Bumblestitch

There seems to be quite a few Floridians on the boards here - this might be a good place to keep in touch. I haven't really formally introduced myself yet - I'm 33, male, been overweight my entire life. I'm still on the fence about getting the surgery but it is very tempting as my my insurance does cover most of the procedure. I'm also a big wimp and have never had surgery so that's kinda scary. I watched a VSG procedure video today - bad plan. Since my insurance does cover the procedure, I won't be going to Mexico. Has anyone used a doctor in Florida? I'm looking at Dr. Domkowski in Sebastian but I really can't find any first-hand reports about him or his practice online - good or bad. In fact I can't find too many details for any doctors in the Central Florida area.

You'd be, what, 2-3 weeks out? I think you'll be ok - perhaps a *little* sore, and I think my doctor told me not to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds for either 2 or 4 weeks, I can't recall exactly. (I'm 1.5 years out). You'll be on a liquid only diet at that point, or at best, the 'mushies' phase - all the mashed potatoes, cottage cheese and Soup you can eat at the buffet. Best of luck to you.

Congratulations on getting sleeved and the weight loss! I started this thread over a year ago and unfortunately haven't been big participant on the boards over that time. I guess life gets back to normal at some point. I did want to respond to your post, though. The best thing I can say is don't obsess over your weight loss (or lack thereof). You are going to hit plateaus every so often - don't get discouraged, it's normal. You'll also find that as time goes on, these plateaus will last longer. In fact it's quite common to have your first one about a month out from surgery. You'll weigh yourself every day and the scale won't move - or in fact it may go back up a few pounds. It's disappointing - but it won't last. Just think of it this way - you're not eating as much as you used to - your weight can't possibly stay where you're at. Over the past year and few months, I've had plateaus that lasted anywhere from a few days to over two weeks. During that time, though, I've lost over 170 pounds. That's more than I thought I would lose (in fact more than I'd prefer). It's quite exciting to say you're no longer morbidly obese, then no longer obese, then no longer even "overweight". Your sleeve will work - just keep in mind it's going to take time. If you feel you need to speed things up, you could always hit the gym (I didn't), although you've just had your surgery and should probably wait a few weeks. Your doctor can tell you when it's safe for you to do that. Once you're able to eat solid/normal foods again, eating the right things will also help. I was a huge carb fiend pre-surgery, and after the surgery it seems all I want is protein now. I guess it's because I can only eat so much, I prefer to eat the things that count. (Plus the fact that breads/pasta fill me up after just a few bites). Again, congrats and best of luck to you!

Hey there - you and I share surgery dates! It must be normal (or not uncommon) to have a stall at this stage. I just recently had what felt like a nearly 3-week stall where I was hovering at 280, maybe up or down a pound on any given day. That finally broke about a week ago - which is also when I had a follow-up appt with my surgeon. He said it's to be expected to happen from time to time as your body goes through phases of 'relearning' where it is, and will go through periods of stalls to try and maintain a normal state based on your current metabolism. So that was probably about a week and a half ago, and as of this morning I was at 270.5.. hoping I can kiss the 270's goodbye tomorrow morning. I was getting pretty bothered by it too and tried to uptake my Water - that's one thing I'm really bad about... if I'm not hungry, then I don't think about consuming anything.. but if I am hungry, then I'm not supposed to drink anything for 30 minutes pre- and post-meal. See if you can up your water. I don't know if that helped break it or not but it's something you could try.

