NurseGrace

I don't believe in "bariatric food" Power crunch bars, chocolate covered whatever, powdered peanut butter, protein puffs that look like some kind of bad bastardization of cheetos, protein cheerios, the list goes on and on and on and I think that is garbage, and make no mistake about it, it IS garbage, is one of the many reasons why so many bariatric patients never EVER make the leap from the SAD (Standard American Diet) to a reasonably normal lifestyle free from slavery to food and obsession with snacks. You just don't need it. The egg, for instance, takes about 2 minutes to prepare, refrigerates and reheats well and is the perfect protein. If your really feeling wild throw some cheese in there - still a respectable meal. Unless you are a power lifter and I do know there are a few of you out there - you don't need protein this, protein that. You don't need to be sucking down chocolate protein shakes at 6 months post op, you need to be learning how to eat real food in a manner that doesn't destroy your health, because sooner or later guess what - You are going to get sick of that **** and you are going to have to join the rest of society and if you never did the real work of learning to cook a respectable meal, eat like a person who isn't obsessed you will never reap the full benefit of your surgery. Now, know this, all of the above are general statements, and I am not perfect. I have Atkins bars sitting on my futon and ready to drink protein in my fridge because like everyone else, I get busy too, but in my opinion these should not be an every day thing after a certain amount of time has passed since surgery. I'm even considering buying a big ass tub of protein powder from costco to make some bars at home, because then at least it's not so processed and I have some control over what goes in it and the size of the thing. We need to see these things for what they are though - once in a while indulgences, not staples in our diets. Staples in your diet should be things like peas, chicken, tofu, salad, fish.... You get the idea.

If I know bariatric patients, where there is a will, there is a way! lol

That sounds terrible but keep it in perspective - it could be a LOT worse than 15 pounds. What matters is you are catching it, and your are not going to gain any more. Even if you need to just focus on maintaining the 230 pounds before you dive into a calorie deficit again you are on the right track. Sometimes you just need a break, just make sure you STOP gaining.

If I'm being completely honest, I thought getting my wisdom teeth out was worse than the VSG but that is NOT to say that I was without pain, because right when I came to in the recover room a remember crying and being a little bit frantic because the pain in my shoulder was pretty severe. But that being said, They gave me something right away and after that I never rated my pain higher than about a 4 or 5. I think part of the reason I did so well was because as soon as I was awake enough to kind of be with it and know what was going on I was up with the nurse walking. I didn't go far the first time but I did take probably 50 steps and becoming mobile helped the gas pain in my shoulder and it also helped me sleep once I got back to bed - it sounds silly but that little bit of activity was enough to tire me out. There was only one time that I was nauseated and it was not severe - the night after surgery the nurse gave me ice chips and those didn't go down well. Nothing cold went down well for me.

I dont know, I had never thought about that. It's certainly an interesting question.

Yeah, different things work for different people, it is a fact that some people are more pron to scaring than others. My ancestry is such that I am prone to getting keloids which is basically an overgrowth of scar tissue, some white folks like me get it but its typically people of darker skin types that get those and it but I can already see the difference in how much is building up, but some of it could be from the massaging too. I'm not going to claim that it works miracles or anything because I am just one person sitting at home testing something out as best I can. What I can say without a doubt is that my acne scarring that I have had for years improved 10 fold in about a month of using bio oil.

I started putting it on and massaging it in as soon as it looked like it wasn't going to come open on me - your steri strips will likely fall off before that date but I dont think its too late, I waited about a week, maybe a week and a half

