Sajijoma

I've lost nearly 40lbs pre op busting my butt big time, but unfortunately the only place I've lost it is my face and my boobs. I never had much of an ass to begin with but I have it all in the belly from my babies. I've dropped down to 3x in shirts and dresses if they swing, but on the bottom, I've lost just enough to make my pants/saggy undies embarrassing and not enough to fit the next size down. It's frustrating to look at.

I think I'm going to cry! It still hasn't been sent. ???? I've done everything expected of me and never complained and I've worked damn hard! I've lost nearly 40lbs now on my own and I just want to be able to get my surgery and keep losing. It's getting harder and harder to keep losing even with diet and exercise. It's just doing what it always does which is slows down, stops then reverses. I don't want to lose my progress waiting!!!

I have been caffeine free for 4 wks and 2 days now(not that I'm counting). I can't drink anything but water really. I tried decaf tea to replace my near gallon a day tea habit, but without the caffeine it just tastes nasty. I keep going back and forth between never starting up again and trying to figure out when is the absolutely earliest I can get my beloved tea back. I miss tea.

i second the peppermint tea or some ginger tea.

My doctor asked me at our initial consultation what my goal weight was. I told him I didn't know because I haven't been a "normal weight" my entire life so I wouldn't even begin to know what was realistic. He end up writing down 200lbs. I was a bit disappointed thinking that he thinks that's the best I'll do, but I think he picked that number more because he didn't want to scare me with something that seemed so unattainable. My personal goal is 145lbs. It'll take a lot of work to get there, but it's my personal goal.

You have to chew it forever, but it does kind of melt as you go. It's reminiscent of the chunks of caramel you melt for making caramel apples.

There are calcium chews by Bariatric advantage that taste like candy, but aren't. They are sweetened with Splenda I think. They taste pretty good. I have a bag of the caramel 500's for post op. Much better than chewing a chalk tablet!

@@VeroN86 I'm currently in "the waiting place" waiting for a date. My surgeon's office needs to send my packet, but apparently are waiting on my surgeon to write a letter of recommendation for surgery. Supposedly that will get done this week and then after insurance approves, I'll get my date. It's like all these months I've planned how this all would go and then they dropped the ball and I've been done with my 90 day program since Oct 5th and it's not sent yet. I might go crazy waiting!

Good luck! I'm at the end of my pre op journey and am looking forward to the other side for the reasons you mentioned. I have 7 kids and there's so much I want to be able to do with them and can't because of my weight. I got lucky that my surgeon is a Bariatric center of excellence and does a 90 day program. It feels like that has gone on forever! My best advice is read as much as you can, and make as many changes as you can leading up to surgery so it's not all a big shock and just keep an honest open dialogue with your NUT.

I'm probably poking at Nov at this point. My surgeon will be Dr. Chae at National Bariatric in Lone Tree, CO oops, I'm not a sleever though.

I bought some resistance bands off of amazon. They are fun and there's a door stopper thing that holds the bands so you can do both arms pulling in various ways. You can avoid putting too much pressure on your shoulder by avoiding overhead movements and focusing more on biceps or lunges or even simulates rowing for the upper body and use an ankle strap to work your legs.

My NUT said that dumping syndrome Is caused because the part of the intestines that are bypassed, that first section, is responsible for absorbing sugar and fats. Not all sugars, but like sugar used in things commercially and table sugar and baked goods and the alcohols made from them. If it has sugar listed as an ingredient pass on it same for any sweetener ending in -ilitol like malitol, xylitol, etc. they all will cause dumping syndrome, because it doesn't belong there and the body doesn't know how to process it, so it treats it as a dangerous substance and tries to flush it out by flooding your intestines with extra water to move it on out. Over time-somewhere between yr 1 and 2, your body will adapt and be able to process sugar again, but only in little amounts like in something like ketchup, but you may never be able to eat ice cream or cake again except for 1 bite. Same with greasy foods. Things sweetened with sucralose(Splenda) or fructose get absorbed in a different place in the intestinal line, so you can safely eat things sweetened with these sweeteners, because the area where they are absorbed was not bypassed.

The psych eval was nerve wracking for me, because my psych was a real piece of work and wasn't listening to me and just made me feel so incompetent and did his best to make me feel uncomfortable. He was even a jerk afterwards holding my report hostage til I paid the bill he never sent me and then he hung up on me on the phone and when I called back he screened the call and when I got to the point of saying "I want to arrange the payment ASAP to get this thing rolling" he picked up that phone so fast! He's definitely not a good psych! I'd say if you can, ask around for a good one. My NUT gave me the number of a really nice guy and I can't wait to use him afterwards to tackle any issues that come bubbling up. That being said, even after that level of disaster with the psych I had, I still passed with flying colors. The majority of the evaluation was a survey of questions that repeated over and over in slightly reworded phrases to trip up someone not being honest with their answers. It wasn't hard or anything. Just be honest and do your best. That's all I can suggest and don't worry about why other people fail, because they may have more issues than you know.

