JamieLogical

Welcome to the forums. There are a lot of people on here who have been revised from band to sleeve, so you should be able to get a lot of advice and experiences from those folks. I'm really sorry to hear that you feel like a failure. From what I've read from others, the band just doesn't work for everyone. Some people have tremendous success with it. In fact, it sound like YOU had some success with it yourself. But it's not a long-term solution for everyone and many many people have undergone revision. I hope you are approved for sleeve and that you find it to be the long-term tool you need for sustained weight loss.

Or, if you are a "slow loser" like me, most times you lose 0.2. I hope your losses increase until you meet your goals. Good luck. Oh, no worries. I've made peace with it. As long as the scale is moving down, however slowly, I will get to where I'm going eventually. Good luck to you and congrats on your success so far!

If you read back to earlier posts in this thread, you will see that the recovery time for everyone is a little different and also depends on the types of procedure(s) you have. My recovery was especially long, because I had some complications with swelling of the soft tissue in my lower back which caused me a LOT of pain and discomfort. I was originally scheduled for 4 weeks off of work, but ended up having to come back for half-days for a couple of months after that due to my complication. Some people recover much more quickly and have no complications. Either way, I would recommend at least 4 weeks off if you are having multiple procedures at once and ESPECIALLY if you are having muscle repair done along with your tummy tuck.

I had the same situation. Every single little tiny sip caused this whole chain reaction that started with tight, painful, constriction in my esophagus followed by gurgling back up into my throat and finally ending with some burping. That happened every single time I took the tiniest sip. The good news is, it seemed to be related to swelling, because after a couple of weeks, once the swelling had gone down, that went away completely.

Or, if you are a "slow loser" like me, most times you lose 0.2.

I would NOT recommend grazing, as that is a way of "eating around" the restriction of the sleeve. What I would recommend is 5-6 small, high-Protein meals/snacks per day. Eating frequently will help you avoid feeling hungry between meals. Grazing all day, on the other hand defeats the purpose of being sleeved.

Glad to hear it! The early days are so rough. I think the most important virtue when coping with WLS is patience. You need it while you are going through the approval process and awaiting surgery. You need it post-op when the recovery inches along day-by-day. You need it when learning how to eat with your new stomach and adapting to your new life. And you DEFINITELY need it when the scale isn't moving!

If you do decide to have carbonation post-op, I do think it's best to wait until you are at least a month or two out and your sleeve has had a chance to heal. You will see that gas is a real problem in the early days even without carbonation, so I wouldn't introduce any more gas than is necessary until you are all healed up.

Thanks for your advice. I have decided to keep pushing forward with my weight loss, slow as it may be at this point. I don't know that I ever had a "honeymoon" phase. Maybe the first 3-4 months when I was losing without much exercise? I do know that I am working as hard or harder now to lose weight than I ever have in the past and it is going much more slowly. Aside from a stomach bug last month causing me to drop about 3 pounds in 2 days, my weight loss has "only" averaged 6 pounds a month since my second month post-op. And I have easily lost 8-10 pounds per month in the past through diet and exercise. Doing the same level of exercise I do now, but eating more calories than I'm currently capable of. All I can do is keep doing what I'm doing and as long as the scale keeps moving down (however slowly) I'll get to goal eventually.

Why wouldn't you be allowed diet soda on the pre-op? You're allowed other artificial sweeteners (sugar-free jello and popsicles) and I was allowed caffeine. I went ahead and gave up caffeine when I started the pre-op though so I wouldn't be going through withdrawal along with all the other post-op discomfort in the early days.

I was cleared to do crunches and such at 2 months.

Getting your Water in will be critical to weight loss. If you are still having trouble with discomfort, experiment with different temperatures of water. I found that really ice cold water was a lot easier for me that room temperature water, which seemed to sit very heavily in my stomach. As for exercise, it's something you are going to have to figure out in order to achieve long-term success. Even if it's just 10 minutes here and there instead of 30 minutes all at once.

If you are only eating 500 calories a day, you aren't doing yourself any favors by working out 5 times a week. Definitely try increasing your calories in order to sustain you workouts.

Well, I am glad you've found a surgeon that understands that BMI is only one factor (and a fairly meaningless one) in a person's long term struggle with weight and health.

Good luck to you! Weird that the first doctor wouldn't do it... feel like we're missing something there. Hopefully it won't be an issue with this new doctor moving forward. Congrats on the start o your journey!

