CowgirlJane

I know that some people really do have a hard time. However, I have been reading these forums since last year and what I have noticed is that MOST of the people who feel like they are dying/feel horrible/regret the surgery are actually having either emotional or compliance issues. OR they really didn't know what to expect. People have unrealistic expectations and do things like progress through food too fast, don't pay attention the Fluid intake, don't pay attention to the Protein needs, dont take a PPI etc. etc. I also think some of the "pain" that people feel is food denial. I don't know if any of this applies to your friend. A nurse at my Docs practice is a band to sleeve revision. Presurgery she told me that revision patients don't have all the problems she hears about from sleeve patients because they know what to expect, understand the rules, understand small quantities and understand about separating food from liquids. This is just one nurse's opinion, but I think i see this in the forums too, some people just don't know what they signed up for so then complain mightily when they have some discomfort and emotional distress. You have been through this once so have an idea of what to expect. I also saw a bariatric doctor (not a surgeon) who is a (dissatisfied) band patient herself and has several patients who are revisions. She warned me that I would feel worse then I did after the band surgery (true). She also warned me that the exhaustion/recovery seems much longer and that is primarily due to dyhydration, also true. She encouraged me to seek the IV drip if I got dehydrated, don't suffer. It is true that it was harder recovery then the band, but for me, not because of pain but because eating/drinking was just harder the first month or two.

My surgeon really laid out the risks of a revision - and it scared me. The risks of a revision to a gastric bypass were even scarier. i think the main risk in a revision is the higher risk of leaks. If I remember right, leaks might be 3-5% of revisions. I got the idea that there aren't alot of published studies on actual occurance of serious complications for revisions either so the information seems less structured. So, after getting this big long horror story, I asked about the results of the revisions done at their practice. Well, in their practice they have not had so many complications and no deaths either. I am also told that statistically, revision patients don't lose as fast. for myself, and others that post here regularly, that hasn't been a problem and I am very happy with my weight loss. I have lost more 4.5 months post sleeve then I ever lost with the band. I have not had complications and am very happy with my choice, but I do think it is wise to really research and understand the risks. I had the band for 10 years. After the first couple of years, I had to have all the Fluid removed so I was sitting there with an empty band which eventually slipped. So, I had the band removed and became so hungry 24/7 - I was in misery. That is what convinced me that I needed to get the sleeve, that I needed that tool because I wasn't doing it on my own. If I could have gotten control over my appetite and eating without surgery, I would have done that. Obesity has created a real imbalance in my system and I need help to overcome that.

Thank you for sharing your story - good for everyone to know the risks, however unlikely they may be. You had really good judgment to know that something was wrong and act on it quickly! Heal fast, get better soon!

I started with a higher BMI then you did. Honestly, nobody really noticed anything until I had lost 45-50 pounds. Just the last 2 weeks everyone is suddenly REALLY noticing. I only lost maybe 15 pounds over the last 5 weeks, but I dropped maybe 1-2 sizes in that time. I notice that it comes in spurts. I saw my primary care doc last week, I have lost 30 pounds since I last saw her. She didn't really seem to notice much difference when I lost the first 40# but was just wowed when I saw her last week. Don't be discouraged, people will start seeing it soon enough. I like the compliments, but my motivation comes from within - my bloodwork results from my 3 month was enough to keep me excited for quite awhile. My fasting blood sugar, which wasn't great at 99 preop came up as 77 on my 3 month check!!!!

Me too! I had a wardrobe that covered basically 18W to 26W. I have now donated pretty much everything except for the 18Ws! I am looking forward to buying more new clothes! In the past, i would have boxed it up saved the bigger sizes. I really am believing in this!

