piercedqt78

Tomorrow is your big day! Tell Dr. Uchal Mandy Reineke says hi! You are going to be fine. Keep me posted on your progress!

If you look in the "after pictures" 4&5 you can see the rolls of skin. I have a bunch tucked into my jeans too. I have a condition called Marfan's Syndrome and it causes lack of elasticity in the joints and skin. So my skin is all around, not just a panni.

Yes I have saggy skin. I just hide it very well I guess. I'm fighting for plastics right now.

Every weekend I make a HUGE Breakfast for my family and what ever friend my daughter has over for the night. I usually make an extra pack of turkey bacon for myself, and put it into about 6 snack sized bags. I have that and some cheese, or cottage cheese for breakfast. I hate to start my day with shakes, and only do it when I'm really in a rush. I also like the turkey bacon with some spinach and some feta in a lettuce wrap.

We do buffalo chicken wings about once a week in my house. I just bake the chicken in a small amount of buffalo sauce, and then the last 10 minutes I pour more sauce over them. I have also made chicken legs, and boneless skinless breast tenders this way. I make ranch dressing with plain greek yogurt instead of mayo and it's just as good. I have celery on the table for the family, but I can't eat it so I have about 1/4 of a cucumber to help cool off my mouth.

I will have at least 2 trash bags of women's clothes. I believe they are sized 12 down to about about an 8. I will bring them to the first meeting if anyone wants them. They are casual clothing, but all are nice, and better name brands. I buy them at a local resale shop, the money goes to support a local domestic violence shelter. I don't pay a ton for them, and I'm really picky about buying better quality. I will gladly give them to anyone that wants them, all I ask is that when you lose out of them you pass them on to someone that is post-op.

@@Julie904 I'm just west of Jax near Fleming Island near Orange Park South. I'm working on getting a local chapter of Bariatricpal up and running I hope you will consider joining us.

Check the local chapter section, there may be a local peer to peer meeting that will have a clothing exchange.

I'm in a 2/3 in most brands now, I did keep my 4/6's but only to use while I recover from my lbl. I know that with swelling and the compression garments I will need a little more room. But as soon as I am healed they are GONE. I will not ever go back to my plus sized clothes.

I agree with @@Mom10 I went with the sleeve for the exact same reasons. That and I know that sleevers have less dumping issues, and less hair loss. I do not tolerate sugar substitutes very well, as they then to cause me migraines, so that was another factor. I just read a study that they are taking out the gland in the stomach that produces the hunger sensation, and the sugar craving in young teens with weight issues. That is part of being sleeved, when the bypass they leave that portion of the stomach intact inside your abdomen. I think the sleeve will be the "gold standard" within 5 years, and I'm a former lap band patient. Feel free to take a look at my story in my profile, and check out my before/after in my gallery.

If they aren't willing to discuss it further, find another surgeon. I would not settle.

I have always been the rock in my family. When things go bad my entire family turns to me, and I am usually strong enough to carry everyone through it. I use to do that and then come home and curl up in bed with a book and a 1/2 gallon of ice cream to drown my sorrows, or to sooth my stress. I have ALWAYS been a stress eater and my sleeve has helped that almost completely. A few weeks ago I had a nasty fight with my step-dad, he said some cruel things to my daughter and to me, he has a bad habit of not thinking before speaking and hurting peoples feelings. Well I had just had enough and I as you so very well put it "felt my feelings" and I let him have it. My mom defended him, after he made my 12 year old cry over her new hairstyle, and my mom is my Best Friend. Well when she defended him, some past hurt from her previous marriage (to an abuser) came out, and in the past I would have shoved those feelings back down with a box of Cookies and a quart of milk, without that option I just told her how I felt. When she told my sister how I felt, and what I had said, my sister (who is also morbidly obese) said, well we all felt that way, but Mandy finally said something. It's like she has all this courage now that she is thin. Then my sister called me and said, "way to go standing up to him and mom". I guess the more weight I lose the more my brain to mouth filter shrinks too. I'm not cruel, but I am honest. Sometimes to a fault. But that's how I live my life. I have always been honest, but was really good as sugar coating, and that just isn't happening anymore. I wrote this about 6 weeks post-op and I think in a small way it applies: why is it that sometimes the thing we fear the most is evaluation of our lives? And self evaluation is the hardest. We are our own worst critics. I know that I look back over my experiences and think what the hell was I thinking? I have made mistakes, and most of them have been a learning experience. Others, well I'm still searching for those lessons. My head swims with thoughts, experiences, conversations, and still I seek more, more knowledge, more value in actions, and more experiences. I don't want my life to come to a conclusion, and I look back on a boring or worse sad life. I want to look back and say, I have lived, and now I'm ok to die. I want to be ready to let go. I don't want to say, wait, I have more to do. I tell people what I think, and never say goodbye without an I love you, to those that matter. I give my heart freely, and without expectation of anything in return. I try to express myself openly and honestly. Can this end in heartbreak? sure, but do we really know we are alive in a perfect world? I think the risks of getting hurt is totally worth it for those times that you discover that people care about you too. What if you didn't say something and the love of your life felt the same way, but was affraid to speak up? It would be tragic to live in that kind of isolation. People always talk about living life to the fullest, but how many have danced in the rain? Or reached out and held hands with a close friend, just to feel them closer? A wise man said that the rain lets you know you are real, and that no matter how wet you get, you will always dry off. That is a soul that really lives life. If you were told tomorrow that you had 6 months to live, would that be enough time to make things right in your life? Do you have a bucket list that is a mile long with nothing checked off? I don't, know why? I live life as it comes, one day at a time. Live, love, laugh....indeed.

I live in North Florida and still have extremely low vit d. I take 2000 units a day to keep it normal. My mother and daughter also have very low vit d, our pcp told us that it's the most common deficiency and the least diagnosed. More and more docs are testing now, and they are finding the number of deficient patients staggering.

I was brought a straw in the hospital the day after my surgery. As soon as my leak test was done, they brought me a lunch tray, and there were 2 straws on the tray, one for my tea and one for my Water. I asked and the nurse said they were fine to use, I have never NOT used a straw and have no more gas/pressure/whatever else they say.