FeistyRedDragon

I have Biopolar II... When I had surgery I went off ALL of my meds basically because I just could not physically TAKE them, swallowing etc. It was a good two months before I was able to get back on my full meds regimen and BOY did I notice the change in my personality. I felt very frustrated until I was able to take them again. I have lost about 50+ lbs since surgery in June and suspect that at some point med levels will have to be lowered. My psych said as much since I was a larger person when I was prescribed, I had a proportional dosage. It's worth checking out with your Psych but I wouldn't self-adjust your meds. And looking back if I could have taken them right after my surgery I would have, just to avoid all the craziness I went through. Surgery is hard enough and then dealing with your bipolar on top of that. I think I bout drove my husband off the edge!

Thanks... lol. I was terrified but the doc was very indifferent about it all... Still if you think something is wrong I think we should contact our docs... that is what we pay them for... Eating slower along with drinking tiny sips was/is one of the hardest things to re-learn since surgery. Two + months out and finally on solids it is even harder now as far as the food is concerned. Liquids was easy, mushies too, but now the rules (30-30 etc) are really more important than ever!

My advice would be ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! lol. I have had some incidents lately of just this thing... and if it happens it is always due to eating too fast. About 2 weeks ago (Might be TMI) I ate something too fast (I knew I was but I only had about 5 minutes at the time to eat SOMETHING) and ended up making myself so sick I started coughing up blood. I was understandably alarmed and went to the DR, where he told me "You probably just traumatized your esophagus, not your stomach". It was probably the most violent episode of food coming up I've ever had. I couldn't breathe while it was happening, and it was really scary. So I definitely learned my lesson. Think of it this way, if you were sick with the flu or something and vomited, would you eat right after? I think taking in some liquids after is important... give that esophagus time to rest and your stomach too. And take my story as a cautionary tale... lol.

I might have had a stall too recently but the scale inches down slowly so it is hard to tell... I am going into week 8 (I think. I lose track of the weeks... lol.) I think the advice to put away the scale and get the tape measure is a great idea. I say this myself checking it every day... lol. We are so used to being very hung up on the numbers... especially as "larger" people most of our lives. That number plays into so many head games. BUT if you are feeling frustrated... here is something I found. About a year ago I lost about 50 lbs working with a trainer and eating more healthy. This was from a starting weight of about 330 but it took me almost a year and a half just with really intense exercise (two times a day going to work out.) When I finally got to about 290 I started to get some new smaller clothes. About 6 months later after moving across the country, I had gained about 20 lbs back and those clothes didn't fit so well anymore. After my surgery I saw those (Not "skinny" clothes exactly) clothes, and I decided to just try them on. The first few months after surgery is kind of hard to know how much you are going down size wise. And I was surprised to see how much better they fit! Especially a few that were tight around my midsection... Even with my tummy a bit "swollen" they were still loose and more comfortable. I guess I am saying, while we have these "stall" times when we feel frustrated find something from your "old" self and remind yourself of how far you have come and how far you are going to go. Just that little action of trying on those clothes gave me a boost... I was like, "Oh, I am losing weight" even though the scale had been moving So SLOWLY over the past month! Good luck! Summer

PS... if you HAVE already gone through the hoops and got a date... that would be an incentive for many people alone to go through with it... if you think you might be changing insurance carriers (but will still have insurance afterwards) you probably would have to start that whole process again, and who knows what hoops THEY would have you go through. But I wish you the best, it's daunting to think about traveling and moving your household period let alone after a surgery like this. Good luck!!

Don't cancel! I put off surgery for a LONG time until I got my gov't job which has the best insurance in the world. I am a Navy wife now and we will be putting my husband on MY insurance... lol. I was sleeved on June 7, had about 3 weeks to rest, then within that next three week period was away from home for about 2 1/2 weeks getting married and our honeymoon. By the time your move comes around you will still be "in recovery" but I would not cancel your surgery because of it. You'll have to adjust food wise for travel etc. but you should feel "ok" enough by then to at least supervise the move. Remember your dr's orders NOT to lift anything, I know when my now-husband transferred to our current location he had movers that did everything, but if you have family instead of movers they will just have to understand that you physically can't lift/move anything. That was the hardest part for me, harder maybe even than the food, I couldn't even bend down to feed our cats for a few weeks. But If you have people at home who can help you, 4 weeks is going to be still "recovery" period but if you can take it easy, I'd say go for it.

just a PS. to my post, yes I know that acetaminophen (which is in the Excedrin Tension med I mentioned) can also be "not so great" in large doses, but it is in a variety of O.T.C. cold meds I personally was not aware of, here is a link that at the bottom lists many of the products you find it in (pretty much every cold medicine out there!) So I abide by the "use sparingly" or "use with caution" and always ask the Dr. for advice. I mean... we still have a stomach, it's just a LOT smaller and I don't want to do anything to harm it, but I am going to take some of these meds at some point in my life, and being educated is a good thing http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000521/