Hi all. I had the sleeve done with a local doctor back in December, but this post isn't about me. A friend of mine had the sleeve done in Mexico (Jerusalem Clinic, I think? Dr. Ponce de Leon) back in October, so she's about 4.5 months out. Everything fine until about 2 weeks ago, she got sick. Typical flu-like symptoms - fever, unproductive cough, tired, no appetite.. 2 days in she started getting better but strangely started to become nauseated. Still not eating at this point and barely getting in enough fluids, she became dehydrated and went to the hospital to get an IV. Made an appointment with her PCP last week and he scheduled bloodwork to see if perhaps it was a viral infection. He prescribes her antiviral meds and anti-nausea meds. The week continues and she is feeling worse - nearly constant nausea, any attempt at eating (and sometimes just taking her pills) ends in vomiting. Even the occasional 'nothing in my stomach but still end up vomiting/dry heaving'. Fast forward to this afternoon at the bloodwork followup, she's now two weeks without really eating anything and not keeping down anything more substantial than a small glass of orange juice or Water. Doctor finds nothing off in the bloodwork results, she's very drained (obviously from not having any nutrients), and what's more worrying is that he can't even get a blood pressure reading after multiple attempts (again I presume due to lack of nutrition and being dehydrated yet again). He basically told her she had to go to the hospital, it was not an option. So, she's now at the hospital getting an IV to rehydrate and I believe she will be admitted so they can figure out what exactly the problem is. I'm putting this out there because I wanted to see if this condition rings any bells with the community. We don't know if her problem is related to some general illness or if it might be connected with her VSG surgery. It just seems odd that it would suddenly present itself 4 months out on the tail end of being sick. The only thing we could think of is that perhaps her heavy coughing during the first couple of days could have caused a problem of some kind. (Sudden leak?) What's odd is that it's just nausea. I know there's lots of talk here over leaks, strictures, gall bladder problems, etc but she has no abdominal pain, it's just nausea all the time and an inability to keep food down. My other concern is that since her surgery was done in Mexico, she doesn't have a surgeon familiar with her surgery who can get involved in her diagnosis. She's at a pretty good local hospital but as far as I'm aware, no one at that hospital does the VSG, so I don't know if VSG complications is something they will give much focus to or even be aware of. I'm tempted to call my surgeon (who is in another town/hospital) but I suspect they would not give any kind of medical advice or even their opinion without seeing the patient. So based on the above, does this sound like something that could be a complication from VSG? Has anyone had (or developed) nausea 4+ months out after an uneventful recovery period? Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have.. like I said it could be completely unrelated to VSG, I just wanted to see what the community might have to say about it.

Not to derail the conversation, but I see more and more mention of 'ruining my sleeve' or 'stretching my sleeve' by over-eating. My understanding is that the stretchy part of the stomach is what is removed, so our stomachs really can't stretch (or just barely). I get the impression people think they've ruined their stomach somehow by eating too much. That's not really possible, is it? I mean I'm sure if you eat until you're 'stuffed' at every meal it might be slightly bigger than it would normally be, but there's never any danger of negating the effects of having had the surgery.

I've been using Livestrong.com. It has calorie counter/food logs, weight/bmi logs, and exercise logs. The food log is nice because it lets you enter anything that might not be in their (huge) database, it has 'official' items entered by manufacturers, and it remembers things you've eaten when searching for items to enter (so if you entered a 1/4 cup of breakstone's lowfat cottage cheese yesterday and ate it again today, it will be right at the top of the search results when you start entering cottage cheese). I haven't started exercising yet so I don't have much feedback on the exercise logging. There's also iPhone and iPad apps if you happen to have one of those devices (android too perhaps).

I was exactly like you about a week out. I think our stomachs are still numb or something at that point. Around the first week I was able to eat full liquids. I was able to consume a lot more soup than I thought I should be able to - I didn't measure it but I'd say a 'small bowl' worth. I have a size 40 sleeve and I kept thinking to myself " I think the dr. didn't make the sleeve small enough!". But once I started on mushy food you will definitely notice that you can't get much food in you. For instance I'm at 3+ weeks right now and able to eat mushy stuff. Last night we got chinese food. I opted for egg foo young, which is basically a chinese omelette with veggies (cooked soft) and some chicken in it (and chinese food chicken always seems to be soft/mushy, for some reason)... I was able to get down 3 bites and I was OVER full. I probably should have only eaten 2, or in all likelihood I probably should have made my bite sizes smaller. I'm definitely still learning how to eat properly. In fact it's almost kind of depressing and/or aggravating to make a (tiny) plate of food and barely be able to eat any of it.. I feel like i'm full before I even started to eat. And there seems to be no line between "hungry, I should eat" and "I feel disgustingly full and need to go lay down".

