MacMadame

I just got sleeved last week. I was in moderate pain. I believe very strongly in taking pain killers though. If you don't take them, your pain keeps you from recovering as fast and from moving around. So I went nuts with the morphine in the hospital. It made me loopy but I felt like I hadn't even had surgery. I had no drains. I was a little afraid of a leak, but someone on another board died of a blood clot while I was in the hospital and that freak me out more. I had a PE once before it was not pretty. So I have been moving, moving, moving and drinking, drinking, drinking so it doesn't happen to me. I'm still on thin liquids. This is like clears plus Protein drinks and milk. But not applesauce, oatmeal or cottage cheese like you get on full liquids. I can go to softs in a week if I feel ready. As of today, I can't see being ready though. So I may be the full 3 weeks on thin liquids. (It's 2-3 weeks depending.)

I understand where they are coming from, but I agree that it's sad. My son's gf's dad has pits. They are actually very friendly and sweet dogs. But all animals are unpredictable at heart -- even the best trained ones, which his most definitely are not -- and, if a pit is unpredictable and decides you are a threat and attacks you, it's jaw is so strong that it can inflict major damage and even kill you. So they are kind of like ticking time bombs that way. Yeah, have a heart. Some of us are still on liquids! As a side note, I've been off my blood pressure meds since the surgery. I have to monitor my blood pressure and it does fluctuate wildly, but it stays under 140/85 which is the point where I need to go back on them. So, I'm not home free yet, but it's looking good.

Hey, my FIL lives in Paradise -- right near you. I didn't realize there was anyone out there doing bariatrics. I figured you'd have to go to Sacramento. That's good to know.

It was cold enough yesterday that I turned on my electric blanket.

I'm back from getting my sleeve. The operation went well. I don't have a *lot* of pain but I am also taking all my painkillers quite faithfully. My hospital stay was like something out of a Fellini film though. You can read about it on my blog. I won't even try to summarize here. It's just too weird.

And I can't wait!

Good luck to you.

I got a letter in the mail the other day -- some laptop at some other company was stolen and it had private data about employees of our company. Yikes! They gave us a free membership to some ID theft program which hopefully Mr Mac actually filled out the paperwork on.

vitalady.com

Interesting... thanks for the info.

I was just going to post what Jachut did. I think this whole "starvation mode" thing is one more "dieting industry" myth, like the one about only absorbing 30 g of Protein at a time. I think places like WW say to eat that much because they don't want people doing stupid things on their watch and getting sick and suing them. They pick an amount that most people will lose on but you'll still get adequate nutrition even if you don't take your Vitamins or eat mostly junk food. Also, advice given to people who are dieting but haven't had WLS often doesn't apply to us. When your body is getting the full signal on much less food, it cuts out a lot of the tricks your body does to regular dieters who are hungry all the time. The big thing is that you have to keep moving. Eat enough that you aren't tired and can do your exercising and you will be fine, even on less than 1000 calories day. After all, the other WLS won't *let* you eat 1000 calories a day for the first couple of months. The remaining tummy is much too swollen. Yet those guys lose just fine. They lose faster than bandsters on average. If there really was a 'starvation mode', their weight loss would slow way down and they'd lose the same as someone on a 1200 calories a day diet... but they don't.

How about a protein bullet? They come in a plastic tube which the label says is "virtually indestructable" so you should be able to put them in your purse. Protein powder packs well too.

With a DS you only absorb about 20% of the fats you eat. Whenever you malabsorb, your bowels can get weird, but malabsorbing fats is, IMO, the worst for that sort of thing. RnYers have bowel issues too since they malabsorb. I don't think they are obsessed with their bowels as a few of the DS posters on OH though.

I think my doctor uses the same post-op diet for everyone. It's divided to three phases but the 3rd one is "normal food" so I'm not sure that counts. :thumbup: Phase 1: Thin liquids. This is everything most docs allow on clear liquids plus things like skim milk and protein drinks. It does not include some of the stuff that are on a "full" liquid diet like oatmeal. It lasts for 2-3 weeks. Phase 2: Softs. This is everything on fulls that isn't allowed in phase 1, plus everything allowed in other doctor's mushy, pureed, soft, etc. phases. We add one new food a day just like you do for a baby starting with the softest and moving up. They also recommend blending anything you aren't sure is soft enough. If it can fit through a straw, it's okay here. Softs are the first meals. At this point, we are supposed to be eating these 3 times a day as meals and not grazing on them. Thin liquids are used throughout the day still. This phase is also listed as 2-3 weeks. However, it says some people stay in this phase as long as several months. I'm still on thin liquids and, while I'm not hungry, I would kill for some scrambled eggs and cottage cheese. I daydream about them. :drool:

