James Marusek

Walk. Walking helps to pass the gas and loosen up your muscles after surgery. In the 2 days I was in the hospital after the operation, I walked 100 lapse. I also got off the pain meds as soon as possible.

I had RNY surgery. Yogurt was on my list of acceptable foods from day one. But it cannot be the kind of yogurt with fruit on the bottom because of the processed sugar content. As far as frozen yogurt, the concern would be what was added to the yogurt. RNY patients cannot tolerate sugar. A quick search of one brand of frozen yogurt showed that it had 43.9 grams of sugar in one serving. That's bad, very bad. So I guess if you want frozen yogurt, you will need to investigate further. Read the labels in detail. Natural sugars found in fruit and artificial sweeteners are generally O.K. but processed sugars and other sweeteners such as corn syrup are not. The other choice is to make your own frozen yogurt and control the ingredients. Greek yogurt has about twice the Protein as other yogurt. I have included a "berry Smoothie" recipe in the short article I wrote on my experience with Bariatric Surgery. Here is a link. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery.pdf When I reached my bottom weight, I completely transitioned off using Protein shakes, and started using berry smoothies instead because I was at that point getting most of my protein from meals. Also I could tolerate more calories in my diet because I was in the maintenance phase.

I believe Water passes through the stomach. That is the reason why they do not want you to drink fluids while you eat your meal. Because it would flush your food through your stomach before it has time to be processed.

Not one but 2 accidents! He is lucky to be alive. I wish you both the best of luck in the future. I will pray for the two of you.

That was a terrible accident. How is your husband today? Did he recover completely?

There are a variety of different types of Protein shakes out there. Need to experiment to find the one that you can tolerate. Getting enough protein is important to this process. Sometimes you can get samples of a product or buy a single/small product and try these until you find one that you can tolerate.

Is this normal? This question seems to have two components. Is it normal to have to wait for other surgeries after bariatric surgery. I believe the answer is yes. The body needs time to heal and the scar tissue is a problem. Is it normal to experience other problems after surgery, specifically a perforated bowel or gallstones? I don't know the answer to this one. I didn't experience these problems after surgery and I suspect most individuals did not. So I suspect the answer is no.

Congratulations!

This is an interesting question, not that I know the answer. Generally it seems that most people do not seem as sensitive to bugs after surgery. I think this is because of all the Vitamins that we take. It is important to also not be a purist and leave a little extra fat on your body. I had a RNY operation 23 months ago. I lost a total of 100 pounds. After 7 months, I bottomed out and went into maintenance phase. Six months after that I got a stomach flu, which was going around. I lost a pound a day for a week. Overall I dropped 10 extra pounds. The extra fat provided a little buffer against such bugs.

There are many different types of Protein shakes. The goal is to experiment until you find one that works for you. For me, I drank "Muscle Milk Light - Vanilla Creme" blended on a Ninja blender (single serving). I would blend in a banana, that would help improve the taste. I found that if you tried to hand mix a Protein shake from powder, that it would not provide the proper consistency, and the protein shake would taste bad. That is why I went to an electronic blender. But everyones taste is different, so you need to find what works for you.

Generally dumping syndrome for me is vomiting for several hours. There is a stage just before you hit dumping syndrome when your body tells you that you are almost there. It is important to be able to tell the signs so that you do not experience dumping. For me, the signs are that food begins to taste awful. Sometimes I will hiccup or sneeze. Also my body generates mucous, so my nose may drip. It is these early signals that you watch out for. Perhaps others on this site might describe how pre dumping affects them.

It is an interesting thing what you are doing with a weekly blog of your experience with bariatric surgery. It is a shame that most of your credits will not cross over to Northern Illinois University. But many universities make similar restrictions probably because they are a money making organization. If you decide to go back to college, I would recommend the following. 1) Also go to summer school. The course work will be easier, more laid back and should give you better grades and also cut back on the time needed to get your degree. (My daughter graduated with a BS degree in electrical engineering in 3 years. In part, this was due to her taking summer classes for one summer.) 2) When it comes to electives, take upper level courses where possible. Many colleges use the lower level courses to weed out students. Many times, the prerequisites for a course are "several other courses" or "permission from the professor teaching the course". If you go and see the professor and explain your interest in the subject, many times they will make an exception and allow you to take their course. Instead of taking 100 level basic English courses, I took courses in Shakespeare and Poetry. Instead of taking a 100 level course in sociology. I took a course in Field Archeology. They were more enjoyable and I got better grades. 3) If you are able also get into Honors level courses. The class size is smaller and your chance of success is better.

