Foxbins

The surgery did most of the hard work, I just helped. After my sleeve I was not hungry and my sleeve did not care for many foods I had loved when I was fat. Bread balled up in my stomach and swelled and felt awful, so I quit eating bread, muffins, cakes, biscuits, all those bready foods, pasta and rice, too. I learned to recognize when I was full and stopped before then. After three months of mostly protein I lost my taste for sweets and I figured I shouldn't tempt myself. So really my sleeve got me eating the way doctors and nutritionists say you should anyway. Protein, vegetables, fruit, some nuts, not much fat or sugar. So no secrets. Look at my signature for my stats. I love my sleeve but I have GERD now. Revising to bypass tomorrow.

I am a sleeve revision to bypass and I'm eating things I know I won't be able to eat for a long time based on my sleeve recovery--fresh cherries (they will be out of season by the time I can eat them) coconut, corn, and celery (too much fiber, not enough vitamins) and panko shrimp (too much fat). Oh, and toast. It took me a couple of years to be able to eat toast. Other than that, I'm just eating my normal diet. I'm also wondering about my presurgical protocol. My surgeon didn't tell me liquids only the day before surgery like some others here. Guess he's ready for whatever might be in there.

When my sleeve was new, I lived on scallops. So soft and easy to digest. My nutritionist was not happy. She kept repeating, " But there's nothing in them!" No, there's no Omega -3s like in fish, but there is no fat and there's a lot of protein packed into the deliciousness. I kept eating them and did just fine. Enjoy! Oh, and I had good luck eating shrimp, too. Just don't overcook them.

Even with the possibility of GERD if I had it to do over again I'd still get a sleeve. It worked wonderfully well for me.

Stats say 20-30% of sleevers develop GERD afterward who didn't have it before. Talk to your surgeon and see what they say about it.

I'm another sleeve to bypass revision due to GERD, which I didn't have before my sleeve. I would not have LINX, too similar to LapBand for me. When will doctors figure out that foreign bodies in the GI tract eventually cause problems? Like Tracyringo I'm on Medicare and it took a week for them to approve the surgery and another 2 weeks to get it scheduled. I had an upper GI, EGD, manometry, and a BRAVO test (yup, have GERD, told them that without the test) but other than those to nail down the diagnosis I haven't had any other test or diets or hoops to jump through. I'm scheduled for Monday 6/29. Because your revision is for medical reasons, I would expect the process to go quickly for you, too. Good Luck!

Mine (I've had 3) have not been the least bit painful. They put in an IV, lay you on your left side, put a block on your mouth so you don't involuntarily bite down on the instrument, and shoot a sedative in the IV. When you wake up it's done. Nothing hurts.

It's a little bit worse, but not because of what I know to expect. Surgical recovery the first time was uneventful and weight loss was easy. It's worse because I never wanted a bypass, and I don't want one now but there is nothing else that will take away this GERD and I can't live like this. I burp all the time and regurgitate half-digested food and wake up in the middle of the night with acid in my mouth. Plus I'm at my goal weight and I'm afraid I will lose more, or worse, it will be easier to eat with the bypass after the GERD is gone and I'll gain weight, or for some unknown reason, the GERD doesn't go away and then I have a bypass plus GERD. Basically I'm anxious about what my outcome will be in 9-12 months. Please don't worry about the surgery or the recovery. The hospital will take good care of you, and you will not be bedridden after you come home. Your stomach will hurt but it's not awful, more like two days after doing a lot of situps. Keep walking and start strength training as soon as you can. Your body will consume muscle as well as fat, and it's easier to preserve some of what you have than develop new muscle mass. Check in here after your surgery, I'll be around until the 29th.

I'm alone. My parents are dead, I'm divorced, no kids. My sister lives in Texas, my friends are scattered all over the US. I had sleeve surgery in 2011 and I recovered alone from that, too. Don't worry, you'll do fine. You will be accountable not only to yourself but also to your surgical team and to the folks here on BP, if you want. I posted quite a lot in the months after my sleeve, and then gradually fell away. Now a revision to bypass for GERD and I'm back. I'm scheduled for the 29th.

My surgery is on the 29th, too! I'm revising from a sleeve to a bypass for GERD.

I think the issue is two-fold. First, many overweight people drink a lot of their calories, so a prohibition against carbonated beverages should cut their intake of those. Secondly, and this is more in line with your desire to drink the diet stuff, is that for some reason, carbonation doesn't feel good in a sleeve or a pouch. There's no reason I can't drink a soda, but I become a burp machine if I do and the feeling in my sleeve is usually uncomfortable. That said, once or twice a year I have a root beer. Mostly what I drink now is Crystal Light.

