NikkiDoc

I am 15 months out. I used to drink at least 2 Diet Dr Peppers per day plus a large unsweetened McD's iced tea. I don't miss the soda AT ALL. My surgeon allowed me to have carbonated beverages and alcohol starting at 6 months after surgery. I do have a drink occasionally. It is no longer beer. Now I will have a glass of red wine or a Fireball on the rocks. I had a sip of my husband's Diet Dr. Pepper the other day since I had a nasty taste in my mouth. It was a small sip. It was enough to know that I don't think my sleeve would be happy with me if I drank a soda. It was too fizzy. It was enough to know I don't miss it so there is no reason to go back to drinking it. I drink a good 80 oz of water flavored with MIO a day. I don't want to replace any of that with something that doesn't "count" due to the caffeine or sodium. As far as spicy I can eat anything I had before surgery. My stomach has been very tolerant. If anything it has been better now since I also no longer have GERD which I had prior to WLS. I will have the occasional wing, as in 1 wing, if my husband gets an order. We always get the bone-in with no breading. So they aren't the healthiest from a fat perspective but they are low carb. Only you can determine what you are willing to change and give up to no longer be obese. WLS isn't for everyone. I would NEVER recommend it to my husband. He is a meat and potatoes kinda guy. He hates fruit and eats only a couple of vegetables. He loves diet soda. He probably drinks 3 liters a day. That is all he drinks other than summer he will drink some G2 Gatorade. He likes his beer and does not drink any other alcohol. He likes bread, pasta, waffles, desserts, cookies, ice cream A high protein, lower fat, low carb diet would not work very well for him. I don't see him being able to change his diet enough to be compliant.

My co-worker implied "female problems". Men in particular didn't ask any more questions. You can be vague and just state "I am having a minor procedure." and leave it at that. Most people won't push the issue. If they do you can reply that you prefer to not discuss it. Hernia repair seems to be a favorite "white lie". I told the world so I don't have personal experience with prevaricating about it.

Call the surgeon's office and have her give you a complete list of EVERYTHING that she needs to before she can forward you to scheduling. Go over that list and if she has everything ask her point blank when your file will be sent to scheduling. If she is claiming she didn't receive something that you know she has you can either resend it or contact the office manager and let her know about the issues you are having. If you do not hear from the scheduling department quickly (2 days) I would call the office manager and let her know you have time constraints and need to get scheduled quickly or you may not be able to get scheduled until December. You could also threaten to transfer to a different surgeon if they can't schedule you quickly.

My mother is a petite 5'2". She would give me weight loss advise because she had to lose 20 pounds after I was born and always struggled gaining and losing those 10 pounds. There were times she would actually get too thin. Mind you she was not fit just thin. Weight loss advise from somebody who needs to lose 10 pounds isn't real helpful to somebody who needs to lose 100 pounds (as you all know). I got to the point that I told her my weight and weight loss in general was not a topic we would discuss. If she started to stray there I just reminded her that we would not discuss this. Sorry your father is such an a$$hat. Limiting contact isn't the worst thing in the world. You need to protect yourself. You also need to make sure that your children and grandchildren don't get subjected to the same judgmental treatment. Hopefully you would cut ties with a "friend" that treats you this way. No reason you need to put up with crap just because you are related to them.

For what it is worth my co-worker had the band. Her sister had by-pass. Co-worker has maintained for 7 years on the band but HATES it. She wishes she could sleeve. Her sister is more like 12 years out and has gained a lot of the weight back. One of the reasons that co-worker would like to convert is that she can't eat Pasta or bread but sister can. HELLO maybe that is why sister is obese again? I think you can figure out a way to eat around anything. I don't suggest therapy much at all but maybe you can use therapy to figure out why you weren't compliant the first time. Use the therapy to help you be more compliant this time. I had GERD prior to the sleeve. I was on PPI for 3 months after surgery and no more PPI. However I did have a hiatal hernia fixed. 4 years before the sleeve I had an endoscopy for GERD and did not have a hernia at that time so fixing the hernia was not 100% the cure. I think that losing so much weight helped with the GERD too. I know many people say don't get the sleeve if you had GERD before WLS but that is not always the case. My surgeon knew that I had GERD and even before he knew I had a hiatal hernia he was not concerned about it being bad afterwards. He did keep me on the PPI for 3 months when normally he puts his patients on for 1 month if they have no history of GERD. Talk to your surgeon about your concerns. He wants you to succeed.

Mine are in my jewelry box until I am at goal. I don't wear much jewelry anyway and ALWAYS take my rings off to ride my horse. 25 years ago I was riding, the horse I was on tripped and both of us went down. I banged my left hand pretty badly and it swelled instantly plus I cut my finger. Hubby had to come a half hour to the farm with tools to cut them off. If not I was going to the ER to have them cut off. You could get a cheap temporary ring to wear on your finger and put your real ones on a chair to wear around your neck.

