Hi! I’m planning to have a RNY, but I travel for work a good amount. How long after surgery did (or would) you feel comfortable with traveling for work? Are we talking months?

Do you mean long distance travel or just driving back and forth to the office? I was back to nursing 2 weeks after surgery, but made sure not to exceed my lifting restriction. I was driving my stick shift just fine. As long as you are not on narcotic pain meds you should be able to drive within a couple of weeks. Long distance, though, would be a more of a worry, because of blood clot risk. I wore compression stockings every day, started walking the day of surgery, and was up to 10,000 steps a day 2-3 weeks post op, and I STILL got a blood clot in my leg!

Eating was not a problem right away, as it is mostly broths and protein shakes at first. However, several months down the road, I cannot take "real" food to work because i can't eat it with my half hour lunch break. So I take a protein shake or soup - something easy to slide down.

Thanks! This is international travel, so 12-14 hrs on a plane one way. I could haul around shakes, but hadn’t thought about clotting issues...

Follow your doctor's advice on this. My father couldn't travel long distances after hernia surgery for 8 weeks, due to risk of clots. It would be a good idea to wear compression stockings and take a stretch band along so you could do leg exercises on the flights. Is the place you travel to somewhere you could get help and good diagnostics should a situation come up? Some surgeons put their patients on Lovenox injections for a couple of weeks post op. Does yours?

My Dr was happy for me to do that type of travel after 3 months. I just got back from a round the world trip Australia - LA-London- Hong Kong - Australia and I had no issues. I just ate the plane food, didn’t need shakes or anything like that. I get my protein from real food sources but I do carry a nut bar in my handbag for just in case.

I took a cruise 2 months post-op with no trouble, but you'll be flying so access to food is a little harder. I'd still say 2 months might be the right amount of time.

Thank you all! I’m getting the sense that I’ll need to wait until November to do surgery...

i have plenty of headwork I need to do, so I guess I’ll keep on with that while I wait... and wait.... and wait.