wyldwoman

When you're feeling scared, jump on here and talk to someone about it. Another thing I did a lot preop was to go to obesityhelp.com and look through all the before and after pics. That helped me get really motivated and excited about my upcoming surgery. Here's my profile on there, complete with horrendous pictures. It hasn't been updated in a while. My goal was 175 pounds (I'm very tall), but I tend to maintain about 20-40 pounds below that, through no effort of my own. I just have a hard time maintaining a normal weight now, even though I'm eating well. So I'm actually pretty skinny now, and I have some size six jeans and some size eight Jeans to accommodate the fluctuations. They just seem to happen pretty much regardless of how I eat, unless of course I get sick and I drop weight like crazy. There aren't any pictures of me at my really low weight on the site I don't think. www.obesityhelp.com/member/wyldwoman

Thanks for the welcome. I too hesitate to talk about the "uglier" side, such as complications and the fact that it does require more effort as time goes by. I don't want to scare preops off either. All the consent forms you have to sign before surgery listing all the possible complications are enough to scare anyone away as well. My hospital also made me appoint a legal proxy in case I died or was unable to make my own medical decisions right before they wheeled me in, LOL. But the fact is that this surgery is no riskier than any other surgery in the hand of an experienced surgeon. On the other hand, I think a certain amount of preparedness is a really good thing, especially when it comes to the long term maintenance part. I know people, a very close friend for one, who regained almost all of her weight back by about six or eight years out because she wasn't prepared for that part, and as soon as she was able to, she started eating as much as she could jam in, and NEVER ate the kinds of foods she should have been eating after she got to her goal weight. That's why I believe being prepared and utilizing available support is so important. Research has shown that this surgery has the best long-term success rate than any other medical intervention for morbid obesity (I hate that term). For me prior to the surgery, I felt like I was in a lifelong prison of food obsession. I couldn't stop eating no matter how full I was. I just had to eat all day, and I thought about food all day. After my surgery, I feel like I have been let out of prison. I rarely think about food, crave healthier food when I do think about it ( I never thought I would crave salmon and sauteed greens), I eat much less, and I actually enjoy my food more. And best of all, I have become one of those annoying people who actually forgets to eat sometimes (God how I used to hate them!) That alone is worth my old weight in gold. I went into my surgery VERY prepared, and I did have life-threatening complications (blood clots in my lungs caused by my having lupus antibodies that I/we didn't know about prior to surgery), which were very, very rare. Even so, I don't regret a minute of it. The decision to have this surgery is highly personal and I won't try to persuade people one way or the other, but I can tell people my experience and whether, in the end, my total experience has been positive or negative. It's been wonderful for me, though I was miserable for a while when I was going through my complications, and I questioned my decision. But as I recovered and I started to see my body literally melt before my eyes I started to smile again pretty quickly.

I told close family and friends that were supportive and avoided telling those who were not so understanding (or so I thought). I was amazed at how judgmental some people that I thought would be supportive were and vice versa. I have a sister that I thought would be judgmental who turned out to be very supportive, and a couple of friends who I thought would be supportive who thought I was taking the "easy way out" (GOD how that pisses me off, especially after I nearly died from complications) and others who basically told me that I got what was coming to me (my complications) when I chose to have surgery. I found the comments from friends ( and mind you, I only told the ones that I thought were supportive because they had known me for many years and also had weight issues) were particularly cruel and painful.

I'll add my two cents to the Boston crew. Mass. General here. It'll be five years in September. My surgeon was Charles Ferguson, who is retired now, but anyone there is top notch. People come from all over to get surgery there. They have a complete Weight Surgery Center, and a lot of the research on obesity and WLS comes from there and the other Boston centers.

Did your Dr. give you any guidelines? Personally, I would definitely NOT be drinking any alcohol at this stage! Your innards have not finished healing yet at the very least, and at the most, you should be avoiding anything carbonated like beer. It can stretch the anastomosis (the new small hole where your food is passing from your pouch to your bypassed intestine). My surgery center (Mass General) says no carbonation PERMANENTLY after surgery (which can be hard sometimes). Also, be aware, once you have a bypass, you absorb alcohol much faster than other people. Not to scare you, but alcoholism is extremely common after a bypass. I would talk to your doc, and I can't imagine it being allowed for at least a few months.

After surgery, your appetite is much, much less. Or, should I say, your ABILITY to eat is much less in addition to having a smaller appetite. In my case at least, my eyes were still, and are still, bigger than my stomach. Though I took smaller servings than before surgery, I still tended to take too much food, but only ate a very small portion of it. You get full after only a couple of bites. You have to take advantage of this time to teach yourself better eating habits like using smaller plates, etc., because after a few years, you will be able to eat larger amounts of food. Weight loss surgery isn't a magic wand, though it sure feels like one for the first few years. It's a tool, albeit a very powerful one, and it requires more effort as time goes by. That effort can make the difference between long-term success and failure. My go-to food for packing on the pounds before my surgery was ice cream. For four years after surgery I couldn't touch the stuff without getting sick. Now I can eat it, but I rarely want it, and when I do decide to have some, I take 3-4 bites and I don't want any more because it tastes too sweet. I found this experience to be wonderful. I was able to hear my body's signals about what foods it wanted and needed for the first time in my life. Don't be frightened off by this! Utilize support networks like this and whatever your surgeon/hospital/local area offers and you'll do fine! It's a wonderful experience.

Totally normal! It's a scary but exciting time! I had complications from my surgery, not from the bypass itself, but I had a whole host of serious things happen because of my immune system's reaction to surgery (lupus), totally bizarre and rare. A sick as I was, and telling myself "what have I gotten myself into" for a while, I lost almost 200 pounds and I'm definitely NOT sorry I had it done!! I'll be five years out from surgery in September and still maintaining a little below my goal weight! If you are going to a reputable surgeon, and everyone should, you should do fine!! By this time next year, and you will be amazed at how fast the time flies once you're allowed to eat more than Jello, you won't recognize yourself!