Erin6573

I caught myself the first couple of weeks not regretting the surgery so much but being absolutely bored with what I was allowed to eat or should I say drink! Everything hurt going down and I felt like I was going to go crazy if I didn't start eating some real food soon. Once real food started it was another adjustment but a good one because I could actually enjoy tasting food again. Why are you regretting the surgery?

I have also done P90X and it is in intense. The thing that discouraged me most of the time was not the exercise, but the amount of time that you had to devote. Some of the workouts are like 40 minutes, but then he wants you to pop in the ab video for another 30 minutes and the yoga video is a full 90 minutes. If you have the time, I say go for it, but it was a little too much of a time committment for me. I have seen him recently on an infomercial where he has a new program and the videos are 10 minutes in length. I'm sure you stack multiple workouts on in a day to get what he calls "muscle confusion" If you google Tony Horton or Beach Body, I'm sure you will find it. Good luck and in the words of Tony Horton, "do your best and forget about the rest"

I used to do the yoga that came with P90x and it was by far the hardest of all the workouts that was in that series. I sweat more doing P90x yoga than I did in Plyometrics when you were jumping all over the place. The gym I go to has Yoga and I have not tried it yet, but think that I will give it a whirl.

Very interesting. Thanks for the tip. I will look into these.

I was sleeved on June 19th

I too have been having problems in this area. I used to go twice a day before surgery and now it is only once every few days and it is so frustrating. So I took some of this super dieters tea that my girlfriend had and I drank it. It worked a little bit, but the next day I felt sick all day and was on the couch. I think I'm going to go with the Miralax.

I had neither. I hear a lot of people talking about the drains, but I never had one put in. They threatened the catheter if I did not get up and get moving and pee, so I started moving. I had a catheter with one of my deliveries of my second son and it hurt.

Or, you could take a loan against the 401K and pay it back. I did not have that option because I am not currently working full time anymore and not for the same employer.

I tapped into my 401k for the surgery. Had them take the taxes out when I withdrew the money. I know that the money is for my retirement, but at the rate I was going, I wasn't going to make it to retirement. Yes, the taxes and penalties are crazy. I had them hold 20% for the feds and then they took whatever the state of Michigan was getting as well. Good luck to you.

I have been a bad post-op patient. Right now I should be on the soft food diet, but for about a week I have been eating "real" food. I'm chewing it up really really good and am very careful about what I eat, but I jumped ahead and went to real food. I have learned a lot over the last week about what I can tolerate and what I can't. I haven't thrown up from eating too much, so at least I'm listening to my body and stopping when I'm full which is about 5-6 bites of anything I'm eating. The only "bad" thing I have had was one small bite of pizza on Monday, other than that, I have been eating chicken noodle soup, string cheese, cooked fruit, grilled chicken. Good luck to you

I guess that's something I never asked when I left the hospital, all they told me was to dry my incisions good after I took a shower. Maybe I should have...oops...I was swimming in my pool 2 weeks post op and I went swimming up north in the lake last weekend. My surgical tape is off and incisions are fully healed with no problems. Maybe I did too much too soon, but haven't had a problem.

Yeah!!!! That's fantastic....I was sleeved one day after you and have been in a stall for the last week or so. Are you on regular food now??? How often are you working out???

Sorry it has taken so long for me to get back to your original post since we had surgery on the same day. I'm feeling good, most days. Still more tired than usual, but I'm sure that's due to the fact that I'm not eating as much and ingesting the calories that I was pre-surgery. My weight loss was good initially, I was down 19 pounds at my one week post op appointment, but I think I have only lost a few more since that time. It has slowed down drastically. I'm on regular food now, but not eating anywhere near 1000 calories. I really need to get myself on a better routine and start tracking my food & Water intake. My kids are off for the summer now, so it's hard to get in exercise time, but I'm trying. When they get back to school, I plan on working out as soon as I drop them off at school so I can get that done and over with in the beginning of the day. I don't see my doctor again until the beginning of August which will be more like 6 weeks out as opposed to 1 month out, but that it because I'm going up north for a week and then my son has hockey camp the following week, which will entail me running him to the rink monday through friday of that week, so I had to put it off a little later than the one month. As for meeting and building a friendship, I'm all for it, even if we met for lunch or coffee or something once a month to catch up and see how each other are doing. Right now, I could meet in the evenings for coffee or something, but once school starts, my days will be free and I will have more time to meet for lunch or something else during the day. Let me know. So, how are you doing???

Also, most facilities will work with you on a payment plan if you can't pay it all up front. If your insurance is going to cover 50% and you have some saved, go ahead and pay what you have when the bill comes in and then call the hospital or whoever you are getting bills from and ask them to put you on a payment plan. I had to do that after my son had surgery and I was hit with an unexpected $1000 bill that I did not have the means to pay at the time. They gave me a very reasonable plan and I was able to pay it off in a few months. I guess it will all depend on whether they will require the money up front, but most facilities will bill your insurance and then bill you for the rest.

I am two weeks out today and have already been back to work, been on a long car ride and I feel great! As for the lifting thing, I have lifted my 45 pound 4 year old on occasion, today in Target being one of them when I was getting him into the cart. I think that you will be fine with work and fine with the drive to Tennessee. Moving will be another story. My biggest obstacle is that I'm still pretty tired, especially when I don't get in all my protein, so I'm still a work in progress. Your decision not to tell is your decision, period...Obviously you have your reasons. I have not told many people either. My mom and dad know, my husband of course and a couple of my closest girlfriends and that's it. I just could not go through with major surgery like this without sharing it with my mom, she would have been crushed if I did this behind her back, but she is very supportive as is my dad. I have two young sons so I needed their help for the first few days taking care of them as well so I could rest. Good luck to you on your journey, but I think you will be fine two weeks out to go to work and even make the drive to Tennessee. You just may need some help with moving.

