Does anyone else have trouble coughing after surgery, it is like I have to cough, but can't cough hard enough, so it's multiple light coughs, not sure if it's because my tummy is so small now, does this make sense?

Yep. To this day, I still have to kinda "huff" a few times, to clear my airways. It took some getting used to.

That's interesting. No, I've not had that problem.

I had it as I healed the first 2 weeks. They sent me home with a contraption to help me breath deep and that really helped!

I am almost 10 months out now.

I have that shallow coughing sensation thing too. Immediately after surgery, I thought it was because I was clenching my core when I coughed (because of the pain), but then even now (a year out) I still can't get a really good deep cough out of me. After reading this post I went to quickly google and see if I could find something to explain it, but haven't found anything yet...will do a deeper dive later.

...on another possibly related note, I also find that vomiting has a similar shallow sensation. Pre-wls when I barfed, it felt like it came from down low near my belly button, but now the throwup seems to come out of my chest. ??‍♀️

So I just heard from my bariatric team and the coughing trouble comes from the loss of torso muscle. Wow. Time to build some muscle

Does anyone know a good core strengthening program, I want to strengthen muscles but not bulk up.

2 hours ago, amithistrose said:

Does anyone know a good core strengthening program, I want to strengthen muscles but not bulk up.

Pilates!

10 hours ago, amithistrose said:

So I just heard from my bariatric team and the coughing trouble comes from the loss of torso muscle. Wow. Time to build some muscle

Honestly? I think that's a bunch of hooey. I was able to cough and clear my chest up until the point of surgery. During surgery, they did not remove any muscle nor did they remove any internal organs. But immediately in recovery, I noticed the inability to cough.

I have pretty strong core muscles due to PT training. And from the first minutes I was awake, I still noticed this inability to cough or expel air.

So where is the "loss of torso muscle" coming from? If that's their explanation for it? I've lost a lot of weight, but I now have the beginnings of a 6pack ab set.

I'm not sure this was from my bariatric team, I will email the actual surgeon today though and see what he says.

...i did a little bit more googling last night about this and still came up empty-ish. which is odd, as I can usually at least find a lead to SOMETHING.

The only thing that i could find that was remotely related was infection-related, but that seems like a reach. If this bothers me enough I may make an appt with my PCP and ask some questions. Right now I'm ok living in semi-ignorance, LOL.

For now, will just googling sporadically and see if anything comes up.

Did you have a Sleeve? If you did, outside chance it could be Reflux rear8ng it's Ugly Devious head- sleepers D9 Sometimes get That when They NEVER had it Before. Sure praying? everything resolves!