I am going over the post op diet he 'prescribes' ... 4 days of Clear liquids, moving on to "solid" liquids... then ... Normal food *as tolerated* ....

I called him up yesterday and asked him about this, his reasoning is "mushies go right through the band" ... My jaw dropped, I know he is still relatively new to banding and that he still has to work out how he is going to do things but damnit all. That seems to me to be asking for trouble!!

I told him I would bring in all the research I have found from hundreds of different facilities and show him the normal is same for bypass patients. liquid, 'solid' liquids, mushies, then solids as tolerated.

Now I am not concerned for myself because my research has one up'd the good doctor (and I do not doubt his surgical skills, he is an awesome surgeon) I will follow the common after care diet I have found, and go that route. But I am concerned for his patients that don't do the research to find out things on there own.

*sigh* Surgically speaking he is brilliant, common sense, well lets just say I don't think he showed up for that class :biggrin:

My post op diet is 2 weeks liquids (any liquids) which include protein shakes, the 1 to 2 weeks of mushies the normal food as tolerated. I just think every Doctor is different and goes by what they see as best.

Vikki

My post op diet was 3-4 days of clear liquids then mushies/soft foods for 1 week, then solid foods as tolerated. Everything has been going down fine so you shouldn't be too worried. All you have to do is make sure you chew really well. Trust me this is a good thing, because for me I didn't start getting my energy back until I started eating solid foods again.

It's true that every doctor seem to do things a bit differently, but I don't think that means that it's all okay. Some docs have better erosion and slip stats than others and I'm sure that their recommendations for post-op care feed into that.

Also, chewing your food to mush and having it be mush when it enters your mouth are not the same thing. The act of chewing your food generates saliva and that activates various parts of your digestive system. If you are "eating" mushies, that doesn't happen.

The whole purpose of being on the liquids and then the mushies is to keep your stomach quiet during the healing process. If it moves around digesting things, you increase your chance of the band not anchoring properly, which in turn can lead to slippage.

Now, it's true that the experts don't know 100% why slippage occurs and right now the advice not to eat solid food any sooner than 4-6 weeks out is based on theories. Maybe in 5-10 years, the advice will be different. But in the meantime, knowing what we know now, I would be very leery of advice to eat solid food any sooner than 4-6 weeks out and I'd be a bit skeptical of advice to wait any longer than that. We do know about how long it takes for our insides to heal and for most people that's 4-6 weeks, not 2 weeks and not 2 months.

My doc told me to eat liquidy, mushie food for about a week then start introducing normal stuff chewed really well. To try and avoid heavy tough meats etc.

That's all.

:-)