AvaFern

Except for fairly severe nausea in the hospital which I think was caused by the IV narcotics, my recovery was complication free. I was exhausted, I felt weak, and for the first two weeks I was sure I had ruined my life. I also had some residual effects from the anesthesia where my arms would randomly start tingling, which freaked me out. I was back working at my home office on day 4 after surgery and I wrote a report on Day 2 in the hospital. I was back to a full time office job in a week. I also live alone and only told my three best friends about the surgery, so I had no help at home and not a ton of emotional support, which in hindsight would have been nice. Recovery for me was pretty straightforward. I was self-pay so I never had the seminars on how much protein or fluid I was supposed to drink, but I have a medical background so I knew to be careful about dehydration. I just took it one day at a time and everything worked out.

I had one drain during my time in the hospital for my sleeve and it was pulled on day 3 before I left. During plastics I had multiple drains each time, and trust me, drains are a huge pain in the butt but they are very important. It just pulls the extra Fluid out so that you aren't stuck with it inside of you. I had a drain that wasn't working for one of my plastics procedures so I pulled it earlier than I normally would have since there was no output...that stupid drain hole drained itself for almost a week, randomly spewing fluid and blood all over the place whenever it felt like it. Like Shrek though, remember, it's better out than in!

I am 31 and I also had the darn spare tire. I considered lipo, however ultimately that just removes fat and not any skin so your tire just looks a little flatter. From my research the only way to fix this was with a body lift, which on the front is the abdominoplasty and on the back is the posterior body lift. I am very pleased with my results and I am 100% certain without surgery I would never had been able to get rid of that extra skin. You can go in for a consult with a surgeon and they can give you a very good idea of what would be the best option for you. Good luck!

If you had posted this during the beginning of the approval process, I would have told you to let those people have it. I've worked in the medical field and patients that can be pushed around are pushed around because a lot of people who work in medical offices, not the doctors, PA's or people with actual medical education, have a minimal education and are exceptionally lazy. If someone is rude to you, you call them out on it right that moment. If someone wants to push BS policies like these, you explain to them that your insurance does not require that procedure and if they are going to insist on following arbitrary rules that are not required, you will absolutely go elsewhere. You are not just the patient, you are the customer....if they don't treat you the way you deserve to be treated, you let them know you have no tolerance for it, and you walk away. I have a doctor (not my sleeve surgeon- he was a tool) that I love and who has largely very competent people. A few of his front desk girls though are complete idiots, so instead of dealing with them, I just ask to speak to someone who is competent or I tell them to have my doctor call me. If someone can't do their job, I will happily bypass them and let their boss know exactly why I didn't bother going through his little chain of dummies. That being said...you're so close to approval, let it go until after surgery. In the end you are getting what you want and after surgery you can write them a very long, detailed letter and potentially a review online that should allow them to revise their procedures and their behavior.

My scale is my best friend, lol, and at times a bit of an enemy. I choose to weigh everyday because I know exactly when I get off track and start to gain. As an example, lately I've been really trying to get in a lot of Protein because I have a wound from plastic surgery that isn't healing very well. I figured, hey, I'm eating protein, so the calories will just work themselves out. Well in 10 days I went from 127 to 131, which I saw happening because I weighed myself everyday and I immediately started paying attention to my calories again and now I'm back to 129. Had I waited a week or two to weigh myself and saw that I had gained 4 pounds I would have been much more upset about it and I likely would have gained more than that before I recognized I needed to take a look at my diet. During the losing stage it might be better to only weigh once a week, but for me I know exactly what I weighed every single day after surgery so I can look back and see where I stalled, where I did well, and how quickly I made a correction to fix any stalls or small gains. My scale is a daily reminder that I am accountable for my weight.

I also eat whatever I want in moderation- except chocolate. Chocolate is my heroin, I know no matter how sick it makes me I will keep eating it. So, I eat chocolate at Christmas, and that is it. Then I get to enjoy it for a few weeks and I don't have to worry about eating too much of it the rest of the year.

