PatientEleventyBillion

I was on over the counter liquid tylenol and separately liquid codeine, both of which are disgusting. Stopped taking it by the 2nd day after discharge, but the constant irritation at my stomach was waking me up so I took it twice more total over the next 2 days, each time right before I went to sleep. Finally could sleep through the night.

Sort of like this, except sugars are carbs, and should be as minimal as possible. The problem with smoothies is all the carbs (sugars) what the liver treats virtually the same. It first stores it, and when the storage within the liver cells is filled, it then converts sugars to fatty acids, sends it back to the bloodstream (generally toward adipose tissue), the pancreas detect that high amount of sugar in the blood, release insulin, send the sugar (along with fatty acids) through the bloodstream back to the liver, and it becomes far more likely the liver becomes overwhelmed and absorbs it within itself, promoting fat within the liver (leading to expansion of the liver and death of liver cells) and fat on the outside of the liver. As the liver becomes wounded due to fat infiltration the body's wound-healing mechanism only makes it worse by directing more fatty acids toward the liver. tl;dr -> Since the goal of the pre-operative diet is to shrink the liver, having food rife with carbs is counterproductive to this.

There's plenty of other foods rife with protein to have. The reasons why beans are nice is that one can couple them with cheese. Personally I hate most canned food I've tasted by themselves because of that resonating "canned" taste. However, one can of beans lasts me half a week to a week.. I started off with 1/3 a cup but as I've introduced a few more pieces of shredded cheese I've found it too much so I've gone more to 1/4 cup of beans and like 3 tbsp of shredded block cheddar. Beans can likely overfill the sleeve rather quickly around the stage we start soft solids. I learned first hand with this as I had that "full" feeling knowing I ate too much, plus that overstimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system which made me feel tired afterwards.

Best wishes to you.

Beans and melted cheddar.

Yes. Especially in diabetics this can be related to a "low", or a hypoglycemic episode. The difference in whether or not it's potentially dangerous lies in how long it lasts. Does it happen only when you stand up, and go away after like 5-20 seconds? Or does it just regularly happen throughout the day. If it's the latter, might wanna talk to your doctor.

What boggles my mind is why the surgeons are making the diet plans and not a registered dietitian/nutritionist. Seems like a waste of time and added hassle, knowing how busy surgeons tend to be. Anyways, I agree, stick to the plan. Sometimes those plans might be modified and tailored directly to you, especially if you had any issues with say, the leak test/barium swallow or whatever else.. they might want to ease some people into a regular diet for cautionary reasons. Others, they may not be so concerned about. In either case, I wouldn't argue with the person who did the surgery.

Ask for an option you should be able to take whole like Pantoprazole (in Canada brand name is Pantoloc). Like others I have a 6 month prescription for this. For the last several years I've usually taken a prescribed Prevacid generic (Lansoprazole), but it's also capsule (thus time release), I was able to take the Pantoloc whole immediately after discharge with no issues. To the post above that says they take nothing, not everyone needs a PPI. It all depends on how your body handles the surgery.

Yeah I wish I was there.. I fight being tired but no choice.

Go by the usual nutrition.. calories, carbs, protein, and other nutrients. Don't think you can eat infinite amounts.. you can't have infinite calories and expect to lose weight.

Ugh, I feel bad for you (unless your machine helps you a lot, in which case, I feel great for you ).. I wish you luck.

I can't say with the taste, but I'm fine with regular milk, I just have it in tiny portions, I don't have it often, and I don't take it near medications/vitamins because of milk affecting absorption.

Are you able to tolerate a CPCP? And this requirement was regardless of whether or not you could tolerate the CPAP? Or was not-tolerating not an option? And do they actually check the data on your machine to see if you're using the CPAP? I mean, I can see obvious caveats (if they don't check, no need to use it, they'd probably expect you to bring it in on surgery day, but they have anesthesiologists, and I'd just lie and say something like "last couple days I've had issues with it" so they'll be more aware of apneas during GA), but if they're control freaks, that really sucks. That's why I'd definitely recommend OP CYA (cover their ass) and find out from their insurer.

Ah, ok. I figured the "almond" part meant lower carbs and higher protein vs. regular milk. My wife actually has some of it in the fridge at home, I've just been too lazy to check, lol.

I refuse to have the stuff, but I wonder if anyone here actually likes almond milk?