I didn't tell anyone about my sleeve surgery in Mexico 9 1/2 years ago except my physician. I'm revising to a bypass due to GERD on 6/29. GERD gave me an esophageal stricture which is being repaired at the same time the bypass is done. I'm at my goal weight, so no one should notice anything. Your surgery is no one's business but yours, and your decision to tell or not is yours as well. I'm just a very private person and don't like people asking what I consider to be personal questions.

It took about a week for me to be approved. My surgeon's office called on Monday and my surgery is scheduled for 6/29 at 5:30 a.m.

Thank you all for the reassurance. I picked my surgeon because he's the expert in this area for complex foregut problems. He's not really a people person. I'm hoping that post-op, the dietician can help. I am just worrying that I will go through all this and 1) still have reflux and 2) will have malabsorption issues and lose too much. I lost five pounds over a weekend in December when I had the flu and couldn't keep anything down.

I had my sleeve done and a hiatal hernia repair in 2011 and reached goal in about 11 months. I lost 100 lbs and have kept it off ever since. Fast forward nine years and I have esophagitis, an esophageal stricture, another hernia, and crazy bad GERD. My surgeon has presented me with two options. Option one, keep my sleeve as it is, but partially cut through the muscles of the esophagus to ease the stricture and then fold some of the stomach inward (like rolling the top of a sock inside itself) to keep the acid in my stomach. Or Option two, convert to a RnY. I love, love, love my sleeve because afterwards I had no hunger. None. And it's still gone, I can go all day if I am busy without eating and only remember if I start to get lightheaded or cranky. So, people who lost their hunger with VSG and had to convert to RnY, did your hunger stay lost? If you were at goal, how much weight did you lose? My BMI is 22, I can't lose too much more. I am dreading another surgical recovery and those awful protein drinks, too. Thanks for reading!

I had to drink a gallon of Nulytely. All the horror stories about the prep on the internet made me put off having one for a decade. Honestly, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I drew a line on a clear glass and drank one every 15 minutes. Mostly I didn't like being up until 2 a.m. to finish the prep. The colonoscopy itself was fine, I was sedated with propofol, recovered about 20 minutes after I woke up, and took a taxi home.

I'm nine years out and only my physician and a friend who was considering the sleeve for herself know I had surgery. I've always thought that my medical history is private and should remain private.

I don't think it's an option in my case--to cure my GERD the vagus nerve would have to be cut, and then the pylorus won't work right without the acid. That's why we're looking a fix higher up. I think he's going for a modified Hill repair.

Thank you so much for your comments, Greentealael. That article is excellent, I just wish the study authors had done a longer follow-up than six months. It looks like the failures had low manometry pressures; I don't know mine, but I will mention this paper to my surgeon. He was not planning on using the Ligamentum Teres. He did say that RNY could be done if his sleeve preservation surgery didn't work.

My ketolorac was a sublingual tablet so avoided irritating the stomach tissue. I am assuming that if your surgeon is prescribing it, he or she has weighed the benefits vs the risks. If you are concerned you should ask about it.

Mine was a 36 French, but depending on how closely the surgeon staples to the bougie, the size might not be exact.

Are you sure it was the sausage? Eggs are always iffy for me. Sometimes (mostly sunnyside up) they are okay but other times they come right back up, or make me feel so awful I swear off them for months. I've also found that I can eat newly cooked rice or noodles, but leftovers are a no-no. You'll soon figure out what to avoid--I tried things and if they didn't work in the beginning, I kept testing until it seemed clear I was never going to tolerate some things well. I couldn't eat chicken until about year six, and only dark meat. I still can't eat most bread, it just balls up inside and feels terrible. Strangely enough, toast is okay.

If people asked how I was losing weight, I told the truth--eating less, mostly protein, and exercising more. My medical issues are private. Nobody but my neurologist and my ex-husband knows I have MS, either.

Strangely (or not) I am still a foodie and search our foodie destinations. I like to take a local cooking class or go to the night markets. When I went to Singapore (incredibly delicious food) I got takeout from the hawker stalls and one takeout equaled three meals--dinner and breakfast and lunch the next day. I save a ton on food now while traveling because I don't eat much and I don't bring snacks the way I did when I was fat. I eat a lot of appetizers, or soup, as my main course in restaurants. Plus, it is so much easier to walk around without carrying extra weight. I had to lug my suitcase up three flights of stairs in Seoul when the escalators weren't working, and I couldn't have done it 10 years ago. I've gone to Asia a bunch, but also scuba diving in the Caribbean, trekking in Costa Rica, climbed Diamond Head in Hawaii, and a yoga retreat in Mexico where I could actually reach all my body parts in the poses. Adventures, no matter where, are easier without obesity issues getting in the way of having a good time.

Eight years out, only my physician knows.