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I have a 15 pounds dog and their little paws can be like little pokers sometimes. I would imagine if it was just near the incision it should be fine. Sorry that you can’t just get guidance from your surgery center. My primary care doctor’s office is unresponsive like that and I am going to go to this one last annual appointment just so I can talk to him personally to let him know what is going on with his staff and then changing doctors (unless he convinces me otherwise but I doubt it).

I think of it like this. How does everything I eat fit into the plan. Am I getting protein from it? Is it high in sugar or carbs? Am I getting any nutritional value from it? If not, it is simply too high a price to pay. Thinking from a money analogy, if a piece of cake cost $100, you would do without it, simply not worth it. The same logic is how I treat those foods high in fat, calories and carbs. Not worth the price my body pays. Need a snack? Find something that provides some benefit to you.

Very typical and not talked about enough. However you can still feel fullness just of a different kind. Occasionally I can still feel the VSG restriction with very solid things. But now it’s mostly a lower abdomen heaviness and disinterest in the food that warns me when I’m done. Be patient and you’ll notice your signals eventually ❤️

I take the same vitamin and take them In the morning with my protein shake I drink for breakfast along with taking my other meds. Like you I was fine for a while but one day it made me sick as can be and the only thing I can think of is I must’ve taken less of the protein shake before I swallowed the vitamin (I never had issues with vitamins so I didn’t pay attention to this). Anyways, I have made it a point now to take my vitamin with the last sip of My protein shake and I have been fine ever since. You could just as easily take it with dinner though like you mentioned.

Right on time. Do a search for 3 week stall

Also, for the constipation: it's totally normal. Try taking Miralax (doesn't work right away, needs to be taken basically every day) or if you haven't gone in a long time, use a laxative suppository (not to be taken too often). Talk to your surgery center to make sure these are okay. I find the miralax works way better than stool softeners or senna. You will not normally go every day after surgery because you are taking in less food and fiber. My surgery center said to make sure I'm getting enough liquid and moving around enough. However, I'm doing both of these things and I'm still only having a BM twice a week. And, as @catwoman7 mentioned, the three week stall is infamous. I am basically there right now. This too shall pass!

Its hard to believe it’s been 6 months since I “went under the knife”. What a 6 months it has been. From nervousness to excitement, from regret to happiness. The emotions have been all over the board. It definitely hasn’t been easy and it’s really only just began. I wanted to share a little of my journey thus far for folks that are considering the surgery, just had the surgery or anybody else that can relate or possibly get/stay motivated. Like most, the beginning was very difficult. I did a ton of research before the surgery. I thought I was prepared. But as the old adage goes, “you don’t know until you do it”. I struggled with drinking enough water/fluids, not getting enough protein, feelings of despair as I could only eat a tiny amount of food, total regret of having the surgery and wanting to call up Doc Brown to see if I could borrow the Delorean to go back in time. But around the 6 week mark, it seemed that everyday my attitude got a little better. I started to walk a little bit to clear my mind. I started just walking around the block. It’s about all I could do and I was a little paranoid of doing too much (silly in hindsight). I tried to really stay focused on sticking to the plan and just taking each day as it was and not look into the future. I started incorporating fish into my diet and nuts and I started walking around the block twice. I just kept telling myself that things will get easier. And before too long, they did. Fast forward to today and I’ve lost 164 lbs. I’ve lost 33% of my highest body weight. My BMI has gone from 58.3 to 38.9. I’m now walking 5 miles at a time, about 5 days a week. I eat mostly fish, salads, veggies and nuts. I actually eat carbs and some stuff that they probably don’t want me to but it’s limited and I’m burning so many calories exercising that I can handle some extra calories and not worry about it. I think I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve consistently lost weight every single week except in week 3 (seems like this is the week everybody tends to stall). I’ve learned to give myself a little credit instead of giving it all to the surgery. The procedure definitely deserves most all of the credit but I wouldn’t be where I’m at now had I not stuck to the plan, pushed myself to stay mentally strong and built a routine of exercise. Giving myself that little bit of credit has helped me in so many ways. I’m still about 80 lbs from my goal. I have a long way to go to get to that goal and of course even longer for a lifetime commitment to being healthy. I know whoever reads this has heard the line “if I can do it, anybody can”. I hate to use that but it’s so true. I used to lack motivation to get out of my Laz-E-Boy to even walk around the block. To put down the soda, stop eating a large pizza by myself, fries, Chinese food, burgers,wings, you name it. I found something inside me that clicked to get curious about the surgery. Then to actually go thru with it. Then to implement and execute the plan to improve my life. I wish I could say that I’m 110% confident that I’ll never gain weight again. That I’ll never binge eat again or go off the rails. I’m confident right now that I’m fully committed to a new lifestyle. I’m only 6 months in. I’m still not even that hungry. I can still only eat a little bit. At some point, those things will change. But I know that I never want to go back to what I was. I haven’t changed as a person in the last 6 months. But my attitude, goals and purpose has. For that I’m grateful. I wish all who reads this much success in your journey. Know that it will be different from mine and all others that you come across. There will be many similarities but your journey is your own just as mine is for me. If I can do it, anybody can. 👊🏼✌🏼

I think many of us have had some regain in one form or another. For ALL of us, once the surgery stops working it's completely up to us. Post op 7 years next week, when I was losing I thought I was invincible and had no fear of regain. But I lost a parent, changed jobs, changed jobs again, went to night shift, went to grad school, dealt with all kinds of things, and the 'eat all things in small amounts' went out the window. I had to fully commit to a very specific PERMANENT very low carb lifestyle. I lost all my regain and more, but I have eaten only a ketogenic level lifestyle for the last 6 years. I am not one of those patients who loses their weight and can resume eating all things just in tiny amounts. I have to work at staying very low carb, no sugar, almost no fruit, no starchy veg, no bread/rice/pasta/oats/grains etc. I basically eat meat, green veg, eggs, cream/butter, and a high protein shake with water or almond milk daily. it's a tight regimen but it works for me. Remember your WHY. find it and recommit. you totally got this!

