Matt Z

Are you using your incentive spirometer every hour? walking every hour?

Common pitfalls. Focusing ONLY on your weight and not including body fat %, overall composition, lean mass, physical body measurements. You will stall, there will be times when you just stop losing weight, or gain a little even. This is a problem when you are only looking at your weight. Because you could be losing fat, gaining muscle, etc... but if you don't pay attention to the whole picture, you can and most likely will be come frustrated and discouraged, because you "aren't losing weight" Not prepping ahead of time. Start getting your water intakes upward of 128 oz a day. Get your sugar intake down to as close to zero as possible. Start getting your protein levels up. Start exercising now. Start all the habits you'll be forced to adopt after surgery now. Get ready to avoid temptations, "slider foods" etc. There are a large number of bad foods that you won't have any trouble eating, get your will power ready now. Be ready to not be "typical". All the numbers and %'s and everything you'll hear being tossed around. Those are simply averages and that's it. Don't expect to lose 100 lbs in 3 weeks (if you laughed, you haven't read enough of these threads), you might even gain weight right out of surgery. Be ready for your weight to be all over the place for a little while. But give yourself a break and take the time to heal first. Take **EVERYTHING** in stride, focus on the long term goals and not the day to day. Be sure to be strict with your diet and goals, but be flexible enough to give yourself a break if you slip up. The Sleeve is a tool only, it WILL NOT magically make everything go away. Not everyone losses the hunger sensation so just assume you won't, that way if it does come back or never goes away, you won't be disappointed before you even get a chance to start. All in all. Stay Strong, Focus on WHY you wanted to have the surgery and keep those goals reachable.

I'm using PatchMD patches, purchased from this site, cost $66.54 with shipping per month. I'm also taking extra Vitamin D3, 10,000 IU tablets, $6.50 for 2 months worth, so $3.25 a month. I'm taking Biotin, 10,000mcg tabs, $13.39 per 120 days, so $3.35 per month. I take Fiber supplements daily as well, $7.96 for a 45 day supply, so $5.31 per month. So that puts me at $78.45 per month for vitamins/supplements. Only about $2.62 per day.

Acid Reflux / Heart Burn is excessively common with the sleeve. Issues with medication aren't unheard of either, esp only 3 weeks out of surgery. Have you called and spoken with your surgical team about these issues yet?

I'm not near my goal quite yet, but I've dropped quite a bit overall and the answer is a bit 2 fold. Some areas did see a reduction in rippling. Other areas however the weight loss made it look worse. It's all going to depend on the actual cause and how your body sheds the weight. I've got a lot of dimpling/wrinkling around my inner thighs now whereas before weight loss it wasn't as noticeable.

Sure it helps. I didn't need any extra assistance. But everyone is going to be different. Might want to line up a friend or family member for a fall back just in case.

Any dry mouth spray is going to work. But why exactly can't you continue to consume liquids all day?

I just use Pandora, they've got a bunch of workout related playlists already!

check out CPAP.com for gear as well. I've got a sweet hose management system that makes tossing and turning so much less of an issue. I've got this for hose management https://www.cpap.com/productpage/HoseBuddy-CPAP-Hose-Suspension-System.html I've also got 2 of these on my hose as well (2 because for me, 1 would make a whistle noise in the tube, so 2 worked well) https://www.cpap.com/productpage/generic-bacteria-filter-cpap-machines-1-pack.html

What is this supposed to say?

Hey J, the numbers are little "mixed up" My initial surgery was Nov of 2011, my starting weight was 370 back then, I had the band, and it didn't do all that great. Lost 70 there, but then that was it. Revised to the bypass this past March and since then I've dropped another 62 ish. I'm not even sure I could handle 122 lbs in 4 months LOL, but thank you! I wish the callout had more options for those of us that have revised, but sadly they don't just yet.

You should have a number to contact your surgeons office at... this is a question that should be asked of them. GP advice is good and all, but I'd ask the surgical team this question to be extra safe.

When did your surgeon say it was ok to resume?

I have to add more. The lack of "searching" before asking. And I'm not just on this site, but in general. Seems some don't bother to do any background research first, they just come here and expect us all to be doctors. And why are folks afraid to ask their doctors some of these questions?

Well, if it's Appendicitis, then only a physical exam is going to determine if that's the case. Symptoms I found online are : People may experience: Pain areas: in the abdomen, mid-abdomen, or right lower abdomen Pain types: can be dull, sharp, mild, or severe Whole body: chills, fever, loss of appetite, or malaise Gastrointestinal: diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting Also common: abdominal pain migration So if you have any of those, and your doctors do the physical exam and confirm... then, there you go. But, your doctors are going to be the folks you really want to be talking to this about. Anything here is just going to be guess work or general information as a whole. Good Luck and hopefully it's nothing major!

Stalls suck, my last stall lasted between 10 - 15 days. But it finally broke. I'm in the gym daily so it's hard to separate the muscle mass weight gains with the fat losses. Some days the water retention from the workout counters the weight drop from the fat loss. It sucks, but as long as that muscle mass is growing, things do eventually pan out. The size drops are crazy though! I've gone from a 50 waist (below the gut line) to a 40 waist at my actual waist line. Such an amazing feeling!

Congrats! Hopefully you are one of the lucky ones that doesn't have their hunger return. But be aware, it can and does happen so be ready!

Stall broke! Dropped below my second goal of 250, onwards to my 3rd goal, which was my dream goal of 200. Only 48 lbs to go to get there! Any questions you have, shoot them over and I'll do my best to answer them for you!

Compression gear should be purchased at 1 size smaller than your current comfortable shirt size. Brand really doesn't matter too much, go for the cheapest up front, until you get to a stable size. I'm already out a bit of money on compression gear due to size drops. I've been buying from a company called RedPlume on Amazon, they've got some good compression gear and some great "Super Hero" prints (like the superman shirt in my avatar)

Guys room ladies

I know sleeved folks don't typically get dumping syndrome, but they can. There are 2 types of dumping, one that can occur within 30 mins, and the other that can take upwards of 3 hours. Curious if you were dumping from the first meal, or from the yogurt.

Congrats!

I'm in Riverside.

Congrats! Only 17 days! I think it really doesn't "get real" until you are in pre-op getting poked and prodded. Yes you can experience hair loss, you can attempt to reduce this by making sure your protein levels stay high through out the process, you can take Biotine supplements as well, but the sad fact is, this doesn't guarantee you won't lose hair. It's not even really "hair loss" because you aren't really losing hair... like we typically think of when we hear "hair loss" it's not generally not permanent. the loss happens because surgery causes your follicles to enter a rest phase, which is normal, but the shock causes more of them to go into rest than normal. So when they finally reactivate, they push out the hair they were holding onto, in order to grow a new strand. Since a larger than normal percentage of follicles are doing this at the same time, the appearance of "hair loss" happens. The hair generally grows back normally.

I did. Not often, and I was smart about what I cheated with. I was allowed celery. One night while at a friends house for a movie night party, I had a small scoop of taco beef on one of my celery sticks. I did also have a small slice of meat pie at my father's 60th birthday party at a restaurant, but other than that, I stuck to my diet and nothing "bad" happened.