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Wow, that is a long time to be waiting. Have you asked them why so long? I literally got my answer in less than 4 hours from submission.

WOW! good for you! I cannot imagine doing the liquid diet for that long. You are an inspiration. I felt bad for myself when i had to do it for two weeks. LOL

is the shake the only protein you are getting?

@@Llamalover17 I think you are finding out this is all about you and not the surgery. You know what you have to do because you lost weight doing it. you should definately NOT be increasing your carbs right now or you will lose part of your honeymoon period. It is up to YOU to get your head straight. There is only one way to stop and that is to stop your destructive behavior. The best thing you can do for yourself at this point is seek a therapist to help you figure out why you are doing this to yourself. The good news is, the tool will be there when you are truly ready to make the right changes in your life. The bad news is you are wasting the best time to lose the weight. This is all about how your brain works. Stop telling yourself it is ok.....but you have to be ready to do that. Best of luck to you.

Dont worry about calories at all. Focus on good quality Protein and veggies and you will do fine. I remember starting with a perfectly cooked piece of fish or chicken. You need to make sure it is moist not dry so dont over cook. One of my first meals was a chicken breast cooked just to done, not over. It was super juicy. I liked to use a low sugar spagetti sauce and a sprinkling of cheese. I could maybe eat an ounce or two and i would be stuffed for hours. In the beginning i always would make some sort of low sugar sauce or non fat gravy. But my absolute favorite was fish. My tummy loved it. It took some time for me to be able to eat beef and pork and even now, i can only eat a small amount and it has to be a very tender cut. It was probably 4 months post before i could eat shrimp but now it is one of my favorites. I ate and still eat alot of cottage cheese and greek yogurt. Just take it slowly, chew very well and did i say take it slowly?! LOL. The worst feeling is when you eat to fast and you feel a huge lump in your chest. It can really ruin a meal and that can be caused by eating too fast or not chewing well enough.

@@WLSResources/ClothingExch Awe......very cute!

I never in a million years believed i would lose all of my weight and had to work very hard to do it. Being a normal healthy BMI is an absolutely terrific feeling. My goal initially was to get healthy and put my comorbities in remission. I never even thought about being thin, that was just an added plus for me. Well, now it is critically important to me. I feel better, i look better and best of all shopping for and wearing normal sized clothes feel fantastic. When i go into a mall i swear the rest of my brain turns off and i want to try everything i see on just because i can. Sometimes when i look in the mirror i have to do a double take because it simply does not look like me. It takes a long time for your brain to catch up. I will say the one negative is that if i gain a pound or two i freak out. Mostly because I never want to go back there again. Another great feeling is when someone says geez, you are skinny! Who me? Skinny? I have not been called skinny since i was a young girl. Back then they used to call me string bean in grade school and i used to go home crying. Kids were mean about it....then i reached puberty and all hell broke loose. Its nice to be called skinny now and I promise i wont cry. LOL Best of luck to you on your upcoming surgery. You need to believe it can happen for you as well! You just have to want it bad enough.

At your stage my surgeon had me drinking milk only for a snack. Food i was eating cottage cheese, yogurt, protein shakes, cream of wheat, I was also allowed pureed meats and eggs but they did not agree with me at that stage so i live on yogurt, cottage cheese and protein shakes until i hit the soft food stage.

When is the last time Mom had her nutritional panel done. It is the single most importatnt thing you do following bariatric surgery. Vitamins and follow up are life long commitments. I would definately ask her that question, it could simply be a nutrient that is out of whack.

It could be not enough Protein, too much sugar or carbs or even not enough Water. Just keep working at getting that protein in.

@@stacyrg2 Well I am glad to hear things are going well for you now. I do get frustrated when people automatically dismiss one or the other surgery without understanding that both delivery amazing results, both are equally as invasive and bother require Vitamins and blood testing for life. I think i get frustrated because so many people tried to talk me out of bypass and of course were super uninformed. I honestly think people should not make up their minds until they have all the facts and a surgeon has helped them work through what might be the best option for them given their current health situation. To your point, I have heard frequently that folks that never had reflux end up with it after the sleeve. It is a chance people take and most of the time it works out fine but those that even have a slight reflux should really consider all of their options.

