ella37

Did you have the sleeve? Sent from my SM-G930T using the BariatricPal App Not yet! I'm getting my paperwork in order still. I just used to be terrified of vomiting so I was commiserating. It happened about 10 times after my last surgery and I overcame my phobia. It's really not as bad as you're remembering.

I threw up the day after surgery. I also had the dry heaves several times during my hospital stay. I won't lie, it hurt, but it wasn't as bad as you might think. At this stage, you really don't have a whole lot in your stomach to throw up but I was definitely worried about the dry heaves since I kept thinking how hard it must be on my new stomach. Apparently quite common though!I'm DREADING that! But it's a small price to pay for getting healthy. I have struggled my whole life, so I am ready!!! Sent from my SM-G930T using the BariatricPal App I used to be terrified of throwing up too, it was just something I NEVER did. My longest streak was 12 years, lol. Even when I would get so sick to my stomach with the flu that I'd hope and pray I would throw up it just never happened.

Thank you for saying this, I've had so many people questioning why I had the surgery because I wasn't "that big" and everytime I would ask myself in my head what does "that big " mean and "how big" do I need to be to make a life changing decision? I'm also 4'11 and had a slew of health conditions that by having this surgery would help control or eliminate, is it so bad that I'm 30 years young and would like to live long enough to have babies and raise them and be healthy enough to do so?! Why do I have to be a certain "big" to want to change for the better?! I just wish some people would go back to basics, if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App Lol, I've only told one friend and my husband that I've decided to go forward with the surgery but for about a year when I was thinking about it I mentioned it to a few people. My favorite response was, "you're not THAT fat", which I heard probably 3 times. I think it's supposed to be a compliment?

Sophie74656, on 05 Aug 2016 - 11:06, said: Same.... My goal,weight is 175! Sent from my VS985 4G using the BariatricPal App Well that's you 2 and not her. You have no idea what other problems she has, what her body fat ratio is, or what her dieting or medical history contains. I've already heard comments like this on this board and I'm OBESE! I cannot for the life of me understand why other people who ALSO chose this option would be judgmental. It's not a competition, let her get on with her success and you can have your own different goals.

Frankly, I can't believe you found a doctor who would actually do the surgery. That is a low BMI. Yes, at 22 you could have done it yourself and kept it off. Maybe not 52 pounds, but 35? You'd be 155. That's a great weight. "Yes, at 22 you could have done it yourself and kept it off". I feel like this comment is pretty hypocritical. Regardless of age, if we could do it ourselves we wouldn't have resorted to surgery. I'm now 33 and have been doing it myself for 10 years, losing, gaining, losing etc. Why not do it now so she can save herself the heart ache of going through what so many of us have gone through for 10, 20, 30+ years? Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App I said that because IF she can keep that off then that would always be preferable to surgery, with its possible risks and complications. And, she asked. Hypocritical? No. It would be hypocritical if I had similar stats to hers. I don't. I am much older and have a lot more weight to lose. Well hey, at one point you weren't as old as you are now and probably could've lost the weight and kept it off too, like ANYONE at ANY age can, but most of us can't successfully maintain. We've all tried. I've already heard enough of this from the ONE friend I told about planning to get surgery that I've decided not to tell anyone else. I don't want to hear any more from people about how this is too extreme, or how I'm "giving up on myself", I'm trying to get control of the situation before it gets MORE out of hand. If I'd had the surgery 5 years ago maybe I wouldn't weigh 230 lbs and be suffering from joint pain and other problems I didn't plan on having at age 35. To the OP, this is a personal decision and I already fully expect to go through a "why did I do this?" period. I think it's probably pretty normal.

