Bufflehead

Usually, eating too fast or too much. The vagus nerve runs along the top of the stomach. It controls reactions in the upper half of the body, such as sneezing, runny nose, hiccuping, and yes, it can make your esophagus and mouth produce slime.When it gets irritated by food mashing against it, it considers making you throw up or somehow get rid of the food, hence the slime. Try eating slower, eating less, chewing more carefully, etc. Some people do experience sliming even apart from eating as they heal from surgery, just because the nerve is kind of pissed off in general after the trauma of surgery. Usually that resolves itself as you get further from surgery and things heal down there. But that situation is rare -- it's usually from eating too much or too fast. Good luck!

Try keeping cooked chicken breast and broccoli always on hand. When you are hungry and want a snack, ask yourself if you want to eat chicken breast and broccoli. If you don't, then you aren't actually hungry -- you are just having cravings/head hunger. If you do want to eat chicken breast and broccoli, go for it. You can't do much damage with chicken breast and broccoli. Disclaimer: the chicken breast and broccoli must be leanly prepared! I'm not talking deep fried chicken, or chicken slathered in BBQ sauce, or broccoli with a boatload of melted cheese poured over it. Prepared using cooking sprays and herbs.

Trader Joe's High Potency Chewable Multi's are the cheapest chewable multi's I have found. They taste fine, are low calorie and low carb, and my labs have always been great. I also buy things like sublingual B12 there -- they have great prices.

My surgical team doesn't allow collagen protein, what is what the "New Whey" shots mostly are, despite their name. They say the protein is just about worthless.

Guidance is hard to give when we don't know what you are eating or how much? Like, how many calories do you eat each day? Are you eating a lot of carb-heavy foods? Are you snacking and grazing? Drinking your calories? Are you meeting your protein goals? How much food do you eat at one sitting?

Are those all RTD? I pretty much hated all the RTD I tried* -- much prefer mixing my own. My favorite powder brands are Syntrax Nectar (especially the Sweets line), Syntrax Matrix, Chike, Unjury Chocolate Splendor, and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard. You can get samples from Nashua Nutrition (just google Nashua Nutrition protein samples) for all those brands except Unjury, which you can buy from the Unjury website. I mix mine with unsweetened cashew milk or unsweetened vanilla almond milk, but if you want dairy (more protein) look for high-protein, low-carb milk such as CarbMaster or Fair Life. I also use a lot of Torani SF syrups to change up the flavors and improve them. Another favorite add-in is instant coffee, you can make things like a vanilla latte or hazelnut mocha etc. An immersion blender is the best way to mix shakes without clumps or foam IMO. *I did like Atkins shakes, particularly the Cafe Caramel and Dark Chocolate Royale, but the numbers on those shakes are pretty iffy IMO.

@@EP8 whether you can swallow pills depends on your surgeons' guidelines. My surgeon allows his patients to swallow any pill that will fit through a standard wedding ring, starting immediately after surgery. I had no problem with those size pills, took my first maybe three hours after surgery with no issues. But most multi-vitamins and many supplements are bigger than that, which is why my surgeon has all his patients doing liquid, powdered, or chewable for the first four weeks after surgery for those bigger pills. You'll want to check with yours for specifics.

It hasn't happened to me, but sometimes when people describe these symptoms, it turns out to be just their stomach and esophagus adjusting to the "new normal" and healing after surgery. However, I have also seen people describe these symptoms and it turns out they have a stricture -- basically that their stomach is kind of twisted up by the esophagus, making it difficult and painful to swallow/get something into the stomach. If I had the symptoms you are describing, I would probably be in contact with my surgeon and see if he thought that was something worth exploring, or maybe whether it was just normal healing or some other issue. If it is a stricture, I know several people who have had them and they are fixed with a dilation procedure, not surgically. Good luck!