I was in to see the doc last week for my one week post op and he told me that I could go ahead and start supplements. So Saturday I took my first set of multivitamins about 45 minutes after finishing my protein shake for breakfast and within 2 minutes, they came right back up. I hate chewable vitamins to begin with and can't believe I wasted my money on these things that I will never take. I need to find something else that agrees with me. Can anyone give me an idea of what they are taking on a daily basis, so I can get my vitamin/supplement regimen in order. Before surgery, I took the gummy vites for adults and was wondering if people were taking those too?

Thanks, I have to go to Sam's Club today for a few things and I will be sure to pick them up.

Also from the Detroit area, downriver, actually. Had my surgery on June 19th with Dr. Pleatman.

I went the self pay route and it was $11,200 which included the hospital stay and my surgeon's fee, plus a years worth of follow ups with him. If you go with your insurance, you will likely have a lot of requirements to meet like diet documentation for so many months, and a BMI of a certain range for so many years. When you find a surgeon, their insurance specialist can do the insurance research for you, or you can just call the insurance company and ask them yourself. My surgeon is in Michigan, as am I and he does a lot of out of town patients because of his pricing. Good luck to you.

That is an awesome story that you have made such a transformation that someone mistook you for "the other woman". Made you feel good I'm sure and made your "friend" feel a little bit like an A**

Sorry about how you are feeling, but believe me when I tell you it does get better. I'm only 9 days out and have made leaps and bounds of progress in those 9 short days. I too came home in pain but could not tolerate the liquid pain meds, I threw them up so I had to just muscle my way through. My last dose of pain meds was in the hospital at 6:00 am the day I was discharged. Your antidepressant and the lack of you taking it probably has a lot to do with your anxiety and worry. I know that when I was in the hospital the ice chips hurt, every single sip of anything hurt. As the days went on, it still hurt, but got better and better and I was able to tolerate more and more. Sugar free popcicles were my boyfriend and still are. I still have the occasional cramp in the stomach reminding me I drank too fast or ate my pureed soup too fast, but it does get better it really does. Sounds like you are going through a lot right now that has nothing to do with the surgery and frankly it's not fair to have extra "baggage" piled on you at a time like this. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DIE!!!! Every day you will wake up and feel better and will eat a little more. Get up and move a little, even if for a couple minutes, it helps. Hugs to you on your recovery.

I agree with what everyone has said. I'm only 9 days out and still on full liquids and it is liquids in and liquids out. But for me, it hasn't been anything really "urgent" I think that the dumping syndrome is more with gastric bypass and the rerouting of your insides. I can hear things start gurgling in my stomach/intestines and know that soon I will have to go, but I haven't had any accidents.

I would call and ask to speak directly to the surgeon, and keep calling and leaving messages until you talk to him/her. The surgery, if no complications are found is literally like 30 minutes. Explain the situation again to your surgeon and see what he can do, after all the insurance coordinator is his employee and he would most likely like to know if they are not doing their job. I had a similar situation with a surgery my son had to have and I was relentless until I spoke to the surgeon and got it all worked out. Good luck and remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease!

The reason I was told for no caffeine is that it is an appetite stimulant and can be abrasive on the gastric system. I too was a diet coke drinker before and while it has been difficult to give up the diet coke, I cannot skip caffeine completely. I don't drink coffee either, I am a tea drinker. I am 9 days out and I have for the past several days had unsweetened iced tea with lemon. I just sip on it and then add more ice when it melts, so it's pretty diluted. Just can't survive without caffeine.

My insurance denied me and I ended up as a self pay patient. I was with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama. Their requirements were 6 months of diet documentation, along with 3 years of proof that I was morbidly obese 40+ on the BMI scale or if not morbidly obese, had a co-morbidity to go along with it. So I played their game and did the 6 months. I have moderate sleep apnea so I have the co-morbidity (or so I thought) and the surgeon submitted and I was denied...their reason: because at some point in 2010, my BMI dropped below 40 and they didn't consider my sleep apnea severe enough, it was only moderate and not severe. So my options were to make sure I was fat enough for 3 straight years or move on to self pay, which is what I did. The insurance coordinator said that she was shocked at how closely they looked at my medical records. She said most of the time they just look at the 6 months worth of diet documentation and go off the letter of necessity from the surgeon and the letter of support from your doctor and you are good to go. Unfortunately for me, there was nothing for me to appeal on because I just wasn't "fat enough" sometime in 2010 when I went to Weight Watchers for a while and lost 40 pounds. I was actually quite aggravated with the insurance coordinator at my surgeons office because through this whole process she kept telling me to not get discouraged, it would happen, they have an excellent track record getting people approved. And then when the denial came, she was like...well sorry, but there is really nothing we can appeal on. Let us know how you want to proceed. So much for "don't get discouraged, we will get this done for you" I ended up switching surgeons because my original surgeon was somewhere in the ballpark of 15,000 for the self pay and I found another Michigan surgeon doing self pay for 11,200, so I went with him. Good luck to you on your insurance approval. I'm pretty sure the person who looked at my chart was 110 pounds and eating a celery stick while she was typing my denial, never having a weight problem in her life. LOL.