James Marusek

"How come I am still feeling as big as ever?" This is common. Generally I never knew I was obese because I never really looked at myself in the mirror before surgery and because I was alway the one taking photographs so therefore I was never in them. The best thing to do before surgery is to take a photograph of yourself and then later after surgery take another one as a comparison shot. It was a real eye opener. Here is mine at the 6 month mark. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Operation.jpg

Good luck on your surgery. I will pray that it is successful and that all goes well.

Diarrhea is common after surgery. You will probably not experience true dumping until you reach the solid stage. If you haven't taken any Probiotics yet, you might want to have some. It is important to reestablish a colony of good bacteria in your gut after it was destroyed by antibiotics used after surgery.

At 6 or 7 months after RNY surgery, I transitioned from the "Weight Loss" phase to the "Maintenance" phase. The approach in the "Maintenance" phase is different. Here is a short article of my perception of this phase. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery2.pdf

Hiccups or sneezes was a sign that I was getting close to dumping.

Right after RNY surgery, I noticed that I became lactose intolerant. If I drank milk it produced instant diarrhea. After about 2 months this condition changed and I was able to drink milk again.

Good luck on your recovery and I hope all goes well with you. Let us know how we can help.

Weight loss surgery may delay the onset of Alzheimer's Disease in the elderly. Dr. Nidia Celeste Horie of the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine in Brazil was lead on a study Older obese people with mild cognitive impairment who lose a small amount of weight and a minimal amount of physical exercise saw improvement on tests of thinking skills, according to this new study. Her recommendation was "At the moment, obese individuals should try to lose weight as young as they can, to protect health in general and the brain in particular, and obese elderly with mild memory problems should try to lose weight to improve comorbidities, knowing that at least it will not be harmful for cognitive skills and with luck they could be preventing dementia." http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/01/08/calorie-cutting-may-help-older-obese-people-with-thinking-problems.html?intcmp=hphz02

After surgery, the part of your stomach that process fats and sugars has been cut away and consuming fats or sugars can quickly lead to dumping. But your body is adaptive and after about a year, your intestines learn how to take up the slack and process fats and sugars. After surgery, one of the unexpected surprises was that I lost my hunger. It was not difficult to lose weight when hunger was not constantly, incessantly gnawing at my bones. But after a year or two, hunger does return but just not with the same voracity that I experienced prior to surgery. I asked my nutritionist why do some people lose weight after surgery only to gain some or all of it back later. She said it was due to grazing, which I would interpret as snacking. I am 32 months post-op RNY. I have written a couple short articles. One covering the weight loss stage and one covering the maintenance stage. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery.pdf http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery2.pdf

Generally when you undergo surgery, you may be given antibiotics to protect you from the various germs in the hospital that might infect you. But these antibiotics kill not only the bad germs but also the good ones. Therefore when you leave the hospital it is important to reestablish the good bacteria in your gut. Many times after surgery you might experience diarrhea because of a lack of good bacteria in your gut. This is where probiotics come in. There are a variety of probiotics. They vary in a few different ways. They are the number of different strains of good bacteria and the number of live bacteria cells per culture. The probiotic that I used had 10 friendly strains and 4 billion live bacteria cells per capsule [CFU]. It worked for me but you can find others with more strains and more CFUs.

Using a pillow between your legs helps. I slept in my bed when I got home after surgery but it was a little painful. Especially since I had a Water bed. Getting out of bed was extremely painful for the first few weeks.

One way to reduce blood sugar is to limit the amount of carbs especially sugars. Today there are a wide variety of products available to help one do this. I had sugar diabetes prior to surgery. I am 32 months post-op RNY gastric bypass. My diabetes went into remission when I left the hospital 2 days after surgery and have remained in remission. I have been off my diabetes meds ever since. I use natural no calorie sweeteners such as stevia and artificial sweeteners such as Splenda. I read the labels of almost everything I consume and if it contains more than 5 grams of sugar, I do not eat it. There are many products that are "No Sugar Added" such as hot chocolate which work fine. Also drinks like Crystal Light work good. So one of the easiest ways to lower blood sugar in order to qualify for surgery is to limit sugar and high calorie natural sweeteners for example high-fructose corn syrup, honey, agave etc.

