Foxbins

I had my bypass alone on 6/29. I was fine, my nurses took terrific care of me, and I could manage alone at home after I was discharged.

I drink Ensure Max Protein Cafe Mocha and Fairlife Vanilla now, both have 30 gms of protein. When I had my sleeve in 2011 Premier Protein only had vanilla and chocolate flavors and I drank enough of them to last me the rest of my life.

BigSue brings up some good points. How old are you? How likely is it you can lose 80 lbs without surgery and keep it off? How likely is it that without surgery, you will continue to gain and accumulate comorbidities like diabetes and hypertension? I had my sleeve because I knew I could not get the weight off on my own. I wanted to be more active but hauling around 100 extra pounds made it difficult. Only you can decide these questions, but I will say that you have gotten this far with your decision, and having last minute doubts isn't uncommon. Issues related to recovery that you are worrying about are temporary, if they even occur at all. I didn't have any of those.

7 weeks post-op tomorrow, weight today 137.6, again I'm retaining water. I stopped taking the psyllium capsules because I was having multiple loose BMs a day. Maybe constipation will not be an issue for me as it was with the sleeve. I am still tolerating all foods. I tried cauliflower rice this week. It tastes of nothing, not even cauliflower. I put some za'atar on it to give it some flavor but I think I have to add some cheese or condensed soup or something. I hate throwing out food these days. Got a call from the surgeon's office and I am scheduled for an EGD the first week in October to check that everything is okay and that's when I am supposed to be able to discontinue the PPI. I have had two instances of acid, or something that feels like acid, this week. Not nearly as horrible as before surgery, but distinctly there. If it happens again I will have to pay attention to whether it is precipitated by a particular food/drink/time of day/relation to meals. I overate for the first time on Thursday. I picked up a bag of popcorn that someone left sitting on the counter, and it felt so light I figured there couldn't be much in it. So I mindlessly kept eating it while watching TV (usually I measure my food in measuring cups) until it became clear that I was full. Too full. Painfully full. The fullness feeling was not in my chest, where my stomach is, but in my upper abdomen, where the Roux limb is. Gosh it hurt for about two hours, and I tried to vomit but it was too far down to come up, so I just had to bear it. Prior to last night I had not felt full, but I wasn't hungry, either. I think that's the feeling I want. With the sleeve it was very clear when I was full, with the RNY my stomach doesn't let me know. I think that may be at least partly due to the fact that I told my surgeon I was concerned about losing too much weight and he made the pouch bigger than he normally would.

I was 56 when I had my sleeve done. I knew I was not a bikini person and there did not seem to be enough loose skin that clothing could not disguise but my chubby cheeks were gone, leaving flabby pockets, and I had jowls. I had a face and neck lift 15 months after my sleeve and I was so happy with the results, still am. My surgeon said I had so much loose skin mid-face it covered my ears on both sides of my head before he removed it. So worth it not to look like a Shar-Pei.

Generally, the prohibitions against sugar-free, fat-free, no carbonation, etc, etc. is because these are highly caloric foods that people tend to overeat. If you are trying to lose weight, for whatever reason, you should avoid them. There is very little you could do that could cause damage to your new stomach without causing you extreme pain. Taking NSAIDS and extreme overeating before your staple line has healed are two that I can think of off the top of my head. After I reached goal, I added the "bad" foods back in small amounts, but my sleeve was picky. I could not eat bread, or bready things like cake or muffins, they balled up inside, absorbed fluid, and hurt. Rice did the same. Oddly enough, toast is fine with me, as are cookies. Ice cream did not feel good in my sleeve. Carbonated drinks felt funny too, but I like root beer so I would have one every so often. However, I could and did drink the occasional glass of wine, I ate butter, and pasta. Mostly I liked protein with starches, or stir-frys with a spicy sauce, and fruit. Really, once you are at goal you can eat what you like as long as you are burning the same number of calories as you take in. As for the differences in shake requirements between programs, that's just them. The staff get used to a certain regimen and it's easier for them to answer questions if they know everybody's doing mostly the same stuff.

After my surgery, because the portions are so tiny, I craved flavor. I love Thai, Indian, Korean, Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese, and any other cuisine that makes me know I'm not eating something bland. In contrast to catwoman, spices did not get more intense for me. I use chili garlic paste in lots of dishes, or gochujang paste (a chicken thigh with gochujang is delicious.) I eat curries and hot and spicy soups like Tom Yum. Give it a try. You can always put your spice on cottage cheese to start!