As @teacupnosaucersaid, at minimum you want to wait a while. Sufficed to say, your alcohol intake will be extremely limited for a few years, and what will change is how quickly it affects you. I always had a rule when it came to drinking on occasion, it was once I started paying attention too much to how I walk, it was time to stop. Though, it was more to avoid getting to the point where I'd be throwing up, because I'm a huge wuss when sick or hungover, and one of the worst things I hate in life is feeling like I'm confined to a bed. More importantly than all of that, ensure your liver and other organs are functioning normally and get blood tests. If you have any indication of fatty liver or worse, don't even think about booze post-op until your liver is healed.

Yep. If you can use it, you can.. and that's a very good thing if you are diagnosed with OSA and can tolerate a CPAP. But, many people (like myself) cannot tolerate the CPAP. Verify for the insurance that not tolerating a CPAP trial is condition for not covering you for WLS. It would make absolutely no sense because at least half the people who do the trials can't actually tolerate using the CPAP, so it should be expected. As long as the effort is there, logically, they should comply, but always CYA (cover your ass) and check anyways. I cannot give my personal experience on the subject of private insurance because mine was covered by universal healthcare in Canada, and I never went through this process in the US (spent most of my life there).

You can't have eggs? Beans? Other sources of protein?

For me the issue is popsicles. I have no issue whatsoever having water, and I especially drink tons of ice water every day. I love water to death. I don't need any flavoring for that.. however, popsicles, they need some flavoring for me to eat. I just can't tolerate sucralose (i.e. splenda type sugar), the taste makes upchuck, literally. And because I'm financially conservative, for my brain to justify spending the money on the stuff to freeze my own pops, I absolutely have to hedge against tossing the stuff out and being wasteful, because, as a bonus, then my wife will endlessly nag me.

The biggest thing I would attribute to this is the difference in how Canadian provinces handle the situation. I'm American and spent the vast majority of my life in the US (California), but I can see right off the bat by looking into insurance providers in the past, to seeing posters here have no clue what to do, that the Canadian system sets people up for success a lot better. The ways this is done: - Introduce the patient into weight management program - Require 3 classes immediately concerning weight loss issues (psychological, physiological, and so on), spread a month apart - Require appointments with 3 gatekeepers, a case manager to manage appointments and to track issues and progress, a dietitian (RD) to cover nutritional needs, a psychologist to help with underlying issues that might prevent someone from progressing through WM, surgery or not. Once the arduous process of getting their approval takes place (which all depends on how receptive the patient is with the program), generally when they see progress after multiple meetings, you get passed down to others that will take care of any other underlying issues and assess you for surgery. - So that includes an internist, a doctor who specializes in adult conditions - A bariatric RN who assists the internist and is a conduit between the internist and the surgeon - The surgeons themselves Between the appointment with the internist and surgeon there is a pre-operative surgery class where you have a huge packet full of things to know, and how to handle your pre-operative diet, post-operative diet stages (clear fluids, liquid, soft solids, normal diet), and so on. Without the right foundation of support, and ensuring the patient has the right mindset going into surgery, it makes failure (and thus misery) a much higher possibility. There are Canadians, as you can see on this very forum, who still go to Mexico, primarily because they don't have the patience to go through their provinces program(s) to get the surgery done, if they even need it. I would hope that the Canadians that do this still go through the WM program or utilize their GP and find specialists in the bariatric/endocrinology/metabolism area just for the education and support foundation. Those that just jump right into surgery without being dead set and educated on what they're gonna go through are usually the ones that wind up failing the most. Going through the WM program we have here I'd say likely weeds out those who want the surgery but like many people here don't want to have the discipline to make life-long changes. If we take posters like @OutsideMatchInsideshe undoubtedly comes off as abrasive and uncompromising. However, I think this is the very attitude that one needs to have to get through this. For many of us, we go into this because of other issues, such as depression, head hunger, and especially comorbidities that, along with being fat, decrease both our enjoyment of life and our lifespan. Especially when it comes to psychological issues, having been down this road before (just not even remotely as bad as this time), I understand that you literally need an uncompromising life-and-death attitude. And while one doesn't need to go at it like you're a badass from the Die Hard films, when it comes to necessary changes like the things that occur especially in the early stages of post-op, there cannot be any doubt about what you're doing and if it's right. You should already know going into the surgery that this is the right thing or not. For example, I absolutely did not want to do or eat certain things but I knew that there was no questioning if I should or shouldn't if I want to make these changes.. I'm in the mentality that my health is above all, I want to live a normal life, where I can enjoy everything that comes with it, so I can watch my kids grow up and not be without a father like I spent much of my childhood. I think for those truly in the right mindset, they can piss and moan about what they're going through (they have every right to) but there should not be any questioning whatsoever if what they're doing is right. That to me is a red flag. To add as well: For the weight management program, I entered it in the Fall of 2015. When I started it, I was set out for the Lap-Band. There was no way in hell I wanted to have my stomach cut like they do in the sleeve. When I was diagnosed with the diabetes and liver problem, and told a RNY or VSG is the better options, I immediately went to the RNY. I was dead set on this all the way up until about December 2016. It was at that point my case manager recommended to consider the VSG with possible revision to bypass if any complications arise. I talked to my surgeon, who is a huge fan of RNY, but in my case, due to my comorbidities being under control, and my age, he recommended the VSG and likewise promised the option of revision if I wanted it, and especially if there were any complications. Not satisfied with the opinion with one surgeon, I got second opinions from two other surgeons, who all said virtually the same thing. So then I got down to researching, every day, for the next few weeks, before I gave my consent for the VSG (my surgeon told me to take my time). I absolutely grilled every surgeon I talked to questioning them about the difference and why they are talking about age as a justification, with them pointing out my medical issues did not justify the risk given, despite the high risk to me anyways given my very high blood pressure, high pulse, spiking hBA1c, and liver disease progressing to the point of being on the brink of cirrhosis if it progressed any more whatsoever, they were under control. To summarize, I can honestly say that the process itself gave me time to learn, understand and appreciate the tool I was going toward, and help emphasize the importance of life-long changes to diet, and the dreaded "portion control". I saw first hand how the stuff I was consuming was tearing my body apart. Especially of soda and carb-laden, sugary garbage foods, I had nearly a month of comedown effects due to how psychoactive a drug sugar is. By the time I went through this weight management program and was educated about things, and signed those VSG papers and handed them to my surgeon, I knew 100% what I was doing was right and from then on did everything possible to help make the toughest parts of the journey more tolerable.

