Miss Mac

The worst is over. Once you can get on soft foods, you should feel a lot better. It made a big difference for me. Congratulations on making that decision to improve your health and quality of life. Your first year will be up in no time.

Don't disregard your symptoms. One night several weeks post-op I was sick with vomiting and diarrhea. I got so washed out that I passed out and hit my head on the tub. When I tried to get up. I passed out a second time and hit my head on the tub again. I ended up with an over-nighter in the ER, on IV fluids. About a year ago, a fellow on the forum passed out and hit his face on the coffee, breaking his jaw and losing a couple of teeth. I think fluids is the first thing we tend to look to when we don't feel right, and for a good reason. I hope you get to feeling better.

That's great that you are doing your homework and going into this with realistic expectations. I had my sleeve done at the age of 62 and had many serious co-morbidities including being post-stroke. I had an outstanding surgeon who teaches bariatric and robotic surgery, so I was confident that I was in good hands. My recovery has been textbook, with no complications whatsoever. Post op nausea and vomiting are to be expected. However, I urped up once in the hospital, and did not vomit until six months post-op when I indulged in a sweet pastry. At twenty months out I am still glad I had it done. Then there are those who damn-near died from horrific complications. It's a risk you take, but you also take a risk every time you get in the car or on a plane, or a horse. Since I am post-stroke and a high fall risk, I take a chance everytime I go up or down the stairs, and I live in a tri-level. Every time I eat something, I risk choking. Every time I eat something that my sister cooked, I run the risk of dying a hobbible death from botulism (not joking!). Because I live on the Southwest Airlines approach to Chicago's Midway Airport, I run the risk of a plane landing on my patio. See? We take risks everyday, in many ways. By not having bariatric surgery, you a risking a premature death or at least a miserable reduced qualityof life from the complications of obesity. So, all I am saying is that for every one person who is openly honest about regretting bariatric surgery, there are a hundred more who had acceptable outcomes are are satisfied with their new life. S**t happens. Are you going to stay in bed and risk bedsores from being afraid to get up and leave the house? Whatever you decide to do about your health, at least do something. If you decide that bariatric surgery is not for you, then you can at least follow the typical post-op dietary protocols, and move your body every day. It won't killl you and may do you some useful good. I wish you good luck and good health. Hugs from Chicago.

Syntrax Nectars come in lots of flavors. They blend well with a variety of liquids. Here is a link to the sample pack. And Yeah, fried chicken before surgery...who does that? If you are not going to folllow doctor's orders, why bother with this whole process? http://www.mybariatricpantry.com/SYNTRAX_NECTAR_PROTEIN_POWDER_SAMPLES_p/nectar-sample.htm

I slept in my lift recliner for a few nights.

Mediterranean, minus the bread and pasta.

I stayed two days and two nights. My insurance approved eight days, but I did not need it.

Honey, I have been thrown away twice. Once after a 23 year marriage and then after a 10 year marriage. I took a couple years off from the relationship scene to get to know myself. I had to find out what kind of music I liked, what food would I eat if I did not have to cook for someone elae, what would I watch on TV if I no one else grabbed the remote and changed the channel. What would I wear if I could pick out my own clothes without having to please someone else's requirements for my appearance, what would I enjoy doing on a day off without someone else telling me where to go and what to do. Well, I found out that I am not a bad person and I LIKE me! So, yeah - be selfish and find out who you really are. Once you get a handle on that, it will be much easier to find someone compatible. And once you realize that your happiness and peace of mind come from within and not from what other people are thinking and doing, you will have such an incredible release! Sometimes when someone leaves, be it a disgruntled employee or unhappy companion, they solve more problems than they cause.

I have a fancy digital scale that does jumping jacks and whistles "Dixie", but the only feature that I pay any attention to is just my weight.

