HEARTONMYSLEEVE

I was given the option of taking the b-12 sublingual twice a day or doing the injections once a month at home. I chose the injections just so I could cut down on the amount of pills and medications I have to take daily. I went from taking hardly anything a day to multivitamin and calcium twice a day. Vitamin D, PPI, and levothyroxin once a day. It was really to much for me. I was so relieved when my surgeon told me I could do the B-12 monthly injections. They are so easy too. It is only a tiny tuberculin needle. It doesn't hurt at all and I can do it to myself. If it is hard for any of you to take a lot of pills I would strongly recommend talking to your doctor about the injections. It was a much better choice for me.

So I have had a stomach bug going on six days. I am a couple days short of two months out. I have had nausea and diarrhea with the occasional vomiting. Also, really bad migraines but no fever at all. I did call my doctor and he said it definitely sounds like a virus not something concerning the surgery and I am feeling a lot better today but through this whole thing I just haven't been able to get more than 2 bites of solid food without vomiting. Now the diarrhea has gone and the nausea as well except for when I eat anything solid I get very nauseas and vomit or want to vomit for like an hour if I manage not to and this is with like one or two bites of food. I guess my question is did anyone else happen to get a bad stomach virus after anytime after surgery and what was our experience? Also, I have gone back to a liquid diet, not so much by choice, but because I just can not stand even the thought of putting solid food in my mouth makes me want to hurl. How long do you guys think this will last? I would really love to eat again. Plus, I feel terrible as I haven't been doing anything right. No vitamins as they make me want to wretch, hardly any protein, limited fluids.

I lost about 60 pounds in 5 months on my own when I was 19 and I ended up with gallstones. So I know first hand that rapid weight loss can cause gallstones. I think a lot of it is predetermined. If you have a family history of gallbladder issues and have the option to get it removed during your WLS I know I would. After I had mine removed I found out that tons of women in my family had theirs removed. I asked my doctor at the time if there was something I could have done to prevent them and he said there really isn't much you can do. Its really luck of the draw. There is a medication you can take to prevent them after surgery but from my understanding the medicine only decreases your risk while you take it and resumes to the same level of risk as soon as you stop taking it. All I know is if I knew what I know now about the pain of a trying to pass a gallstone I would want that thing out. It was the worst experience of my adult life. Honestly, I know it is not the same for everyone but I have had no disadvantages without the thing. I can eat exactly the same as I did when I had a gallbladder. I have has no ill effects from not having a gallbladder.

stcyt, I have had a lot of trouble with the vitamins since surgery. I had to take liquid vitamins for the first two weeks which gave me diarrhea and then switched to Celebrate adult chewable vitamins and they made me puke. After that I bought some children's chewable vitamins, target brand flinstones. I do realize that they are not optimal in daily values and such but I figured something was better than nothing and I was able to keep them in my stomach. I plan on finishing this bottle and then I want to try regular pills and cut them in half. I am hoping by then my stomach will have settled and healed enough to handle the real thing. I guess we'll see.

I am 7 weeks out and I still occasionally get the gurgles and growls. They are not as intense but my stomach talks constantly. It makes my husband laugh. The gurgles are not acid reflux. I think almost everyone's stomach makes weird noises in the beginning. I also still get hiccups quite often after I eat. They are almost comical type drunk hiccups but they don't really hurt anymore now that my stomach is pretty much healed. As for acid reflux I've had it on occasion before and after surgery. It can take on different feelings in different people but it usually feels like burning in your chest or throat and like your dinner is crawling back up our esophagus. It is worse when you lay flat. If you wake up in the night with the pain and feel like you need to sleep sitting straight up then it is probably acid reflux. I think right now you are probably adjusting to your sleeve not to say that you won't get acid reflux as it is a very common problem among us. So definitely watch out for symptoms. Hope this helps.

I wear a size 14 comfortably now and I am only 5'2" and 183. So with you being 5'7" there is a good chance you may fit into a size 14 before 70lbs lost. How exciting?! I bet a lot of it depends how you carry your weight as well. I tend to be very pear shaped. Small through the waist and big in the hips. Good luck to you. I am sure you will be there before you know it. Seems you you have a least a good estimate now 170-185ish.

I think it is strange how different the post-op diets vary among surgeons. I was amazed how strict others post-op diets were. I guess I had it easy. Day 1-2 liquids clear the first and the second any liquid. Day 3-10 soft food 1 1/2 oz blenderized meat with moistener and 1 oz blended vegetable if you could fit it in after the meat. Week 2 and on 2 oz meat/protein and 1-2 vegetables as tolerated not blended. I am in no way advocating not following your doctor's orders. I am only commenting on how different the diets can be. I felt I had in incredibly talented and competent surgeon. It is interesting how conservative my surgeon is in other ways like not advocating this surgery for NSAID use while other surgeons do. I even asked him about his post-op diet during my pre-op visit because I thought it was weird as I had been reading how others were so strict and he told me he did not think it was necessary. He felt it was more important to be getting natural sources of protein in as quickly as possible. Again I want to say it is important to follow you own doctors orders. I am wondering if surgical technique plays any role in what kind of post-op diet a doctor requires. I know many others have drain tubes and stitches where I had no drain and durabond adhesive and no external stitches. Plus my surgeon does all his laproscopic procedures robotically. I am curious if that plays any role in post-op diet and healing. Maravilla, this post probably in no way helped you, sorry. I just thought it important to say how different one surgeon can be from another so we should definitely be tolerant of everyone on this board because no one diet experience will be the same and not get sucked into there being one right way to do this surgery or a post-op diet. If you are still very unhappy talk with your doctor and see how he feels about you advancing your diet. There is always a chance he might think your ready but I wouldn't decide on your own or from my or any other board members advice. Good luck even if you have to wait you'll get through it.