I am also a planner and I read a lot of advice on this site. My first two surgeries which includes all of the procedures you are having plus a thigh lift were cake. My last surgery has been a complete and total B, which is what I get for saying, "ohhh plastics are easy", figures, lol. So..the most important advice to remember is that you will heal. You may feel miserable, you may not, you may be in a lot of pain, you may not, you may be nauseous, frustrated, and have to deal with consequences, and you may not, but above all else you just have to remember...time was going to pass no matter what, at least you're spending it healing toward having a fab new figure. In terms of practical advice, have everything at around waist to chest height. With the abdominoplasty you can't reach over your head and with the brachioplasty you don't really want to move your arms a whole lot at all, so minimal movement to get to everything is nice. The best thing I did for all of my surgeries was to put a press on nightlight on my nightstand. The first few nights, or even weeks, you wake up a little disoriented, in pain, and of course you have to go to the bathroom or find something. You just flop your arm over, smack on that light, and things are much less annoying. For all of my surgeries I also slept on what is kind of like a puppy pad for adults. It is designed for people who are incontinent, but it does a fantastic job of not destroying your sheets or your couch in case you happen to bust a leak or spill a drain while you are sleeping. You can wash them, they dry quickly, and I have been eternally happy that I bought them especially for my last surgery when I managed to bleed all over everything on a daily basis for awhile. I assume someone is driving you? If it is only 90 minutes, maybe reconsider the hotel or even just the hotel on the second night purely because your own home can be fully set-up for your recovery and you don't have to worry about whether or not someone cleaned well. You are so totally blitzed after they move you out of recovery and into your car that a 90 minute drive is not painful and you probably won't remember it. In your house everything can be somewhat close to sterilized, you will have your own bed and bathroom, and you can have all of your gauze, compression, wraps, pillows, and everything set up exactly how you will need it without having to worry about having to do the same thing in a hotel. Past that, you will LOVE your results, I'm sure. Plastics are the bees' knees.

@LipstickLady I was a little surprised at how mean I was to myself when I found the album...hopefully as I'm getting older, I'm also getting kinder.

Why don't you make sure you have a thyroid issue first? You can go to a CareSpot or whatever urgent care clinic there is in your area and have a thyroid panel done for a very reasonable fee. They will give you the results in 2-3 days and you can see where your values fall. If you do have a thyroid issue, you can then discuss this with your doctor, but if not, no one needs to know you were concerned about it and there's no need to potentially interrupt the progress toward getting your sleeve. I have my thyroid checked like this occasionally because the issue tends to run in my family. I always did it outside of my insurance because before the law changed they could have increased my premiums if there was a suspected issue. I have periodically thought I had a thyroid issue and it has always come back normal. Perhaps the same may be true for you.

Ok, so unlike a lot of people, I don't entirely disagree with the initial poster in the sense that sometimes I think unkind things too, however every single cruel thing I have ever thought (emphasis on thought, I would NEVER say something hurtful about someone's figure), I have said and very likely screamed, far worse things at myself. I think if you want to judge people in your head, go for it, but I tend to really only agree with that if you are 10x more judgmental of yourself. Periodically I look at someone and I think damn babe, spandex is a privilege, not a right, which yes sounds evil, however for 100 of the 110 pounds I lost every time I wanted to wear a pair of cute spandex gym clothes or leggings I looked at my fatness in the mirror and I said, do you want to wear that? Then get your fat rear on a treadmill and earn it. I am now 127 pounds and I am very cognizant of the fact that I can't wear shorts in public and think I look hot. Do I have the right to march my butt around in booty shorts? Oh heck yes, as does everyone else, though I don't get to get upset if someone makes a judgmental comment about me. I'm not going to walk around and think I'm smokin' when in reality there's more cheese on my thighs than in my lunch and as a result, because I am cruel to myself, the few times I happen to have a mean thought in my head about someone else, I'm not overly offended by my rotten core. Recently I found a photo album where I had taken pictures of myself and put phrases around them then stuck them all over my house. Each picture had a corresponding nasty comment on it meant to motivate me. One year I got stood up on Halloween so there was a picture of me in my cute tutu with the phrase "Why are you leaving your house, fat cows don't get to be ballerinas- go get on the treadmill." That one was on my front door. "Get out of the fridge fatty" with a picture of me looking ugly in a mumu dress was on my fridge. "Fat girls don't get cute shoes" with a picture of me in a pair of shoes that hurt my feet was in my closet. Mean things like that were around my whole house- good thing I live alone or people would know I'm crazy. All of the hateful things I might think about someone else, are all rooted deep inside with a hatred directed toward myself. I get that, I'm cool with it, and if I want to think mean things in my head about someone else, I damn well will. Now, that being said...people don't post things on social media for us to be mean to them. They are not blind, they know what they look like, and they need the bit of extra kindness to give them the confidence they need in a certain outfit. I was so proud of myself in this cute little pink gym shirt a few months ago and one of my good friends told me I shouldn't wear that shirt in public because you could see the fat oozing around my sports bra line. I was so ashamed that I had somehow missed seeing that and I never wore that shirt, or the vast majority of others like it again, until after I had plastic surgery that semi-fixed the problem. People don't need us to be a**holes, they do a good enough job being cruel to themselves all on their own. So...next time someone posts a picture on Facebook where they look fat, like they need a new bra, or like they have no business being in the size they are wearing...do what your mama taught you...if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