Hello, hello? Hawaiian Punch itself is a barf-fest. agree, but teenagers don't have taste buds! ????

OMG that's so funny! I had everyone in my house take a sip too! My husband actually likes it which proves as I always have suspected, that he has no sense of taste! lol 3 of my kids also barfed in the trash can like me and my teenager says she hates me now! I told her it was Hawaiian Punch! ???? the baby actually enjoyed it and wanted more when it was gone. I figure if all else fails, I can feed it to him! Thank god I just bought 2 sample bottles of each flavor from Bariatric pantry so it wasn't a HUGE waste of money. I think I'm out somewhere around $12 total.

I should have called last week, but I called today and found out my packet hasn't even been sent to the insurance company yet! I'm about to have a full on freaking meltdown!!! It was suppose to be sent last Monday and here it is a week later and they haven't received anything to approve!!!! ???????????????????? I tried calling the surgeon's office, but no one is there apparently, so all I could do was leave a message. I cannot believe we've wasted a whole week doing nothing!!! ????????????????????????

I've had thrush before and when I did my whole mouth was in severe pain...like think about if you put salt and vinegar in a paper cut but everywhere! It even hurt to swallow my own saliva. The white also wasn't just a coating on the tongue, but all over the mouth with areas with big raw circles. It was absolutely aweful! If you have that definitely tell your doctor now don't wait because it'll get worse. They have medicines that you can swish and also paint on like Venetian violet to cure the infection.

How exciting! Way to go!!!

What are you doing to get protein in if not protein shakes? Our surgeon wants us on protein shakes as soon as we get home-like day 1 at home from hospital. It's important for healing, to keep your hair and to prevent your body from starving and start wasting your muscles and breaking them down for proteins to keep your body systems going. As for vitamins, we were told that we could use chewable a like 2 flintstones or chewable Bariatric vitamins or use nothing for the first two weeks until we were able to use the pills like 10-14 days out. Certainly after that point you want to be on vitamins because our bodies can't absorb what we need because of the rerouting of intestines and restriction(bypass), so it's important to your complete health to take vitamins then. If you were a sleeve, you'd still need to take vitamins to make up for what you can't get in due to the restriction, but the rules were the same. Chewable vitamins or nothing for first 2 weeks, then move to the pills or stay on chewables.

God if I had to cancel or schedule with no allergies, I'd like 1-2 wks a year I could do it! My seasonal allergies always end in ear infections, so I keep a steady stream of drugs going. I take Allegra-D during the day with Flonase and at night I take benedryl and when my ears are starting to get sore, like now, I mix together lanolin, 15 drops eucalyptus oil, 7 drops tea tree oil, and 7 drops peppermint oil and use a q tip to drop it in the canal. Usually after a few treatments, the ear infection is gone. My PCP is actually recommending my remedy to people after I went from literally constant ear infections to maybe one a season. It also makes a great natural decongestant(like vapor rub) if rubbed on the throat-just keep out of your eyes!

Might as well count as water since it tastes like it! ???? I'm on decaf tea for the duration and OMG it's like the swill left in the bottom of the defuser after making real tea!

Congratulations on getting your date! I thought I'd have mine by now, but looks like it'll be next week at the earliest before we get that approval.

I'm curious to know if you have had your gall bladder removed or not, because in the beginning of my attacks they were like you are describing. My insurance kept putting me off and putting me off about getting it out(was using Kaiser Permanente then) and eventually it ruptured on my way to the hospital. I was in intensive care for a long time because of the infection from that rupture. If you start vomiting what looks like coffee grounds, your poop turns grey, or you are running a fever with the pains make sure you go back ASAP! Don't trust ER docs! Their job is to get rid of you as fast as possible. I had kidney stones 2 yrs ago when I was pregnant and they sent me home 6 times in as many days before admitting me and declaring it was a pulled muscle-after claiming it was an ectopic pregnancy and offering to give me an abortion pill, a heart attack, and then a pulmonary embolism all because I was fat and that's what we fat broads have apparently! I went home and passed out in the floor that night from the pain and later passed 2 big stones as big as aquarium pebbles. Keep going back as long as it takes to get the answer. They aren't in it to care about you. You have to fight to get it figured out in time before you die or are permanently damaged. My urinary tract will never be the same because of those big stones ripping through there. It could have been prevented if they had just listened to the symptoms and treated me like a human being instead of a fat person statistic.

So glad to hear your surgery went so well Dub! It's just the start of good things to come!

I found out today that it's because the surgeon is out of town and didn't have a chance to write the recommendation letter before he left so it'll be next week before it gets sent. I'm oddly at peace with this, because it'll push my surgery into November and I won't have to worry about if I end up with a surgery date on the date my very special brother died and since he died of a perforated intestines, it'll make me not stress about it as much. It's odd, but I'm ok with it now.