Ok... "drink water" is a very good suggestion, and just this close to your operation that might be the thing that's bothering you. After 2 weeks of such an extreme change especially in Fluid intake etc that is a good place to start. However... It is good to know that there are some OTC medications you can and should NOT take. I have been in treatment for migraines for years now and when I had surgery had to go off ALL of my meds. The pills I typically took for my migraines which came frequently were too big to take so I was terrified of having that pain on top of the post op pain. I mean I was getting killer headaches or migraines at least once a week, if not two or more times. I was/am on a medicine cocktail and chiropractic treatment just to try out a variety of things. They have improved some since surgery though and that was one of my hopes. This is what I talked about with one of my docs. and this is what he told me the other day. If you get headaches a lot and they are NOT migraines, unfortunately there are not a lot of choices out there. He said anything that says "NSAID" on the label (These are things like Aleve, naproxen, etc.) is going to be "use with caution" or "sparingly" because with too much use it can damage the lining of your stomach. I feel safe saying this with authority because before I got into supervised treatment with a Dr. I was addicted to them on very high doses. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't give themselves liver damage or ulcers from repeated use at high dosages. So, I looked around for alternatives that would work, I had been taking Excedrin Migraine (2 pills about 1x a week) and he said that is still too frequent. For something like that he said no more than maybe 1 or 2x a month just to be safe. I looked around at some of the other OTC meds out there in the similar sort of brand family and found that Excedrin has a choice called 'Tension Headache" that does NOT have any NSAIDs in it. I tried it for the first time a few days ago and it worked well. I would ask your Dr. if that might be an alternative. Ibuprofen is great for other things but he/she might have some suggestions. As you will see after just a few minutes of reading posts on this board, there are a hundred different doctors with a hundred different opinions. Including this one. But the fact that NSAIDs can damage your stomach when taken too frequently is not up for debate and I would just chat with them to see what options are for things like headaches. I guess I have to just figure "use with restraint" with this sort of thing. On top of the 1000 other things we have to think about now, right? LOL. ~S~

Not only that but it's very unprofessional to talk about clients in that personal way, particularly if she was being insulting! People just need to learn to keep their mouths shut... lol. Besides don't "clients" or "customers" generally keep us in our jobs? ~S~

Yes... I have found that I have to be REALLY careful with movement. I am at almost 7 weeks, and last week had a day with a lot more movement (twisting, up and down off the floor, etc) than I had, and I really hurt myself. My DR. explained about how the muscle fibers in your abs are basically scar tissue (which does not have the flexibility) and so any of those types of movements are going to be more painful. I have had to go back to square one. But until this incident my incision areas had been feeling better. It took about 5 weeks for me... so It does get better but hope it is sooner rather than later for you!

Thanks for the advice... I was flipping out a bit but the info on the heparin makes total sense. My stomach looks like someone has been beating me from the Lovenox injections I gave myself for 2 weeks, and the pics I saw online of someone with a blood clot, and one leg was about twice the size of the other. I guess I'm ok for now... lol

Hi there! I just hit my 3 week post-op from the sleeve (June 7). I have been doing "meh," a lot of nausea and having to be on liquids a lot longer than I expected, it is what it is. Today I was trying on some clothes and noticed some very large bruising on one of my legs (I have some varicose veins anyway but this one was a doozy) and immediately the first thing I thought was "OMG I have a blood clot!!!" I have been doing a lot of walking and may have worn myself out a bit over the weekend as I was in my bro's wedding and had lots of family "fun time," but this bruise is weirding me out. My mom, who's been banded, talked with me about the bruise and looked at it... she said blood clots cause your whole leg (body part) to swell up and they get hot. This doesn't feel like that, but I don't remember hitting that part of my leg... it's red, purple, blue... mostly red, but very large. Has anyone else had weird bruising since surgery? Maybe I just notice being more bruised because of the anti-clot shots and the bruises they gave me all over my stomach leaving me black and blue ~S~

Hey, I feel your pain. I went on my "schedule" to mushies, and all of a sudden was having nausea all the time... I finally called my dietician and she just recommended to go back to liquids. I was a little reluctant but you know, there really can't be a set schedule for this sort of thing. We need to realize that we had a major organ amputated, and it needs to heal, and nobody can dictate when it is ready to accept a certain consistency of food again. For me it is just not, I guess. But I went back on liquids and am still feeling sick, so calling the dr. today is the next course of action, which I'd recommend.

I just got my nectar sample pack from www.mybariatricpantry.com yesterday, and tried the fuzzy navel for the first time.... OMG I am in love. I have been struggling to find a juice type Protein drink that isn't chocolate/vanilla/straw shakey, and this looks like the winner. I am going on 2 weeks post op and have had a LOT of trouble getting my protein in. I just can't drink anything with the protein aftertaste. Nectar has whey protein and at 24 grams of protein a serving (the trial packets at least, only have 100 calories, I don't think that's too bad). The only thing is, I mixed it in with about 20 grams of Water, since I'd never tried it before... It was a little TOO watered-down. I think with a little less water it'd taste even better Can't wait to try the cherry and the others! Thanks for your thoughts on the other flavors!!

Hello I have been "trolling" the site for a while now as I had been preparing this spring to be sleeved this June, which I was last Tuesday 6-7-11. I've been working with Blue Point Surgical group in Woodbridge, VA if there are any local Virginia-ites. I have had a really great experience with them over the past 6 months. I'm a little over a week out and so far so good (I think). Based on what I'm reading on the site I think I'm experiencing the normal post-op symptoms for just one week out. Gas, stomach REALLY bloated, "bathroom" trouble (without TMI), trouble getting in enough Protein, every day gets a little better. I'm trying to experiment with different protein sources, I'm looking for "juice" type sources because chocolate/shake types don't do it for me. Isopure ready-to-drinks get BIG thumbs down, so I have some nectar samples to try, powders?utm_source=BariatricPal&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=CommentLink" target="_ad" data-id="1" >unjury chicken Soups and unflavored Unjury. Unflavored whey is mixing into yogurt, but it's got a funky taste. So goes this new life of tiny stomach! I look forward to this swelling going away. I am focusing on sipping more every day, but I'm not sure how long it will take for this swelling to go down. A month? Two? My dietician did not put me on Clear liquids for 10 days post op like some of the posters here are saying, but puts patients on full liquids a few days post op. Yogurt, Jello, pudding and light Soup is about all I can take other than Water. I'm starting a blog about my experience. I won't say that it's unique but it's a way to express myself Cheers, SS http://summersleeve.blogspot.com/