I had that feeling a few times with areas around my plastic surgery incisions, which it seems may be nerves reconnecting. If you had a leak in your sleeve you shouldn't feel anything dripping at all, your symptoms would be more along the lines of a fever and general malaise. You also wouldn't feel anything dripping by your incisions. Since you're a smidge over two weeks out now, your incisions are likely fine and they are just healing. Healing produces odd sensations, at least in my experience with both the sleeve and plastic surgery.

Honey tends to make me sick, but your stomach may tolerate it. The only way to know is to try! Just test a tiny bit at a time and build up to what would be your usual amount. I can tolerate honey in my oatmeal, but not in my smoothies or on fruit, so it all depends on how picky your stomach is.

@@MissLiss Don't worry about only doing 5 minutes on the elliptical- that is very normal! The first time I used an elliptical I was 18, and omg, in 5 minutes I thought I was going to die and I wasn't really all that out of shape then- I was a soccer player. I now have an elliptical in my house that I very rarely use because I much prefer running outside and a few months ago when I was around 135-ish and could easily jog 5 miles I got on the elliptical and 20 minutes into it I was sweating, and panting, and my quads were quivering. It's all about muscle memory so when you don't do something for a long time or you've never done it before, not being able to just hop on and be awesome at it isn't limited to overweight people. I also do jiu jitsu and kickboxing and it is constantly funny to me when these guys come into class who think they are in awesome shape and they get so busted, sweating, gasping for air out of breath in a 5 minute round of jiu jitsu, while the rest of us can easily roll (the bjj word for sparring) for an hour or more without really being super winded. It's technique and muscle memory and has very little to do with the level of shape you're in when you start a new activity. I wasn't allowed to do anything other than walking for 3 weeks, so seems like this would be a good option for you. You're at the very start of your process. Do what you feel comfortable with and soon enough you will be running away like a pro on the elliptical.

You could eat cheesecake- that's soft. Just kidding! Ok, that probably wasn't funny, I apologize. A few months from now though, you can totally have a few bites of cheesecake, enjoy every morsel, and not wake up the next morning feeling bad because you ate the entire cake. The nice thing about the menu at Cheesecake is that it is literally a novel length long. I can never decide on anything because there are SO many options. I remember recently someone in one of our parties ordered salmon that came with potatoes...both count as soft food, although the potatoes are a bit richer than would be optimal. Most well cooked fish should be fine on the soft phase as long as you chew it quite a bit and eat slowly. The potatoes won't hurt you if you only have a bit of them and you can order them without any butter. If they have a sweet potato option that you can sub-in that would be even better.

I don't think you have done anything to hurt yourself- it may just be that your stomach is a little shocked that it is getting something other than liquid. Also, your stomach may have different tolerance for foods than in the past. I used to love salmon and post-sleeve for some reason it makes me sick every time I eat it. I also love avocado, but it has a lot of healthy fat in it, which my stomach tends to just see as being fat in general and it doesn't always sit very well. Is it possible the sharp pain in your chest may be partially anxiety? Short version...I seriously, seriously doubt there is anything wrong with your sleeve, but you paid a lot of money to have the procedure and it is your doctor's job to deal with this type of concern. Give them a call now, while it's still Friday during business hours so you won't have to worry about it this weekend. Hope you feel better!

I am 1 year and 8 months out and my stomach growls occasionally. It also makes other weird random noises. It doesn't usually mean I'm hungry. I listen more to how I feel than what noises my stomach makes.

I had never heard of the Fobi ring so I had to do a little research. My understanding is that it is designed to prevent the stomach from stretching, which is a concern for some people several years after surgery. I thought it was generally used on bypass patients and not sleeve patients, so its application for VSG is very new. I am 1 year and 7 months out and my stomach constriction still works very well. I liked the sleeve because while it is forever, there isn't anything extra inside of me that can fail. While the Fobi seems unlikely to create complications, it is still in the final stages of FDA approval so there is very limited research on sleeve patients to support whether it is a good or a bad idea. Also, just looking at the way it works it seems as if it would be far more effective in a bypass patient than a sleeve patient because the area of constriction on a sleeve with the Fobi is so small in comparison to how it is applied for bypass. What if you stretch the rest of your stomach? That one little spot protected by the Fobi doesn't seem as if it is really fixing the potential problem in its entirety. I'm not really an early adopter of technology or new medical treatments, but my opinion is my traditional sleeve works exactly like it is supposed to and if I could have known that two weeks before I had the surgery, I would not have added a Fobi purely because as it turns out, I have not needed it. Do some research, talk to your doctor, call a few other doctors....at one point VSG was an experimental procedure, so was lapband, and even bypass...all of them worked out just fine. I just wouldn't want to have been one of the original patients to help them get the kinks out of the process, lol.