I started at 18.25 inch calves and one calf is now 15 and the other is 14.75. I have lost 90 pounds since surgery. I am still in plus sized horse riding boots for most brands but not the xxw. I have always had muscular calves even when I was a teenager and at goal weight. My mom had chicken legs so I am not sure where I got my calves from.

You posted that you work within the same hospital system as the office where the fax came from. If you look at your HIPPA documentation there is a statement in there that there is a relaxing of HIPPA rules when "communicating within the same hospital systems, and their representatives." Was there some mistakes made? Yup.--on both sides. In this day and age, no one should never fax personal information that you want to keep confidential--unless you KNOW that the fax is going to a PRIVATE fax machine/computer. Once again, I have to question the reasoning of "hiding" one's bariatric surgery?? Are you ashamed of having it?? --afraid of what others with think?? Does it really matter? Aren't we all supposed to be having WLS for OURSELVES?? Especially those of us who work or have worked in the Healthcare field. I would hope that we would want to set an example.--to stand up proudly that we had the courage and determination to conquer our "disease demons". I find absolutely nothing to hide nor be ashamed of by having WLS. Once we try to hide it, cover it up or lie about it, --that is when the spider web of telling two lies to cover up one lie and so on and so on. I don't know about you all, but my memory isn't good enough to remember what lie I told to whom. Getting back to the faxing fiasco: Lesson learned by all involved--I hope.You know. I've been sitting reading and rereading this trying to decide if I was going to comment. Sorry, but the ugly monster got the best of me. Valentina- I may be new-ish to this forum but why do you think it is ok to bash someone who was sickened at the thought of her personal information being spread around a large office? You say you aren't ashamed of having surgery- good for you. But do not project your opinions on others as though you are right and they are wrong. In fact- YOU are shaming anyone who does not subscribe to your belief that you need to tell everyone your business. Heck- I bet you have told tons of people who actually couldn't care less. Who we choose to share our surgery with is our own business and ours alone. That goes for you. Rent a billboard for Petes sake. But don't think for one moment it is ok to tear down those who think differently from you. As for Hippa laws- there has not been any "relaxing" since the days it was set in motion. Your facts are wrong. I've been a healthcare provider since 1985. Been there. Done that. When she is acting in the capacity of a patient, her rights are to be maintained just as any other non-employee patient. Opinions. Everyone has one and that's what I have given. If you don't agree, well that is you're opinion. On this subject. On this day. I gave my opinion. FYI: My S.O. committed suicide the morning of my surgery. So, you're damned right about my opinion about having WLS is nothing to be ashamed of, nor something to hide! MY OPINION: Stand up, be proud of my journey because now I have to travel that journey alone. I will NEVER again keep it a secret. ON THIS DAY, ON THIS SUBJECT, THIS IS MY OPINION. As far as the HIPPA statement---I know of what I speak. I was a Medical Specialty Administrator for 30 years Doctors are always going to "have an out" wherever there might be the slightest chance of malpractice. The clause of which I wrote is there. I paraphrased it, but it is there. Been there. Done that and have the T-shirt that says so. God Bless. Sorry for your loss. However it isn't up to the doctor's to set HIPAA. That was done by the federal government. The hospital cannot relax it. I have been on the other side of healthcare for 27 years. I work for the insurance company. If anything HIPAA has gotten much more strict. We used to be able to email the documents. As that was considered private enough. Now it is expected to be sent encrypted or via a secure server. I rarely can get a healthcare provider to fax me a document or bill unless I assure them in writing that it is a secure fax. Even then some will only snail mail the itemized bill.

This always struck me as difficult to get in your required Protein per day, especially early on, without having to have protein shakes. What is your required protein per day? My minimum protein goal is 64 grams per day. So 3 oz of chicken has 24 grams. So that leaves me 40 grams and 2 meals. For Breakfast I have 1 egg with tomatoes and spinach and feta. So 6 grams for the egg and 1 gram for the feta. So I have to get 33 more in my final meal of the day. That is for the minimum. I see for many people the protein minimum is frequently as high as 80. This doesn't seem like it allows much room for fruits or vegetables. I am glad it works for you but I just see it as really tough to get your protein in with only 3 meals and still have a balanced diet with some vegetables. My surgeon wants me to eat only 4-6 oz per meal. Sometimes I can eat more than 3 or 4 oz of chicken at a time but that is rare. I am 14 months out, so not newly sleeved. This always struck me as difficult to get in your required protein per day, especially early on, without having to have protein shakes. What is your required protein per day? My minimum protein goal is 64 grams per day. So 3 oz of chicken has 24 grams. So that leaves me 40 grams and 2 meals. For breakfast I have 1 egg with tomatoes and spinach and feta. So 6 grams for the egg and 1 gram for the feta. So I have to get 33 more in my final meal of the day. That is for the minimum. I see for many people the protein minimum is frequently as high as 80. This doesn't seem like it allows much room for fruits or vegetables. I am glad it works for you but I just see it as really tough to get your protein in with only 3 meals and still have a balanced diet with some vegetables. My surgeon wants me to eat only 4-6 oz per meal. Sometimes I can eat more than 3 or 4 oz of chicken at a time but that is rare. I am 14 months out, so not newly sleeved.

