geronimo

Congrats to everyone who had their bypass recently! Hope everyone is doing well! I was discharged yesterday and spent my first night at home last night - boy was that nice. Great, full night of sleep! Feeling great, no complications other than Potassium is a bit low so need to go in for additional lab-work today. My hunger has pretty much all gone away, so I'm very happy about that. No nausea, getting down protein and various drinks just fine. I did put on about 8 pounds while in the hospital from all the fluids they were pumping inside me, but now am quickly taking it back off. All-in-all, doing wonderfully! How about the rest of you?

Sorry, but you calling 30 years of obesity "laziness" further underscores my opinion. Science has shown that obesityhas to do with biological and genetics issues. Thinking it's nothing more than laziness has the same overly simplistic mentality as thinking that the only thing needed to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. Getting Bariatric Surgery still requires heavy diet and exercise, but also requires that we literally put our life on the line to enable this tool. Putting ourselves in a position where we might die on the operating table seems to me like the opposite of taking the easy way out.

"Bariatric Surgery IS the easy way out." While lying in my hospital bed after having gotten my Bypass surgery yesterday, I was skimming through the article and stopped altogether on that quote. That's not fact; that's ignorance.

For all of you who just had your bypass, what does hunger feel like for you, if at all? Not having any problems with water, though not really feeling full after drinking an ounce of water each hour, and I'm feeling hungry about 30 minutes after drinking the water. Anyone else feeling like this, or are you feeling something different?

I asked my NUT about the caffeine and she said it was a small enough amount to not matter. That said, I think I'm going to order some irked for the non-caffeine phase

Okay, so I enjoy very spicy food, but drinking water is pretty much mandatory. Does anyone have any tricks or tips to eating spicy food without being able to put the flames out for 30 minutes afterwards?

Surgery was first thing this morning, hiatal hernia fix + gastric bypass. According to all the surgical staff it was a smashing success. Had initial pain/discomfort due to three gas the first couple of hours, but that had mostly gone away. Heating pad for shoulders a big help. And am really tired, I keep nodding off while texting. I will say, I'm feeling what I would associate with stomach hunger. I've brought it up and they say it's just the gas, but one nurse said summer people feel hunger right away. This REALLY concerns me. I guess I'll find out I the next day our two. Keep your fingers crossed for me that it's not hunger!

I'm just going on what I see out on the net describing the product: http://bodywrap101.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/it-works-body-wraps-fat-detox.jpg "melts away excess fat", "creates lean muscle".

I don't know if I'd say it's a "LOT". It's a small handful, but for me, it's no more than I've been taking for the past 40 years of my life, and it's no more than I would have expected to already take for the rest of my life. As you get older, you'll have to take supplements anyway, along with all the other meds, such as for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, libido, sleeping with a CPAP machine... Seems like cutting it down to just taking Vitamin supplements and getting rid of all the other meds (and their corresponding health complications) is a huge win.

I agree with weegie. My surgeon said to expect ~40lb loss in the first 3 months. Of course, this will change per individual depending on how much overall needs to lose, but after your pre-op and one month post-op combined loss maybe your body is just taking some time to adapt, or catch up. Just stick to the doc's orders, and it'll start coming off again. Have faith, it'll happen!

I'm not claiming to be an expert, but the way I understand it is after surgery your hunger goes away. For some people permanently, but for others it could return anywhere from 6-12 months after surgery - but, it's a different kind of hunger, not the 24/7 Hunger that we all know from before surgery. In terms of gaining weight later on, the way I understand is that there are two types of malabsorption we encounter - malabsorption of nutrients, and malabsorption of calories. The malabsorption of nutrients is permanent, which is why we have to take Vitamins the rest of our lives. The malabsorption of calories is temporary, and at around the 2 year mark your body re-adapts and starts absorbing most, if not all, of the calories again. So, some people aren't aware of that, and don't keep an eye on their diets (by bringing in too many carbs, sweets, alcohol, etc.), and those extra calories can add up. The other thing is that weight loss happens most in the first 3-6 months, and then starts tapering off. My NUT drew my a graph that showed the tapering off, and even said that after it tapers off, it eventually bumps up a bit and many people will regain 10-20lbs back. Not sure if that helps, but that's about all I know.

Sorry, but this sounds like just another entry in the billion dollar weight loss product industry. If it actually worked the way it's advertised, then we wouldn't be getting bariatric surgeries. I wrestled in varsity, and we used to employ techniques such as shrink wrapping ourselves and running in a hot shower in order to drop pounds quickly to make weight right before a match. And, sure, it worked - temporarily. You lose some Water weight, it acts like compression, etc. But, again, it's temporary. I saw a few ads for this that claimed it "creates lean muscle", and "melts away excess fat". There is no way this creates new muscle, or actually burns away real fat. Amazon customers have rated this at 2.4 stars out of 5, which isn't great: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Body-Applicator-Wraps/product-reviews/B005LP5AA4 Another site's customers rated this at 53%: http://www.realself.com/Body-Wrap/reviews I'm just throwing this out there because I'd hate for people to buy this thinking it's really going to help them drop 40lbs and gain six-pack abs. But, as a previous poster pointed out, if you want to drop a few quick pounds for some event (like attending a wedding), I'm sure this will help out.

