My doc recently suggested I consider sleeve surgery and I'm a bit frightened about it.

Edited January 10, 201412 yr by terri07

I am coming up on 7 months sleeved. Here's my take on some of your questions:

• Reflux: this may depend on the underlying cause of your reflux. Before your surgery, you'll have either an upper GI series or an endoscopy, which should find a hiatal hernia if you have one. Many, many obese people have them and they cause reflux. If you do have one, your surgeon should fix it while doing your sleeve surgery, and the odds are very high your reflux would be cured. That's what happened to me. But it's impossible to know without having either the upper GI series or endoscopy. This is something you would definitely want to discuss with your surgeon. Some surgeons feel like gastric bypass is a better option for people with reflux NOT caused by a hernia.
• Energy - after the first couple of weeks of recovery, my energy levels have been fantastic, better than ever. I eat less than 800 calories every day. My body has a plentiful supply of energy stores to draw on, aka fat, so it isn't a problem! I don't feel weak at all, I feel stronger than I ever have.
• Exercise - I started walking immediately after surgery and was released for full workouts four weeks out. My exercise is intermittent - one month I might be doing the 30 Day Shred every day and lifting weights three times a week, and the next month nothing more strenuous than walking the dog for 20 minutes. Interestingly, I find that I lose weight faster when I am not exercising. I don't think it has much to do with muscle being more dense than fat - really those changes are very incremental. But most people can do just fine losing weight without exercise (I know that's not a popular sentiment). However when it comes to maintenance, exercise appears to be very important! I think once you lose some weight you'll be more able to exercise if you choose to. When I exercise, I look at it as good for my cardiovascular health and for bone strength and health, not as something I need to do for weight loss.
• Nervous about surgery? Not particularly. I was worried I would get a leak and be hospitalized or bedridden for a long time, but other than that I didn't have any particular fears. I think I'm a little abnormal in that respect though. I see a lot of people freaking out about surgery, and I get that that's a completely normal reaction. It is major surgery! I had a lot of faith in the skills of my surgeon and the quality of care at the hospital so I believed everything would be fine.
• How do you maintain once you hit your goal weight? I can't speak from personal experience, but my dietician says that the smart way to do it is to add some calorie-rich foods, preferably high in healthy fats, or fruit, and keep your portions small and your eating infrequent. She doesn't like to see people drift into grazing patterns or starting to eat bigger meals, both of which can be detrimental in terms of eating habits and maintaining your restriction. So add some sliced avocado to your salad, eat tuna packed in olive oil instead of Water, add a half a banana to your Protein shake - stuff like that. Good luck to you and sorry for the super-long post!

Thanks so much for this good information! I really like your outlook about exercise, in that it's not solely for weight loss or for weight maintenance; that's a good mindset to try to adopt.

Truthfully, I had almost talked myself out of consulting the surgeon yesterday (already!) and then a good friend forwarded me information from a WLS veteran who also knows several other people who have had the surgery and have done quite well with it. Between what I read here and the information that the friend's friend shared, I'm once again leaning toward consulting the surgeon for the surgery.

I really appreciate that you took the time to share your thoughts! Thanks!