Look up DERMATOMES. One of my sister and I have a fairly rare condition called "Thoracic Radiculopathy". It comes from a herniated disc in the thoracic part of your spine and each disc pinches on a different dermatome. Mine acts up once in a while. It starts in the middle of my spine and comes around the left side under my armpit and over my lower ribs on the left side. The dermatomes are nerve pathways that are close to your skin. Whe the burning pain is especially misbehaving, I cannot even touch my skin there. So, just a suggestion. Since your primary doctor hasn't zerode in the cause, maybe you could ask for a referral to an orthopedist or a neurologist. It took a thoracic MRI for both my sister and I to receive a correct diagnosis that could be effectively treated. Lyrica helps. So do Lidoderm Patches. It has bothered me a lot less since I got so much wieght taken off my bones. Good luck. I hope your issue can be resolved.

I was 62 when I got my sleeve, and eleven years into one lonnnnnnng post-menopausal hot flash. I would just soak my bed with sweat at night as was changing my pajamas during the night and my sheets several times a week. About the time I lost that first thirty pounds, it all went away. I will take being a little chilly over being continuously over-heating. No more "clothes on - clothes off - clothes on - clothes off" all day long. Because I am more comfortable at night, I sleep a lot better, too.

My boyfriend and I are in our mid-sixties. We had both been thrown away twice by the time we met nine years ago. I was short and round, he is tall and thin, but smokes. The one thing we appreciate most about each other is that neither one of us has asked the other to change. We realize that health and habit changes are very personal decisions. To comment on food as foreplay: It is at our house, too, but in a healthy way. He is from Malta and has crazy Mediterranean cooking skills. It did not take him long to figure out that my favorite aphrodesiac is the smell of onions and garlic cooking. A man who cooks is very sexy. We make adjustments now to compensate for the change in my nutrition requirements. If he makes spagetti and meatballs, I pass on the Pasta and have meatballs with extra cheese. He makes homemade breads and eats some every day. I might have one thin slice when it first come out of the oven, but bread has a tendancy to sit in my new stomach like playdough. So, if he has a Peanut Butter sandwich, I might have peanut butter on a spoon. pizza was one of my favorite foods before. Now he just takes one of those big giant mushrooms and bakes my favorite sauce and toppings on that. It is sexy to me that he is considerate of my dietary needs and goes out of his way to make what I can eat as delicious as possible. My dear beloved ice cream has been replaced with ricotta and Greek yogurt blended with vanilla and some sweetener. It has way fewer carbs and helps meet my Protein requirements. Our day still revolves around the kitchen and we still enjoy eating together very much. I eat anything I want, but what I want has changed. You don't have to match your mate bite for bite to enjoy a meal together. We accept each other "as is" and don't apply any pressure to change anything.

Pre--op, I would love a big bowl of Cereal or vanilla ice cream at bedtime and still would wake up in the middle of the night and eat fruit. What I do now at 20 months out is this: I have a glass of milk with vanilla and a little sweetener in it at bedtime and I keep sugar-free Jello made up in the fridge to satisfy the fruit craving.

You sound like the lovely kind of person who is always thinking of others while diminishing her own needs. I would go through with the surgery. I had mine done at the age of 62, with many co-morbidities, and was really only at my worst for a couple of days until the anesthesia wore off. Sure, I was tired for a long time, but was able to toodle around and go on with my life. It did not take long to begin feeling better every day.

At that point, I was stiil around 1/3 cup or just three or for bites of something soft. Closer to three months, I was at 1/2 cup. I am past my 1 1/2 years and can eat around a cup of regular food or a thick Soup like chili......just a bit more if its a brothy soup. When I saw the barium images at my one year follow-up swallow test, it did indeed look like a medium sized banana.

Twinkies and Pepsi. Why is it so hard to get in 80 ounces of Water, when I could easily drink a gallon of Pepsi a day? I found that most of the "foods" that I miss, were not really foods, but factory made edible products.

How is this poster allowed on here at all???? Isn't this why report posts that are inappropriate? I am blocking this one. I am done.

