My name is Amanda and I am 34 years old, located in Delaware! I began my journey in November 2013 when I made the decision to have surgery. I was 219 pounds at 5 feet 1 inch. I had heart trouble, high blood pressure, pain in my joints, a substantial inoperable back injury with nerve damage, border line diabetes, and a whole list of other ailments. In the beginning, I had very little support from my family. My surgeon required an info seminar followed by every physician's clearance known to man, nutrition classes, and life skills classes. I attended my 3 nutrition classes and when I entered my first life skills class, I wanted to back out!! A friend of mine, who also had surgery (bypass) was going through the classes as well. She encouraged me to continue this journey, that I needed to look at my quality of life, and that it was either now or never. I decided to push forward. I can still remember pulling into the hospital parking garage the day of surgery. I was a nervous wreck! Good thing I wasn't driving, otherwise, I may have just turned back around and returned home!! This was the first day of the rest of my life! I was pretty fortunate that I didn't have any complications, and faired well. After three months, I was completely off of all of my meds, other than my gastric meds for surgery! I had more energy, and just felt better in general. It was/is not an easy trip. However, I would not change it for the world! I am now 8 1/2 months post op, and down 83 pounds with approximately 10 more to go! I have little pain in my back, and finally feel as though I am free of the shackles that I was in due to being so overweight. I had to have another major surgery, a hysterectomy, in September, and since then I feel like I have hit my plateau. I also have started to slide into some old bad habits with refined sugars, and wraps. I need a little help from my bariatric friends to support me and to get through the last ten pounds. Thanks for welcoming me!

Amanda

congratulations on what you've accomplished!!!

I gained some weight after my hysterectomy as well; I have to ask - when did you last have your TSH checked? If that's normal, you know how to do this... the same thing that got off the first 50 will get off the last 10.

Planning, counting, exercising. You can do it, and you've already said it's worth it.

That's a great story. Congrats on your success! Now you have to get back to the basics that got you to where you are. You already know you can do it, so do it! You have got this!

I can't wait to be in your shoes! Congrats on your progress!

The hormonal changes with a hysterectomy are a be-yotch! I slowly gained 100lbs over the course of 10 years due in part to pre-mature menopause. I agree with @scstxrn you have to do what got you this far. Leave the refined sugars alone, and no more wraps unless they are lettuce wraps.

Ah, the hysterectomy! Fun times...NOT!

I lucked out and got to keep an ovary so I wouldn't go into early menopause but I think I am definitely pre-menopausal now.

I gained about 40 after the surgery. But I don't miss that thing. Not even a little.

I had cancer. They took everything; ovaries, Fallopian tubes & lymph nodes. Yay! For being cancer free, but early onset menopause is no joke

@@BLERDgirl

I had the same, and because of it I couldn't take hormone replacement... Lexapro has helped tremendously with the mental stuff and the hot flashes for me. It is nice to get the 50 from the hysterectomy off... then another 50 from new mom hood, then another 50 from college.. then I'll be just a few pounds shy of my goal.

I didn't gave mental/emotional issues but those hit flashes!

It helped with mine. According to uptodate, a phenomenal medical software that my job gives me access to, Paroxetine (Paxil) low dose is the only SSRI specifically approved for menopause hot flashes - but Lexapro is among those that have been used successfully, as well as Celexa and Effexor. You can't take Paxil with Tamoxifen due to weakening of the Tamoxifen. The link to that is here: http://www.uptodate.com/contents/nonhormonal-treatments-for-menopausal-symptoms-beyond-the-basics

Paxil can also trigger mania and feeling like things are crawling on your skin, if you have any predisposition to that - and Paxil and Effexor both have a horrible discontinuation syndrome so you have to wean verrrrry slowly.

For me - Lexapro helped with both the hot flashes and the rage.

There's a great little thing called a chillow that was nice for the night time hot flashes, too. And damp wash rags frozen flat for the back of my neck, chest and wrists... until I got the meds. I would have 25 or more flat frozen wash rags in a stack (layer with wax paper to keep them from sticking to each other) in my freezer at any given time.