James Marusek

There is nothing that says you have to rush into the solid phase. Just take your time because solid food can be hard especially in the beginning. So let us go over basics. 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. For me I found that solid foods (such as steak) were hard to deal with after surgery. But softer foods (chili and soups) went down much easier. So this is what I relied on. I wrote a short article about my experience and included some recipes, if you would like to try them at the end of the article. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery.pdf

I don't think you have stretched your pouch. But on the other hand, it is extremely important to follow the daily meal volume limits if you want to maximize your weight loss. The weight loss phase is relatively short and then your weight loss will level off and you will slide into the maintenance phase.

The first few days after surgery can be very rough but each day improves a little. It took me 6 months to reach my happy state when all the problems seemed to melt away. So it does not happen overnight. Since you went from sleeve to gastric bypass, you already have a handle on the level of pain that you should experience because you already went through sleeve surgery. This is your normal. So you have something to compare it with. Generally pain gives us an indication, if something is wrong. So if you are experiencing extreme pain, something that you did not experience when you were sleeved, then consult with your surgeon's office or as @@blueeyedgirlvsg said make a visit to the ER. Some individuals report extreme emotions after surgery. In part this is due to the fat cells breaking down. These cells not only contain fat but also hormones and chemicals. They need to be flushed from your system through your kidneys and expelled through your urine. Otherwise you will experience a hormone flush. You need fluids to make this process work properly. So make sure you are meeting your daily Fluid requirements. I don't believe that is your problem at the moment because you are only 2 days out and this is something you would have also experienced after you were sleeved. I suspect that the depression you are experiencing might be due to the extreme pain. Pain can be caused by a number of factors. The surgery itself will produce pain. Walking helps to relieve this pain. But there is another kind of pain to keep a watchful eye out for. It is the pain associated with blood clots. Blood clots can produce deep vain thrombosis (dull ache or pain in leg, tightness or swelling in leg) and it can produce a pulmonary embolism (sudden shortness of breath or chest pain with breathing). Blood clots are a major risk factor that needs to be resolved immediately with your surgical team.

Go to the main Forum page, pick a category that the question fits under. Click on that category. As it opens that discussion area there is a box called "Start New Topic". Click on that box. That opens a new page. Put a name to the Topic and fill in a description to the Topic and then hit "Post New Topic".

Good luck on your upcoming surgery and let us know if we can be of any help. I am 67 years old and I had RNY gastric bypass surgery 3 years ago. I found the surgery to be less painful than prior surgeries (hernia) a few decades ago. But I did a lot of walking both before and after surgery. It really helps with reducing the pain levels and aiding recovery. I didn't get much sleep in the hospital because they insisted that I walk every 2 hours around the clock to preclude the development of blood clots.

With one third of the adult American population being obese, it is no surprise that there are 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/

Off Topic: When I read the title of your post "Single or Double" and then your handle "Blessing" before I even read the content, I said to myself "That is a no brainer, I will take a double blessing, please." So I looked up the term anastomosis. An example of surgical anastomosis occurs when a segment of intestine is resected and the two remaining ends are sewn or stapled together (anastomosed). The procedure is referred to as intestinal anastomosis. Other examples include Roux-en-Y anastomosis. So I would guess that a single anastomosis has one segment reconnection whereas a double anastomosis has two.

Congratulations on your weight loss.

According to the internet: Laparoscopic gastric bypass and gastric sleeve surgery (sleeve gastrectomy) produce a similar amount of pain. Typically, more pain is experienced at the site of the incision that the surgeon removed the stomach from. This is usually the upper left quadrant (under your rib cage on your left side). This makes sense because in order to remove the stomach during a gastric sleeve procedure the incision needs to be widened and often stretched. Muscle fibers tear and are often bruised as a result. During gastric bypass surgery, the anastomosis (the connection of the intestines to the new stomach) is often made with a circular stapler. These staplers are large and typically require enlarging the incision in the upper left quadrant. The insertion and removal of this stapler can stretch the muscle and sometimes cause bruising. http://www.obesitycoverage.com/before-after/poop-pain-staples-after-surgery

I am 3 years post-op RNY surgery and I am 67 years old. Walking is good exercise. My knees are good, no pain. I walk but avoid running. Two of my younger sisters had knee replacement, in part because they were overweight. In my opinion, running puts significant stress on the joints that can come back and haunt you years later. In my younger years, I use to climb hills and mountains, go on camping trips off the beaten trail. So generally, my exercise now is hill walking. It is different than normal walking because it exercises two types of muscles, one on the way up and the other on the way down. It is like climbing stairs. My driveway is fairly steep, around a 30 degree incline. So I walk up and down my driveway for exercise. Sometimes with my dog!

