Rootman

Now I look at my jeans and the WAIST is about as big as the LEG used to be.

Well that's something I haven't done in about 20 years or so I remember last time I was so fat I nearly broke my neck! Congrats, it's these little gems we find that really make it all worth it.

What you are describing is usually called body dysmorphic disorder. Here's a link to some more info: https://en.wikipedia...orphic_disorder I think that nearly everyone in our situation has it to some degree. We just can't see the "truth" about our weight. At first we don't see the fat because we don't want to deal with it and when we do something about it like the VSG we can't see anything else BUT. The mind is a funny thing. For the most part your mind catches up to your actual body and you seem to reconcile what you think with what you see. If it continues to be an issue I would strongly urge you to seek a mental professionals help. There is NOTHING wrong with seeking help.

You CAN and you SHOULD lose without the VSG, the issue is WILL YOU? I lacked the self control, food is too cheap and too plentiful and all it takes is a few hundred calories too much over a few months and years and BAM! - you are morbidly obese. Only you can answer the question "Should I". In my case it was YES. I have brought my health up to a level that it has NEVER been before because of the sleeve. It's just a tool though I had to do the work. It is, however, the BEST tool in my toolbox and everything else was failing.

Yep, as stated, shrink the liver AND keep the colon from being packed up post-op. A good number of patients colon sort of stall from anesthesia and surgical trauma and getting constipated is never pleasant, even less so when hurting post-op. Having to push hard to go post-op is a real devil

Me too, had fairly sever eczema on my arms and a bit on my neck, it's now GONE, GONE, GONE

As previously stated the staples are titanium, which is non ferrous which means they are non magnetic and will not set of metal detectors. Titanium is pretty phenominal as mit is totally inert and non allergenic and I would imagine that there is not one in several million people who are alergic to them. It would take millenia for them to dissolve and as also stated they are encapsulated in scar tissue and there is little chance of them migrating.

A big YES. I had high BP, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, shortness of breath, high resting heart rate, nasty eczema, sweat like a trooper constantly and had no stanima. Alsmost two years out with 2 full physicals behind me and it's all in the past. BP is npw typically 110/70, cholsterol is 133 / 64 trig., resting heart rate is about 70, eczema is cleared up and a LOT more energy. I now swim 2-4 hours a week and bike about 100 miles a week. The best part is I no longer sweat much. This effect was immediate without the weight loss and I can't explain it. I have a theory that it's due to the cutting of the tail end of the vagas nerve but this does not make sense, regardless it is one of the BEST NSV's I have had. I used to sweat even as a skinny little kid si it was not due entirly to my weight.

I'm from Rogers AR. Almost 2 years out, sleeved in MX Dec 6th 2010.

Oh yeah baby, less friction (besides where it counts) and less interference and more room to "maneuver"

It was three days for me and that was way too soon, even for a desk job. While I certainly don't envy you with what you are attempting you can probably do it. Try and get some more help and take it easy for at least a few weeks. We all wish you the best, let us know your progress!

I NEVER exercised pre-op, hence part of my problem. For the last year and a half I've been doing a lot. I swim about 4 hours a week and bike about 100 miles a week (10 hours). With fall approaching I have cut back to only swimming 2 hours a week so i can get home earlier and bike an hour before sunset. Beyond that I lay around and watch TV

I seriously doubt you can get too much, I would think the liver can only metabolise so much and the rest should be passed through as waste. I do know you can get too much via stuff like red meat and your creatinine level can get too high. But I don't think any VSG'ers are wolfing down too many steaks

I'd almost bet it was an adhesion, something internally in your abdomen was sticking to something else, this can cause a scar tissue bridge to form and can cause a lot of pain. Normally all our internals are kinda covered in a kind of goo that keeps this from happening but with the surgery blowing your abdomen up with CO2 gas and him poking around in there they may have scraped enough off that something got stuck to something else. My sister is prone to this and had a LOT of very painful adhesions, one the doctor broke the adhesion from the outside somehow by pressing on her. She said it hurt like hell and did the same popping sound you describe - and the same instant relief you got too. I for one am glad I didn't have to go through this. Happy that you got some relief!

I'm headed towards 2 years post-op. It took me over 2 months to get back to the point that I didn't frrl crappy. Between the heartburn, nausea and general malaise I was tired and could not sleep. I never really had any pain, just felt like crap. After 2 months I started to feel better and after about 5 months I started to exercise which really started to improve my feelings. About 6 months out I could eat pretty well and after 1 year I could eat anything I want, just not much of it.

Yeah, everyone's different but it seems that hiccups, a bunch of burps, "stuck in throat" feeling are the most common. I also get the runny nose. Immediately post-op the difference between FULL and TOO FULL is like ONE LOUSY TEASPOON of food. Too much and you are in agony and most likely will barf. So take it easy, watch for the signals and know when enough is enough.