Just out of curiosity why does bypass scare the crap out of you? I was going to have the sleeve and then because of reflux we decided the better surgery for me was bypass. I was scared to death to because all of the horror stories. I spent some time with both my bariatric team, my gastroenterologist as well as many bypass patients. I was most afraid of the malabsorption component. I then learned very quickly that it actually helps you to lose weight and honestly both bypass and sleeve patients have to have blood work and take Vitamins for life. The biggest thing they warned me about was not going in for yearly nutritional panels and skipping vitamins. As long as you do that which you also have to do with the sleeve as well, you should be good. I am two years post op, have lost all my weight and comorbitities, am very healthy and thank god every day that i went bypass as i have not even had a simple case of heartburn since the day i woke up from surgery. Spend some time and really research so you make the best choice for your health. I have seen way too many sleeve patients then have to revise to bypass anyway. I decided i was only going through this one time in my life. Both surgeries are equally as aggressive. The sleeve removes 90% of your stomach, the bypass reroutes. Just my two cents....take it for what it is worth but don't be afraid, be educated about your choices.

Most surgeons will actually recommend which way to go given the expected recovery. Have you talked with someone yet? For some they will do breasts and arms together and the LBL separately. You may have no pain issues at all with your arms and if you can work from home that is really great. I am now working from home on a pretty major project. When i have my tummy and breasts done in January, I will take some time off just until i can comfortably function even at home and then i will be fine.

Absolutely!!!! From places i did not even know i could sweat. Now, i dont sweat unless i am working out. In fact, the opposite happens. I am cold all the time and even in the summer have a jacket on. LOL. I prefer it that way because sweating sucked!

For me, Vitamins will forever be in my life. That being said, they probably should have been a part of my life before surgery. I had it in my head they would not really do anything for me. Most people dont realize that when you are morbidly obese, you are also likely malnourished.....yet malnourished! We ate too much of the wrong things! I am not aware of any one Vitamin that will give you everything. Most vitamin regimens are given to us based on the results of a nutritional panel. For me i take a multi, D3, B1, B12 and lastly the most important one is calcium citrate chews. All of them are cheap with the exception of the calcium. I buy my other vitamins at walgreens on a buy one get one free deal. There is enough in one bottle for a years use on the multi and the D3. B12 is a sublingual liquid and i only take that once per week...those bottle have lasted me two years. Calcium on the other hand....I use bariatric pal chews and they are about 30.00 per month. I either buy them on here or amazon, whoever has my favorite flavors for the cheaper price. Calcium is not cheap but critical.

- I dont miss walking down the aisle of the airplane and having people almost pray out loud that I won't be sitting next to them - I dont miss having a booth be the only table and the table cannot be moved so i could fit - i dont miss missing out on any and all activities that required me to walk because my knees and feet were so bad - I dont miss wanting to get into a bathing suit to go in the pool and feeling like the whole world was thinking what a fat cow i was - I dont miss climbing the stairs and feeling like i was going to keel over - I dont miss having to do all my clothes shopping at Lane Bryant or on line and never feeling good about myself. Now i can shop anywhere and pretty much anything it try on looks great. (It makes it hard to choose) - I definately dont miss having an entire wardrobe of black clothes -I dont miss the limited shoes because my feet swelled so bad - now i can wear any shoes....my feet are a normal width! Most importantly....i dont miss my bi-pap machine, high blood pressure meds, diabetes medications, and i dont miss how close i was to needing kidney dialysis. I am very very thankful for where i am! And how i feel!

@@annagene12 Thanks! I love them alot but for me it was very very painful. My surgeon did laser lipo first to remove residual fat and then removed the skin. That approach allows them to do more contouring. As far as time off goes, they claim you can go back depending on what you do. For me that was not true. I had alot of burning, searing and itching. This was likely caused by the adhesives that were used. We believe it was an allergy and nothing was helping. At 3 weeks post op, when we removed the mesh bandage off the would, that burning and itching stopped so we know it was an allergy. I had my arms literally packed in ice round the clock for 3 weeks straight. Then after the bandages came off, i used ice only when they swelled. I also wore compression until 10 weeks post op and used biocorneum silicone gel to help the scars flattened and turn lighter in color. I could have gone to work at 3 weeks, before that not so much but we believe that my allergy is why things were so painful for me. Lastly I would tell you to think about how you combine surgeries. You cannot use your arms at all to lift yourself out of bed out of a chair anything. In talking with a friend of mine, who had multiple procedures at the same time having your lower body and your arms done at the same time might prove very uncomfortable for mobility. If you put undue pressure on your arms, you can cause more severe scar damage. My doctor who is conservative told me no lifting my arms or using them for leverage for 8 weeks. Just food for thought.......alot of these doctors will do anything to get you in there. When you look at realself and listen to some of them you realize they sort of smooth over the reality a bit so as not to scare you. Many of them performe surgeries a few weeks apart. That is not the best for your body. A good surgeon will wait a minimum of 12 weeks before the next surgery and they prefer 6 months.

