JamieLogical

Weight gain and stalls can happen, even this early out. Don't panic! Give your body time to adjust and adapt to all of the trauma it has been through. As for not feeling full, that is also common. The surgery can seriously damage your nerves and therefore mess up all the signals from your stomach to your brain. It is VERY VERY important to measure your food and eat on a schedule. DO NOT rely on signals from your body right now. Also, while it is good to be walking short distances frequently throughout the day, don't overdo it. You are still healing and recovering from major surgery. You shouldn't be worrying about calorie burn right now. You should be focusing on healing and getting all of your water and protein in.

I met my protein goals pretty early out and pushed hard to get to 100 grams a day (my NUT's recommendation) as quickly as I possibly could. I was also religious about taking my vitamins. Still, I lost a fair amount of hair beginning at about 3.5 months post op. The heavy loss only lasted about a month and a half and I started to see new growth again immediately. I don't think anyone besides me would have noticed my hair looking any thinner. My husband noticed only because of the MASSIVE amount of hair all over the bathroom. However, it was definitely noticeable when all the baby hairs started growing in and sticking up all over the place!

I really really love the Couch to 5k program and highly recommend it. When I first started it, I was just doing this thing where I would "run" (really slow jog) for one minute then walk for four minutes and repeat that cycle over the course of a half hour. But by the time I finished C25k, I was able to "run" for 35 minutes straight! It is truly amazing. There are apps available if you have a smart phone, otherwise you can just get the workout schedule online.

Unless your stomach or esophagus are very swollen post-op (mine was) liquids pass right through your sleeve. Did you have a barium swallow test for leaks after surgery? If so, you would have seen that the barium passed through your sleeve in a matter of seconds. Liquids don't sit in your stomach long enough to make you feel full. On top of that, the surgery itself can cause serious trauma to your nerves, making it impossible to get full signals to your brain. Both of these reasons are why it is INCREDIBLY important to measure your food and eat on a schedule in the early weeks post-op. You CANNOT rely on your body to give you proper signals at all. Please, please, please, weigh and measure your food and make sure you are spacing your "meals" out properly.

I would just check with your local doctor first. Two years out, there is a decent chance this has nothing at all to do with your surgery.

Recovery for everyone is different, but most people are able to go back to work after two weeks or so max. I went back to work at 15 days post-op and my biggest problem at that point was fatigue. Between the energy your body is using to heal and the limited calorie intake, you don't have much to get you through the day. In my early days back to work, I literally went to bed the minute I got home. One thing that is critical to recovery is walking. At your high starting weight, I am not sure if that would be an issued for you. I did a lot of marching in place and very short walks on my street or my treadmill. You will need to figure out a way to get some movement in short bursts, many times per day. You will start losing weight on your pre-op diet and continue losing probably significant amounts immediately post-op as well. Many people experience a stall in week two or three. It's perfectly normal and you need to not panic if/when it happens to you. It will likely be the first of many stalls, as weight loss isn't typically lineal. Your body will occasionally go through periods of adjustment which can cause the weight loss to slow or stop altogether for a little bit. The important thing is that your weight will trend downward overall. Loose skin is just a reality of rapid and massive weight loss. There are some steps you can take to try to minimize it, but most of it will be out of your control. There are many factors such as starting weight, age, and genetics, that you can't do anything about. What you can control is your hydration, moisturization, supplements and toning. Staying well hydrated is very good for your skin and is something that is critical to your success post-op anyway, so definitely focus on that. Moisturize daily. Most people recommend a lotion with shea butter for improving skin elasticity. Take your supplements and maybe take extra Vitamin C, vitamin E, and beef Gelatin. All of which have been shown to help improve skin. And then, finally, you can work on toning and building muscle to help "fill in" your skin where you have lost fat.

