JamieLogical

Don't ask your coordinator. Ask Dr. Jimenez or Dr. So. You should have gotten their contact info in the email containing all the various phone numbers and email addresses. My coordinator was completely useless (no offense to her!). I never contacted her at all once they sent me that list of other contact information. I contacted the doctors, nutritionist, and travel coordinator directly.

Very normal. I got so fatigued by the end of my pre-op liquid diet that I could barely lift my arms to wash my hair in the shower! I was basically eating 450 calories a day which trying to live a normal life and with 100% of my stomach still. So of course I felt like crap!

Great! Any idea what it is? I'm like a traveling pharmacy... I'm always scared I'm gonna need something Unfortunately, I don't remember off the top of my head. I am sure I still have it written down somewhere at home. But if you email OCC (they should have sent you an email with all the contact info for various topics) I am sure they would give you a list of all the stuff they prescribe post-op. It seemed like a pretty standard set-up. There were 5 of us there the day of my surgery and they just had ready-made bags with all the drugs and printed instructions in them that they handed out to each of us. Edit: I called it my "bag o' drugs" and when I went back across the border to the US, I had it out of my suitcase, just loosely carrying it. I put it through the x-ray like my other bags and the border guard didn't even look at me sideways. I thought that was pretty funny!

Couldn't agree more! I am almost 4 years post-tummy tuck so all the pain and hardship of the recovery is a very distant memory, but I still enjoy the results EVERY SINGLE DAY! My flat stomach is probably my favorite part of my body now. I am so completely obsessed with it, even 4 years later!

My advice is to ramp up slowly. Work one are of the body per day (upper body day 1, lower body day 2, core day 3). Do 5-6 different exercises, 2 sets of 12-15 reps each. Start with low weights and 12 reps. Then work your way up to higher weights and more reps. Also, be sure to stretch well AFTER working out. Stretching cold muscles does more harm than good. Here's my current routine: Upper Body One-arm dumbbell rows Triceps kick-backs Dumbbell hammer curls Dumbbell flys Dumbbell lateral raises Wall push-ups Core Dumbbell side bends Dumbbell crunches Reverse crunches Bicycle crunches Back extensions Pendulums Plank (just hold as long as I can) Lower Body Single leg squats Lying single-leg raises Lying adduction Lying abduction Bridges

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!! Congrats! You must feel AMAZING!

I second @@Miss Mac 's concerns. At a week post-op, you should only be walking. I was allowed to do up to 60 minutes of "brisk walking" daily, but not all at once. I wasn't cleared for any strength training or intense cardio until 6 weeks post-op.

Sending positive thoughts and energy your way. I hope everything works out!

@@RNsleever715 If you are going to OCC and using Dr. Ortiz, he will prescribe you some anti-nausea meds for 14 days post-op, so you shouldn't have to bring your own.

Whether you track or not, you should definitely get a kitchen scale. I don't track my food anymore (did back when I was dieting over the years pre-op). But I still weigh a lot of my foods daily, just to measure out servings or partial servings. This was ESPECIALLY true in my early days post-op when I wasn't supposed to eat more than 2 oz. at a time. I would weight out 2 oz. of cottage cheese or whatever. Not for tracking purposes, just to be sure I didn't eat too much at once. Now that I'm 9 months out, I weigh food just to get correct serving sizes. Like I always pack a little Kashi Cereal or granola to add to my afternoon yogurt at work. I measure out 13 grams (1/4 serving) of that. First of all, because it's carbs and I do try to be mindful of carbs, even though I don't track them. And second of all, because loose stuff like that is hard to eyeball the right amount. I also use my food scale every single day when I add soy milk to my coffee to make sure I'm only adding 2 oz. Any more or less than that and it doesn't taste right!

@@Justoperated Tummy tuck + muscle repair recovery is serious business. It is a MUCH more extensive surgery than sleeve. The recovery takes much longer and is much more intense. It was several days before I could even get out of a hospital bed and use the bathroom on my own. I had to wear compression garments for 10 weeks. I didn't go back to work for 4 weeks and even then it was half days. And it was 3 months before I was allowed to do any ab/core work at all. I wasn't even allowed to try ANY running again until over 6 weeks post-op and I'd been running 5k a day prior to my TT.

I'm really surprised your surgeon didn't put you on a PPI immediately post-op. Excess acid is a VERY common problem for sleeve patients and too much acid can impede healing post-op. Most surgeons prescribe a PPI for the first month or two post-op and then longer if acid problems continue. I am 9 months post-op and still on 40mg omeprazole daily.

I think you know and understand that you look normal and healthy, so there's no sense in restating that. But the real issue here is that your coworker felt it was okay to make a comment like this. That's completely insane and I would seriously consider reporting her to a superior. It is NOT okay for people to think they can talk to anyone like that in a professional environment. I get offended when I hear my coworkers talking about each other like that behind each other's backs. If someone said something like that directly to me, you can bet I would report them!