I recently heard an NPR story about boxing gyms class for women that had children who committed suicide. They had special classes just for these women who were using the boxing as a form of therapy. I would think that it was a way to get their anger out.

I am a claims examiner and have been one for 25 years. If there is an exclusion in the Policy for bariatric surgery there is no point to appealing it.

If I want a little Pasta I like Dreamfields. It comes in a black box and is low carb. It handles and tastes just like regular dried pasta. I feed it to my family all the time and nobody knows it is low carb. Not as good as homemade but still fine. I hate Barilla pasta.

Time to change your GP. Seeing a therapist might not be the worst thing if you are concerned about sliding back to old habits once you out of the WLS honeymoon phase. However if this was your surgeon's concern then he should have recommended therapy in addition to the WLS not in addition to WW. You would do better to do a 3 or 6 month pre-op diet supervised by your surgeon's NUT than to do WW. At least she can teach you how you will need to eat after surgery and you can get a jump on weight loss while waiting for the surgery. In looking at your stats you are on the lower end of the BMI range so maybe he thinks that surgery isn't appropriate since you are only at 37.5. Once again he should be able to better articulate that. He just sounds like he is not up to date on WLS or maybe has had 1 or 2 patients that it didn't work out for. But how many patient's has he had that don't lose weight on WW, Jenny Craig, Medifast, South Beach, Atkins, Zone, cabbage diet etc... or gain it all back. He may not even realize how many since they likely don't tell him about their many diets so he likely doesn't realize the much higher failure rate of these diets. The WLS failures will stand out to him.

I had GERD pre-op so surgeon had me keep taking the Nexium for the first 3 months after surgery and then told me to try it without. No issues since I stopped it.

I was back at work after 2 weeks. I had sleeve and hernia repair. I could have gone back after a week. But I had a textbook recovery. I never had issues going up the post op stages or adding new food. I had lifting restrictions but for office work I was fine. I wasn't really tired either. I was walking a lot at home anyway. However every one is different. At least since you have had the band you know how you tend to do under anesthesia.

I had an orthopedic surgery not want to do ACL reconstruction because I was too fat. I was 211 pounds and 5'3. He didn't quite come out and say it but kept stressing how hard the rehab was for ACL reconstruction. It would be much easier to just remove the ACL and clean up the meniscus. I would be good to go in 3-4 weeks instead of 3 months. If I needed my ACL they could always do that surgery later. But he didn't see why I needed an ACL. He saw me as fat and lazy so figured I wasn't active and wouldn't be able to do the physical therapy for the ACL. Except I was horseback riding 4-5 days a week. We hiked and biked regularly. I think he thought I was sitting on the couch eating bonbons. Mind you I tore my ACL by coming off my horse. I did just fine with the ACL reconstruction thank you very much and am now 10 years out. But high and mighty doctor really tried to dissuade me from having that surgery and would rather risk me needing to go under anesthesia twice. Mind you he knew I did not do well with anesthesia in the past so really an additional reason to not want to risk going through it twice.

Call your doctor to make sure the vomiting is normal. I had the sleeve so can't comment on what is normal with the balloon. They may have some suggestions or may call you in another script. I do know that with the sleeve the first couple of days/week is miserable for some people and it will get better. You have just had anesthesia and a major surgery and not everyone bounces back as quickly as others. For the sleeve walking a lot helps. I have been told that Gatorade/G2 can be a bit harsh on the stomach due to the electrolites. Maybe try a different liquid. I know with the sleeve I had to play with temperature. At first I really only could drink hot or warm liquids. My stomach did not like cold or ice cold liquid. Try herbal tea, try Water with Mio or Crystal Lite, try broth or low salt broth. I loved the broth from WonTon Soup. You may need to play with what your are eating/drinking to see what you will tolerate. Obviously make sure what you try is on your NUT/surgeon's plan for this stage of recovery.

Check with your county they should have some social services support available. A friend of mine works with adults like you. They live in their own apartments that are owned by the organization he works for. They have support in paying bills, making sure they go to their therapist, help with transportation, help remembering to take medications. Maybe something like this is available to your locally. I would report to your therapist about the $1,000 that your father "borrowed" and also about his verbal abuse. Diagnosing of mental health on the autism spectrum such as Aspbergers has come a long way in the last 15-20 years. I think there are many adults that are on the autism spectrum and were never properly diagnosed. I think there are some studies that suggest that autism may have a genetic component. It makes me wonder if your father might also be on the autism spectrum but has not been diagnosed. Not that it makes it any easier to deal with him. Just food for thought. Good luck.