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. Back to the point of Dizziness. It might be due to several factors. For example if you were taking medication prior to surgery, they may need to be adjusted. This can especially be true for medication to control blood sugar and blood pressure. Also there is a condition called reactive hypoglycemia that some individuals encounter after weight loss surgery. Dizziness or lightheadedness is also caused by dehydration. In order to get a handle on the cause, you might want to evaluate when it occurs. For example, do you experience this first thing in the morning when you get out of bed or when you get up after sitting down. Or do you experience this a few hours after a meal? Do you experience this all the time?

Congratulations.

Congratulations on your surgery and also your new child. I also had my surgery at St. Vincent's in Indianapolis. It is a great place.

Stalls are so common that someone here coined the phrase "Embrace the Stall". Just meet your daily Protein, Fluid, and Vitamin requirements; walk about 30 minutes per day [or equivalent exercise]; follow the meal plan you were given by the surgeon's office and let the magic happen.

Good luck on your surgery and check back with us when you are on the other side. Let us know if we can be of any help.

Your daily Protein requirement is met by a combination of the amount of protein you obtain from food combined with the amount of protein from protein supplements (Protein shakes, protein bars). Right after gastric bypass surgery, the volume of food you are restricted to is minuscule (2 ounces) per meal. But as you get further along, the meal volume increases. Therefore if you concentrate on consuming high protein meals, you have a very important option available to you. You can start to reduce your reliance on protein supplements. I went from 3 protein shakes per day in the beginning, down to 2, down to 1, and then when my meal volume increased to 1 cup per meal at a year and a half, I was able to completely offload my use of protein shakes. This is important because protein shakes contain calories. If you can reduce your caloric intake, then you can end a stall. At least that was the approach that I used and it worked for me.

Life is full of trade-offs. I traded my love of food for good health. I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass surgery and believe that the surgery was the best thing that ever happened to me. As I aged, I gained weight. I was fine with that. But as the years dragged on, my obesity began to affect my health. I developed high blood pressure, diabetes, severe acid reflux (GERD) and sleep apnea and several other conditions. Very, very shortly after surgery, all these conditions went into remission and remained there. That was the main reason why I underwent the surgery. But there were several added benefits. I lost a lot of weight. My BMI is now in the normal category. I can do physical manual labor without becoming tired, sweating a lot, and getting winded. I am 67 years old and now have the endurance (for work) that I had when I was in my 30's. Clothes fit. My size was so large before surgery that I could no longer find clothing in department stores. I went from a size 3X in shirts to a size Small and from a size 46 in pants down to a size 33. I threw away my entire wardrobe and began again but this time with the latest fashions and they looked good on me.

From past links on this site, it was noted that the pain experienced after plastic surgery is more severe than the pain from minimally invasive (laparoscopic) weight loss surgery.

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. I lost my hunger after surgery and it was not difficult to lose weight when you are not hungry. But the hunger returned about a year later but by that time I had lost a significant amount of weight. @ said I am a year out from my RNY. I was non compliant all that time. I did not gain any weight but I also did not lose. I have NO appetite. This is rather strange and it seems to me that something is wrong unrelated to your surgery. After I gained my appetite back, I had an experience of getting a stomach flu that lasted for a week. During that week, I was not hungry and ate very little and lost weight quickly. So if you continue to want to lose weight; restrict the volume of your meals, and make sure that you are meeting your daily protein, fluid and vitamin requirements. Also try to get in around 30 minutes of walking exercise per day [or equivalent].

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

Congratulations on being successful in the Maintenance phase. I am 3 years post-op. I started to cut back on my calciums. But my blood work detected that my Calcium was low. So I went back on the full regime.

There are two phases to weight loss surgery. These are the "Weight Loss" phase and the "Maintenance" phase. The strategy for each of these phase is very different. During the weight loss phase, weight loss is achieved through meal volume control. During the maintenance phase, weight is maintained through hunger control. I am 3 years post-op RNY and I am doing well in the maintenance phase. This short article describes my experience with the Maintenance phase. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery2.pdf

The dreaded stall! Well just keep hanging in there and remember the three most important elements after weight loss surgery is to meet the daily requirements for Protein, fluids and Vitamins. Do some exercise. And then wait for the magic to happen.

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

My insurance company required a 6 month medically monitored diet and exercise program prior to approval. I am 3 years post op RNY gastric bypass surgery. Prior to surgery I had high blood pressure and diabetes and took 4 types of medicine to treat these conditions. Within 2 weeks after surgery, these conditions went into remission and stayed there. I also had severe acid reflux (GERD) and that condition went into remission also. I don't know about PCOS and metabolic syndrome. I have seen a few threads where these conditions may sabotage the weight loss and health benefits after surgery so you may want to look into how surgery affects these conditions. Heart attack at age 25, that is simply terrible. May you live to be 100.