You have gotten some great advice. I think you should pat yourself on the back for coming out and saying all this too - laying everything on the table will help make your next steps clearer. Someone I worked with had great success with her weight after gastric bypass, and then a few years later I heard she was dead at 42 - died in her sleep of organ failure. Turned out it wasn't the WLS that killed her, it was the booze combined with her diabetes. This is a serious situation, and I hope you don't feel shame but instead can be open to getting meaningful help. All of us here have some sort of "situation" in our relationship with food - this could happen to just about anybody. First, I don't think you have wasted your surgery. I think that consuming all those sugars(booze) and other carbs combined with erratic eating habits is messing with your body. Be nice to yourself for a few days or a week - no drinking, healthy, low sugar/low carb, plenty of Protein type food in small quantities SEVERAL times a day and I bet you will feel so much better. I bet you will also start to feel restriction again once you get off the sugar merry-go-round. I am thinking that if you could get feeling better nourished getting back on track with everything else would be easier too. I have lost every week except for the weigh in after a one week business trip - small gain. I didn't feel that I was overeating, but every meal in a restaurant and I stopped losing weight. I now go out to eat every once in a while, and I eat part of my husband (or son's) meal. If I go to fast food I get a salad with chicken breast and just eat some of it, taking the rest home for future meals. If I went out to eat alot I would not be able to lose weight well. I feel like I should be able to just be there and eat as healthy as at home, but apparently i don't! Restaurants as a mainstay for meals are really hard. You didn't say if your boyfriend is also your best drinking and restaurant meal eating partner, but I am guessing he is. I know that counseling may not be financially in reach right now, but I think reaching out to someone who really supports you (sister, good friend?) would be great. In my personal experience, it was very hard to give up a lifestyle vice while living with/spending most of my time with someone who was continuing in that behavior. I think you really need to talk all of this over with someone you can trust. I don't have the answers, but know that Your health and your goals are important too. You might consider AA or some other free resource too. Good luck and hang in there.

Mine is 38, I am happy with my weight loss results - I have had steady losses month after month and I am really thinking I can lose 90# by the time I hit the 6 month mark which would be great. I was a band to sleeve revision too. I can eat more then a tablespoon of food for sure, but my portions are very nicely controlled. I feel quite happy with where i am at, but i think someone already mentioned that the bougie measure is just a guide, there is more to it then that in determining your stomach capacity.

Awesome! I am sure you will inspire and help many people with your new career.

I think it is great you are reaching out. I figure it is never too late to get back on track!!! A thought would be to start with doing the 5 day pouch test - google it for details. This is supposed to help you feel like you have some restriction again. I might also suggest that you start using a tool like myfitnesspal.com and journal EVERYTHING - no exceptions. Target for at least 60 g of Protein and less then 50-60G of carbs. That is not super restrictive but is low enough it will keep the sweets out. There are different ideas of how many calories you should have but it seems like most people are getting around 800 or so during the active weight loss phase. I work out alot, so do sometimes eat more, but 1000 is a pretty big day for me. I suggest that you not belabor the past, since you can't change it, but each day think about what you will do this day, this week and look forward to much success!

I am so incredibly pleased with my progress. I feel so much better losing 75 pounds - even this has changed my life for the better. I know that the second half of the journey is likely to go much slower, but I feel so wonderful that doesn't bother me at all!

Start learning to pay attention to your body. Eating by schedule is really good at first, but over time, need to learn the queues that tell you "enough" Forget about trying to be "full" eat until you are satiated or no longer hungry. It is possible to stretch this new tummy out and we want to try to minimize that. Follow the basic rules - Water, Protein and increase activity; Whenever you aren't getting the results you want, go back to those basics and make sure you haven't started drifting away from them.

Dooter, that pretty well describes me too. I wasn't a binge eater, and though my portions were obviously too big, I never was one to eat a whole pizza or multiple burgers at once or anything like that. It is really more like I just consistently ate too much AND often the wrong thing too. I ate alot of healthy foods, but then would have ice cream for dessert like every night. The sleeve has helped me in two important ways. First, small portions sizes and second, reduced appetite so it easier to make good choices. I still have to make deliberate good choices (protein and veggies and exercise!) but it just isn't the struggle with that "drive to eat". I sure hope this continues!

I had alot of those same doubts. the doc I see for sleep apnea gave me the best counter argument.... he said "so, lets say in 5 years you gained back some weight and in 10 years all of it - you still had 5-10 years of a much higher quality of life! 10 years of less pain, of being able to do the things you want to do. 10 years of having your life back." I couldn't help but think he had a good point. Even post surgery, I saw the NUT a month post op and had lost 30 pounds. I can remember telling her that I was still skeptical and I would know it is really working once I lose at least 50#. Well, I am at almost 70# off and even though I am still obese, I feel soo much better. It is hard to describe the incredibly good it feels. As i have headed down this journey I am becoming more convinced that long term success is possible. I am not naive, anybody can regain after ANY weight loss surgery. I guess I am just starting to think that it is really possible to get this weight off... and keep it off permanently. The journey continues...

The pain wasn't that bad - it was the feeling horrible that was horrible! I was maxed out on anti nasuea drugs and even though I never puked, I felt really awful immediately post op. The good news is that it passed really quickly and it wasn't too long before I was up and walking around.

