JamieLogical

Yay! It's so exciting to get your date and know you are finaly going to reap the results of all your hard work.

I have had surgery in Mexico twice, once of r plastics and once for my sleeve, and scheduled for another round of plastics in September. They're are world class surgeons practicing in Mexico and the level of care you can receive there far surpasses any care I've received in the US. If you figure out what your criteria ar end do your research, you have nothing to worry about. The poor experiences are few and far between and almost always are because people didn't do proper research or weren't honest with their surgeons about their medical history/conditions.

Sounds like everything is going well so far. It's a long road ahead, but you are off to a great start and already have a great attitude.

The recommendation is to maintain your weight for about 12 months prior to any skin removal surgery to allow the chance for your skin to bounce back on its own as much as possible.

Yeah. I'm struggling to understand how saying I didn't "cheat" post-op for fear of dying somehow turns into "you cheated post-op so you deserve to die!"

I are opposed to the idea of plastics in Mexico? There are many excellent surgeons there with amazing post-op care available for 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the US.

@@autymn You should be okay with regular calcium pills in a couple of days if you aren't right now. That leave of swelling doesn't last much past a week or two. Some people cut their calcium pills in half to make them a little more manageable.

It doesn't sound to me from your original post that you would have any additional risk factors to be concerned about, but you could always try to follow up and get a more personalized response. I sent in a ton of questions initially before submitting my deposit, but I don't know whether they've changed their process since then. Can't hurt to ask! The worst they can do is not answer.

"Head hunger" is when you brain is telling you you are hungry instead of any real physical need for nourishment. When you see a commercial for food on TV and think "I NEED THAT RIGHT NOW", or when you smell a restaurant when you are driving by and you get a craving, or when you associate a certain food with a certain activity (like I always associate ice cream with watching Survivor)... that is "head hunger". You aren't truly, physically hungry. It's psychological. My husband's doctor used to say "if you aren't hungry enough to eat an apple, you aren't actually hungry."

You calling me judgmental and "holier-than-thou" is the only ridicule I see going on in this thread. Someone talked about "cheating" post-op. I explained how TO ME "cheating" post-op is nothing like "cheating" on a diet, because it poses immediate risk to one's life. That was all that happened. Go back and re-read my posts. Where was I judging anyone? Where was I ridiculing anyone?

You should be able to fend for yourself when you get home from the hospital. You should be able to get up and down (slowly and maybe a little painfully) on your own. You should be up and walking a little every hour that you are awake. You should be able to take care of all your personal hygiene needs yourself. If your wife wants to take time off beyond the day of your surgery, that is nice of her, but not necessary.

Where did I ridicule or mock anyone in this thread? I simply said that *I* could not understand it. I didn't call anyone names. Didn't say anyone was stupid or wrong. I just said I couldn't understand it. I explained MY way of thinking. Didn't criticize anyone else's way of thinking.

I completely agree! I see a lot of people killing themselves to get down to some ridiculously low goal weight, then freak out and consider themselves failures if they regain 20 pounds. If you lose 100 pounds and regain 20, you are still 80 pounds better off than you were pre-op, with all the health benefits that go along with an 80 pound weight loss. Health and happiness should be the goal. Not a number on a scale.

I'm a little taller than you (5'6") but my surgery weight was very close to yours. I weighed 236 the day of surgery and it took me almost 8 months to get to 170. Surgery date was Sept. 1, 2014 and I weighed 170.5 on April 27, 2015.

This all sounds normal to me. Your stomach and esophagus are very swollen in the beginning and you are healing so there are going to be a lot of weird sensations and noises. Remember that when they cut out 80% of your stomach, they also damages all the nerves in there, so things you are "feeling" will be all mixed up. What you have to do is trust in your program. Sip, sip, sip. Get your water and protein in. Move through the food stages as outlined. Eat on a timer and measure your food. Do NOT rely on signals from your stomach to tell you when or how much to eat. It will take a while for everything to heal up in there and then you will have to learn all the new signals your stomach will be sending. But for right now, eat on a schedule and measure what you are eating/drinking to make sure you get enough, but not too much.

It depends on what the food is. As a general rule, I can do about 3-4 ounces. But if it's dense protein maybe more like 2-3 ounces. If it's something "liquidy" like chili, maybe more like 6-8.

No, that was exactly my point. When you cheat on a diet or even overeat daily you are potentially SLOWLY killing yourself. There's a nebulous, future, distant chance that it will lead to your death. But eating solid foods or seeds or popcorn or things that can legitimately get stuck in your staple line is an immediate threat to your life. So there is definitely a very big difference.

So I measured my calf when I went home at lunch. It's still 16.75 inches (really pushing closer to 17") at 159 pounds. The "good" news is that my lower thigh is now smaller than my calf? I can get my hands all the way around my lower thigh now, with the tips of my middle fingers and tips of my thumbs touching, but I still can't do that with my calf.

You'll definitely have to do some experimenting to figure out what works for you. If your training is anything like mine, you'll have a "long" run every week. That's your chance to start incorporating all the things you will eventually need to wear/eat/drink/carry. You'll figure out which clothes chafe you, where, and how to deal with it. You'd decide between a hydration belt, hand bottle, camel back, etc. You'll hopefully have great shoes early on in the process. Just make little tweaks and improvements every long run. That's your chance to simulate what the race will be like. You do NOT want to be making any changes to your gear, hydration, or food the day of the race. Need to have that all ironed out well in advance and have practiced it many times.

Did you fill out the "Consultation" form on the OCC website? When I did that (granted this was almost 2 years ago) I immediately received an auto-reply with pricing. Even if they don't send the auto-reply now, I'm sure you will hear back very quickly.

You should ask your surgeon or nutritionist. I was very specifically told to take bariatric multi-vitamins, but every plan is different.

Obviously the amount you can eat immediately post op is MUCH less than it will be once you are fully healed. You still won't be able to eat anything like a "normal" portion though. You will adapt. I eat out all the time. I occasionally get the worried looks from the servers and asking if I didn't like my food when leaving half of it on the plate, but if I really wanted to avoid that, I could ask for a to-go box and put the extra food in there at the beginning of the meal, which I have done before. Now I really just don't care what people think. If a server is worried, I just reassure him/her that everything was great. I'm 19 months post-op and I can eat maybe 3/4 of a cup of chili.... 1/2 to 3/4 of a hamburger or chicken sandwich without the bun.... 3-4 chicken tenders with the breading peeled off... a whole shrimp appetizer... a scrambled egg with some cheese melted in and 2 Breakfast sausage links... most of the fajita skillet (meat, peppers, onions) they bring you without the tortillas and toppings... the cheese and toppings off of 3 slices of pizza... Those are some examples of the things I might eat when I eat out now.

I know, right? It's like having open heart surgery and trying to run a marathon the next day. Or having a liver transplant and then stopping for a bottle of whiskey on the way home.