HA! I had a similar incident. My wife had some sort of surgery, I think it was her hiatal hernia repair, she got a prescription for 2 big bottles of some sort of bright red liquid pain killer. She was doing OK and both of us generally don't take pain meds unless we really NEED them. I was doing a lot of work on an outdoor project of mine and was getting really sore and bruised up and in quite a lot of pain so I took some. It worked well so for the next week I took a small shot of this before bed. About 3 days in I was "takin' care of business" in the bathroom and wiped only to see a bright red smear on the paper. Gawd, I'm bleedin' like a stuck pig I thought, then I remembered the "red sauce" I was taking. Had me worried for a few moments. And YES, I know it's not "kosher" to take some one else's scrip but did it this one time. I know the first time I barfed post-op was pretty scary too. I could imagine me turning my sleeve inside out and into my throat. I almost upchucked in a restaurant a few times too, back shortly after post-op when "too much" was just a teaspoon and could feel my sleeve rumbling and protesting. I managed to walk one off, the other time I made it home and puked. What sweet relief! On another funny note: A friend of ours who worked at a hospital told about a mother and daughter who came in to the emergency room complaining about bright green stools. They had everyone baffled and everyone was wondering what type of infection or disease would turn your poop green, till they could finally produce a sample. It wasn't green ... it was florescent green. Turns out both of them had eaten like 4 tubes of Christmas cookie dough EACH, you know the ones with the Christmas tree shape in the center. Some people

Congrats, and while it's after he fact - honey, if you got it (or in this case LOST it) FLAUNT IT!

ALL of us did. But for the OVERWHELMING majority IT WILL WORK. I yo yo dieted for decades and gradually got up to 375 pounds. I looked terrible and felt worse. BP was high, blood sugar all over the place, cholesterol high and resting heart rate of 90+. I now weigh 205 pounds and my health is dang near perfect. I did it and it was the BEST thing I have ever done for me health. There are SOME who DO fail, either their food issues are overwhelming and they have sever mental health issues or the surgery went wrong. Yes, it DOES happen, but most likely it will NOT. Now excuse me, I am going to leave work, run home hop on my bicycle and ride for 20+ miles - something I now love to do. I've been averaging about 100 miles a week for a few months now. 2 years ago I used to bust out in a sweat just going to the bathroom.

Yes, you can and I did, as well as the airfare to and from. First, as previously stated, you MUST itemize your taxes, if you fill out the 1040EZ or 1040A then you don't itemize so you get NO benefit. Second you can only deduct the amount that is OVER 7.5% of your adjusted gross income, NOT the whole thing. So gather up ALL your medical expenses and add them up, if they don't add up to MORE than 7.5% of your gross income then you can't deduct them. The deduction is just that, a DEDUCTION. You do NOT get "the whole thing back" or even the amount above the 7.5% (see point above) you get the amount OVER the 7.5 reduced off your adjusted gross income, so that means you don't pay taxes on the amount of money you are allowed to deduct. So if you pay 20% in federal income taxes you won't have to pay the 20% tax on the amount you can deduct. So you don't "take off" the full amount, or even the amount above 7.5% of your gross income you just don't have to pay taxes on the amount you can deduct. Let's say you make $100,000 (we'll use easy numbers even though they don't represent most users real income). IF you have more than 7.5% in qualified medical deductions - that is OUT OF POCKET eligible medical expenses - of MORE than $7500 you can reduce your taxable income by the excess. Say you have $10,000 in medical expenses YOU paid for. You can put a deduction on your tax form of $2500 - that's the $10,000 LESS the 7.5% or $7500. That means you WILL NOT pay taxes on the $2500. So if you pay 20% in taxes you will reduce your tax payment by $500 - which is 20% of $2500. If you already get a refund, your refund will be $500 MORE, if you owe taxes on something else then this goes toward paying that tax bill. There is a way around this for SOME, if you have a qualified HIGH DEDUCTIBLE insurance policy the government allows you to save - tax free - in a Health Saving Account (HSA) and pay for any QUALIFIED medical expenses from in, in essence not pay taxes on ALL your medical expenses that you pay using the HSA. See a tax expert for more details.

I drink 4 oz red wine every night before bed. Got my cholesterol down to 133 (from high 200's) so something is helping. I personally HATE the taste of alcohol and drink this concord grape stuff that is like Welches Grape juice with a shot of Everclear in it It's sickly sweet but I down it in a few slugs. I've been told that this stuff doesn't have all the goodies a more regular dry red wine does but I can't stomach the other stuff.

10$ seems to be the going price, so they are kinda expensive but dang well worth it, I have never been as regular as I am when I started using these. I still have to use Mirilax too, the chia seeds just seem to make me more comfortable, when I took Mirilax alone I had a lot of urgency.

We all wish you the best on your new adventure. Let us know what you're going through.

A few months after a significant weight loss. Remember, everyone is different and YMMV.

Pre-op I was edging up and required medications, both pills I was on made me nauseas immedaitly, another reason I got sleeved. I was pushing 135/85. Last time I had it checked I was 100/70 which seems like the norm for me now. Aslo cholesterol is down to 133 from ~250 too. So the sleeve does the job!