Hello guys,

This is my first post here. I stumbled upon this page on Google and was reading some of the topics and this community seemed very supportive. I thought I'd give it a try.

So I'm one week out of post op gastric bypass. I was in the hospital for about 3 days and I've been home since. I have to say the first couple days I was in horrible pain, way worse than I anticipated. While in the hospital I drank very small amounts and barely ate anything. They gave us little 30ml cups to pour liquids into. We had the option of water, apple/cranberry juice diluted 50/50 with water, skim milk and ice chips. They also gave us a jello every day at lunch and a no sugar vanilla pudding at dinner. Accompanied by some sort of cream based soup with no chunks in it. I was a little surprised because I was expecting clear liquids only. Anyways long story short..

After coming home I've felt much much better. I think I stopped pain meds day 4 and I'm able to move around, bend, etc without any discomfort really. I'm obviously taking it easy but I am finding the now 3 weeks (2 weeks pre-op) liquid diet to be hell on Earth. I'm doing my best and while yesterday and today I tried a little bit of pureed foods and yogurt and it seemed to sit fine. I am trying to follow the guidelines. I personally have no felt any nausea or had any diarrhea since the first day or two. So I'm just sitting here trying to argue with myself about whether to try and suffer another week of primarily liquid diet or to try and step into pureed a little early.

I don't want to cause any issues or stretch my stomach accidently. Even with puree I've been careful to have things like Liptons cup-a-soup. I pureed a clam chowder and ate maybe 1/3 of the can and found it sat very heavy the rest of the day on my stomach. I felt bloated and whenever o drank liquids it just refreshed the bloated feeling. Not trying that again. They also expect me to drink 2 protein shakes daily. The best I can do to makr a protein shake that isn't chalky is 300ml of water in the blender. But even then I struggle sipping at it for an hour or more to drink more than half. I actually feel very gassy afterwards and sometimes it too feel very heavy on my stomach. Maybe I am drinking too fast or is this normal at this stage?

Obviously I want nothing more than to be back on solid foods. But I know that is at least 3 weeks away and then it will be a very gradual introduction. Sorry for this post being soo long I am just really struggling and not sure what to do. I feel like if I see one more cup of clear chicken broth I'm going to croak. I just miss and want flavour and taste back in my life. Something to get me through to where I can enjoy real food again.

While your stomach is still healing it's best to stick with the liquid diet. I know it sucks. I hated being on the liquid diet for a week after surgery after having been on the two week pre-op diet so that when I finally got to purees it was like heaven lol. I will admit though that I did move to soft foods a day earlier than I was supposed to, but I stuck to the rest of the diet. I really didn't fancy having to go back to the hospital because I moved to a stage far too early (and my surgery was before Covid was a thing). As to getting enough protein in... I think many of us struggled with that in the beginning. I was also supposed to get two protein shakes in. What I did was have one in the morning that I usually sipped on for two hours (sad that) and the second I had about an hour after dinner (and proceeded to sip on for another two hours). Eventually, around month three or four, I was able to get enough protein by food that I was able to cut down to just one protein shake (my particular surgery requires a minimum of 80-100g of protein a day for females. I can't get that through just food. Well, I probably could NOW, but I still have the protein shake every day so I don't have to stress so much about my protein intake. I can now get a protein shake down in about 20 minutes. I like that I only have to feel responsible for a minimum of 50g of protein through food). Also, some people are a little dairy sensitive after surgery, so if you're using whey protein shakes that might be what's causing the gassiness. Maybe try a plant based protein or even Fairlife protein shakes (they're lactose free, so you may be able to tolerate them).

Edited July 30, 20214 yr by NovaLuna
spelling error

food progression depends on the surgeon. I never had a post-op liquid progression - I was eating purees while I was still in the hospital (although this isn't common)

the first few weeks can be a challenge and a lot of trial and error to see what your stomach is going to tolerate. The gassiness/etc that you're feeling could just be the normal adjustment or it could be that you've developed an intolerance to lactose or some artificial sweetener (both common - sometimes the intolerance is permanent, sometimes temporary). Just keep working on it.

I know what you mean about food. I actually got to the point where I didn't like food and eating was a challenge. I had to remind myself that it was time to eat. It was annoying at first, but then I realized how easy it was to lose weight when I really didn't give a flip about food and (in my case) was never hungry. Unfortunately, that only lasted about five months (for those of us who lose our hunger and our interest in food, that period typically only lasts a few weeks or months - for some up to a year - before food interest & hunger return, and then it becomes a lot more challenging to stick to the program)

I just checked and yes, it is whey protein. It also calls to make it with milk so I've been using about 50-70% skim milk and a little water. I didn't think about a lactose issue. I'll have to try mixing it with water only and see how that goes. If it's still giving me trouble then I'll give a different type of protein powder a shot.

Well today ends week one of the post-op liquid diet. Now that I'm reading and hearing other people saying they came off onto puree after a week I'm a little less worried. Everything online says 2 weeks post-op but to me that just seems excessively cautious. Maybe for slow healers or people having a lot of struggles with adapting to the surgery. For me I feel fine in every way minus the desire for something more. I was just worried if I started trying puree foods if it was going to stretch my stomach or screw me over somehow. I didn't want to ruin the surgery early on or cause some kind of damage to myself.

I wish I had regular check-ups with the surgical team to give me advice and updates on what I could try or do but I don't. In Canada since Healthcare is free and I didn't have to come out of pocket for this or use insurance you don't get the same access to treatment. My first follow-up is a month after surgery and they'll likely just ask for my progress and if I have any concerns or major issues. My first follow-up with the dietician is also about a month away. They never gave me any information about support groups I could go to or how to meet others in my local area who are having surgery to kind of have a buddy system like they do in other addiction groups. So it's kind of free sailing here and having to figure it out on my own.

It sounds really difficult to do with no support. I'm sorry you have to go alone, but at least the surgery didn't cost you anything. For me, my surgeons diet was 1 week liquid, 1 week puree, 2 weeks soft foods, and then general diet. Every surgeon has different guidelines as to what they believe works best so they're all different lol.