So I just read yet another post about someone advancing their diet on their own too soon. This one from someone 4 days post op advancing to broccoli soup. Probably won't kill them but it could. Then of course we get the irresponsible follow up poster saying that they too advanced their diet on their own way early and explored all kinds of foods and as long as their stomach tolerates it they see no problem with it.

Now I'm getting super frustrated, I had to put my two cents in. And perhaps I was harsh. But I watched someone die 4 years ago from doing just this.

My x mother in law had gastric sleeve surgery. At less than two weeks post op she started eating tidbits of foods she was not supposed to have, turkey, stuffing, ham, chicken in very small bites and yes chewed very well. All that didn't matter. She was fine at first. In fact showed no symptoms for days. Then she became extremely ill, with pain and fever. She had a leak which had to be repaired by surgery. After surgery she developed a serious infection and a fistula which led to the outside of her stomach. Everything she tried to drink seeped outside her stomach onto a large padded napkin that she held up to the opening of that fistula. They could not get the infection under control. They fought it for three months with the best antibiotics they had. Eventually she became septic, her organs began to fail and she passed away.

I am only 4 weeks post op VSG, you better believe I thought long and hard about having the same surgery that she had. But I can also say that I have followed my an to the T, with the exception of drinking coffee which I discussed with my surgeon beforehand.

When are people going to realize that following their diet is serious. And more so when are these idiots going to stop coming on and saying things like it's ok to explore foods early as long as you tolerate them!!!! My mother in law tolerated those foods just fine for damn near a week before she finally showed the signs of a serious leak.

Your prescribed diet plan after major stomach surgery is not just a guideline that they want you to follow so you can lose weight. It's a prescription that really can mean life or death, I've seen it with my own eyes.

Ugggggh sooooooo frustrated!!!!!!!

But then you have people like me who got a diet plan, went in one week post op and was told that they weren't to worried about the diet just try each phase and if it worked out ok if not back up a step. So I'm like totally lost and pretty much just eating the same thing every day.

Wow. As a nurse, that makes me suspect some very unclear communication, either on the part of the surgeon/staff or on the part of what you understood.

My surgeon has one of the most liberal diet progression plans I've seen, and she knew from our conversations that she could give me the written lists and some general guidelines and I'd know what to do with them because I'm an RN.

She started me on full liquids - which on her plan includes jello, pudding, and greek yogurt and a couple of other pudding consistency items - on day 2 after I kept clear liquids down fine on day 1 coming out from surgery. There was no negotiation on that for the first 2 weeks until my first checkup. Protein shakes, and the things on the full liquids list, period.

She entirely skips the puree phase, as she says it's not functionally much different from the soft/mushy foods phase if your teeth work well, and most people hate it and aren't compliant. So I had a list of soft foods that I could START introducing after my 2 week checkup. One food at a time, from the softest and moistest foods first working my way to firmer consistencies. One new food at a time, tested a couple of times before adding another new food. This was for no less than another 2 weeks.

At my 4 week checkup, she allowed me to start adding in "normal" foods, except for a list of problematic foods such as raw veggies and things with seeds or small hard particles. Those were allowed after 6 or 8 weeks, I forget. I didn't actually try any of them until well after 2 months. But again, it was adding ONE food at a time, trying it several times before adding another.

So if your surgeon really said just "try foods as tolerated" then s/he failed to clearly communicate what the goal of the progressive diet is, and what you're trying to accomplish. That sounds like you can try all the foods in each phase for a day or two and if nothing causes a problem, go on to the next and you're on solids in under a week. Even if that's what s/he *said*, it is very doubtful to me that is what s/he *meant*. Doctors are not the greatest at patient education, it's not generally in their training. A surgeon who is truly advocating progressing the diet that rapidly has very likely not been doing it long enough to lose a patient to a leak or abscess.

That is REALLY good stuff. Well done, well communicated. If gives you a why as well as the what. May I suggest you copy that and put it in the pre-op section with, the horrible warning from the OP? Between the two, this is 90% of your first six weeks post op.