I'm at 3 weeks and 2 days and I've been stalled for almost a week now. Well, I lost a pound over the past 2 days.. I'm hoping that's still 'stall' territory! And I hope it ends soon!

It's probably best to ask your doctor, they all seem to have a different date in mind for when you can begin exercising, eating mushy food, eating solid food, and when you can drink alcohol. I can say that beer, or carbonated drinks in general, should probably be at the bottom of your list since the bubbles will fill you up (and expand in your stomach). If you're going to drink you may want to try wine or a mixed, non-carbonated drink first to see how you can handle it. I'm only 3 weeks and probably shouldn't be drinking yet but on New Year's eve I had a vodka and cranberry and Crown & Ginger (setting the ginger ale out in a glass a couple hours early to let it go flat).

Yeah, everyone says you won't get hungry with this surgery but I'm a little over a week out now and I'm already getting the hunger grumbling in my stomach. A friend who also had the procedure done says that she also got very hungry and wanted to snack a lot during her second week post-op. Just a guess but it's probably because your stomach is finally recovering and you still have quite a bit of ghrelin in your system - it takes time for that to diminish in your system.

I have the lump too, I was sleeved on the 14th. It almost feels like a small knot, under the incision and close to the skin surface. I'm not worried about it, I just thought it was part of the healing process and the fact that it was a big incision. I also have bruising around that particular incision too. I can only imagine them standing there yanking and pulling my huge stomach out of the tiny hole while I lay there unconscious. :-)

Does this board not have moderators? Lisabug, you *did* post in the wrong section (Post-op Q&A... where's your question?), and your responses are rude and self-centered (I'll post wherever I want, nevermind the rules!). You need to learn some message board etiquette. 'The forum' doesn't revolve around you.

Just throwing in my $.02: First three days are clear liquids, then days 4-7 are full liquids, then a week of mushies after that.

Seems like some doctors treat this as a hurdle that needs to be jumped, and others treat it seriously. My evaluation took about 1 1/2 hours. When I got there I first filled out some paperwork (typical for first visit with a doctor) and then a short (front and back) questionnaire which, while I can't remember specific questions, was a very basic level of psych evaluation type questions like how happy you are, if you've ever suffered depression, attempted suicide, on medications, etc. Once in with the doctor I would say it was 60% trying to 'get in my head' and the other 40% was talking about post-op stuff. She started off asking basic questions about me, stuff like "ever suffered depression, ever tried to commit suicide, how are people around you handling your decision to do this (if they even know about it), ever done drugs, etc..." Also asked stuff like 'tell me three things you like about yourself", 'three things you dislike about yourself', 'three things you want to do when you've lost weight', etc. (And in hindsight I think how *long* it takes you to answers those questions are as telling as the answers themselves.) Then she moved on to childhood stuff, since I have always been heavy I think she was probing to see if there was something in my childhood that led to my always being overweight. Finally she moved on to post-op stuff which was no longer an evaluation but a sort of helpful discussion about what things might be like for you when you've lost 100+ pounds and how to deal with them mentally. People who never paid attention to you will suddenly give you more attention. Strangers are more likely to interact with you. People generally will treat you differently... and also to make sure you mentally 'lose weight' along with your body. She mentioned many people will lose weight quickly but their mind is still that of a fat person, meaning they don't see themselves as skinny as they really are, or they are still a bit reserved and introverted (if that's how they coped with being fat previously) and generally have a 'defensive shield' set up around them, etc. Also touched on cross addictions and being ok with your new body - because while you may now say "I hate my fat belly", you could transfer that self-loathing to 'I hate my flabby loose skin'... In general I'm glad I had to do it and I'm glad the requirement was taken seriously by my surgeon and the Psychologist. I think it was really helpful and gave me some stuff to think about and keep in mind on my journey.