I was allowed alcohol at 3 months post-op, but advised to never drink carbonated beverages. That being said, I have had beer a couple of times and I know that there are several people on these forums who drink soda daily. You have to make some choices for yourself. Personally, carbonation scares me and I worry about how gassy and uncomfortable I might be if I tried to drink much of it. But you have to assess the potential risks verses rewards for yourself. Advise from your NUT and surgeon should be fully considered and understood, but ultimately, you are the one who has to live your life.

@@drmeow I hope your sleeve ultimately works out for you. It must have been very disappointing to go through all that and still not end up with the procedure you wanted. I suppose if it doesn't work out, a revision to bypass is always possible, though you obviously can never get that 80% of your stomach back. I think that if you are diligent and focus on making the most of your sleeve, it can work for you. All the best!

Very normal. In my early days post-op, every single food commercial made me "hungry" even though I knew actually attempting to eat any of those things would be horrible. It definitely takes some time for your brain to catch on that you can't eat the way you used to. For me it was really a good 3-4 months before I really accepted it.

I actually recently had to ask "what's the smallest size you have?" at Torrid, because I love their clothes but I'm too small for them now.

My first week was not fun. I had a really hard time sip, sip, sipping my Water, because every teeny tiny sip caused this whole chain reaction. I'd have constriction and pain in my esophagus, then all this gurgling coming up into the back of my throat. Ugh! But that got better as my internal swelling went down and it was a little less terrible if I marched in place while drinking. I was tired all the time. Slept a LOT. I had bad cramps in my lower abdomen until they removed my drain. Every single food commercial on TV made me "hungry" even though I knew that if I actually ate that food I would die. I definitely suffered a lot of "buyer's remorse" in the early weeks, but it all worked out in the end. My biggest piece of advice is to try to be patient. Everything gets a little easier every day.

That sounds potentially stressful. Hopefully it won't make you crazy! You'll already have plenty to deal with as you are recovering.

Make sure you follow all your surgeons instructions about working out post-op. You will need to take it easy and just stick to walking in the beginning. Don't overdo it!

Today I decided to wear a new dress to work (yes I occasionally wear dresses now!). This particular dress is a little shorter than I would normally feel comfortable in. It's from the Juniors section and you know how they like their dresses/skirts a good 3 inches shorter than normal. Anyway, this is a "winter" dress and I knew I would always be wearing it with leggings or tights, so I decided short was okay. However, walking into work from the car this morning, I was feeling a little self-conscious about the length, so I was using my bag to cover my butt. This gave me a total flashback to pre-sleeve when I used to use my bag to try to cover my butt for a totally different reason. I have to wear dress pants (or now dresses) to work and dress pants are pricey. Back when I was fat and getting fatter, I HATED having to drop serious money on bigger pants. So there were many times when I was SQUEEZING into dress pants that were way too small for me. A couple of times I even had to reinforce the stitching in the seat of my pants so they wouldn't split. I used to always walk around work with my bag covering my butt to hide the fact that my pants were straining for dear life back there. So glad things have changed!

You're allowed gum? Lucky! But, yes, ketosis is a likely culprit. Make sure you are getting all your Water in too.

Yay! Congrats to you on your progress so far. Now you are going to start having the opposite problem... not wanting to spend money on new clothes as you are shrinking!

Welcome! Sounds like you are well on your way in the process now, but at least you won't be on your pre-op diet until after the Holidays! I am a little familiar with Beckley as I had to pass through there on my way two and from college all the time (lived in OH and went to college in VA). My biggest memory of it was when we got snowed in there for about 4 days on my way back to school after Christmas break in '96. The highways closed down so we had to get a hotel room there and then we weren't able to leave until the highways opened back up again. We even had to get snow tires put on the car there, because they initially only opened the roads back up to people who had chains or snow tires. We were in a rush so I wouldn't miss the start of the semester, but then I got to school and the school itself was still closed for another 3 days. Anyway, welcome to the site and feel free to post all your questions, concerns, panic attacks, etc. We're here to help!