Styct, I don't eat strictly low carb. I don't know about you but I didn't have this surgery so I could continue stressing over calorie and carb counts. That being said I still do follow the rules to the best of my abilities. I try to eat all my protein first. I wait an hour after I eat to drink. It is a funny thing my body has done to me though. I don't really like a lot of the simple carbs anymore. My husband has made roasted chicken and potatoes and when I try to eat the potatoes they don't taste the same anymore or they don't taste as good as I remember. It is totally weird its like I put them in my mouth and chew and they just are not appealing anymore. I told someone that and they thought it was sad and I guess if I hadn't had the surgery it would be but its not like that its as if my brain has switched off my potato loving button. But my doctor actually wants us to have three servings of dairy a day, either yogurt or milk and both yogurt and milk have carbs. Plus, one serving of a complex carb a day. So I guess my doctor's diet isn't strictly low carb. I have lost 26 pounds in 5 weeks which for me is fast enough. I think if my weight loss started to slow down I might consider being more strict on myself. I think just follow the rules and don't stress over it. Plus if your stressed about the diet your own you might hold fat. Stress is known to cause weight gain.

They put you on a scale that has handle bars you hold on to and it sends frequencies through your feet and hands to measure how much of your body content is fat, water and muscle. Then you sit and breathe into a machine for ten minutes and it measures your resting metabolic rate. I guess average is a resting metabolic rate of one. I was at .73 pre-op. Today it went up to .85 which means I am burning more calories now than before surgery. I am also down a couple points in body fat content although not as much as I would like. I am a little worried I might be losing too much muscle. Hopefully, once I get this stomach muscle under control I can fix that with some weight lifting.

Ok so I saw the doctor today. He thinks that I pulled a muscle slash irritated the internal suture of the large incision. He doesn't think I pulled the suture out because he checked me for a hernia and didn't feel one. He gave me some pain medication and told me to take the rest of the week off since I have a bending, stretching, lifting type vocation and to call if it gets worse. Although I hate to think of it getting worse as it is already very painful. So I guess there isn't too much to worry about. It is still hurting quite a bit but I guess I will just have to take it easy and hope it goes away on its own. It sucks though because I really wanted to start exercising more this week at the gym but I think I should wait until this pain goes away. On a more positive note I am down 27 pounds since surgery today. I'm five weeks out. I did metabolic testing for the first time since surgery and my metabolism has increased as well. Hooray for me.

I had my gallbladder removed a few years ago. I guess I should have mentioned that with right sided pain. This feels more surface than gallbladder pain. I don't know how to explain it really.

So I have been having this awful pain off and on for about a week. It is on the right side of my stomach above my largest incision. I didn't think much of it at first it was just a twinge a few times. Then on Saturday it progressed to this horrible pain it hurt when I walked, bent over, sat down. Then Sunday thru Tuesday it wasn't too bad. Still there but not as bad. Tuesday night it started to hurt and now today it has been awful again. Every time I move it hurts. I thought it might be a pulled muscle but now I don't know as it actually hurts when I press on the spot. It is a very localized pain. I am 5 weeks out and until now I hadn't really had any pain since the first week. I actually go for a post-op appointment tomorrow so I will definitely ask my doctor but I was wondering if any of you experienced anything like this? I am very concerned.

Happyslvr, I am glad I could help. Also, good luck with your surgery. As someone who has had almost her whole spine fused, about T2 to L2, this kind of surgery is hard and the recovery can be very rough. This is no simple laproscopic procedure. Are they going to put in any hardware or just the fusion? I had two corrective surgeries for scoliosis at 14 and 15. I spent two entire summers recovering from back surgeries. I can totally commiserate with you. Please keep us updated on how you are doing after surgery. I will be thinking about you on May 18.

Happyslvr, I am a Rad Tech not an MR tech but I work very closely with MRI daily. There are no current surgical clips that are NOT MR safe. Honestly, whoever posted that did not know what they were talking about. As long as they have been in your body for over six-eight weeks, the longer an implant is in your body the more tissue grows around and secures the object. The issue for MR and metal is not always just the pulling of the magnet but also that the magnet has the potential to heat up the metal in your body which can potentially burn you. However, this is not usually the case with surgical clips. Pacemakers are never safe for MRI. Other implants that may or may not be safe can include; aneurysm clips, neuro or spinal stimulator, cochlear implants, vena cava umbrellas, sharpnel, stents, bullets and others. Some of these can even be MR safe depending on a few factors, how long they have been in your body, what kind (model or serial number), what part of the body your imaging, and the strength of the magnet. There are several varying strengths of magnets out there. They are measured in Teslas, 1-3T, and high or low field. I know this is a lot of information but I wanted you to know that you should absolutely be safe for an MRI as far as the surgical staples are concerned. If you are still nervous which I would completely understand as I am just a stranger on an internet board and I wouldn't trust me either you could always call the last place you had an MRI done and ask the speak with the MR tech. Also, I promise you that if you went for an MR they would not put you on that machine unless they were sure that everything in your body was safe. I am sure you could imagine the liability if we techs did not do our due diligence. I hope this helps. Good luck.

Tiffany, I was going to watch you video journal but I can't find where you posted the link. Can you post it on here again?