'm excited to get my surgery and get started on losing weight, as well as, improving my overall health.

Currently my surgery date is for mid-February but might be switched to the end of February which would only leave about 4 days to recover before beginning my new job.

So, my first question, would 4 days be enough time to recover enough to go back to work?

Also, it's not easy to find everything I need so I'm ordering what I can on iHerb and was wondering what everyone recommends? iHerb has cheap delivery and is the easiest/ fastest way for me to order and have everything delivered to Korea in less than 2 weeks.

Another question, I can't find sugar-free pudding so was wondering if just regular organic pudding would still be okay?

I'm planning to order Protein powder and wanted to see if anyone recommended Twinlab, Bariatric Support whey Protein powder?

My doctor is Korean so we didn't talk very much about what I needed to prepare so I'm a little lot lost and having to figure everything out myself. I don't have a nutritionist or a support group/ class either so yeah... haha >.<

Sorry for all my questions!

As far as recovery, it really depends on the person. I went back to work by day 3 but I have a pretty sedentary office job. I also recovered well overall. I didn't have a lot of pain and was out and about by day 2. If your recovery is like mine, you won't really need help but you do need to have the drinks/food on hand. I am not familiar with iHerb. For the pudding, ideally think you need to find sugar free. Not sure if you have tried any of the powders in your post but if possible I'd recommend you get a sample before buying anything big. Some are disgusting and you wind up wasting a lot of money. Do you have GNC or Vitamin Shoppes there? They have everything you need as far as protein supplements.

4 days is not enough in my opinion...

As far as recovery, it really depends on the person. I went back to work by day 3 but I have a pretty sedentary office job. I also recovered well overall. I didn't have a lot of pain and was out and about by day 2. If your recovery is like mine, you won't really need help but you do need to have the drinks/food on hand. I am not familiar with iHerb. For the pudding, ideally think you need to find sugar free. Not sure if you have tried any of the powders in your post but if possible I'd recommend you get a sample before buying anything big. Some are disgusting and you wind up wasting a lot of money. Do you have GNC or Vitamin Shoppes there? They have everything you need as far as Protein supplements.

Thank you for replying!

There is GNC here somewhere but from what I've heard, it can be very expensive. How much protein should I be taking in and how much should be in each serving of the protein supplements?

I'm trying to prepare everything now so that when I do go back to work, it's easy for me to prepare all my meals.

I recover really quickly and hope that that means I'll recover from this surgery quick. For example, after removal of my wisdom teeth, the next day, I was out shopping and eating normal food, without any pain at all. I have a very high tolerance for pain, it seems.

4 days is not enough in my opinion...

I'm hoping that my surgery will be in the middle of February, then it gives me more than 2 weeks to recover for work. but if things don't work out with my finances (pay check from my current company coming early) then I'll need to do it at the end of the month. I think the week after my surgery only consists of training at my new company and is never usually stressful or tiring/hard on the body.

I think I should be able to recover quickly though. I hope. and thank you for replying!

Hopefully your financial situation will allow you to have the surgery earlier, but your work resumption plan sounds reasonable as long as you have an uneventful surgery and recovery.

The benefit of GNC is that anything you don't like can be returned for a full refund, perhaps saving you money in the end. When I moved to soft foods after one week, I stopped regularly using Protein powder, finding ways to get my protein from real food. I only use it occasionally and even then I add it to other food rather than using it as a self-contained food source.

My doctor requires 60 grams of protein each day with a maximum of 25 at any one time. The nutritionist said our bodies can only absorb so much protein at a time. I am also required to get at least 64 ounces of Fluid each day.

The protein really depends on your doc's instructions. Here are my doc's instructions: 50-70 grams of protein per day, minimum of 48oz of water or other zero calorie liquid per day. It is not really per serving but per day. The diet and progression instructions vary widely by doc. I was clear liquids the first week so had to use Ispoure to get protein in and really wasn't getting to 50-70g protein yet. Week 2 was full liquids and a little easier to hit because the internal swelling starts to go down and I could introduce protein shakes. Week 3 soft solids can be introduced. Week 4 can begin introducing regular food in small portions. From looking at other sleeves each dr has very different requirements so you need to be sure you and doc connect on post op diet.

How much would you all recommend to buy to keep in stock? I mean if I won't need it after a month then how much should I just buy for now?

I'm one to keep eating or drinking something even if I don't like it. So I don't mind buying the Protein in big bulks if I need it.

Thank you everyone for the help! I'll be sure to also ask my doctor when I go in a couple weeks for my tests!

I would say at least 3 weeks worth to be safe. You don't know how well you will tolerate food.

Here is an informative booklet that you might find helpful. It gives guidelines on how to choose a protein shake amongst other things: http://www.ochsner.org/content/misc_files/_BARIATRIC_NUTRITION_BIBLE.pdf

Here is an informative booklet that you might find helpful. It gives guidelines on how to choose a Protein shake amongst other things: http://www.ochsner.o...ITION_BIBLE.pdf

I would say at least 3 weeks worth to be safe. You don't know how well you will tolerate food.

Thank you so much! I printed out the pdf and am ordering a tub of Protein powder that my friend recommended and had good ratings.

I'm getting really excited for my surgery! wish it was sooner.

So I was going to be sleeved on February 16th but it's now been pushed back to February 27th because of finances.

I'm nervous because I'll only have about 4.5 days to recover before going back to work. Eek! But a friend of mine went back to work after a week (as a teacher as well) and her friend had the same surgery on a Thursday and went back to work (another teacher) on Monday. So seems I might be ok.

My new school is up a hill and I hope I won't become exhausted by just walking to the bus stop, taking a bus to school, and walking up the hill. Lol!