I was definitely very grumpy in the first several weeks post-op and my husband had to bear the brunt of it, because he was the one unlucky enough to be around. Between the fatigue, the discomfort, the frustration, and the hormones, it's a wonder he stayed with me! The good news is, it did get a lot better one I was eating more. I do still get very "hangry" if I go more than 3-4 hours without eating. My husband puts up with it, but my mom actually took to carrying around nuts or turkey sticks in her purse whenever we're doing stuff together. She makes me eat something at the first signs of hangriness.

Honestly, the recovery from breast lift and augmentation is minimal. It shouldn't be too tough. The main thing I hated was having to wear my surgical bra 24/7 for the first 8-10 weeks. You know how when you get home from work at the end of a long rday and you can't wait to take your bra off. Having that feeling 24/7 for weeks on end is NOT pleasant. But really, the pain and discomfort from my breast lift and augmentation was barely a blip on my radar since I had a tummy tuck at the same time and that was serious business. Just make sure you aren't trying to lift anything. Not even a gallon of milk into your shopping cart. Don't hesitate to ask strangers for help in those situations. People are remarkably nice. You will have a lot of random pain and twinges and sensations from the implants that will take some getting used to.

I think one of the great things I've realized through this journey is that the sleeve is there for us, no matter what else is going on in our lives. My life has been crazy the past few months too. My sister left her husband so she and her FOUR kids moved in with us for three months. Meanwhile, we were trying to sell our house and buy a new one. Then we moved to the new house and had a MILLION projects to do before we could really get settled in. I definitely got WAY outside of my routine in terms of exercise and whatnot. But I've managed to maintain my weight, because the sleeve is still there, doing its thing for me. I know it will be even better once I can get back on track with my exercise!

I lost 90 pounds through diet and exercise back in 2010/2011 and one of the ways I did that was by tracking every bite of food I ate. The site I used for tracking back then set target ranges for my macronutrients based on my height, weight, activity level, and weight loss goals. I was supposed to eat 60-90 grams of Protein a day and stay under 60 grams of fat per day. I was allowed a pretty outrageous (by my current standards) amount of carbs... something like 240 grams! I really got in the habit back then of checking the labels of everything I ate and making sure it had more protein than fat. That was the easiest way for me to to make sure I got enough protein and not too much fat. I pretty much eat the exact same things now as I did back then, minus the carbs. If I go back over my food logs from then, the meals we had for dinner are identical to what we eat now, except I no longer have the rice, Pasta, bread, or potato components.

Yep. That's exactly the scenario I was having. The gummy bears seem to have helped.

I was told to try to drink an ounce every 15 minutes, which really isn't all that much, it just means you have to be sipping all day long.

With sleeve you are sure to absorb the vitamins you take. With bypass, you could potentially still not absorb the vitamins, even with supplements and have to resort to injections or other more extreme solutions. It's not about taking vitamins or not, it's about being confident you are getting the full benefit from them. Also I know a bypass patient who have to take more vitamins than I do, because she developed deficiencies in the fat soluble vitamins (E & K). So, while I do have to take vitamins everyday, I don't have to take as many as a bypass patient might potentially have to.

For me the choice was easy. Here are my reasons for not choosing bypass: I had a lower starting BMI with less than 100 pounds to lose, so felt I didn't need such a "drastic" surgery. Hated the idea of my detached stomach and intestines still just sitting inside me where they could still develop ulcers, cancer, or God knows what else while no longer being accessible with a simple endoscopy. Didn't like the idea of losing the use of my pyloric valve. More disconnections and reconnections meant higher likelihood of leaks. Potential for dumping syndrome. Potential for malabsorption and vitamin/mineral deficiencies. Bonus benefits of sleeve over RNY: The stretchy part of your stomach (the fundus) is removed with sleeve, but only partially removed with RNY. The part of your stomach that produces ghrelin (the hunger hormone) is removed with sleeve. I want to emphasize that these are MY reasons. RNY is a hugely successful and proven solution and is a fantastic option for a lot of people. You should figure out what is most important to you and what you can live with long term, discuss your goals and concerns with your surgeon, and figure out what the best option for YOU is.