Hrmmm all good suggestions. I was thinking an oversized trench coat.

Like others here, I had initially been dead set on the sleeve, but during the pre-op tests I discovered I had severe acid reflux and Barrett's, so RNY became my only option. It took awhile for me to wrap my head around this new surgery (since I had initially been against it), but now I am completely for it. So, my first suggestion would be for you to switch from sleeve to RNY. But, really you should research as much as you can about RNY, about gerd vs sleeve, and about Barrett's, about esophageal cancer, so you can get a much deeper understanding as to why the sleeve is so bad for someone with acid reflux, and why the bypass helps it so well. Second, while I can understand there may be very competent surgeons with terrible bedside manners, I would suggest you at least check out other surgeon/weight loss surgery team options in your area. A consultation doesn't cost you anything, and it's very important, when going through a decision and lifestyle changes as large as this, to be 100% comfortable with the people involved with your process. And, if possible, try to have another sit-down with the bypass surgeon - maybe he/she was just having an off-day and another meeting would set you at ease. It's a big decision - just make sure you're doing your due diligence in terms of researching it all - the surgery types, the surgeons in your area, the hospitals, the post-op support programs - everything. Good luck - we're here for you!

I'm 43 and I was worried a lot about long term consequences - what'll it be like when I'm 60, 75, 90? The reality though is that I've been taking daily Vitamins for the past 40'ish years, and frankly I quite expected to take them for the rest of my life as-is. I'm also taking two blood pressure meds, a cholesterol med, other meds, and I sleep with a CPAP machine. Once I get the surgery all the health related meds and devices will go away. The only thing left for me to take for life are the vitamins, which I was going to do anyway, so I realized that that's a pointless issue for me to be worrying about. Do you take vitamins now? If so, then you're life won't be any difference. If not, then it's an extremely small price to pay to not have early heart attacks, strokes, etc.

Wrong thoughts to be having. 6 months minimum, though to be honest, if you're already considering it now, I'd just wait 12 months. No need to tempt old demons until after you've made your way to goal weight. Just my honest 2 cents.

Mine's on the 25th - good luck to you kids!

Are they wanting your PCP to fill it out maybe because they think your PCP knows you better than the surgeon does? When I started the process, my PCP ordered my sleep study before my surgeon even requested it.

I enjoy cooking - all the men in my family are good cooks - and have a bunch of family recipes I dig making (and eating!). So, initially I was going to do a couple weeks of food funerals, all my favorite recipes and foods, but then stumbled upon this website: http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/ It reminded me that with a couple smart recipe substitutions here and there, I'll still be able to make my favorite dishes down the road (it'll be awhile, need to focus entirely on weight loss for 6-12months, but it'll happen again). So, I had a couple food funerals for things I thought I might not eat again, like sushi (with all the rice), etc. And I did have a couple of decently big beverage nights out with friends to get it out of my system. The other thing I started doing was making a list of all the things I want to do when I'm skinnier that I can't do now due to weight, such as skydiving, taking martial arts, etc. That gets me more and more psyched about the surgery, life afterwards, and making it all very successful. But that's about it.

A 300+ question test? Wow. There's a psychologist on my weight loss surgery team, and I met with her for 30 minutes. She and I had a nice casual talk - she asked me some questions, I asked some of her, we talked back and forth, and that was it.

Are you talking about the endoscopy? I had it done twice, and both times I went in, the hooked me up to the IVs, rolled me into the room, had me lie on my side, and the next thing I knew I woke up in the recovery room. They released me to my ride home, and I was a little loopy, but that was it. No pain, no nothing. Simple, in and out.

My surgery is on the 25th, and I'm in the midst of my two week pre-op diet. They too have me only doing a liquid diet one day before surgery. When I asked if I should do a longer liquid diet, they said no, that that would be torturous and they'd never make me do that because it was unneeded. The whole point of the pre-op diet is to help shrink the liver, and it was explained to me that the only thing that really matters for shrinking the liver is keeping carbs below 20g/day. So, I'm essentially doing Phase I of the Atkins Diet. From what I gathered, the liquid diet the day before (along with drinking liquid Magnesium Citrate) is to flush out your system (stomach, intestine, etc.). It wouldn't hurt if I did more than one day of liquid diet, but they said it's unnecessary.

Very cool!! Grats on the "normal shopping"!

Flavors other than tea - such as Passion Fruit, Pineapple Orange Banana, Mango Peach, Blue Raspberry, Alpine Punch, etc.

I ordered cases of these: http://www.gnc.com/Natures-Best-Isopure-Lemon-Green-Tea/product.jsp?productId=3080286 170 cal, 40g Protein. Really can't beat it. It comes in many flavors, so there might be another flavor you'll like.