This is sold in the bandaid section next to mederma, it comes in white boxes

Thank you so much for that. I really needed it. I don't come here to be some kind of self proclaimed hard ass but the truth is that I love this site, I got a lot of good out of it while I was brand new and learning because the sleeve was sort of thrust on me out of the blue, I was really looking for a bypass truth be told and so when I joined this site I really didn't know a lot about this surgery and its been an invaluable resource. That being said, I have been post op lap band for about 6 years now and I know the ropes of weight loss surgery and the type of intestinal fortitude it takes to get serious. All these people on here crying because someone told them to get real about it already are doomed, and I don't mean doomed in the sense that they are going to fail to lose weight, but they are dooming themselves in that they will never fully appreciate what they have been given. All of us here have a second chance at getting our lives back, and for some like me, a third chance but I just do not want people to go through the pain I went through when what they need to do is right in front of their faces. And you know what, SassySenior? I might just make that group, but it won't be called "Ranters" because I'm not one for complaining. No, nooooo, that title should be reserved for people who make post after post about their miserable f-ups that refuse to make a change. The difference is this, making mistakes is fine, I do it, you do it, we all do it, and always will, but it takes a special type of person to long on to the internet, complain about it, do nothing less than request to be coddled, rinse, and repeat. This is such a common thing here and it drags the whole community down.

These is basically just for me to vent over my private thoughts about something that went down recently. I still have some leftover frustration despite maybe personal messages cheering me on and supporting me in my line of thought so rather than make a forum thread for all to see begging for reassurance I just thought I would make a personal blog entry for me to come back on should I ever find myself in this situation again, because I think that spending most of the day in self reflection I have more or less worked out my real feelings about all this. I've been known as the mean girl at many points in my life because I have always been active in organizations, clubs, and jobs in positions of power. I have always sought excellence, I was never happy to just be a member of a club, I jumped in head first and ran for president, you know? It's just my personality. I don't do a lot, but what I do decide to do, I do it to the absolute best that I possibly can. Now, this certainly is not to say that I do not have my days, and my screwups but I am not the type of person to screw up and then go post about it online looking for people to tell me it's OK. I track like I eat like all of us know we should, so there is never any question about whether or not something was alright or not. I'm in the green or I'm in the red, and when everything is black and white like that it's pretty obvious what to do about it. This brings me to the heart of the matter, and what I seem to be continually butting heads with people over - I do not understand what people are looking for when they make posts about massively veering off course for a diet, let alone how we should be eating postoperative. I can understand it when people want to know if this or that is acceptable, but when people have gone and had 150 grams of carbs, 80 grams of sugar, and probably blown their fat and calories out of the water for the day too, I just don't understand. I know its not easy to stop, and I would never ever sit here and claim to never mess up. Hell, at two weeks post op I had frozen yogurt with my husband, and at three weeks post op I had a smallish serving of Outback Steakhouse's blooming onion, arguably one of the worse appetizers in the country. I make mistakes too, but what I do not understand is posting about it looking for nothing but hand-holding and reassuring comments. I don't know what to say to someone who does that, especially when its over and over again, not just in posts but in comments to over people as well. And let me be clear - while this last episode that prompted me to really examine myself was obviously in response to a particular person, this is extremely common, which is why I felt the need to check myself. I want to say something that I never said in all the back and forth, because it had not really occurred to me, and towards the end of all that, I was genuinely hurt by some of things people said and wasn't thinking clearly about the topic at hand. Enablers will not ever help you. Telling someone who has issues with food that their bad behavoir is fine and that tomorrow is a new day is not only a load of BS, its destructive in the worse sort of insidious way. You will NEVER change if you don't wrap your head around the abuse that you inflict on yourself. Never, it doesn't matter how much of your stomach they take away, it doesn't matter how many ounces of food you can eat in a setting, you will find a way to ruin this gift to yourself. I know this. I already HAD surgery once, and like so many of you out there, when I messed it up for myself day after day, week after week I came onto YouTube and forums like this looking for "support" when I really needed someone to tell me to stop what I was doing to myself. Some people act like they don't really have a problem with food and they might be true for a small minority of people on this site but the harsh reality is that no one makes it to 250 pounds, 300 pounds, and BMIs through the roof that merit weight loss surgery without unhealthy ideas about what is OK to eat, what isn't OK, and little ways we kid ourselves into thinking it's fine, it'll be better next time, I'll jump back on the horse tomorrow...... It's all a crock, and we kidded ourselves up to shameful sizes with that mentality. I'm not saying that we should suddenly go at things with a level of intensity that we cannot maintain, and through empathy out the window but what I am saying is that when a simple suggestion that doing the hard mental work that needs to be done might require therapy or counseling of some sort, and that sparks a rage in people burning so hot that they threaten to leave the site and throw all class and dignity out the window, that does not bode well for the state of this community. It would serve people well to sit up and take note of the state of things around here. When all that is offered is platitudes and hand holding, nothing good will come of that. We have to change our minds to change our bodies and sometimes that means growing a spine, and taking some honest criticism and self evaluation. No one is doing you any favors is everything they tell you is comfortable and unchallenged If none of what I said applies to you, then you have to take some responsibility for what you post. If you make a semi-dramatic post every time you do something wrong but you have it under control, you have no right to get indignant when people notice. Some things are more appropriate in blog format not public forums.