I had five incisions with each of my surgeries. My sleeve was nine years ago and you can't see the scars unless you know where to look. My RNY was seven weeks ago and they are browny-pink and two are an inch long, on either side of my belly button, two are about half an inch long on either side of my waist, and one, where the drain was removed, is on my left side just under my rib cage. There are internal sutures that you can't see but most surgeons use a surgical glue called Dermabond to close the skin. My glue peeled up along the edges and flaked off a little bit at a time but was all gone by three weeks post op. Healing internally takes about six weeks. My doctor did not want me to lift anything over 15 lbs until then so that the internal staples and sutures were tightly knit together. I was not in very much pain with the sleeve--by the third day after surgery I was not taking any opioid painkillers. With the bypass there was more pain, I took oxycontin for about a week postop, but I also had a hernia repair and a myotomy, so that might have made the pain worse. The scars are nothing, the pain is only for a short time. You'll do great!

I'm almost 7 weeks post-op and I've had no trouble eating or drinking anything so far, and no nausea or vomiting. I overate for the first time last night. I picked up a bag of popcorn that someone left sitting on the counter, and it felt so light I figured there couldn't be much in it. So I mindlessly kept eating it while watching TV (usually I measure my food in measuring cups) until it became clear that I was full. Too full. Painfully full. The fullness feeling was not in my chest, where my stomach is, but in my upper abdomen, where the Roux limb is. Gosh it hurt for about two hours, and I tried to vomit but it was too far down to come up, so I just had to bear it. Prior to last night I had not felt full, but I wasn't hungry, either. I think that's the feeling I want. I'll take satisfied over full, because full hurts. And it's not good for my stoma and maintaining my weight in the future. Please don't do what I did!

Wow, you have done beautifully. Congratulations!

I had a sleeve to RNY revision for GERD. I did not have reflux before my sleeve, developed it a couple of years later. I was on the maximum dosage of omeprazole (80mg) for a few years and still had breakthrough acid, which gave me an esophageal stricture. I regurgitated everything I swallowed. Still, I didn't want RNY, so I found a surgeon who was willing to explore alternative surgeries with me. However, after a bunch more testing that uncovered some previously unknown issues, I decided on RNY. Had the surgery on 6/29. I had one episode of reflux two days after surgery, I figured it was the last bits of acid in my stomach trying to make me miserable one last time. No acid since. No regurgitation. No vomiting. It has been a massive relief not to wake up in the middle of the night with acid in my mouth or throat. I am really pleased with the RNY so far.

You can still do medium rare. I do rare, myself. Also the shrimp cocktail is a great option. I've ordered that and a soup lots of times, and not had steak at all.

Weight this morning 136.4. I spoke to the surgeon's office on Friday and I still have to take omeprazole until they take a look at everything with an EGD in another six weeks. I still have no GERD. I can sleep flat again! I ordered my operative record and discharge summary from the hospital records department and they emailed them to me for free. It was very interesting to read, I learned quite a lot that no one had told me. My bypass is 50 cm, so I am hoping I will not have too much malabsorption and no bile reflux. My sleeve/pouch is 6 cm long, I think my surgeon made it longer than usual because my sleeve was very narrow. Despite a bigger pouch I have had to start measuring my food because I can't eat as much with this pouch as I could with the full sleeve. I can comfortably eat about a cup. I want to be very careful not to stretch out the stoma. My sleeve used to be so sensitive, but with this RNY I haven't vomited at all. So far I'm pretty happy with this surgery.

I think I've had four EGDs now. The anesthesiologists here use IV Propofol for sedation, not gas. They put you on a table, on your left side, put an oxygen prong in your nose, a bite block in your mouth, and then inject the Propofol and you are out. Nothing ever hurt and I remember nothing of the procedure itself. I felt fine right afterward but because they won't let you drive yourself home I noticed I had trouble calculating the tip for the taxi driver, so not as mentally sharp as I usually am. I end up going to bed early on EGD days and wake up the next morning back to normal.

I picked my sleeve surgeon because he was the president of the Mexican Bariatric Association and had done more than 3000 sleeves. I loved my sleeve and didn't want to revise to RNY, which is what the first surgeon I consulted said was the only choice to treat my GERD. My gastroenterologist referred me to my eventual surgeon, who had a lot of ideas about how he could address the GERD and still preserve my sleeve. As I was going through testing, though, we found some other conditions. I ultimately had RNY but at least I knew we had explored lots of other options. As for you, what surgery are you having? A sleeve is less technically demanding than RNY, but still you want somebody experienced operating on you. I'd go ahead and ask how many bariatric surgeries and what kinds they have done. Surgeons are used to people asking that question.

