efierke

Pac-woman - the itching is likely from your skin being dry - you're not getting all the nutrients your body needs and your skin is likely suffering a little as a result. I've noticed the same itching / dry feeling. Probably a little dehydrated too.

Fan of the fuzzy navel but to cut the protein taste, I mix it with a crystal light single in 20-24 ounces of water and drink that over a couple hours.

If you're only getting that much in more than a couple days after the surgery you should be on the phone with your surgeon - you're going to go into renal failure.

Perhaps some clarification would be good - are you talking about the 6 months worth of classes and needing to show at least a little weight loss during that, or are you talking about the 10 (or in some cases 14 day) pre-op diet that you have right before surgery? the 6 month diet? I would get in the habit of tracking everything - even when you're eating crap and going way over what you should. that's the best thing I took away from that part of the diet. Eat Protein first, even if the protein is an In&Out monster style triple. track it, and know that soon enough you're having your last one. the liquid high protein pre-op diet leading up to surgery, however, is *very* important. you're going to feel like crap, you're going to be angry at the world. And yes, you might cheat (I had a handful of nuts one night on mine, and went over my veggie limit a couple of times) but the biggest physical obstruction to the surgery is your liver - that needs to shrink down prior to your surgery - burning up all your glycogen stores by going on a very-low-calorie-high-protein diet does just that. I've heard of more than one surgeon cancelling the surgery if they can tell that you didn't follow the pre-op diet closely. Even with my little cheats, I lost almost 20 pounds on the 11 day diet prior to my surgery (10 days of shakes and veggies, 1 day of clears and mag citrate). that's 20 pounds I didn't have to lose after surgery.

if there's a Pho place near you, see if you can just get the broth. I also made potato soup with milk, instant potato flakes, chicken broth, a little cheddar, and a host of seasonings.

If you have GERD it can get MUCH worse after you have the sleeve. I've had two episodes of "heartburn" since my surgery (just over 2 weeks now) and it's definitely more unpleasant than it used to be. You'll lose weight slower with the sleeve than you do with the bypass because you don't have malabsorption going on. Sleeve also means you don't have dumping syndrome (some day that's good, some say that's bad). Sleeve means you're not barred from NSAIDS permanently. Recovery from sleeve seems a bit faster when compared to the bypass. You don't have Vitamin deficiencies as bad with the sleeve as you do with the bypass. You also don't lose as much with the sleeve - on average 60% of excess weight. Gastric bypass is 65-70% and it happens faster. Those are averages though - that includes people who go on a milkshake diet a year after their sleeve and gain all the weight back. I'd say that if the 60% mark leaves you still in the morbid obese range, then I would say that the bypass might be a better bet.

Yes, butter isn't the best thing for you, but to be honest? lobster is extremely high in Protein. You're going to have less than perfect days - everyone is. would be much more worried about the quantity of what you ate than what you ate. the feeling of "well I fell off the wagon, I'm a failure" is why many of us were heavy enough that we had to go the surgical route in the first place. Sure, you had a bad day. know what? you're going to have another one eventually.

Golden rule of this surgery is that there are very few rules on what you will and will not be able to tolerate post-operatively. Rice, dense breads, Pasta, fibrous vegetables - they all commonly cause problems, but not with everyone. Once you're allowed, take it very slow and chew a LOT. chew about twice as long as you normally would pre-operatively, and then chew for a while longer.

It's going to be a struggle to get your fluids in the first few days, but you really want to try - dehydration can put you back in the hospital as easily as a leak. Diarrhea is perfectly normal, too

Granted right now I'm only on full liquids, but I have yet to get even 800 calories /day right now. You want to go on a VLCD? go back to full liquids or puree and I'm sure you'll be there, without paying $100/week.

you might have a little diaphragm pain for a few days after surgery with deep breathing, but the sore throat from being intubated was gone within about a day for me, and the deep breathing was fine after maybe 2 or 3 days.

As someone who works in a hospital and knows ER nurses, EMTs, and Paramedics - the website options are pretty much useless - at least in the health system I work in they're not going to bother checking a website if they're dealing with an emergency.

definitely sounds like a GI bug at this point, especially if there's no abdominal pain or other issues to go with it. Norovirus is common year round and it frighteningly easy to transmit.

so far - Syntrax nectar fuzzy navel to drink in Water, and isopure unflavored to use in simple recipes. from what I can tell, the isopure is heat tolerant too (at least to hot coffee) which is definitely helpful

Another one that I just came up with, cause I wanted something other than Jello for lunch: Resse cup milk 1 cup fairlife skim milk (or regular skim) 1 packet carnation instant Breakfast s/f chocolate 2 tablespoons PB2 Protein powder shake well - gives you 23gms protein per 8oz.

key lime "pie": 1 small box s/f lime Jello (could use another flavor if you like - have strawberry in the fridge right now) 1.5 cups of greek yogurt 2 scoops unflavored Protein powder 1/4 cup Water bring the water to a boil and dissolve your jello in there - stir it around some so it doesn't clump on the bottom. While that cools a little, mix up your yogurt and Protein Powder. Toss in the jello and mix with a wisk until smooth. put in a container and refrigerate until set. Each 1/2 cup serving has about 23gm protein Is it key lime pie? no. is it close? yeah.

at 16days post op worry a lot more about getting your Protein and fluids in than whatever the scale says. You're going to have stalls, but your body can't do the conversion of fat->glycogen->energy (and therefore weight loss) if you don't stay hydrated.