So, I am 7 weeks post-op for a posterior body lift with auto augment and thigh lift, and while the thighs are fine, yesterday I woke up to feeling like the right side of my butt was bruised. Today I woke up and I look like a sausage...my back is all swollen again and I am about as sore as I was a week after surgery. Did this happen to anyone else? I don't remember major swelling this far out from my other procedures, so I'm a little frustrated now. Also, as a note, the medial part of my incision ripped open just before 2 weeks post-op so for the last 5 weeks I've had a hole in my back. My doctor resutured it two weeks ago and part of it separated again within a few days. The new plan was to resuture it again, however he told me yesterday he thinks it is better to just let it heal without trying to excise and resuture. So, while he may be right, I now have to deal with a dripping, goopy hole in the center of my back for even longer. I could sob...ok I did sob, a lot and I tried not to have a total meltdown on the doctor, since realistically it isn't his fault. I live at the beach and I started my plastics procedures last August so that the first time since I have lived by the ocean I could actually go out and enjoy it. I could surf, and swim, and lay out, like a normal person instead of someone who was too disgusting to be seen in public. Now, I'm not fat anymore but I have a hole in my back which prevents me from doing anything that might get anything into the wound. Forgive the pity party, but I'm really like...so World, you make me miserable being fat for the last two years and now when I've worked my butt off, I get to have another summer completely ruined by being stuck inside. I will stop crying now, lol. As a note, the wound isn't infected. I've been careful with it and I have a medical background, so the swelling isn't the result of an infection. I haven't done anything out of the norm physically. I've walked 3-6 miles a day everyday for the last 5 weeks and that didn't cause any major swelling so it shouldn't be contributory now. So...for those of you who have had plastics, have you had major swelling at 7 weeks post-op? Thank you all for your thoughts!

@@MichiganChic I feel better knowing that you had swelling for awhile afterward especially since it is sometimes caused by sodium. I had a ton of sodium on Sunday and I woke up that next morning miserable. I feel like half my butt is more swollen than the other half which also makes me paranoid, not to mention my upper back. Hopefully flushing out the sodium helps. Were you able to workout with the open wound? I would really like to go back to the gym, but I'm worried that it will ooze through all of the bandages and that would be so embarrassing. I think I will cry if it takes 4 months to heal. My surgeon said, oh it should be cleared up in 2-3 weeks and I really think he's massively wrong. I have never seen a wound this deep and wide (roughly the same size as yours) heal that quickly. Mine is also hidden by underwear so I'm less concerned about the scar and more concerned about the fact that I can't really go anywhere or do anything because I might bust a leak.

I had the same procedure as you and I opted to wear a compression garment the full time instead of the binder because my binder tended to roll up when I slept. I used the Marena products which you can get on Amazon. The link below is the one that I used. It feels very tight and snug and keeps everything where it is supposed to be. Also, I used it over the course of three different plastics surgeries and it's been washed probably 100 times by now if not more and it is still in perfect condition. I bought two so I could wear one while the other was in the laundry. Compression garments are a pain in the butt, but they make you feel better. I am 7 weeks out from my last plastics surgery (posterior body lift) and I just started wearing my garment again this week because for some reason my butt and back decided to swell up all over again. It feels very nice to be all compressed again. http://www.amazon.com/Marena-Womens-Stage-Compression-Girdle/dp/B00LAJ577G/ref=pd_sim_sbs_193_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=03B6XCRAZ9TX64S59W5R Also, I bought some standard Spanx-like shorts from Walmart that extended from my thighs to just below my bra line. I wore them periodically, but I preferred the compression garment just because it felt so much tighter and it didn't roll down at all. You don't need to get a specific brand, just find one that feels nice and tight yet still lets you breathe and that should do the trick.