It totally happens, I'm not here to breath down anyones shirt collar about things like this, but what I am saying is that we have to take responsibility for what we do and get real about it.

This is my personal blog, not a community thread, I can say what I like here.

And you also sell them - so there is that. I would never sit here and call you a liar but as a health care professional I can tell you there are zero products short of lasers and surgery that can remove inches permanently along with scars and strechmarks over the course of a few hours/uses. I have no dobt that your marks may have gone away, but what people need to understand is that your marks and lumps and bumps may have gone away anyway, my marks are nearly gone as well but its just from passage of time and good skincare. Numerous organizations have named these wraps one of the biggest dieting and fitness scams of the year (last year)

Peas are a perfectly acceptable and good source of Protein, Vitamin A, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Thiamin and Manganese.

Yep, see my latest blog entry. Lots of people get wrapped up in Protein this, low carb that, and we forget to eat like normal human beings, Now, I will admit that as a college student and a nurse I am not picture perfect and some of the things I have still come out of a can but I do avoid it as best I can.

Yeah, I won't say its right or wrong, I'm just saying thats the reason - they also do this with knee replacements and other operations after a certain age. at some point the cons don't outweigh the pros

If you had more time I would tell you to check out a product called the spibelt, it was meant for people out of jogs to put their keys and whatever else they want to carry and basically its a stretchable pouch on an elastic band that you snap around your waist. I put my drain in mine so it wouldnt hang because that hanging/pulling was really painful for me. Also sometimes if you let a little bit of the pressure off by not compressing it all the way it's less bothersome. http://www.amazon.com/SPIbelt-Small-Personal-Great-Runners/dp/B0021WW2WY It might be too late for you but if anyone else sees this and wants to take a look that is the link to the amazon store.

mine hurt pretty bad, when I went for my checkup 2 days after surgery I was told to not compress the JP quite as much as I had been because it might be causing a little irritation, and sure enough, when he pulled the little plug and let some of the pressure off, it did feel marginally better. I wasn't totally happy till I got the darn thing pulled out though.

There are a lot of methods like using rogaine and all that but really, you are losing your hair because of a stressful traumatic event in your life, and it WILL pass. All the Vitamins in the world probably won't prevent this so I wouldn't get too worked up over it. This is really common after surgery, huge losses, weight loss even without surgery, even life events like moving to a new area can induce hair loss. Just ride it out, try a new style maybe and go easy on heat tools and don't over wash it.

I got mine the morning of surgery. It was really no big deal, one of two things will happen, or both. They will either tell you to use a new tampon right before surgery OR they will give you a pair of mesh panties that have HUGE pads in them like what you are given after you give birth. A lot of women worry about dealing with it post op but its really not a big deal, if you have you pain under control you won't need help or anything and if you pain is not under control you need to be speaking with someone because there is really no reason for that. Just take plenty of supplies with you and maybe some flush-able wipes and you will be A OK Just as a side note, if you bleed extremely heavy ask the OR nurse to place a chucks pad on the bed you are going to be transferred to after surgery, its really no big deal as the nurses deal with this all the time.