This. There is a lot of crappy food in the world and sometimes it looks very appetizing, but if it's not what I'm wanting, why should I eat it? A lot of the time the question I ask is "Is this worth the calories?" Sometimes it is, but lots of times it's not. (Fancy French pastries, looking at you. Very pretty but often soggy and overwhelmingly sweet.)

My surgeon said that if I tested positive I would still have surgery, but the entire surgical team would be wearing those big bulky suits with the hoods and hoses, and that after surgery I would be in an isolation room. Fortunately I tested negative.

I did my weekly weigh-in today and I've gained 2 lbs. Not real, stuck on the hips pounds because in order to gain 2 real pounds in a week I'd have to have eaten 1000 calories a day, every day, over my calorie expenditure, which I didn't do. What I did do is eat a lot of Asian recipes this week. All are high in sodium, so I suspect I'm holding on to some water weight, but I wanted some strong flavors after yogurt, egg salad, and cottage cheese these past weeks. So I broke out the fish sauce, soy sauce, and made some quick cucumber pickles. Everything was delicious. I tried half a toasted English muffin, seemed to sit well. I haven't vomited at all, or dumped. Maybe I'll escape that. I am walking 5000+ steps a day and I will add some yoga and squats I think. I still feel like I'm wearing a corset, a tightness under the skin. It's odd but not painful. My incisions have all healed and the scab from the hole where the drain exited has finally fallen off. I still get some odd pains here and there, mostly around my belly button. I am taking a 750mg psyllium capsule each morning and have not had a problem with constipation despite falling short of my 64 oz fluid goal a couple of days this week. And best of all, still no GERD, no regurgitation, and I started swallowing full size pills without a problem this week. I have a telephone appt with the surgeon's office on Friday and I hope I can stop taking omeprazole then.

I was almost the same as you at 5 days out except I could get the protein in. But walking--it was like I was in one of those fun houses and the ground tilted one way and then another. I have no idea what caused it, but it went away sometime over the past three weeks because I don't get that feeling anymore. You have had major surgery and your body needs some time to adjust and heal. The gas pains will go away, the incision pain will go away--take whatever pain pills your doc says you can have and be kind to yourself. It will get better.

I counted calories and could eat 1300-1500 daily depending on my level of activity. I ate what I wanted for the most part, weighed myself once a week, and cut back when the scale showed a gain 2 weeks in a row.

Dehydration can make you feel weak and dizzy. I'm sure you will feel better after your IV. Sipping will get easier over time. Keep us posted!

I haven't had scrambled eggs in 9 years, they come right back up. Over easy, fine, soft boiled, also fine. Hard boiled, iffy. Also (and I think this is so odd) I can eat pasta if it's just been boiled, but as leftovers the next day, even with more water or sauce added? Coming right back up. White meat chicken is a no-go, even with sauce. Salmon and tuna, nope. Bread balls up in my stomach and then swells up and hurts. Toast is okay. I can eat popcorn if I want, but I'm more of a chip person. I was converted to bypass a month ago for GERD and egg salad has been my friend. I'm wanting to try scrambled eggs but I'm a little afraid. Also I'd like to try a sandwich. Maybe next month.

My surgery was a month ago and I am just starting to feel like myself again. I had to laugh at my fitness tracker one week post op, which reported I had done 15 minutes of "vigorous" exercise when I had tottered down the driveway and back. My normal heart rate of 70 had hit 135 just walking slowly. You are feeling the way you should this close to surgery. I was taking naps most days up until last week, when I think I only took one. So far no naps this week. Just keep moving and your energy will come back. It's also hard because you're not eating many calories and your body has to work harder to change fat into energy.

I don't think it's reflux, reflux doesn't happen when you're eating. Pressure means that you are getting full or are full, and burping means you are swallowing air with your food. Can you slow down? Put down the fork and chew until your food is mush and well-mixed with saliva? Then wait a minute or two until your next bite. My bypass was 6/29 and I'm still learning about what works and doesn't.

I brought my phone, charger, and a book. I wore the hospital gowns and the hospital provided toiletries like toothbrush and paste, shampoo, and mouthwash. I was pretty out of it until the day before I went home, but then I had some complications and stayed longer than most people.