I'm a runner, although I usually top out at about 35-40 miles a week. I tend to run in the morning and/or at night and usually a serving size of granola about an hour before I go out keeps me feeling fine. I have found that I am completely intolerant of being hungry while I run now so if I'm going on a longer distance run I wear a running pack and I keep a thing of Gu and a baggie of granola in it. I made the mistake of not doing so a few times and I ended up getting fairly sick and dizzy a few miles from home. I'm not really crazy about Gu anymore because the sugar in it tends to make me feel a little woozy, but I'd rather feel woozy than be passed out on the street, so if I'm doing a race and I don't really have the time to stop and eat some granola like I can on just a training run, the Gu works ok. Past that, I drink a Protein shake afterward most days. I mix almond milk, 100 calorie Greek yogurt, half a serving of Protein powder, and PB2 in the blender and it tastes better than the premade shakes and has more protein. Otherwise, I try to meet my protein goals, I don't eat a lot of bread or Pasta, but I do have a few bites occasionally, and I don't really tend to crave junk food very often anymore, but if I want a few handfuls of Chex Mix or a bite or two of cake I eat it. Mostly I just focus on my protein during the remainder of the day and I make sure I eat granola before I go out for a run and then usually I'm fine. Also, I run with a Water bottle because I find I drink less during the day, so I end up feeling really dehydrated if I don't make an effort to drink at least a bit while I run, before, and after.

Nope. Medications don't make you gain or retain weight unless it is in the form of Water weight, which your medication should not be causing. They do however make you hungrier and as a result one of the side effects listed may be weight gain. I use Depo which is notorious for causing weight gain, however ultimately I know that if I eat more, I gain and if I don't eat more, I lose, so the problem is not the depo as much as the hunger it creates. Also, 22 pounds in roughly 5 weeks is completely normal. I think at about 5 weeks I had roughly lost 20 pounds. Slow and steady wins the race. Keep following the plan and you will see results.

Lol, your post made me chuckle a bit and I mostly agree with you. I think people post about cheating because like you said, they want to be justified by a group of strangers, yet also because they want to know they aren't alone. A good portion of us "cheated" somewhere along the way. I personally had a few Snacks (smart puffs and a granola bar) on one day of my pre-op diet, and the rest of the time I was compliant. I didn't cheat once after surgery because I was too worried I'd kill myself, not because I'm overly a rules follower person. If every article or blog post I ever read told me that no one else in the world had messed up a little on their pre-op diet, I would have felt exponentially worse, very much alone, and terrified that I had just ruined my chance for a complication free surgery. Most of us screwed up, so I don't have a problem with people talking about how they cheated a little (emphasis on a little- a steak dinner is not a little) and I try to let them know that I messed up a little too and it turned out ok. Once I was out far enough where I could eat and drink whatever I wanted, I make choices everyday that some people might think is cheating. I had 1/4 of a blueberry muffin for lunch today, I drink with straws, I drink with meals, I drink diet soda, and I didn't have a single Protein shake for a good portion of the time it took me to get to goal. I think some people post about cheating when, like you said, it's not cheating, it's just making a choice. We make the choice to eat crap we shouldn't and honestly if we don't do it often, then my feeling is more power to ya. Sometimes I want a few bites of cake, I like SF Red Bull for Breakfast, and I eat grilled chicken sandwiches from fast food places. I think people need to know that once you're at a certain point, it's ok to not be 100% compliant with the diet. Life is about living- not choking down chicken and eggs without any drink at every meal because a doctor told you that you had to the rest of your life.

@CowgirlJane Thank-you for your thoughts! I didn't think about wearing my compression garments again, but that is a good idea. I was a little concerned about the swelling so I did ask my doctor and he told me he wasn't at all worried about it, but I'm like...well, I'm worried about it. I also ate a lot of sodium on Sunday, so I'm hoping maybe that was contributory to it. Ideally, if I take it easy the next few days, go back to compression, and drink more fluids, hopefully whatever caused it will work out. My midsection currently looks like a barrel. All of my scars except my arms are hidden by my bathing suit, so they shouldn't get any direct sunlight and the few times I've been outside I've slathered the scars up with BioCorneum which has the SPF 30 in it. Hopefully that prevents any issues. Thanks again!

Google "how to cut weight". You can lose 4 pounds before your weigh-in in 24 hours. It's not something to do regularly and it's going to make you miserable, but if you want surgery bad enough, that is the way to get it scheduled quickly. Professional wrestlers and fighters regularly drop 10 pounds or way more the 48 hours before a weigh-in. The same techniques can easily drop you 4 pounds and as soon as you've weighed and left the office you start rehydrating. If the system wants to beat you up, beat the system back.