Ugh. I hate that the insurance companies make this a hassle for people. Mine won't cover because my BMI is below 40 and I don't have scary enough co-morbids. Doctors should be the ones making the decisions for their patients, NOT insurance companies. It's like they want to make us wait until our health gets worse before they will cover it. I am blessed to have a supportive husband and the ability to self pay because it sounds like going through insurance is a nightmare. I feel immense sympathy for everyone going through their difficult process. It's a lose-lose. My insurance would've only covered me after 6 months of supervised weight loss but since I am BMI 37 I would've had to NOT lose much or else I'd be below 35 and they wouldn't cover me no matter what. Seems incredibly stupid. So if my doc thinks I do need the surgery I'd have to diet for 6 months to not lose more than like 20 lbs. Insurance companies are wasting people's time. I'm sure it's useful for some but most of us have already tried every diet under the sun. It seems like if they agreed before they should agree again! Try not to worry

I agree that a lot of this probably has to do with starting weight. It's like any other diet, the bigger you are the more you lose at first. Whenever I would start a diet at my heaviest I'd lose up to 10 lb the first 2 weeks, but when I was starting from a lower weight I'd lose less. On my usual calorie counting diets I consider 5lb/month to be a win so I'm just hopeful to beat that # after surgery.

I looked into this guy/procedure as well even though he's out of state for me. I was pretty interested but couldn't find many reviews. Following.

If you're anything like me you've lost and gained weight your whole life. My biggest loss was 70 lbs in 2009 and yeah, my skin didn't look great. Since then I've gained and lost 40 a few times so I'm sure by the time I hit goal I'll look like a deflated balloon, but at least I can tuck it into cute clothes! Lol! I figure a bit of loose skin that can be covered with pants and sleeves will look much better than what I've got going on now. Maybe I'll be able to do some plastic surgery down the road but the only person who sees me naked is my husband and he'd rather see me healthy and a little droopy.

I know that we all have different reasons for eating and different ways we came to be obese, so I'm specifically talking to those who are/were emotional eaters or used food for comfort. How did you deal with the loss of that after surgery? Were there times that you typically would've eaten to deal with things and suddenly found yourself uncomfortable without being able to do that? Part of what held me back from surgery for so long was my fear of stressing out and NOT being able to eat about it. I know that's an unhealthy habit but it really does help me cope. I'm planning on continuing with therapy after surgery to learn better coping skills but what was your experience like?

i found this odd too. a lot of people, esp with BMI under 40, didn't have to do the liquid diet before surgery but had an alternative low fat diet. my dr says i need one with BMI 37. most oddly he said that he doesn't make low BMI sleeve patients quit smoking, which i thought was CRAZY, every other doc ive spoken to made a big deal about it. he said if it was bypass i would have to quit for 3 months but with sleeve i should just try to quit. im still totally determined to before surgery because it seems a bit stupid to spend all this $$ to get healthy and keep smoking and i want to lower my risk for post op problems. weird, i guess they just all have different ways!

I think my plan is to quit caffeine and sugar in the few weeks before i start the liquid diet, that way i dont have to give everything up at once, lol.

In America, legal action would get you what you want. Don't know about NHS in England. I tend to expect the worse from the government... Now that I have Clostridium Difficile, and may have infected my family, I am re thinking my stance regarding legal action. If this drags on for months or if I wind up with even more serious problems such as bowel surgery, I may have no choice but to look into this. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App I've read about C Difficile several times lately. Is this something related to gastric sleeve surgery?

I had one doctor whose favorite thing to do was go on and on about my weight. No matter WHAT was wrong with me he'd look me up and down and say, "you REALLY need to lose some weight". That's great, but I think I have strep throat.. can we move on now?????

I am in STL too! I had an appt today with Dr Norbert Richardson at St Alexius. I also have a consultation with Dr. Snow this coming Tuesday. Did anyone speak with St Alexius New Start?

I have only been on this forum for a number of days and already it seems like you're challenging everyone to a fight. I'm really sorry that you had such an awful experience, but there's no need to be so rude. You didn't "only ask" why she thought they were over-hyped, you said, "Why do you feel that it is "over hyped" if you have no experience in the matter?", which is clearly meant to ridicule. Maybe you have a problem with conveying tone via text but it comes off very nasty. After talking to you on your thread yesterday I can't even IMAGINE why you'd post on a thread about positive experiences.