When I tracked religiously, I wouldn't even eat at restaurants that didn't put their nutrition online. I put everything we cooked into a recipe calculator so I would know the exact calorie count and macronutrients for everything. I am vary OCD. It really drove my relatives crazy. I would literally make my parents and in-laws give me lists of not only ingredients, but BRANDS they used in any meals they prepared for us. I resolved that after I had my sleeve, I would NOT live that way. Now I will just do occasional "spot-checks" of my food on random days to make sure I'm where I really think I am in terms of calories and Protein, and leave it at that. I don't even have a calorie target in mind post-op. All I care about is getting in all my protein and that's easy enough to just keep a running tally of in my head most days.

Well, if you've had a tummy tuck with muscle repair as part of your mommy makeover, this is a thousand times easier than that. I had a tummy tuck with muscle repair back in 2011 and I couldn't even get out of a hospital bed or use a toilet by myself for DAYS afterward. With the VSG, I was in and out of bed and to the bathroom on my own the same day as my surgery, no problem. I mostly felt tired and gross, but nothing like the pain I was in with my TT. So if the TT was easy for you then VSG should be REALLY easy. One thing you won't know for sure until you have the surgery though is whether or not you'll have severe nausea and vomiting. I did not, but another girl who had her surgery the same day as me with the same doctor had it bad. Everyone is different.

For my gastric sleeve, I went to Obesity Control Center and had my surgery with Dr. Ariel Ortiz and Dr. Arturo Martinez. For my plastic surgeries I went to Beauty Enhance and had my surgery with Dra. Laura Carmina Cardenas.

I have. I had an excellent experience all around. There are many world-class surgeons in Tijuana. I advise you and your family member do your research, look into the history and credentials of the surgeons you are considering, and also look into the facilities where the surgeries are performed. I've actually had surgery in Mexico twice. Gastric sleeve and plastics to remove excess skin. Both times I received top-notch care with far more personal attention than I would have received in the US. Are there shady surgeons with scary records operating in Mexico? Yep! Just like there are here in the US. But there are some amazingly skilled and experienced surgeons as well. Just do your research and remember that you get what you paid for. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I spent an extra day in San Diego after my surgery, just because I had to due to the flight schedule. I stayed in my hotel room with the curtains shut, sleeping and watching TV. I was definitely NOT up to getting out and walking around and site seeing. Everyone is different though. I have heard about people having their surgery in TJ and then going all over town, shopping, and visiting markets and such before they even cross back into the US. It's tough to predict how you will be feeling.

The number of search results you get if you type in "week 3 stall" should clue you in that this happens to pretty much EVERY single person. We seriously get at least 2-3 posts per day here asking this exact same question. So you are not alone! Hang in there. Stick to the plan. And the scale will move again!

I had a LOT of gurgling and burping even when I would just take a tiny sip of water in the beginning. I would say that lasted about 2 weeks. I think it had to do with the swelling and once the swelling had gone down, it got much better.

I'm not Muslim either, but I would say, be kind to yourself. Maybe cut back on workouts the first couple of days to assess how you are feeling and then, if you feel up to it, reintroduce them slowly. I would be very concerned about dehydration and starvation mode. I don't think you should be completely inactive, but take it a lot easier. Maybe just some short walks a couple times a day. And try to time them in such a way that you will be able to eat and drink shortly before or after. Just a few thoughts. Definitely be mindful and listen to your body!

@@jane13 It will come back. I think the frustrating thing for women is that most of us wear our hair pretty long and that means it takes a LONG time for the new, baby hair to catch up to our old hair. I cut off a LOT of my hair a couple months post-op in preparation for the inevitable loss. I think it did make the loss less noticeable. But now that all my baby hairs are coming in and are about 1.5-2 inches long, it looks a little silly. If I were a guy and kept my hair short, the new hair would already be blended in with the old.

@@prbaby28 Hang in there. It will get easier day by day. I noticed huge improvements in my energy level as I moved through the different food stages. Once I got to solids, there was a lot of trial and error in accurately judging how much I could "safely" eat and pacing myself, but I did feel much better in general. Just take it day-by-day, stick to your plan, and be gentle with yourself.

There's a lot more to "hunger" than just ghrelin. Many of us didn't get to be morbidly obese by just eating when we were physically hungry. There was a HUGE psychological and emotional component as well. As people on these forums often say, they perform surgery on our stomachs, not our brains. Post-op, even if you are physically incapable of eating your favorite foods, you still WANT them. You still wish you could turn to food for comfort. You still smell something delicious and want to eat it. That doesn't just go away like some magical switch is flipped. On top of that, it's a whole learning process about the physical limitations of your new stomach as well. Even if you somehow, miraculously, aren't "hungry" anymore post-op, you still need to eat to live. You still need to get all your protein in. And sometimes it's hard to judge what and how much you can safely eat and not have physical consequences like pain, gas, vomiting, etc. You are like a baby learning to eat for the first time all over again and you will make mistakes and you WILL overeat a few times. You will eat too quickly. You will eat too much. You will eat things that your stomach just doesn't like one day, but is perfectly fine with the next. It will be a lot of trial and error until you learn all about your new stomach.

Yeah. When I first started on solids I would "joke" about going from perfectly fine to "omg, I'm going to die" with no full signal in between. I got much better at eyeballing my food and knowing how much would be safe to eat without reaching that latter stage.