Congratulations!

In my humble opinion, all Protein shakes taste bad. The goal is to find one that you can tolerate. So experiment until you find one. For me I used Muscle Milk Light (vanilla creme). I blended it in a Ninja blender (single serving size) and blended in a banana. There are a lot of variety out there to chose from. So find one that will work for you.

After surgery, I was unable to swallow most pills. I had to cut them up or crush them. The calciums were the worst. They were horse pills. I had to crush these and mix them with a crystal light drink in order to get them down. They tasted terrible. Around the second month I found that I regained my ability to swallow large pills and my life became dramatically easier to get the Vitamins down. I am 23 months post op from RNY surgery and it seems like I have a very workable system so I hardly even think about it. This is what I do now. I take my Iron at night before I go to bed. This consists of my Flintstone Multivitamins and my iron pill. (I was taking my Flintstones in the morning but my blood work showed that I became Iron deficient. Even though I was separating my Flintstones from my calcium by time interval, I was not taking into account the calcium I was obtaining from milk.) The calciums I put in a small cup. All the other vitamins (except those containing iron) I put in a weekly pill container separated by day. So when I get up, I take my daily pills from the pill container. I swallow them down with Water. Lastly I take my sublingual B12 which I dissolve under my tongue. Then throughout the day whenever I think about it I swallow 2 calcium pills at a time with water giving a 2 hour separation between sets. Then before I go to bed I take my iron pill and my Flintstones.

From what you said this is emotional eating. So you may want to lower your stress levels or obtain some professional help to achieve this goal. Some people opt to weight themselves daily and the ups and downs can weight heavily on stress levels. So if you do this, it might be better to weight yourself once per week or once per month. You have lost 110 pounds so far and that is a good thing. Generally advice is to eat Protein first in your meals. Snack on protein or fats and minimize carbs Snacks. You may be nearing the maintenance stage and in that phase it is important to maintain your weight loss and not gain some of it back. A few months back I asked my nutritionist "Why do some people lose significant weight after surgery to gain some of it back?" She said it was due to grazing. So it is important to keep your grazing (snacking) in check. When I reached the maintenance stage, I reasoned that I needed to be happy with my meals in order to achieve long lasting effects. So I experimented a lot. I weighed myself daily and gave myself some freedom both in meals and snack. If I noticed any weight gain, I pulled myself back and fine tweaked my eating habits in order to remain stable.

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

On the top of this website is a pull down bar called "Resources". It tries to answer many of your specific questions. Also it links to a number of books on the subject.

I generally use Protein bars when I am on the go. Quest is a good brand. But since you had a RNY on 16 March, that may be a bit early to begin using these. Ask your nutritionist.

Generally immediately after gastric bypass surgery, the most important requirements are Vitamins, fluids and Protein. food is secondary. Your body is converting your stored fat into energy to drive your body. Thus you lose weight. When it comes to food, consume the volume of food at each meal dictated by the requirements of the program.

Generally there are two types of pre-op appointments. One is a half-day training class that lays out the requirements for the program in great detail. The other is a half-day of pre-op testing to ensure that your medical issues are identified and corrected prior to surgery. Generally after the first pre-op tests, a second wave of testing is schedule with specialists in their individual fields. This second wave of testing can take well over a month to schedule. Assuming that you have no other conditions, the second wave of testing is bypassed.

Get him involved in the process if you are able. Have him attend the surgery counseling meetings given by the doctor/hospital and the monthly bariatric surgery support meetings.

Congratulations. It's a great feeling having the inches just melt away. Look forward for more to come!

Walk. It should help with the recovery.