Significant amount of people who do a CPAP trial, if diagnosed with OSA and require one, cannot use it, for one reason or another. If they decide you need a CPAP, do your best to use it. If you can sleep through the night with it, even better, if you can get wonderful nights of sleep.. that's awesome. OSA is very detrimental to organs like your heart and brain in the long term. Some other comorbidities: - Diabetes type 2 (need blood workup for this, sometimes fasting blood sugar/hbA1c) - Liver disease (blood workup for this, and if high liver enzyme and other levels that suggest liver irritation prob ultrasound/MRE/MRI/biopsy), also metabolic syndrome, which tends to go hand in hand with progressive liver disease - PCOS (I don't know much about this because only females get it to my knowledge, I do know my wife has it) - Heart disease (high stage hypertension, or even hypotension.. and countless other factors I've not looked into because I only had high blood pressure and pulse) There's some others in all likelihood, make sure you're checked for them all.. not merely to qualify insurance-wise, but because they sort of matter if you want to make changes to live a long life.

I have to agree with this.. it couldn't even hide the taste of Beneprotein protein powder, which is supposed to have no taste. Honestly right out of postop I was taking chopped up pills with a couple sips of Apple Juice, diluted with some water. Try not to gulp because a few days out it's gonna likely hurt (unless they doped you up sufficiently on painkillers) like hell.. I had to chop metformin up in half and take it in halves and even then it was still very large but was able to get the stuff down. Personally I'd probably wanna retch if I tried taking my pills ground up. Best of luck OP.

Thank you for this, I will check it out for sure.

Because of how rapid my weight gain was, I was in the fortunate (if one can call it that) position of having a lot of new clothes (in one US visit went on a small spree of like $3,000) that suddenly were too small for me. Instead of throwing them out or donating them I kept them stored away until I lost weight again (whenever that would be). I remember even 50x32's were way too tight on me only a couple months ago, now I fit in 40x32 and 42x32 pants with some extra room to spare (a couple need belts). Added like 15-20 (all hardly worn) pairs of shorts back to my dresser, 15 pairs of pants, 30 pairs of boxers, and 20 t-shirts.. so f**king stoked.