Awesome! And @@joatsaint, love that little NSV award graphic. I might have to steal that for some other posts in the future!

Yeah, food will be tricky, depending on how far out you are. When I was at Dollywood in the beginning of April, I was lucky enough to find a little stand that sold turkey sticks (like a beef stick, but made with turkey) and those were perfect. There were also some stands around that sold peanuts. For actual meals I found a place that sold chicken fajitas and I just ate all of the chicken and some of the veggies out of one and threw the tortilla away. But if you are only a month or two post op, you might be much more restricted in the types of food you're allowed.

Ha! I do the same thing! It seems to always make me feel better, lol. And makes me go out and buy pants that actually fit I'm trying to hold out until I go on vacation two weeks from now because I want to do some outlet mall shopping, but I don't know if I'm going to make it. I'm hiking them up every few steps as I walk around the office!

Can't believe I'm so late to this party! I'm Jamie. I just turned 36. I think most of you probably know my weight loss story from other parts of these boards. I am married to my awesome husband, Dan (see profile pic to the left!). We've been married for about 3.5 years, but lived together for many years before that, so had on 9 year "anniversary" this past January. Fun fact: we waited to get married until it was legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry in NY. I don't have any kids, mostly because I can only tolerate children in VERY small doses. I have some wonderful nieces and nephews and I love them to death. And the best feature of all of them is that I can send them back to their parents at the end of the day! I do have two bearded dragons. Those are are only pets. Oh and we have a bonsai tree that Dan's sister gave us for Christmas one year. Two lizards and a tree is enough responsibility for us! I am a web programmer. I live in western NY, but there is a strong chance I will be moving back to Columbus, OH in the next year or so. I grew up there and my three older siblings still live there and now my younger sister (who lives where I do now) is moving back there in June. So with ALL of my siblings back in Columbus, I'll likely end up back there myself, even though my husband's parents and one of his siblings still lives here. What else.... Oh! I went to college in Virginia at the tender age of 14. I moved to Chattanooga, TN after I graduated at the age of 18. I moved up to western NY a couple of years later to be closer to my parents and my little sister (they moved here while I was in college). My parents have since retired and moved to PA and now my sister's moving back to OH. I met my husband on Yahoo! Personals back in 2001. We went on two dates, but I was dating a couple of other people at the same time and ended up in a long-term relationship with one of them. So Dan ended up just being mine and my boyfriend's roommate for a year! It wasn't until a couple of failed relationships later that we started seeing each other romantically again in 2006.

DUH!!! NO!!!!!! That's ME. You are so right! (as usual)

Every time I'm feeling like a fat cow in the past couple of weeks (been in a stall), I've tried taking my pants off without unbuttoning or unzipping them. That reminds me of how far I've come, since I'm on my third set of dress pants since pre-op and now even these are HUGE on me.

Hi and welcome! You have LOTS of people to talk to now. So feel free to posts your questions and concerns and we'll help you as much as we possibly can. One quick stat that helped allay some of my fears about gastric sleeve is that the surgery itself has a lower mortality rate than knee replacement. Would your mom be freaking out if you had to have a knee replacement operation?

I was very very fatigued for the first several weeks. The best thing you can do is try to get in your protein and fluids. For me it didn't really improve until I was able to move onto more solid foods and get in more calories.

I think you are doing great so far! There's no reason not to be active unless your surgeon says son. As for the leg cramps, could be due to dehydration or an electrolyte imbalance. Are you getting enough water in? Are you taking calcium supplements? Depending on how much you are eating, you may not be getting in enough sodium or potassium. So if you do think you are getting enough water, the you should maybe ask your doctor or surgeon about blood tests to check your electrolyte levels.

I think you are fine. The drug use could have just coincided with the natural reduction in swelling you would have had over time anyway. There is not necessarily any cause and effect here. That super tight feeling you had in the first 8 days was likely due to swelling. I had the same exact feeling in my first week or two post-op. But once the swelling went down, I too was able to drink and eat a bit more. You haven't effected the actual restriction of your sleeve. Trust and believe that you WILL feel that restriction once you move onto more solid foods. You aren't supposed to have any restriction with liquids. They are SUPPOSED to pass straight through your sleeve. It's just the post-op swelling that can cause that much restriction for some people in the early days.