That's odd. I just started my 1 week pre-op liquid diet and one of the 'unlimited' things I'm allowed to have is coffee, so long as I use artificial sweeteners and lowfat/fat free creamer. I only drink 1 cup or so each morning anyways so I'll probably try and reduce/cut out completely the last couple days.

Wow. Making fun of someone for being fat. Why are you on these boards again?

Hi all - been away from the boards for a while. When I started this thread I was just thinking about having it done, but now it's a done deal! In the past few months I decided to go with Dr. Domkowski in Sebastian. To meet insurance requirements I did the three month doctor's visits, psych visit and nutritionist. I almost think it was a good thing, especially the Nut and Psych visits as they went into greater detail about what I was getting myself into, how to deal with food and thoughts/self after the surgery and extreme weight loss. I just got approved by my insurance two days ago, and I'm scheduled for surgery on Dec. 14th. I start my liquid diet in 4 days, and I'm beginning to get a little nervous. By the way for anyone thinking about using Dr. Domkowski I would definitely recommend him or at least suggest sitting through one of his seminars. Of course he hasn't operated on me yet but he is extremely nice, personable and has always taken as much time as is needed when I'm in for my visits, and answered all questions clearly. His office staff are equally as nice. I know some doctors can treat you like you're just their next paycheck and want you out so they can move on to the next patient but I never once got that vibe from him and can tell he honestly cares about his patients.

Hi all. Just got insurance approval yesterday so the final hurdle has been cleared. December 14th is my date. I start my liquid diet in 4 days. It's funny as I was nervous about getting approval from insurance, now I'm nervous about the fact that I'm really having this surgery.

Congrats, Crisqueena, I got approved today too! I had Aetna and took the 3 month / Nutritionist / Psych Eval route. Last visit with the surgeon was two weeks ago and paperwork was submitted that day. Was told it would take about a week but being towards the end of the year it may take a little longer. Last week was Thanksgiving so I gave it a few extra days. Called them this morning to see if they had heard anything and the insurance coordinator said she just got the approval back from them not 10 minutes before I called. Woohoo! First I was nervous about getting approved. Now I'm nervous that this is really happening and I'm going to be having surgery. Kinda scary, never had an operation before.

I have Aetna and just completed the three month course (3 visits w/surgeon, 1 Nutritionist visit and 1 Psychologist visit). My surgery is scheduled for Dec. 14th and am just waiting on approval.... so I'm kinda nervous while we wait to hear back, I'm hoping I'll hear something this week. We submitted it on the 17th. I haven't lost weight either. My weight has been pretty static for the past 3 months... (although I haven't weighed myself since having Thanksgiving dinner!)

Hi all - I haven't been to active on the boards here but I've been lurking a lot. I've recently finished my 3 month insurance requirements and am scheduled for December 14th - just waiting on insurance approval. Good luck to you all, I have to say I'm starting to get nervous.

Sorry I am just getting started on the whole process and still doing research, but I've seen many people say that they plateau just a short period of time after their surgery, and then things pick up again. Sorry I can't give you an expert opinion but I didn't want you to think your message went unseen. I mean if you think about it just doesn't make sense that you would stay at your current weight on only 600 calories a day. Your body is probably in shock of some sorts and is going through an adjustment. Eventually you'll get past it and will start losing again. Trying to get in as much liquids as you can will probably help with that. Good luck!

Hey all, tamboo's friend here. I'm still around, I've been kind of lurking, absorbing all the info I can find. Unfortunately not coming up with much info on the doctors in my area (although maybe no news is good news in that respect). As for a Florida Sleevers group, you can just create a new message thread in the "USA Local" sub forum - there's a bunch of other states set up in there already, but I went ahead and created one for Florida. That way we can all keep in touch whether we're pre- or post-op. Here's the link: http://verticalsleevetalk.com/usa-local-vsg-support/8075-florida-sleevers.html

Don't stop believin'!