James Marusek

I rely heavily on homemade high Protein chili and Soups. I make a pot and it last me for almost a week at a time.

I am sorry to hear you have no support system where you live. Do you have specific problems that you would like to discuss. I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass surgery. I have written a couple short articles about my experience in the "Weight Loss" phase and the "Maintenance" phase. Here are links: http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery.pdf http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery2.pdf On your profile, you show that you lost 280 pounds. That is a great amount of shed weight, congratulations.

The condition you described is not common. I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass. It almost sounds like a stricture, but those generally occur early on within the first 3 months. One way to detect this condition is an upper gi and that is one of the tests you underwent. The only other thought that crossed my mind is maybe some type of Vitamin deficiency. After RNY surgery, you are required to take many Vitamins for the rest of your life. This is because you body no longer synthesizes vitamins from food. That part of your stomach has been cut away, so this daily requirement is extremely important. Even the formulations in the vitamins are important. For example gummy vitamins are not readily absorbed and therefore this is not an option. You cannot use a time-release version of B12 and sublingual formulation must be methylcobalamin. If you are taking Iron supplements, it must be ferrous sulfate for the best absorption. The Calcium supplements formulation must be calcium citrate for best absorption. Each year I undergo a blood workup, which should tell me and my surgeon if I am deficient in any area.

Congratulations.

I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass surgery. I had severe acid reflux (GERD) prior to surgery. But this condition went into remission shortly after surgery and stayed there. My surgeon prescribed that I take prilosec (omeprazole) for the first year after surgery - not for acid reflux but to help my stomach heal.

It is common to have doubts prior to surgery. I primarily had surgery because my obesity was affecting my health. I developed diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and severe acid reflux (GERD). Within days after my RNY surgery, all those conditions went into remission. So for me it was the right choice. I do not know if the surgery will have a positive effect on your conditions (fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis). Others who have these conditions might chime in and let you know their thoughts.

I had diarrhea from the get-go. I realized after surgery I became lactose intolerant. So I stopped drinking milk or anything that contained lactose and my stomach simmered down. [some Protein shakes contain lactose.] Also it is important after surgery to take some Probiotics. Generally in the hospital there are so many bugs floating around that they put you on a regiment of antibiotics while you are there. These antibiotics kill not only the bad bacteria but also the good ones. So when you get home it is important to reestablish the colonies of good bacteria in your gut, to help with the processing of food in your intestines. That is what probiotics do. Since you mentioned diarrhea and nausea together, you might be experiencing a bit of dumping syndrome. You new stomach cannot tolerate sugar or fat. These foods will pass through your new stomach and be dumped into your intestines. The intestines have not yet learned how to deal with these, so therefore it will lead to dumping. This can also lead to nausea. The transition to solid foods can be especially difficult. But things will begin to settle down after a few months.

After my RNY gastric bypass surgery, I found that I could no longer swallow large to medium size pills. So I either crushed or split them. My medicines were reduced as a result of surgery, so most of what I was taking was Vitamins. The large Citrical Calcium supplements as a powder was the worse because they tasted like taking caulk. I would add the powder into a glass of Crystal Light and drink the glass down quickly. But because much of the calcium paste remained at the bottom of the glass, I had to fill up the glass and repeat, and then repeat a third time to get most of it down. This process made getting my daily Fluid requirements a breeze. After a couple months, I found that I was even able to swallow the Citracal size horseflies whole without a problem. Also do as @@WLSResources/ClothingExch suggested and check to verify with your surgical team if the specific medicines that you are taking can be crushed. Some medicines are not meant to be crushed and can be dangerous to consume in crushed form.

How many months post-op gastric bypass surgery are you? The three most important elements after RNY gastric bypass surgery are to meet your daily Protein, Fluid and Vitamin requirements. food is secondary because your body is converting your stored fat into the energy that drives your body. Thus you lose weight. Weight loss is achieved after surgery through volume control. You begin at 2 ounces (1/4 cup) per meal and gradually over the next year and a half increase the volume to 1 cup per meal. With this minuscule amount of food, it is next to impossible to meet your protein daily requirements by food alone, so therefore you need to rely on supplements such as Protein shakes.