My BMI is 37 which isn't super low, but my surgeon told me it's definitely one of the lowest he regularly sees. We don't want to wait until we're 400 lbs and have hurt our health even more. If you were running track at 200 and gained enough to need the sleeve you should understand that weight is hard to maintain. I've had more than enough of this 10 year ride with my BMI jumping around from as low as 23 to as high as 40. I don't want to wait until I NEED the surgery.

I think you're just saying that most people don't have a negative experience, we just hear about them a lot because those are the people speaking up. I understood.

I had my first appt with the surgeon today and they told me there won't be drains and I won't have to use a catheter, which is GREAT news. I've never had a drain before but last time I had surgery the catheter drove me insane. I bitched and moaned until they took it out early, lol. I would just ask your dr!

Congratulations!!

Hi again folks! I will obviously be talking with my surgeon about all of this before I get a date, but I'm just interested to hear what other's know and have heard (I know that everyone's doctor and experience is different) From what I've read once you're in maintenance your daily caloric intake should be 10 to 1200 and during weight loss it can be as low as 700. Like most of you, I've dieted on and off for 10+ years and have always been told that women should never go below 1200. I also know from my own experience that trying VLC diets like Optifast never worked for me because I would get so faint and feel so weak and sick. So I guess the question is, how can you survive long term on such a low calorie intake? In some of my crazier diets I'd try to stay below 800 and would get dizzy and nauseous, while on optifast I nearly fainted in my bathroom after a while. Did you feel sick/weak during the weight loss phase? How do you get by on so few calories in the long run as well? Thanks in advance!

Your body becomes very, very efficient at using whatever calories you give it. This is incredible, if you were car or in a famine situation. It can be frustrating for those of us that finally reach goal weight and want to try and eat "normally". The article I linked below specifically is talking about the crash diet used by Biggest Loser contestants, and how it impacted their metabolism. Many WLS patients have similar impacts on their metabolism. That is one of the reasons you'll see people say that eating more and losing a bit slower is a good thing. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=0 Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App VERY interesting. So in a nutshell, once your body gets used to the weight loss cals (700 or whatever) you no longer feel dizzy/sick because of eating so few. Sounds like basically your body compensates. So then once in maintenance you still need to stay pretty low because your metabolism has slowed. If you start eating like 1500, you will gain weight. Is that about right?

Thanks so much for all the helpful information!! I understand that the stomach being gone and the ghrelin production being down causes the hunger to be less of an issue, I was really curious as to whether or not you can survive in a healthy way on that little food and I'm glad to see you've been able to! I also tend to get hypoglycemic symptoms (although I've never actually been tested or diagnosed) when I'm eating low calorie diets. Encouraging to hear that it hasn't been an issue for you.

I simply meant that I was alarmed by your initial post and after reading your full story your regrets made more sense to me. I don't think most of these posts on this thread were insulting, in fact I think they were very kind until they got snarky replies. Well, you seem to be enjoying your limelight so I'll budge along now and you can continue with the others. Onward and upward.

Lol I am not "miserable" at all. If you take the emotional words out of it a moment and read exactly what I say, you will see that I want to make sure that other people who feel as I do post op (and they do, it's not just me. I am the only one brave enough to speak out), know that they are not alone. And to encourage other people to consider things that they cannot read in a book or hear in a seminar. This is irreversible, permanent surgery that may not be right for everyone. I have had many thanks for speaking out and it is worth all the bullying and personal insults just to know that one other person explored their options more thoroughly. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App Fair enough. There's nothing wrong with giving your honest experience. My advice would be just to make sure people know you are only 9 weeks out and have had complications so they can be more objective. As far as "silencing you" and bullying you, seems a wee bit over dramatic. It's just a weight loss forum, you're not Edward Snowden.