When selecting the type of surgery, it is important to assess the co-morbidities that your father has. For example if he has severe acid reflux, then RNY is much better way to go than sleeve. The surgical team should be able to help you with this decision. I drank Cokes for many decades. As part of the requirements for undergoing weigh loss surgery I had to give up caffeine and carbonated beverages. At the beginning of the medically monitored weight loss and exercise program that was a prerequisite for the health insurance, I gave up my 6 diet coke a day habit. I lost 20 pounds based on that change alone. I wrote a couple short articles about my experience with RNY gastric bypass surgery. Here are the links. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery.pdf http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery2.pdf And here is a photograph at 6 month post-op compared to pre-surgery. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Operation.jpg I am 67 years old and 32 months post-op RNY surgery. And I consider this surgery to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

Congratulations on your weight loss. Here is my before and after photo at the 6 month post-op mark. I have lost additional weight since then but it is unbelievable what can happen in 6 months. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Operation.jpg

I am 32 months post op and have noticed no problems with my teeth. I am 67 years old and have all my teeth except for the wisdom teeth that I had removed when I was young and one other tooth. I follow the rules for the WLS including Protein and Vitamins and I periodically have my teeth cleaned. So in general, I don't think this is a serious problem. I met one person at a Bariatric Surgery Support Group Meeting who had a problem with her teeth. But she had a host of problems. She was unable to eat or drink more than a thimble size meal and I felt she had an abnormal surgery and the problems were not corrected post-op. She only attended one meeting so I couldn't see if she ever had the issues resolved and what drove it.

I had RNY surgery 32 months ago. After surgery, I periodically have blood work as part of the program. They analyze my blood under a fine microscope. [The number of blood tests is very, very extensive.] The surgical team then identifies deficiencies and modify my Vitamin requirements. As a result, my body is in much better shape now than before surgery.

I had RNY gastric bypass surgery 32 months ago and it was one of the best decision I ever made.

I weigh myself once each morning when I get up. I record the weight. I use this to evaluate the effect of my diet on my continued weight loss. It is not a negative obsession. If my weight goes up or down, I do not panic. It just informs me that my current approach may need some fine tweeking. Weighing yourself daily can become negative if this obsession alters your mood. This habit can cause stress which can lead in-and-of-itself to some weight gain. If this is the case, avoid weighing yourself, throw the scale out and let them weigh you at your doctor appointments.

"My question is, will I be successful AFTER surgery, if I haven't been totally committed BEFORE surgery?" After I underwent RNY gastric bypass surgery, one of the unexpected surprises was that I lost my hunger. It doesn't happen to everyone but many experience this. It is hard to lose weight when hunger is constantly gnawing at your bones. Without hunger, I did not find it difficult to lose weight. After surgery, the three most important elements are meeting your daily requirement for Protein, Vitamins and fluids. Also routine exercise such as walking for 30 minutes per day is integral. Meals are restricted by volume and food types as a function of time past surgery. So there are requirements. If one ignores these requirement after surgery, then one will not get the full benefits of this weight loss surgery. Weight loss surgery is very different than dieting.

Congratulations.

I had a problem with my old scale. It was inaccurate. I would step on the scale and take a measurement then a few minutes later repeat this and obtain two totally different numbers. Sometimes they were off by 2 pounds. I found this totally unacceptable. So I bought a new scale. I purchased a Beurer Model BF66 at Bed Bath and Beyond. It measures weight in 0.2 pound increments. And most importantly the measurements are repeatable. It has a large number reading so I don't have to put on my glasses to read the scale. It goes up to 330 pounds maximum which was fine for me. It has a number of fancy features, none of which I use.

The link is missing. On the panel there is a button that looks somewhat like [-] which is used to import links into the topic.

Good luck on your surgery. And let us know how things went when you are on the other side.

Congratulations on your weight loss.

No, I am on the other side of the state. Welcome and good luck.