Leaderboard

I want to thank you ALL. I truly appreciate the love and support from you all. I never knew that I could meet strangers that have so much pouring love and support for me... we are now family. I just got discharged today so I'm very thankful for this. Through this all I'm going to remain positive and hopeful. It has been very rough and difficult for me BUT I know things could be worst so this keeps me motivated. I follow up with my Dr in 2 weeks so hopefully she have good news for me. I'm dreading to hear that I will have to have another go around for this same procedure. This hospital stay have been far more difficult. Aside from it being a long stay. I was in so much pain.. like 3xs more from my original sleeve surgery. I will keep faith and a smile. ❤️

Thursday is my consultation guys. I’m so nervous 🥲🥲 idk what to expect from it but I am ready ! I have all my insurance info ready. They have basic requirements: BMI of 40 , my understanding of my life change , having family or a support system , a nutritional evaluation , a psychosocial-behavioral evaluation and appropriate medical work up. Chest x ray endoscopy pre op labs and a ecg. My out of pocket max is $1100 🥲 Whew !

I love the idea! I have clothes in my closet up to 3 sizes down in jeans and 4 sizes down in tops. Its only been 3.5 months and I'm almost at the smallest size in tops ( I think I should be able to wear them comfortably in a month or so) but in the jeans I was an 18 and barely fit on the 14 and the 16 is loose. Your clothes will fit differently even if they are the same size you were before. I will wait at least a month after surgery to buy something to incentivize you especially if you have clothes that will fit in the meantime. I do shop here and there (cheap clothes) because I believe I do better when I wear clothes that fit me better and project some confidence. I have bought stuff in a smaller size with the idea of fitting by month 6, but somehow they fit even if the weight on the scale hasn't shift much.

I actually havent been taking the metformin yet but i will keep that in mind thankyou so much! I actually took two panadol twice today as i really hurt my neck in the last week. I didnt even think until after.

Highly recommend Goodwill! You will be flying through sizes like crazy, so don't spend more than $10 on a pair of jeans that will only fit your for a month! 🙂

Thank you everybody. It really has been a pain. I still love my sleeve, but it's been made abundantly clear to me that I don't really have a choice with the revision. So as soon as I can get cleared, we're scheduling it. I'm just ready to be done and go back to living my life.

Hi Fedup, good luck low iron sucks! I have very very heavy periods and with that have continuously low iron so will dump a load of generic advice I have researched over a couple fo years, sorry in advance (and obvs take doctors' advice first!) Firstly don't even bother trying/thinking about getting more in your diet, even iron-rich foods hardly have enough unless you eat liver or black pudding especially if you are already low. Supplement away. Secondly, it is possible you have an absorption issue, but as you have a sleeve (which unlike the bypass don't skip the first bit of the intestines) I think it's much more likely that it's just the small amount of food combined with what sounds to me like way too little supplementation and possibly safe but low levels pre-surgery (NOT a doctor). Things that help the absorption of iron: vitamin C, things that obstruct it, Calcium and caffeine. So when you supplement make sure it is not with caffeine or other supplements like calcium or magnesium, it should ideally be along with either fruit juice or a vitamin c pill or gummy. Multivitamins with iron combined often dont help as teh iron is just blocked. If your diet is anything like mine post-surgery... there was a lot of dairy! Also... im pretty sure i used to get most of my iron from chocolate, white bread and sugary cereal beofre surgery. I also paid privately in the Uk so might have a slightly different perspective to those from the USA above. They won't just do infusions here the way alot of people have been discussing above, they arent covered privately with the cost of surgery, and NHS will supplement first and you need to be ILL. I used Nuffield so your package may differ, but the surgery cost covered the dietician for that year, but not costs from them, so they can ask your GP to prescribe stuff but cant directly. Hopefully its all sorted now but in teh future I would not rely on them to get stuff actioned, get on the phone to the GP get an appointment and get them to prescribe you what the dietitian recommended. I just demanded a repeat long-term prescription of iron pills. As I say my deficiency is chronic (I prefer iron to birth control at the moment) but I have been on 305mg Ferrous Fumarate every other day for a couple of years, you can also ask for the more expensive ferrous compound if that gives you issues. Maybe try floradix if you can stomach it 🤢. But anything below 100mg or so a day just cant combat the deficiency. I would up my dosage, check when/the combination of supplements, and keep on chugging, iron deficiency is really normal and very fixable and not down to your diet.

Aww thanks so much! It's been a month now so I think I'm in the throes of the 3/4 week stall as I'm now on soft foods/semi-normal foods. I haven't weighed myself since the last time I wrote in here and my mental health is a lot better for it. I've noticed my jeans fit a lot looser around my waist, but that's about it. I'm going to perhaps weigh myself at the end of march and see if there's a difference.

For those of you who have have very light colored hair (blonde, grey/white).....BABY POWDER! In a pinch when I need to extend my shampooing, instead of using dry shampoo, I discovered baby powder. It hides my scalp, absorbs excess oil and thickens my hair.

Hi, certified vegan bypasser here! 🤓 It's totally doable, and I've had no issues at all hitting my protein goals both with and without vegan protein water. The protein water has been a big help, but honestly, even if I wasn't vegan I'd still be using the protein water as there are days when I just want to eat vegetables and don't want to deal with heavy seitans. Speaking of, seitan (wheat meat/faux meats) are the best source of high protein I've found. The best ones can be sourced from good Chinese grocers in the freezer section. If you have a Trader Joes or Wholefoods near you, I expect they'd have a great vegan section. Some examples of the protein counts in the seitans I have access to: Chinese supermarket Not Pork 100g serve = 165 cal, 21g protein Chinese supermarket Not Duck 100g serve = 150 cal, 19g protein Princess G brand "Crispy G" 100g serve = 266 cal, 17g protein Sayur Not Pork 100g serve = 155 cal, 21g protein Lamyong is another great faux meat brand. But if you can't source good faux meats, good old tofu comes through: Firm Tofu (½ cup/126g) = 181 cal, 21.8g protein Marinate that tofu in something delicious, and fry it up with some asian greens! Some mung bean pastas are high in protein. Not the nicest wheat pasta substitute, but with a nice tangy tomato sauce and a little vegan Parmesan, it's acceptable. Also check the nutritional info on the back of Gardein products, I think they're pretty easy to find. Soy milk has about 8g of protein per serve, so that's another way of slipping some extra protein in, especially if you can tolerate protein shakes. Protein fortified soy milk (10g per serve) in a plant based protein shake gives me a whopping 40g of protein in one go, so again, on days when I'm just craving vegetables, I can do a shake for breakfast and a protein water or two throughout the day and easily hit my goals. Some vegetables are also higher in protein, like edamame, but I honestly just stick with protein water and seitans, as that's what I enjoy. Hope that helps!