I just went bra shopping again last night. Finally out of Lane Bryant. I was at NY&Co and next door was a Hanes that was advertising bra fitting so in I went. I started as a 44D or 44DD depending on the particular bra. I bought 3 very nice 36C Bali bras with underwire. When I was fat I used to HATE underwires but now I like them. One of them is a pretty black lacy number and Valentine's Day is coming. One thing I did with my last round of bras from Lane Bryant was I bought bra extenders and bought the bras a little tight on the band. I then used the extender for a bit until I lost enough to not need the extender. Lane Bryant bands also take a bit of time to stretch so the extender helped until the band stretched a little.

I took 2 weeks off for a desk job. I could have gone back after 1. But I had a weight lifting limit of 10 pounds for the first 2 weeks, then it went up 5 pounds a week for the next couple of weeks. I had a hernia repair so I don't know if the limit was necessary for that or the WLS or both. Ask your surgeon what weight limits restrictions you will have after your surgery. If you have not had the testing for hiatal hernia ask if he needs to do hernia repair what the limits will be. FYI a really high percentage of obese people have hernia and it is common for the surgeon to repair it while he is in there.

While it is frustrating IMO it really isn't a bad thing. I feel my 6 month diet gave me the extra time I needed to REALLY research what to expect from the pre-op diet, the surgery, recovery from the surgery and my diet after surgery. It gave me time to start to practice eating better. It gave me time to wean off of caffeine and soda. I attended one of my programs support groups. It gave me time to figure out what Vitamins and shakes I wanted to have on hand for pre-op diet and after surgery. Too many times I have seen questions from people that are quickly approved by insurance and quickly have the surgery are on the boards asking about what they are allowed to eat at the various stages after surgery. They are the ones that are surprised that they shouldn't be eating simple carbs. They are surprised by the 3 week stall and the initial discomfort after surgery. They are surprised when they are moody after surgery. There was nothing I went through that surprised me. I read a ton of people's personal experiences here on this board. My insurance required 6 consecutive months sometime in the last 2 years. Since you only had 4 months you would have had to do it again. My insurance allowed Weight Watchers, dr supervised, LA Weight Loss, Medi-fast. Any commercial program that I could document 6 months of monitoring.

Obviously you will need to follow your surgeon/NUT's plan. However, personally I have had a slice of pizza, sorta. I tend to eat about 3/4 of the slice, no crust and then scalp the rest. I may have a second slice that I fully scalp and only eat the toppings. I have had the occasional bite or two of dessert with no problem. I have tolerated everything that I have tried to eat. The only thing I have not tried is carbonated beer or soda. I don't want that habit back. I keep pizza to once every couple of months. I have had a few bites of dessert maybe 4 times in the last year. Some people's sleeve is a bit pickier even months or a year out from surgery. Therefore you may not be able to have much or any without your sleeve protesting. Everyone's sleeve is a little different. For most people with the sleeve you can eventually eat anything you want but in much smaller portions. For many people with the band certain foods such as Pasta, bread, white meat chicken, steak will get stuck. I think for RNY high fat or high sugar foods can cause dumping. Dumping with the sleeve seems to be pretty rare and not anything I have personally experienced.

I loved the caramel. I also have Peanut Butter, brown sugar/cinnamon, gingerbread and vanilla. I know I have another flavor at home but I can't remember which one. Caramel was my favorite. I found some caramel drops that are like the Mio liquid but for coffee. I have added that to my vanilla Matrix shake and that was good. I was allowed to quickly add frozen no sugar added fruit to my shakes pretty quickly. I loved it with peaches or mangos. The strawberry was okay. I had to wait for any berries with seeds. I liked the flavor with the raspberry but hated the seeds. I made the mistake of adding fresh kiwi once, only once. It was pretty nasty.

I ride horses so it is not uncommon to ride through a swarm of knats and ingest one or two. I wonder how many calories the little buggers have? I bet they are low carb

I have also read that whenever you have a large quick weightloss it releases hormones stored in the fat cells. This in turn can affect your period. I have heard of women that recently went through menopause getting their period back for a few months during their heaviest weight loss after WLS. I would still go to an OB/GYN as they may be able to do something to lessen the flow. You don't want to become anemic, plus it is just a pain in the butt to have it that long. My period has been regular but it has been an extra two days each month and VERY heavy. I am anemic. I am pretty sure it is a combination of the weight loss and being peri-menopausal. I need to see a GYN since I think the very heavy periods is causing or at least contributing to the anemia.