Oh yes......and it can get bad. I refuse to take them anymore unless I a, absolutely so miserable that I cannot function. They actually cause a lot of weight gain in the neck and face. I call it bloating and it sucks. I am sorry you are having such pain. Maybe there is another option for you? Just remember if you do go off you need to ween off.

Be patient.....it takes awhile to get your energy back. As long as you are getting your Water and Protein you will feel a little better every day. I remember it was about 7 weeks before I felt somewhat like myself again. I remember that because I went to Las Vegas for 11 days at week 7. I had to be very on purpose to stay hydrated and get my protein but i felt pretty darn good and walked all over the place. I came back and had lost 11 lbs during that period. Be patient and be good to yourself.

I had one of the most severe cases of gerd that my endo had ever seen prior to RNY. I literally coughed every day all day long. It was extremely disruptive and embarrassing because many times i could not even catch my breath it got so bad. They changed me from meds i had been on to what they called the gold standard in gerd medications. I was on a double dose of Nexium. It did absolutely nothing for me. For my I ended up drinking alot of mylanta, chewing on tums, drinking Alka selzer and walking the floors. In the end the only thing that solved it for me was RNY. I have never had a single episode of even basic heartburn since my surgery. By the way....they did determine that this severe gerd was brought on by my bi-pap machine. They had increased my pressure slightly and that weakened the sphincter in my esophagus. We had to keep reducing the pressures and although it helped slightly the damage was done. But RNY resolved it for me thank goodness. I would definately call your doctor immediately tomorrow given you never had it before this test.

Welcome! Everybody has to start somewhere. I would suggest taking some time and searching on this site. There are so many great posts about WLS and there is a ton on here about having it done in Mexico. As of the ibuprofen question, you are right....in both Bypass and sleeve they prefer you dont take it as it can cause ulcers which can be very serious when a good portion of your stomach is no longer there. I suffer from severe osteoarthritis and Psoriatic arthritis. I used to have it something fierce in my ankles and knees. I also have it badly in my spine and shoulders. I take NO ibuprofen ever. Since losing weight, My knees, ankles and feet no longer bother me at all but if they did, I would go and have some cortisone. My back on the other hand is much worse and i suffer with pain everyday. I use alot of heat, ice, bio freeze and when desperate i take tylenol and muscle relaxers. I have also used essential oils for pain relief and relaxation. Regardless of the pain in my back, I feel 1000 times better than when i weighed 310lbs. I have more energy and get way more out of life. It is very likely that your arthritis will improve greatly with weight loss. I wish the very best for you and hope that you are able to get in and get things moving so you can enjoy life. You are young and have lots of time to bounce back. I always say if I have had any regrets it is that I waited too long but thank goodness i am there now. I am 53 and was 51 when i had bypass.

Two years later I still take medications for constipation daily. Doctor finally put me on Linzess. That works very well.

I had a terrible time with the pureed stage for the same reasons you list. I would gag and end up vomiting and it was a total aversion. I pretty much stuck to things that would not gag me such as greek yogurt, cottage cheese, chicken broth with added Protein power. My bariatric team had me switch to premier Protein shakes and milk them down with fair life so they were thinner. Premier does not have that disgusting protein taste or smell and they are ready made. In the beginning weeks i would mix 1/3 of the 11 oz shake with 2/3 fairlife protein milk. My tummy did not and still does not tolerate regular milk for some reason. I can eat other dairy but not milk so i buy lactose free milk which fairlife is. You really need to get some protein in your body, besides getting sick you can lose your hair. Everyday it should get a little better but you really need to try some different protein options. Best of luck to you.

Room temp water......and I still drink room temp water. If I want a treat I will have a mug of Bariatricpal hot chocolate.

Follow the plan the doctor gave you. You are in charge of you. Your families normal will not likely help you. Ask them to attend a session with your nutritionist if you need back up. No one decides for me and if they did, I never would have met goal nor been able to maintain it. My families normal is NOT normal. Normal is healthy Protein, veggies and fruit once your body is ready.