I just made up the whole packet at one time and sipped on half odf it one day and half the next day. I got mine from My Bariatric Pantry at http://www.mybariatricpantry.com/SYNTRAX_NECTAR_PROTEIN_POWDER_SAMPLES_p/nectar-sample.htm They have the sample packs at $19.99 for ten. My favorite was the Grapefruit nectar mixed in Crystal Lite Lemonade because it tastes just like Fresca soda without the bubbles. There are a total of 15 flavors to choose from (Roadside Lemonade, strawberry Kiwi, chocolate Truffle, Double Stuffed Cookie, Caribbean Cooler, Lemon Tea, Fuzzy Navel, Strawberry Mousse, Vanilla Bean Torte, Twisted Cherry, Apple Ecstasy, Pink Grapefruit, Crystal Sky, Wild Grape, or Cappuccino Latte*)

I wish I could encourage you about the Biotin and its alleged effect on hair loss. I took 10,000mcg from Walgeens (Nature's Finest) twice a day, and had Gelatin or bone broth Soup every day, and had no unusual hair loss whatsoever. that's not to say you will have the same result, but I wish you the best. I bought those expensive Bariatric Advantage AE multi-Vitamins and they were giant horse pills. I tried cutting them in fourths, but the sharp corners made them just as hard to swallow. I tried crushing them in raspberry applesauce, jello-Water, sugar-free jelly, lots of things, and they were just too nasty to stay down.

I found this book helpful: Greens Glorious Greens!: More than 140 Ways to Prepare All Those Great-Tasting, Super-Healthy, Beautiful Leafy Greens Paperback by John Albi and Catherine Waters. At 20 months out, I take a multi with Iron, and my bloodwork is ideal. I do put chopped spinach in as many dishes as I can, including omelets, casseroles, chili, even shakes. I used to hate spinach growing up, but once I had fresh spinach in a salad, I realized that it wasn't the spinach that was the problem, it was the vinegar that Mother wilted it in. Wilted spinach - who does that? Same thing with liver. Mother fried this awful shoe-leather liver that I could not stand, and the scorched onions did not help. I became anemic as a teen, so a Mexican neighbor offered to make Mexican dishes for me, with diced liver in them. All I could taste was salsa, sour cream, onions, guacamole, meat, veggie - did not even taste the liver. I realize now that Mom just was not a very good cook, but boy oh boy, she could make fattening Desserts and Cookies like crazy - especially anything with cream cheese in it. Lillian Guerra - thank you so much for introducing me to healthy Mexican style cooking. What I am saying is that the fewer supplements the better. It seems like if you take a supplement with a beverage, it is going to wash out pretty quick, but if you eat wholesome nutritious food, you stand a better chance of getting some value from it. I quit buying all those supplements that were draining my bank account, at around one year. At that point, they just seemed like expensive pee and were hard to swallow. I am not your bariatric team, but my personal experience is that getting my Protein in and eating my share of spinach, green Beans, zuchinni, and broccoli, etc., are sustaining me just fine.

Yeah, I do struggle with body image. Pre-op, I was shaped like an apple. Now I am shaped like a pencil stuck through a donut. My insurance will pay for a panni after my two year mark in December, but it looks so brutal......I don't know if I want to.

Hi! I am in Alsip on the south side. My sleeve was done at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood on 12/23/2013. I had good results with a textbook recovery. Where are you having yours done?

Yes, I wear one. It says GASTRIC SLEEVE - NO NG On the inside flip there is a paper that gives emergency contact s, my primary doctor's phone number and preferred hospital. Since I have already had a stroke and have balance issues. I also wear a life alert pendant and fall detector.

My primary doctor recommended him. But I still checked out his credentials. He developed the Bariatric program at the Cleveland Clinic and at the Loyola University Medical Center here in Chicago. He teaches both bariatric and robotic surgery at the hospital which is a Center of Excellence. I met him on my first visit and then about three weeks before surgery. I met my pstchologist on the first visit and will see her again for my two year check-up in December. I still meet with the bariatrician and nutritionist every three months until that two year mark.

I totally agree that you are in a great position to educate folks who are interested in improving their own health and well-being. Just be choosey. Ben Franklin said, "To whom thy secret thou doest tell, to him thy freedom thou dost sell. You don't have to lie, but you don't have to tell everything you know.