I love the imagery. The mind is a powerful thing, who knows it might help you release some excess fat - I might have to try that!

I think that this is so subjective, how do we know that we all felt the same way before??? Let me TRY to describe my personal experience, I am not describing the immediate post-op, but more the longer term (so far) experience: - Band, with fill in it - I often still felt "hunger" it was just pain that told me that I had enough to eat. I found that to be miserable. I don't know how much of it was "head hunger" but I will tell you that what I feel with the sleeve is sooo different and so much less frustrating. This experience made me crazy and drove me more toward slider foods. - Band removed - about a week after the band came out, I started becoming unbelievably, bottomless pit kind of hungry. I had a drive to eat that was so hard for me to control as I was consumed by the need to eat. I hadn't had any fill in my band for years, so I was surprised that having it removed made such a difference. i was trying so hard to not overeat and I never "stuffed" myself to the point of pain, but i felt like I was constantly hungry and eating didn't relieve it. This experience made me 100% sure that I needed to have the sleeve surgery because something is broken in my stomach to brain connection! -Post sleeve - I generally have an absence of hunger. I do get hungry at times, but it is not the old "I am gonna die if I don't eat". I don't have that all consuming drive to eat anymore, I feel that I have more of a normal hunger response. I get hungry if I haven't eaten in a while, and often feel that I need a bit more if I have had very high activity. I have only eaten to the point of pain/vomiting perhaps 2-3 times since my surgery so that has not been a big problem for me. Basically, I feel like I can eat small portions, but eat pretty normal foods. When I eat, I try to stop at the point of "no longer hungry". SO FAR, I HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED THE WHOLE "I AM IN PAIN BUT I AM STILL HUNGRY LIKE I FELT WITH THE BAND. I do sometimes still have head hunger, especially evenings. That is that desire to eat even when I am not really hungry. I often want snacky food so lately my solution has been the 100 calorie microwave popcorn. I sometimes have a Protein drink which fills me up, but doesn't really address my desire to snack. I wish I had a magic solution for that, but so far I am managing it by having my 4th meal (snack) after dinner. I am concerned about this in the long haul and it is an issue that I somehow need to wrestle with better. I am happy with my weight loss, so I must be doing okay, but i fear that this will eventually imped my losses and maintenance.

Everybody is different - and it will depend alot on how much you lost on your preop diet becaues weight loss tends to be fast at the beginning due to Water weight loss. I lost only 8 pounds on my preop diet so my losses were big immediately after surgery. I lost 10 pounds on week one, and 10.4 on week 2.... it slowed down after that but I have been losing pretty steadily.

I think having the band helped me with post sleeve eating. I haven't had a lot of problems with vomiting or anything - the sleeve is such a breeze compared to the crapband.

started at: 308 lost 8 pounds on the 2 week preop diet, weight on day of surgery 300# current: 240 weeks since surgery: 16

Okay, so my circumstances were perhaps a little different because I had band removal surgery in late sept and then sleeve done 12/12. Doctors orders was to wait 6 weeks before riding after the sleeve. This was because of heavy lifting (saddle) and perhaps more importantly risk of injury from a fall. To be honest, i didn't feel much like riding until I was probably 4 weeks out anyway. I was so tired! Even at 6 weeks, I feel like I had lost strength and was tired after an hour in the arena - doing some posting etc. Before the surgeries I rode usually 4-5 days a week, a typical ride was maybe 2 hours, but I would haul out for much longer rides on the weekend. I took alot of time off from riding between the two surgeries so it maybe took me longer to build back up. Also, I am 47, so I am thinking a younger person is going to bounce back a little faster. And finally, I had gained so much weight in 2011 and all - I was feeling in much worse shape then normal. I personally would feel like it would have been too much for me to spend 5 hours in the saddle, chairing a show just 5 weeks post op. I don't think you would be risking your health because things are pretty well healed up 3-4 weeks post op, but you should see what your surgeon says. Dr Aceves is very experienced and I would trust his judgement on this.