It might be a little too soon to transition to Protein bars. It wasn't until the 3rd or 4th month that my nutritionist recommended them. Your stomach may still need a little extra time. A protein bar is probably too dense at this point. I used Quest Protein Bars. These bars were good in that they had high protein, minimal sugar and also contained Fiber. They also came in a lot of different flavors. Protein bars are good when you are on the go and can't drag along a blender in order to mix a Protein shake. There are many different types of formulations on Protein shakes. I would recommend that you keep experimenting until you find one that you can tolerate. You don't have to like it, just tolerate it. I used Muscle Milk Light (vanilla Creme) powder blended with Water and a half a banana. That worked for me. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, you might try premixed Isopure. A Quest protein bar contains 220 calories and provides 21 grams of protein. A Muscle Milk Light protein [2 scoops of powder in a 16 ounce glass] contains 210 calories and provides 25 grams of protein. So they are comparable.

A study by David Cummings et. al. published in Diabetalogia investigated the mounting evidence indicates that Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) ameliorates type 2 diabetes. 32 adults were divided into 2 groups. In the ILMI [intensive lifestyle and medical intervention] group, the individuals performed ≥45 min of aerobic exercise 5 days per week, a dietitian-directed weight- and glucose-lowering diet, and optimal diabetes medical treatment for 1 year. In the RYGB group, the individuals received Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB). Diabetes remission at 1 year was 60.0% with RYGB vs 5.9% with ILMI (p = 0.002). Compared with the most rigorous ILMI yet tested against surgery in a randomised trial, RYGB yielded greater type 2 diabetes remission in mild-to-moderately obese patients recruited from a well-informed, population-based sample. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00125-016-3903-x I am almost 3 years post-op RNY surgery. I had Type 2 diabetes and took 2 types of medication prior to surgery. When I left the hospital 2 days after surgery, my diabetes went into remission and I went off my meds. It has stayed in remission ever since. Many individuals on this website report similar results. But a few don't. From prior posts, one of the variables for success appears to be the length of time the individual had diabetes prior to surgery. So one of the interesting points of this study is: The groups were equivalent regarding all baseline characteristics, except that the RYGB cohort had a longer diabetes duration (11.4 ± 4.8 vs 6.8 ± 5.2 years, p = 0.009).

I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass. After my first yearly blood workup, they noted that I was Iron deficient. So I was asked to take an iron supplement. They asked me to take Ferrous Sulfate. Apparently there are two types of chemical formulations on iron supplements and Ferrous Sulfate is the best absorbed. I thought that perhaps my deficiency might be related to when I took my iron supplements. Iron and Calcium do not mix. There has to be time spacing of at least two hours between taking them. Although I tried to give it some separation I drank milk and thought perhaps the calcium in milk might be interfering with my irons. So I moved all my iron supplements to the end of the day just before bedtime. My next annual blood workup showed iron was O.K.

I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass surgery. The plan I was given to follow was: Weeks 1-8: 2 ounces of food per meal x 3 meals per day Weeks 9-15: 3 ounces per meal Months 4-6: 4 ounces per meal Months 7-9: 5 ounces per meal Months 10-12: 6 ounces per meal Months 12-18: 7 ounces per meal Months 18 and beyond: 8 ounces per meal One other point. Protein shakes do not count against your meal allotment. I would blend in a half a banana into my Protein shake and the half a banana does not count against my meals. [but don't take this to the extreme.]

Congratulations and let us know if we can be of any help.

Congratulations.