Was raised Episcopalian so this may not apply, but can't you dip the communion wafer into the wine and take communion that way? or be blessed by the priest similar to children who are too young to take communion.

yeah, things look broken. Hopefully someone will notice who can fix it.

the 10 day Pre-op diet while working just about gave me a nervous breakdown. Was incredibly moody, stiff muscles, and constantly hungry. For the 6-month preop I lost 10 pounds and then gained most of it back when I fell off the wagon. I'm now 1 week post-op and doing great. Do I have some cravings? Absolutely. Do I go to the store and see "trigger" foods that make my mouth Water, certainly. But It's been a quick lesson in the difference between head and stomach hunger, and getting used to just having to "take it slow"

at 5 1/2 weeks post op, you should absolutely be getting at least 64 oz of Fluid a day. Yes, that means you're sipping constantly, but you're thirsty because, especially if you've been drinking like that for the past month, you're seriously dehydrated. I usually take 1 scoop of Syntrax nectar, mix that with 16 oz of Water, and drink that over the course of an hour or two.

even if you're not running any kind of a fever I'd definitely get it checked out. Could be just your body reacting to the stitches, could be a mild infection. I was sleeved on the 19th and still have some pain when I first stand up, but it feels more like my muscles are simply too tight. if you haven't had your followup with the surgeon yet, I would definitely bring that up with him or her.

no problem with an Epsom salts bath. but if your surgeon ordered you to have a shower (or 2) with hibiclens soap, just do it before your hibiclens.

My required pre-op diet was 10 days of Bariatric Advantage shakes + up to 2 cups of low starch veggies per day. the shakes really aren't bad - I would recommend the vanilla, and you can change the flavors a little - little bit of powdered ginger or pumpkin pie spice, etc.

Just got home from the hospital about 2 hours ago and figured I'd talk about my experience. Was at Wellspan in York, PA with Dr Garber as my surgeon. Excellent doctor, btw, and would definitely recommend Wellspan's program for anyone who's in the area and considering it. I was the first case for him for the day, and remember waking up in PACU for the first time around 1030 in the morning, in a lot of pain, very groggy, and nauseated. Got Fentanyl and Zofran in the PACU, and had Fentanyl in my PCA. Got up to my room around 2pm or so and actually managed to walk the 15 feet from the gurney to the chair, where I spent a lot of time that evening. Monday night went about as expected - slept a little, had visitors, and used my PCA. Walked, but probably not as much as I should have, and the Fentanyl was only going so far in managing the pain. Felt (and still feel) a lot of pressure against my diaphragm when I stand up, but that's from all the air still in my abdomen. Tuesday morning transport took me down for the barium swallow. Swallowing the barium wasn't the hard part - getting up on the x-ray table was the hard part. Easily the most painful part of my hospital stay, even more than my initial wake-up pains. Barium tastes nasty btw - if they let you swish your mouth out before and after, definitely take them up on it. Turns out most of that pain was from gas pressure. Xray showed no leaks, but on further review, I did have an abnormally large amount of air in my abdomen and my small bowel - this was made evident when I was allowed liquids around noon - they didn't make me nauseated, but they did cause surges of pain and cramping in my belly - likely because there just wasn't room. I talked with my nurse, I was made NPO again for a few more hours, and told my nurse "I can't go home this evening if I'm still like this" - to her credit, she agreed. She called the attending, and we tried again with liquids later in the afternoon (around 4 I think). This time the pain was less, and each time I drank it hurt a bit less, so I was definitely on the right track. Still, no nausea thankfully. Also had no problems peeing after the catheter was out. I stayed the night tuesday night, actually got a decent amount of sleep, and did a lot of walking. Was home by about 10 am this morning. About 12 hours longer than originally expected, but I'm a lot better off for it. Am tolerating the few pills I'm supposed to take, and am getting my liquids in every 15 minutes without nausea. Definitely have a lot of pain when I go from sitting to standing, but it's good to be home. Couple of suggestions for those of you who are about to go through this: 1 - walk. the gas pains are worse than the surgical pains and it's true that your PCA won't help with the gas pains. It doesn't 2 - expect to be groggy - even without the PCA I was sleeping on and off from the time I got out of PACU up through tuesday afternoon. 3 - anesthesia + PCA = extreme dry mouth. Like worse than anything you've ever had. I couldn't hold conversations because my mouth would get so dry halfway through a sentence. 4 - Don't be afraid to speak up for yourself in the hospital. I say this as a nurse too - if you don't think you can go home when they're expecting to send you home, say so. if the pain isn't under control, say so. At least at my hospital, the floor I was sent to is where all the bariatric surgery patients go - they know you need to walk and will help you walk. Take them up on it.