Stalling at three weeks out is completely normal and expected. That is not a danger sign. Neither is being able to eat more than a half cup of food -- you are on soft foods, when restriction is less, and your stomach is still healing from surgery, meaning you are not getting proper signals from your stomach nerves yet. However, I do see a couple of danger signs. Tough love time: 1. You are choosing to eat more than a half cup per meal. You should be setting limits and choosing to stick with them, not just eating because you can. 2. You are choosing to graze. This is dangerous behavior for any sleever. You need to stop this right now IMO. 3. You are thinking that your body is going to force you to eat properly and that your mind and willpower have no role in this process. No. As everyone says, the sleeve is a tool -- YOU have to decide to use it. For hunger, I would say if you are not on a PPI (such as Prilosec or Protonix) you may need to be on one. For many sleevers, this helps with the physical sensations that people interpret as hunger. If you are on one, you may need a different dosage or a different PPI. Consult with your healthcare team on that. Another possibility is that you are choosing to eat out of habit rather than true hunger, although honestly that doesn't sound to me quite like what is going on. Yes, you have to choose to stick to a rigorous program in order to lose weight. It isn't easy. The sleeve will make it possible for you, but not easy. Good luck!

Exercise really has very little to do with weight loss, so take your mind off your injury and your inability to exercise. Don't feel like, I can't exercise so I will never succeed and should just give up. People who are quadriplegic can lose weight -- it all has to do with what you eat, and you can control it. Here are my rules for myself when I find myself straying and need to get back on track (and trust me, I have been there). They are a complete pain in the butt and it isn't fair that I have to do this kind of work -- but life isn't fair and the truth is I am going to have to work hard at my weight for the rest of my life. So I whine a bit and then I get over it. --set specific, firm, daily goals for calories, carbs, and protein --weigh or measure every food that doesn't come in single-serve portions (yogurt container, jerky stick, egg) --track my eating every day on myfitnesspal --plan what I am going to eat in advance each day and write it down in a schedule. Then when I get hungry or tempted by something in the middle of the day, I can tell myself, "it sucks to be hungry, but you can wait until your 2 pm snack, you will have an apple then" --eliminate high carb and sugary foods that trigger hunger and don't satisfy: all grains, refined sugar, and high carb veggies such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and peas. Focus on lean meat/fish and green veggies, with smaller amounts of dairy, nuts, and fruit. --get foods that don't meet my nutritional goals out of the house --don't take money or any way to pay for things with me when I go to work. Good luck to you!

It's hard to offer suggestions without knowing what you think the issue is, what challenges you are facing with your diet, and so on. Here are the rules I set for myself when I find myself wandering off track: --set clear goals and stick to them (calories/carbs/protein) --weigh or measure everything that doesn't come in a single-serving portion (such as a jerky stick or a cup of yogurt) --track everything on MyFitnessPal --plan what I am going to eat in advance each day, and write it down in a schedule --no liquid calories other than protein shakes --no grains, refined sugar, or high carb veggies (potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, etc.) --get anything that doesn't meet my nutritional goals out of the house --don't take money or any way to pay for things to work with me (this effectively keeps me away from: Starbucks on the way to work, vending machines, the snack shop in the building, the grocery store on the way home, etc.). It's a harsh tool but it works! Good luck to you.

I'm a big advocate for trusting that your surgeon (and medical team) knows how best to prepare their own patients for surgery and get them through the aftermath as well. Surgeons tend to vary from each other and I think you'll get exhausted if you conduct an internet referendum every time your team does something a little different from what you may have read about online. You trust this person to cut open your body cavity and perform major surgery on one of the most important organs of your body, so I say trust them that they know how their patients should prepare for it. Good luck in your surgery!

I stir it into my Greek yogurt. It's good in cottage cheese, too.

I did liquid vitamins for 4 weeks after surgery -- a double dose of Wellesse, which I got from Amazon. I also did liquid iron and calcium. After 4 weeks I switched to Trader Joe's High Potency chewable multi-vitamin -- I did a double dose for 6 months, then switched to a single dose. My labs have always been great.

What are you doing wrong? --not realizing that virtually everyone stalls for a few weeks starting at about 3 weeks out --having unrealistic expectations regarding how weight loss works -- it isn't a continuous process, you will have times where you stall or even regain a little --placing too much emphasis on the scale and letting it stress you out instead of putting the scale away and having faith that if you follow your program correctly, the weight will come off, just not at the smooth, rapid pace that you want As long as you are sure your calorie intake has not gone bonkers (you are tracking, correct?) then put the scale away for a few weeks or more and keep going. You will get there!