Protein is really important. There are so many different types of protein supplements available; that there is one that will probably fit your needs. I used Muscle Milk Light (vanilla creme) Protein powder and mixed it with water and added a half a banana in the blender for my Protein shake. Others seem to like premixed Isopure. In the worse case, you might fall back on milk which is fortified with powdered milk. 32 ounces of 1% milk combined with 1 cup dry milk provides 56 grams of protein. It might take you all day to drink this. But it also helps to meet your daily Fluid requirements.

Brains naturally shrink with age. Starting in middle age, the brains of obese people show startling differences in gray matter tissue versus white matter tissue compared to those of normal weight, according to an analysis of fMRI images. White matter tissue connects regions of the brain and allows for information to be communicated between those regions. Scientists looked at data from 473 individuals between the ages of 20 and 87 who were recruited by the Cambridge Centre for Aging and Neuroscience. It’s a cross-sectional study (it looked at data from individuals at only one point in time) so it can’t be conclusive, but they wanted an idea of how obesity impacts brain structure across the adult lifespan and to infer if obesity caused greater brain changes characteristic of aging. Overweight people showed differences, a widespread reduction, in brain matter structure compared with those of their leaner counterparts. http://acsh.org/news/2016/08/04/your-brain-on-obesity-overweight-people-are-ten-years-older/ I think a more interesting question "Is this trend reversible for obese patients that undergo weight loss surgery and achieve long term normal BMI levels. A few days ago, I posted that: With one third of the adult American population being obese, it is no surprise that there are 113,000 bariatric surgical cases per year. Studies have shown how the procedure can improve obesity-related disorders, such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension [high blood pressure], and high cholesterol levels. Researchers are adding another to this growing list – premature aging. In a paper presented at the recent European Society of Cardiology Frontiers In Cardiovascular Biology Conference in Florence, Italy, Austrian researcher Philipp Hohensinner and his collaborators discussed the role of bariatric surgery in improving and possibly reversing the premature aging phenotype of previously morbidly obese patients. http://acsh.org/news/2016/07/28/bariatric-surgery-may-reverse-obesity-associated-premature-aging/ So maybe there is some hope for us old-timers.

I used Muscle Milk Light (vanilla Creme) and blended it with Water and added a half a banana in the blender. It is lactose free. There are two other options: Since you are 13 months post-op, you might transition to Protein bars. Quest makes a good Protein Bar and they come in a very wide range of flavors. If you concentrate on consuming high protein meals, you might begin to offload your requirement for protein supplements. Your daily protein requirement is met by the protein derived from meals combines with the protein from supplements. I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass surgery. As my meal volume increased from 2 ounces per meal to 1 cup per meal over the first year and a half, I was able to reduce my 3 Protein shakes a day, down to 2, then down to 1, and finally to none.

Congratulations and let us know if we can be of any help.

Congratulations.

Good luck on your surgery and check back with us when you are on the other side.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

The three most important elements after gastric sleeve surgery are to meet your daily Protein, Fluid and Vitamin requirements. food is secondary because your body is converting your stored fat into the energy that drives your body. Thus you lose weight. Your daily fluid requirements are met in a variety of ways. It includes the Water you drink to take your daily Vitamins. It includes the water in soups. It includes the water or milk content in Protein shakes. So long term it is generally not difficult to meet your daily fluid requirement. But meeting it is very important. As your fat cells are eliminated, they destroy not only fat but the chemicals and hormones stored in these cells. These enter your system and need to be flushed out through your kidneys and then in your urine. So the danger is not only dehydration which can send you back into the emergency room if it gets serious but also intensifies the surge of hormones and emotions. Some individual report taking fluids cold such as flavored water using Crystal Light (and this can also include sugar free popsicles) can go down easier. Others report that hot liquids (such as tea or hot cocoa using "no sugar added" variety can go down easier. So experiment a little until you find what is best for you. It is common for individuals to be unable to meet their daily fluid and protein requirement during the first few weeks after surgery. You new stomach needs a little time to heal. But keep working towards this goal and you should be able to reach it shortly.

Congratulations and good luck on your surgery.