JamieLogical

How are you already cleared to eat chicken and tuna at 2 weeks? That seems SUPER fast. As @@CowgirlJane mentioned, the surgery can cause damage to your nerves so you may not yet be getting proper "full" signals from your stomach, but you could still be causing damage to your sleeve. It is VERY important to eat on a timer and measure out your food in these early days while you are still healing. You cannot trust your body to tell when you are full or even doing internal harm. You need to stick to the plan.

@@Notsolilmama49 You've come to the right place! This site is great for venting and sharing and asking questions! Hopefully you can find all the support you need here. Feel free to send me a private message and I'll be happy to answer any questions I can.

I received a reply back from Quest's customer service and here was their recommendation on how to approach eating the new bars: I don't know if I want to attempt that, since it would definitely mess up my routine to only eat 1/8 of a bar at a time, but it might be worth the effort if it meant getting to ultimately eat whole Quest Bars again without the gas.

In my experience, people who were used to seeing you as "fat" have a hard time adjusting to the skinnier you and you therefore look "too skinny" to them. I get those "too skinny" comments a lot from friends and family members who haven't seen me in a long time. Like, I just went to my sister's wedding and saw some of my aunts and my brother and sister-in law, who I hadn't seen in over a year. They all said I was "too skinny" now, even though I'm technically still 10 pounds heavier than a normal BMI for my height. I think it's just such a shock to them and they are looking at you in comparison to the old you, so you seem too skinny compared to your former fat self.

I made mine via PayPal, so there was some built-in security. Your credit card company probably covers fraudulent charges, so if you do use your credit card, just keep a close eye on it in the coming months and report anything suspicious immediately.

@ Hopefully the soluble corn fiber won't have a negative effect on you. Some people handle it just fine. I wish I were one of those people! The only bars I've found that use IMO that I like the taste of are Combat Crunch, but they are SOOOOO expensive. I thought Quest Bars were expensive, but these are ridiculous!

I think you are right to trust your surgeons judgement. He is the expert after all! Though I know it can be disappointing and disorienting to not get the surgery you planned on, especially when you had probably done a lot of research on bypass over the past couple months. From my own research, it seems that the long term weight loss and success of sleeve is very similar to bypass. The main difference in outcome seems to be that bypass patients tend to lose more quickly. But this isn't a race, so I don't see that as a huge advantage unless you really just have so much weight to lose that it's an immediate risk to your health and getting the weight off fast gives you the best chance to survive. I think there are a lot of advantages to sleeve over bypass, once you look past the rate of loss. There is much lower risk of malabsorption and long-term complications. Both surgeries have their pros and cons and both can be successful. Both are just tools to help you on your journey, not solutions in and of themselves. So as long as you are committed to making the most of your WLS and doing what it takes, you can be successful. I wish you the best of luck!

Yep, you should be good then! Lucky!

They are usually available in border states. They cost more than a normal license and they have an RF chip in them. I live in NY, near the Canadian border, so I got one to make crossing back and forth between the US and Canada easier once they changed the laws for border crossing post-911. However, as Henry pointed out, an enhanced license is technically not enough to allow you to cross the border INTO Mexico, as the Mexican government recently changed their own laws to require either a passport or passport card to ENTER Mexico. While that law is indeed on the books, how much it's being enforced is a matter of debate. I was not asked for ANY form of ID when I crossed the border into Mexico for my VSG.

Yeah, if you read back through this thread a little, I explained more in detail about my plastic surgery. I had lost 90 pounds "on my own" back in 2010/2011 and had plastic surgery in August of 2011. I had an extended tummy tuck and breast lift with augmentation. Over the years since my plastics, I had regained 80 if the original 90 pounds I lost, so I then decided to have VSG in September 2014. So the "before" photos in my original post were post plastics, but pre-VSG, thus my flat stomach and perky boobs! Somewhere in this thread I posted the "before" pictures from 2010, before I lost the 90 pounds on my own and my shape was much less pleasing at 270 back then! Luckily, my tummy tuck held up incredibly well through my weight re-gain and re-loss, so my stomach looks amazing now. I do have significant amounts of loose skin on my thighs and hope to have a thigh lift at some point. I also have a little loose skin on my upper arms, but not bad enough to justify an arm lift.

