MacMadame

How would you get it onto your sleeve? :thumbup:

Max protein is GREAT! But my GNC doesn't carry it. :thumbup:

It's not "sleeve vs. band", it's "doctor vs. doctor". :thumbup: Some say to wait to start up the Vitamins and some say to start out with liquids and chewables. I was on liquid Centrum and TUMS right way. I then moved to chewable Centrum and then regular. But I stayed on the TUMS too long and I think that contributed to my kidney stone. I was only supposed to be on it for 3 weeks and I was on them for at least 7! Anyway, I can't imagine it would be bad to be on vitamins early out, but I also think nothing horrible is going to happen to you if you miss a few weeks of vitamins and it is one less thing to think of and less pills to deal with. You are supposed to stay with very little pills immediately pre-op though. So it would be better IMO to not take vitamins at all than to take big horse pills until you are on regular food. But that's just my opinion. I'm not a doctor or nurse or anything.

Me too! Who would have thought that you could chew jello!

You talk about that powder so much that I went out and bought some! :biggrin0:

Yes, that's my big complaint about it. I have a few forums I love there but they are slow moving. Any forum that has more posts than fit on one page in a day ends up being a major pain to keep up with.

The leak could have happened in the OR but not be big enough to find. Or it could be from improper healing. Or patient "non-compliance" (That's medical talk for you ate something you were told not to.) Or there could have been symptoms right away but they were overlooked. Those are all things that could happen and have happened to various people.

Do you think we can stop bashing on Patty for not doing what we *think* we would have done even though we don't know any of the people involved? I think everyone has made their point here MANY TIMES and repeating yourself over and over doesn't advance the conversation.

A friend of mine had something similar happen to her. People were saying she and her boyfriend were doing it in the office and other nonsense! She eventually found another job and they got married. Beth, thanks for answering my question. I think of EDs as things like binge eating and anorexia so I was kind of surprised to hear you say you were looking for a counselor who specialized in them. Just make sure you get one who understands WLS or they'll jump to all sorts of weird conclusions about stuff that is perfectly normal for us!

My surgeon's published leak stats in their pre-op materials are 0.7% over a six year period. However, they have haven't had a leak in over a year so those stats are old and the new stats are lower. (They've been doing the sleeve for about eight years now.) In this abstract of their published results for the first two years, they had 216 patients and 3 had leaks for a rate of 1.38%. Vertical gastrectomy for morbid obesity in 216 pat...[surg Endosc. 2007] - PubMed Result This presentation of 5 year results includes their leak stats for the first 5 years: http://www.ssat.com/video/2008/SSAT%2049th%20Annual%20Meeting(3)-Cirangle.htm It's under 1%. These results will be published in a peer reviewed journal soon, probably in the Fall.

It's all relative. I don't do nearly as much as a lot of other triathletes training for my distances. Which worries me a bit but there are only so many hours in a day!

Anyone else get their sleeve in Sept. '08?

Conquering my nemesis hill!

That was Wildflower. I've done one since then but it was a little one. Wildflower is my accomplishment for the year (so far). Heh, when I did my first 5K, I got beaten by a mom pushing a stroller. And a dog! Congrats! Are you overtraining? It's important to have rest days because that's when you actually get your fitness gains. If you don't let your muscles repair themselves, they don't get stronger.

My surgeon told me to have my colonoscopy before surgery as it would be easier to drink the horrible tasting drink stuff pre-op. When I get my follow-up, I'm going to make them let me do something else. There are other ways to clean your colon besides drinking a gallon of greasy liquid.

It's called telogen effluvium and it's caused by: -sudden shocks to the system (i.e., surgery, general anesthesia) -rapid weight loss -hormones -nutritional deficiencies With WLS, we have the first three no matter what. Nutritional deficiencies can be a factor, if you aren't getting in your Protein or taking your Vitamins. But, if you are, taking a bunch of supplements and eating more protein won't help. Here's an article about it: Telogen effluvium (hair shedding). DermNet NZ

WTF? I missed this... why does Ebony think you have an eating disorder? More labor to make them. I'm surprised Animal Control hasn't been brought in. I was bitten by a dog like that once. AC was called and the people got out of it but then a month later he bit one of their kids and AC made them put him down. He only bit 7 people before something happened, not 20! Yes, I got my pants back. I had a bunch of bags on the bench in the changing room and the Talbot's bag fell under the bench. When I was consolidating all my bags, I forgot about it under there so I walked out without it. I only figured it out when I was showing Mini-Mac my purchases and it wasn't there! I just kept calling the store until someone found it. I knew it was in there somewhere. :eek: It's because they rock and are open. With coasters, you are strapped in. I'm always convinced they are going to rock too far and tip me out. I had the same experience when I made some protein bars. I used PB2 and they were still 100 calories per ball -- a ball the size of a walnut! Can you imagine if I'd used real peanut butter like the recipe called for? OMG! Do you realize how much ALCOHOL is in a martini?! Apparently not... Okay, a cosmo has 4 parts of vodka and 2 parts triple sec or Cointreau. A chocolate martini is 6 parts vodka and 1 part chocolate liqueur. Since 1.5 oz. of hard liquor is equal to 1 5 oz. glass of wine, each one was probably equal to 2-3 glasses of wine.