For whatever reason, I was expecting the worse (death...lol) and so even though I was pretty miserable the first 3-4 weeks I felt happy about it. Your level of pain sounds really high, but everything else you describe sounds pretty familiar. I was dog tired until probably 5-6 weeks post op. It was kind of depressing to be that tired. I felt strange combinations of not wanting to eat, being hungry, being worried about being hungry, everything tasting funny and just generally feeling weird and totally not myself. I went back to work after 3 weeks and even though I have a desk job, I was so fatigued I couldn't work a full day. All I can say is that things even out. Stalls come and go, but, all in all, the weight just keeps coming off and I don't get stressed over the little ups and downs. BTW, it seems impossible since you are eating so little, but nearly everyone hits a big ole stall 2-3 weeks out from surgery. It made me question what the heck I had done, but it passed and weight loss continues. Here is an easy to read explanation of it: http://www.dsfacts.c...or-plateau.html My doc also had me taking prosilec from the beginning. He prescribed the capsule, which I opened and had the little pellets inside on apple sauce or somethign liquidy like. He views that as a good preventive measure and I think you may want to look to getting on an acid med sooner then later. The only words of encouragement I can give you is that now that I am months out from surgery, this is my experience: -losing weight and clothing sizes so fast that I can barely keep up -working out at the gym 3-4 days a week, feel like I am finally back to strength -riding my horse, working around my yard and property with full energy -no big hunger problems. sometimes I do "want" to eat, but I am getting better at distinguishing the mental desire to eat from the physical hunger. -my tastes are still "off" but it is getting better. I most regret that my favorite beverage - Water - still tastes funky to me but that seems a small price to pay for the weight loss -the thing I hate the most - all the Vitamins I have to take. I know it is for my LONG TERM health, so I am doing it, but I hate it. I feel like this surgery has "freed" me from that near constant hunger. People (well therapists anyway) always seem to say that food drive is in your head but my experience is that it is a physical drive to eat. That overwhelming drive is just gone - and I hope stays away! You do make a great point that surgery doesn't eliminate the emotional comfort people get from food. It doesn't really solve anything in life except help you to eat less.

I am thrilled with my results, I think that people can get discouraged from time to time, or perhaps hope that the rapid wieght loss will continue, but it always slows down. I have gone from 26W pants/3X tops to now buying 18W/20W pants and 1X some smaller2X tops. I have a long way to go, but it has made such a huge difference to lose even this much! Clothes look better, it is easier to do activities, I just feel more "normal."

I wish you great success! I had the band for 10 years. I lost 70# the first year, but honestly, it was by dieting. I of course eventually regained everything after having to have the Fluid removed. I do not feel that the band works that well for most people but I do think I learned some things from the experience. I do not have any of that pain from eating like I remember from the band, and I guess that is partly due to knowing to chew carefully etc. The sleeve has been a much much better experience for me so far.

I was sleeved on 12/12 too! I think you are having good success - a couple of different things to think about.... Looks like you lost quite a bit pre-op. well, the body just can't keep up the crazy fast pace of weight loss forever, so it always slows down, no matter how little you eat. If you look at it from a perspective of how much of your "excess" you are nearly half way to goal! I think that is just awesome! I think we are having pretty similiar results, except I only lost 8 pounds in my two week pre surgery diet - so it just seems like I am losing weight faster. The way I see it, we are both coming up on losing half of what we want to lose! How exciting is that not even 4 months out from surgery!?! I meet with a nutritionalist and she tells me that when my weight loss slows down, there are a few tricks to try. I haven't hit this yet, but ideas like: -confirming that you are keeping your calories at the level think you are (by tracking carefully) -maybe you need to eat a little more to jump start the weight loss, so consider that -if you can tolerate low carb, that should help. I have decided life is to short to feel like crap and that is how low carb eating makes me feel so I don't do it. What was interesting is the last time we met she felt I was doing things too much by the book, weighing and measuring everything, recording everything rather then listening to my body. I decided to experiment and STOPPED recording all my food and crazy thing is my weight loss sped up! I don't know if it is because i am eating less or more, but i am trying to listen to my body, while following the "rules" and am pleased as can be that so far it works. I notice that now I eat 4X a day instead of what they recommended of 5X a day. As far as activity - I am doing a couple of things. I do Water aerobics 1-2X a week plus eliptical another 2-3X a week and strength training 2Xa week. Some days I combine the strength and eliptical in one day. On top of that, I am trying to increase my OVERALL activity - so no sitting around after work... I just try to keep moving. I also have horses so do barn work, do yard work, walk the dogs etc. My theory is that it may only make small difference in terms of calories burned, but I am trying to rev up my metabolism by just overall moving more and sitting less. Don't be discouraged, you really are doing well!

You have had happen what is everybody's worst fear. i am so sorry you have gone through this! I hope you can find some confort in knowing that you WILL get better and down the road when you are thin and healthy, this will just be a really bad distant memory. {{{{Hugs}}}}