I was going to suggest the same thing. I am in love with the Key Lime. Also, the Raspberry has a jam-like substance with some seeds, but no actual chunks.

@@MrsSugarbabe There are a variety of ingredients in Quest Bars that may or may not sit well with certain people. Some of the flavors use Erythritol, a sugar alcohol that has been known to cause diarrhea and bloating in some people. Some use artificial sweeteners including Stevia and Sucralose, which many people have issues with. For me, none of those ingredients had caused any problems. I've been eating the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough bars for almost a year now. It was just the switch over from IMO to soluble corn fiber that started causing me problems. I imagine it will be just fine for a lot of people. I know that for many people, the S'mores flavor has been their favorite and that's one that's been using soluble corn fiber since the beginning.

I did fill out their contact form and let them know the issues I was having. I wouldn't expect them to change back anytime soon, since they just underwent this huge overhaul. But I figured it would be good to let them know that it is causing problems for some of us at least. I genuinely hope that not many other BariatricPal members experience the same digestive issues I had with the new ingredient, because I know there are a LOT of other Quest Bar lovers on this site. This site is how I found out about Quest Bars in the first place!

I think it's due to a combination of factors actually and not all apply to every patient. Anesthesia, rapid weight loss, low protein intake, and vitamin/mineral deficiencies can all cause hair loss. WLS patients usually experience more than one of these factors at the same time. Some are within our control and some are not. Which is why it's important to at least take what active steps we can.

Ha! The good news is, not everyone has an adverse reaction to the soluble corn fiber, so you might be fine!

The bad news is, there is little you can do NOW to stop or prevent hair loss. It's due to things that happened to your body months ago. My hair loss started right around the same time as yours, 3.5 months post-op. The good news is that it slowed down bu about 5 months post-op and started to re-grow immediately. Make sure you are getting in all your Protein and Vitamins and be patient. Mine never got so bad that anyone else could tell by looking at me. Though our bathroom floor and shower were a horror show. I did cut my hair pretty short a couple months post-op in preparation for the inevitable hair loss. I figured the shorter style would make it less noticeable and that did seem to help.

@@jess9395 Yeah. Clearly the change won't have a physical effect on everyone. Some people's bodies tolerate some things better than others. Like, the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough bars have always had Erythritol in them and some people have digestive issues with that. It was never a problem for me. Just bad luck for me that they decided to make this change and soluble corn fiber seems to be something my body can't handle.

Here's the blog post on the Quest Nutrition site about why they claim to have made the switch: http://blog.questnutrition.com/our-latest-innovation-soluble-corn-fiber/

It is. I found a press release about it in my searching last week. But now I can't find it again. It started with any NEW flavors they were making (the first was S'mores), but now they are going back and converting all the old flavors.

http://www.questnutrition.com/protein-bars/pumpkin-pie-box-of-12/?type=box Your wish is granted! Though, they use the new "soluble corn fibler" formula, which makes me SUPER gassy. So I don't think I'll be trying them.

I'm back to my pumpkin spice coffee! Yay!

Yeah, I was both relieved and disappointed to discover this was the source of the problem. Relieved because I was literally about to schedule a doctor's appointment it was so bad! But disappointed because now I have to search for another Protein bar option I can tolerate. I *really* loved my Quest Bars!

It's on the ingredient list. Right after the Protein blend, which is the first ingredient. If it says "soluble corn fiber", you've got the new formula.

Hmm, they are still showing up fine for me. Did you try clicking into my profile and then my gallery instead?

I'm going to assume you meant "threatened"? Anyway, this is a decision you have to make for yourself. Whether to have surgery, where to have it, and with which surgeon. You shouldn't let other people influence your decision. Thousands upon thousands of people have successful surgeries in Mexico every year. I've been to Mexico for surgery twice (once for plastics and once for VSG) and had incredibly positive experiences both times. All you can do is do the research, talk to past patients, and make the best decision for YOU, no one else.