Sure. Lap band and Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy are both restriction-only surgeries. No intestinal re-routing. No malabsorption. Lap band works by making a pouch aka a pre-stomach that is similar to the gastric bypass pouch. When it fills up with a small amount of food, the pouch stretches a bit, and that sends a signal to the stomach that you are full. However, you don't normally get this until you get to your "sweet spot" which is the spot where you have enough restriction to get the signal but not so much you can't keep anything down. The sleeve works by removing most of the stomach including the fundus and all of the stretchy part. It also sends a signal to your brain when the sleeve fills up. But because the fundus is removed, you also get a big reduction in production of ghrelin, the hormone that stimulates your appetite. The stomach that remains is shaped like a sleeve -- hence the name -- and is about the size of a man's index finger. It is a fully functional stomach with a pylorus valve, unlike with bypass. In terms of weight loss, the averages are around the same as bypass, whereas with lap band, they aren't quite as good. However, with lap band, you have no "window". Your band works forever as long as you keep up with fills. With a sleeve, your intestines do figure out how to make more ghrelin eventually. It never goes back to pre-op levels, but you do start to feel hungry more than in the beginning and that's when regain is an issue. But since the really stretchy part of the stomach is gone, it's not as big an issue as it is with bypass. In terms of complications, they are similar. The sleeve is riskier in the first few weeks post-op. Along with all the things you can get with a band, like a blood clot or pneumonia, you can also get a leak or a stricture. Leaks are VERY serious. However, the farther out you get, the safer the sleeve is. Complications past 3 months post-op are unheard of. This is not true of the band which can slip or erode at any time. The cost is similar. Sleeves tend to cost a few thousand more, but not what bypass or DS costs. Insurance companies are only just starting to pay for them though so many more of us are self-pay. Feel free to ask more questions. I tried to hit the highlights.

That's awesome! (The walking, not the music. :thumbup: )

You can hide your identity here. Put up a picture of a flower or something for your avatar. Look over your old posts and if they give away who you are, edit them or delete them. You can also send her to other web sites. If she is serious about it, she'll probably end up here, but if she's serious about it, then it will probably be okay if she knows your secret.

They asked me if I had had my gallbladder out. I said yes and they said they could see the surgical clips from it. I thought that was cool. That they could tell I had one, I mean. The clips were not cool. I think that surgeon is a doofus. In my report, they said I had a hiatal hernia but that it was small and "probably asymptomatic". HA! That thing has been giving me grief for years!

No, it's not true at all. While some docs won't give you a fill if you continue to lose, most will do it if you are still hungry. Once you get the proper restriction, you will not be hungry all the time. That's the whole point of having WLS -- to have hunger control so you have a prayer of staying on a diet. (Though I hesitate to call it a diet.) I never see Al Roker so I don't know how much he's lost and/or gained, but I will tell you that with a lot of weight loss, if you lose enough, you look a bit sickly for a while. Then your body "bounces back". Maybe you gain a few pounds, maybe you don't, but basically your body recovers from the whole ordeal and you don't look so gaunt. I think that's what happened to Al from what you guys were saying. As for Carnie, we all know that for some woman, having a baby packs on the pounds. There are different reasons for this, but it happens. Carnie is also one who struggles with addiction issues and that makes any WLS harder to succeed with. She transfered her food addiction to alcohol for a while and then she fell back into food addiction with her pregnancy. This surgery only fixes your stomach; we still have to fix our heads and she's a work in progress on that one. But in Carnie's defense, she hasn't "gained it all back". She did again about about 100 lb. out of the 200 lb. she lost. But she has since lost a bunch more and is probably only about 40 to 60 lb. overweight. I think she looks great, personally, even if she never loses another pound.

Your doctor's diet is much more restrictive than most. The idea is to not eat anything too early that will make your stomach churn and interfere with the scar tissue being formed around your band to hold it in place. That's why doctors say things like "clear liquid" or "thin liquids" or "full liquids" at first and gradually moving up to soft/mushie/pureed foods and then to regular food. Therefore, if you can drink an EAS shake, you can drink a Muscle Milk shake. If you can drink crystal light, you can have sugar free Jello. Etc. Your stomach doesn't know the difference between a sugar free popsicle and Crystal light or between an EAS shake and some other brand of shakes. As for soups, broth is on both a clear liquid and a thin liquid so it qualifies for the first two weeks under any doctor's plan, I've seen. I wouldn't even consider it cheating. But hard-boiled eggs do not. So cut those out -- even just a bite! :thumbdown: If I were you, I'd call the docs office and tell him you can't take the EAS shakes any more and ask for more foods you can eat. You'll go crazy trying to just eat one thing all day, day in and day out, and risk do something bad to your stomach. I can't believe he hasn't had patients in this situation before and hasn't got some alternatives for you.

I think she meant that someone on OH was trying to start something.

True, dat.

That's okay. I just wanted to make sure no one thought I was slamming my home away from home. :thumbdown: Actually the DSers -- to get back on topic -- have a cool site just for them, too. But RnYers just overrun all the generic sites making them about RnY more than anything else. And the one sleevester site I found was beyond lame -- much worse than OH. And that is different than plain on a regular rampage? :cursing:

Aw, plain, you are so sweet! And today the scale was down 2.5 pounds so I feel better. Too bad it's not my official weigh in day. How could anyone ruin a perfectly good Snickers bar by deep frying it. We have rules. I do the shopping and if I don't buy it, Mr. Mac has to eat it outside of the house. Me too. I'm still on the thin liquid diet phase! :thumbdown:

I'm curious... who placed your band?