It really varies depending on the surgical practice. I can tell you pretty much what happened at mine, but YMMV: --workup with bariatric nurse (general physical exam, blood pressure, etc.) --meet with exercise physiologist to discuss current and future exercise efforts, talk about any limitations on exercise (for example, I have arthritis in one of my hips that keeps me from doing plyometric work) --meet with insurance coordinator to go over insurance requirements and set a schedule and plan for meeting them --meet with dietician to talk about current and future eating --testing of RMR and for h. pylori bacterium --meet with surgeon for another physical exam and discussion of surgery options --talk with patient coordinator about setting up future tests and visits other than the insurance-required tests, such as upper GI series, bloodwork, support group meeting.

Have someone hide your scale or throw it away (seriously).

Honestly I would stay away from the things that drive unhelpful food behaviors. If "crunchy and sweet" is giving you a problem, stop going there. Remember that food isn't entertainment, the purpose isn't to make your mouth feel good. If you are hungry, keep some cooked chicken breast on hand and chop up 3 ounces and have that as a snack. Alternatively, a couple of ounces of beef or turkey jerky. If you really must do crunchy, do raw carrot and celery sticks. Also, eating anything sweet is just going to amp up your hunger and cravings. Sugar and carbs will NEVER fill you up. They will only make you hungrier.

Chike's Very Vanilla is excellent IMO. Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Vanilla Ice Cream also works well. I think a lot depends on what you mix it with: try mixing with vanilla flavored Fair Life or CarbMaster milk, or Blue Diamond Hint-of-Honey vanilla almond milk, and in a tablespoon or two of SF Torani vanilla syrup. You can buy samples of both these flavors, as well as other vanillas, here: http://www.nashuanutrition.com/store/protein-powders/protein-powder-samples-1-serving.html that way you don't have to invest in a big tub of something that you won't end up liking. Good luck!

Being able to drink is fine. It just means your surgeon did meticulous work and you heal well, so there isn't as much stomach swelling/inflammation as some people experience. Liquids aren't really restricted by the sleeve itself. My understanding is that diarrhea is pretty normal. I didn't have it but I know lots of folks do. I don't think it hurts to call the surgeon's office and just see if they have any ideas about resolving it. Side note -- were you explicitly told to wait 30 minutes to drink water after drinking a protein shake? Because I understand the rationalization for waiting after eating solid (or semi-solid) food, but I really don't know of any reason to wait to drink one type of liquid after drinking another. Not saying your doc is wrong if that is what you were told, but I have seen lots of people on these forums before confused about that, and then when they go back and check they realize that their instructions had to do with waiting after eating, not waiting after drinking a protein shake.

No, I was on full liquids for four weeks post-op, as per my team's instructions. They have a very conservative plan, but also a high success rate both in terms of weight loss and patient safety. Since my own personal success rate (I mean pre-sleeve) in weight loss and health was very bad, I resisted any urges I had to make up my own plan, and just put my head down and followed their orders.

Hospitals are pretty experiences in providing what patients need. Lip balm and a long charger cord for your phone are the things they may not have that most people here seem to agree you need. If you are a woman, if you have a bra that is non-underwire (preferably a soft cotton, fasten-in-front leisure bra) you might find that much more comfortable post-surgery, since many docs will leave you with an incision that hits right at the bra line. Good luck!

Just about everyone stalls at three weeks out. Don't sweat it. Perfectly normal. As far as your pureed foods go, the rules laid down by my team were: --high protein foods only (dairy/meat/fish/eggs/beans/soy) --no more than 3 tablespoons of food per meal --3 meals per day, no snacks other than calorie-free liquids and protein shakes.

I have zero long term side effects at 2.5 years out. I would have this surgery again every six months for the rest of my life if you told me I had to in order to maintain my new healthy, normal life -- but of course I don't have to! Is it all worth it? My life is so great now and the trouble/pain/whatever it took to get here was so (comparatively) minimal that I'm not even sure I can formulate a rational response to your question Good luck in your decision!

I was allowed pretty much anything calorie-free as well. I did lots of Torani SF syrups, instant coffee, and Sweet Leaf Sweet Drops flavorings. I don't see why calorie-free additions would be banned, but you might want to check with your medical team just in case -- every practice seems to have different rules!