I am two months post-surgery (March 30) and had almost constant problems with nausea. Most food made me feel bad (some more than others) and I felt bad even some of the time between meals. I found the answer this week: a CBD vape device. My offspring uses one for social anxiety, I gave it a try and it was like magic. The nausea is completely gone. Yet it does not negate the restrictive benefits of the surgery. I still feel full on very small amounts of food and it is still uncomfortable if I eat too much. It is not AS acutely uncomfortable but uncomfortable enough to be an effective deterrent without incapacitating me. CBD vape fluid does not have THC in it (or only trace amounts) and does not produce the powerful high you get from smoking marijuana. I get a mild feeling of relaxation and that is all. I cannot write (which is what I do for a living) if I smoke marijuana but the CBD does not inhibit me from working at all. I had lurked here before my surgery quite a bit and joined specifically to share this, because I know it will help other people the way it helped me.

First off, let me say that you should always listen to your doctor and nutritionist...rather than crazy people on the internet, myself included. But here's my rant today. And for what it's worth....this is just MY feelings on this nonsense. I'm no expert. Ya'll need to eat. Not overeat. But also NOT UNDER-EAT. Eat healthy food you enjoy. I know how it happens. Your weight loss gets sluggish and stuck and you think OMG, this isn't working, I'm Failing at this! You start to panic. And what does a lifelong self-destructive dieter DO when they start to panic? They go exteme. They go...ok, my doctor said it was ok to eat this much.....so I'm gonna try to eat HALF of that to speed up my weight loss! I'm going to work harder than anyone! I'm going to eat less! I'm going to force this weight off of my body...because this is my last chance and I'm freaking out and I can't fail at this, so I NEED to do better and cut back! Only, here's the thing. You don't need to cut back. You need to stay the course, nourish your healing body, have good energy to boost your metabolism and lose weight sensibly. Why do people do VLCDs? (very low calorie diets....1000 or less calories a day)....they do them because they show results in a hurry. And there is nothing people like better than a lower number on the scale...regardless of how they're achieving it. Or how harmfully they are achieving it. When you eat less than 1000 calories a day, did you know you lose more muscle than fat...even if you are eating tons of protien grams? When you lose muscle, you slow your metabolism, endanger your organs that have muscle (heart anyone?), and decrease your bone density. None of this is a good idea. And when you're eating starvation level calories, your body tries like hell to keep you from dying....by, you guessed it, slowing your metabolism even further. And the carb thing...can we talk about that a minute? You DO want to avoid carbs that are metabolized to sugar really fast, like sugary foods and refined white flour items because they can cause your pancrease to over-react and send too much insulin and you'll end up with rebound hunger....but other carbs, particularly ones that have good fiber content to slow the sugar can also have good protien content...and they don't do the rebound hunger thing. They give you great available energy. Why do we lose so much weight so rapidly when we do keto? We don't really....but the first five pounds is so quick and shocking that it MUST work! (except you're not losing fat, you're losing the water that your liver stores extra glucose in.....and you've stripped your liver of its emergency reserve of energy. And yeah...you can make the sugar you need from other things through gluconeogenesis....but it takes amino acids that your body is typically harvesting from your muscles.) Don't do that thing where you lose the five pounds eating keto....then eat a few carbs and go OMG, look at the weight I've gained!....and go keto again and lose the same five pounds of water. It's an illusion. (Not saying keto people can't lose weight...they do lose weight fast...but they also have about five pounds in lost water from glucose storage, no emergency stores, and their bodies may be consuming their muscles) Food for thought (literally!) Guess what organ runs exclusively on sugar? Pure glucose. Your brain. Your brain burns over 300 calories of glucose every day. At just 2% of our body weight....our brains burn about 20% of the calories we use each day! The CPU needs fuel. Lots of people lose weight rapidly with Very Low Calorie Diets after bariatric surgery. They have these amazing results that other people notice and are in awe of. They lose to goal eating very little and feel very accomplished about their self discipline and their amazing fast results. And then guess what happens? At goal...they are still people who have never learned how to eat sustainably for life. All they know is starvation and self deprivation. And starvation doesn't work long term. Please learn to eat sustainable amounts of calories. Do it early so you don't fudge your metabolism into starvation level calorie requirements. One of the best ways to have a robust metabolism...is to do exercise every day. It doesn't have to be the gym or something you find tedious. Do things you enjoy....but keep moving. It's hard to build your robust metabolism.....when you're too tired to do anything but go to work and go to bed...because you're starving yourself. Please eat. Don't overeat. But eat. Learn to eat right, not starve. Starving is not the cure and in many cases sets the stage for significant regain. Do it right, even it it's slower than other people. Do it sustainably. Learn to coexist with food, not avoid it. (easier said than done) Don't get discouraged by small losses. Just keep losing to goal with small sensible tweeks. You don't have to suffer extremes to have success. Learning to control your diet moderately...is the best skill to have when facing a lifetime of sustaining a significant weight loss. This end my rant. Totally ok if you think I'm nuts/wrong/whatever. Take what you like and leave the rest. Peace and best wishes to everyone on this crazy road.