Luck! :smile2: That's terrific. I hope you win! Something to keep in mind.... The first 10 min. or so of exercise, your body's oxygen needs to up immediately, but you aren't burning ATP fuel yet. That doesn't happen until about 10 min. out. So the first 10 min. often feel like you are going to die. Then it gets better.

I have a weak full signal too. A couple of things have helped me: -time! :smile0: When the swelling goes down, the amount you eyeball will be more appropriate -weighing and measuring instead of eyeballing. I measured it out and, when I couldn't eat it all, I measured what was left so I knew about how much I could eat and measured less the last time -eating really, really slowly. Like eat a bite, wait a minute. -stopping at any sign, no matter how small. If I even got a niggle of a feeling that I was full, I stopped. If my chest felt tight, I stopped. Then I'd wait a bit and see if I had more room. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't My full signal seems stronger now. It's still weak, but at least it's *there*. In the early days, it wasn't even always there.

The mini-bypass is not one of the surgeries that the ASMBS has put their stamp of approval on. It's dangerous, for one thing. Sometimes insurance will pay for a DS and the surgeon goes in and can't actually completely it due to scar tissue or something. So they just do the sleeve stomach part and you get no malabsorption.

For me, I can wait it out sometimes. Other times, I have to burp up the foam because it makes everything worse. But sometimes it's painful enough that I have to vomit up some food. The hard part is just upchucking enough to get rid of the pain and not losing everything. But mostly it doesn't happen. You figure out your full signal after a couple of incidents and then it might happen only if you are eating without minding. I think this is different from a band but I'm only going by what I've read. It seems like with a band sometimes a food goes down and sometimes it doesn't. With my sleeve, it's never about the food. It's always about eating too much.

The ASMBS says in this paper somewhere: http://www.asmbs.org/Newsite07/resources/bgs_final.pdf "A clear liquid diet is often used as the first step in postoperative nutrition, despite some evidence that it might not be warranted [172]." I haven't looked into it past that.

I don't believe in the liquid diet so I can't really answer your questions. But a lot of docs put their patients on things like Medifast. That's really easy because you just add Water to their packets and you've got the exact right mix of nutrients. OTOH, any weight loss will shrink your liver. Low carb does it better but weight loss does it too.

Only if you have certain jobs that put you in the "Designated Reporter" category. These would be things like social worker, teacher, medical professional. It also depends on what state you live in. Different states have different job lists and not every state has designated reporter laws. As for PG, maybe she should have reported him at the time, but I don't think the police are going to be much interested in a report of something that happened 6 years ago where no one was hurt. We make our decisions based on what we know at the time and then deal with it the best we can. It's always difficult when it's family too. There are conflicting interests.

I think that's completely untrue. The conventional wisdom is that, if you are a sweet eater, you should get bypass because you'll have dumping to keep you in line. I think that's dumb. :tongue_smilie: The thing is, only about half the people who get bypass dump. For some, the threat of dumping is enough and it keeps them in line. But not everyone is the same. For some people, they count on dumping and when it doesn't happen, they start cheating like crazy. Some people don't do well with negative reinforcement either. Also, as your question points out, what does it even mean to be a "sweet eater"? Most people either prefer crunchy/salty foods or sweet foods. Just because you prefer sweets to, say, chips, doesn't mean you will fail with every surgery except bypass. After all, fruits and vegetables are sweet! Many people report after WLS of any type that they have lost a lot of their tastes for sweet things anyway. For many, that's enough for sweets not to be a big problem for them. I think that bypass is something to be considered if you are the kind of person who binges on sweet junk food and you think that having the threat of dumping will keep you in line. Otherwise.... I have always been a big sweet eater and that was not me at all. Even pre-op, I could do things like have one piece of chocolate and be done. One piece didn't make me binge on sweets. I also don't do well with threats for motivation. I would definitely be the kind of person who would constantly flirt with disaster trying to eat something that was on the borderline of making me dump. So I found bypass to be completely unappealing and I have done quite well with my sleeve. I hardly eat sweets at all, but I can if I want to and that's important to me.