PatientEleventyBillion

- Sleeved Thursday around 8am - Loaded on morphine 10mg all Thurs and into Friday afternoon - Friday had barium/fluo done, and some other leak test - Started off with ice water Friday afternooni to see if can tolerate fluids - Did fine on two 10ml cups, so went onto a full glass of ice water.. annihilated it easily w/constant sips - Cleared for full fluids, onto SF jello, non SF popsicles, tomato soup, etc. - Given first dose of liquid tylenol and liquid codeine - Had drainage removed and other stuff + lots of take-home info plus prescriptions for liquid tylenol+codeine, milk of magnesia, pantaloc 40mg, etc. - Left for home Friday around 8pm - Took some codeine/tylenol, went to bed - Wake up around 5am Saturday and have first BM, liquid and dark dark brownish (could be mistaken for black) - Try to go back to sleep, wake up, dizzy, gas pains, go have another toilet destroying BM, drink water, go back to sleep - Wake up, Drink water, have yogurt drink, applesauce w/beneprotein, tylenol/codeine.. - Will be taking daily meds, confirmed I can crush/cut metformin but no need to cut pantaloc. The real work begins.

Holy **** my sides dude...

Just do what you need to do, with or without his support.

Drink more.

Anyone else ready to get sliced n diced?

Not really, no. I pretty much stick to my wife who has been supportive of the lifestyle changes and surgery all along, and leave out those whose lifestyles are not conducive to this change. Surround yourself with those who are supportive is my advice. In the end, it's all up to the desire of the person trying to make these changes.

I've seen all the benefits of this lifestyle change just in pre-op so I'm not sad whatsoever nor am I missing the garbage foods like soda (what I was seemingly addicted to). My commitment to having a better life far supersedes the desire at this point to submerge myself back into the habits that result in misery. Part of it is I just had far too much disgust in seeing what this weight gain had done to me (180 pounds in 5 years), a lot of contempt for what I had done to myself when I looked in the mirror, and the desire to life a normal life after being lucky and catching this food-caused liver disease before it was irreversible. Never again.

I'm thinking it could be: - Less cushion (as mentioned in this topic already) - Depleted muscle mass (happens with weight loss but especially if not getting enough protein) - Sitting on a toilet too much/hemorrhoids

Racquetball, ice skating, snowboarding.. I miss those things so much. Clothing as well.. Canada's clothing sizes don't allow even remotely close to what they do in US stores unless you go to a fat shop.

That's the problem with "diets" in general.. people go on it for a while, get positive results, then go back to the habits that got them in trouble. There's no discipline to stick with what's working. This is a lifestyle change. If one doesn't wish to permanently change their eating habits they shouldn't even bother with WLS, it's not gonna help whatsoever. One should find a healthy diet that's both conducive to their health goals and something they can plan on doing indefinitely. Keto is just one idea of many.

Got my blood band earlier and got call on surgery time which is 6am tomorrow. So excited, hope I can even sleep.

I think you picked a fitting name, sir. Right now in my last days of pre-op taking a crap 1-2 times a day, sometimes every other day.

I've had that Magnesium citrate, tastes like a slightly more tangy barium swallow. Yuck.

I don't chart anymore, but the entirety of my diet consisted of: - Wife making home made meatballs, of lean ground beef, eggs, and almond meal in place of bread crumbs (tbsp of low sodium ketchup), eating no more than 2-3 at a time, 0g carbs - String cheese (0g carbs) - Maple Leaf farms chicken nuggets (3 at a time, 8g of carbs, tsp of KC Masterpiece original BBQ sauce) - Burgers with 0-2g sliced block cheese, generally cut up to ~ 1/6 of a pound and eat in small bites with dabs of ketchup (NO BUNS), 0-2g of carbs - Peanuts and almonds, unsalted, 1/4 cup, 3-5g carbs, mostly nullified from fiber - 2-4L of water a day - Vitamin supplements (Bariatric Advantage ADEK MV, Bariatric Advantage calcium citrate + vitD chewable tablets.. bottle is fricken huge, Jamieson C+D chewables, Walmart OTC iron mini tablets) - At the beginning I estimated it between 1000-1400 cals a day, didn't really change the diet much, stuck to the same regimen every day switching meats between chicken and beef daily. Post-op after I get to the stage of being able to eat anything (i.e. meats), I plan on sticking to a similar premise of 1000-1400 cals a day, less than 20g carbs a day, 2L+ of water daily, and of course the supplements. I plan on it being a permanent diet, just expanding my diet a little more to include vegetables I can tolerate (hoping my taste buds change). Kinda paranoid about my immediate post-op foods (yogurt drink, unsweetened applesauce, oatmeal, etc., which tend to have more carbs than I'd want) but more than willing to be patient given the importance of healing.

I've lost nearly 80 pounds on a 3 month pre-op effectively on the keto diet. Not something I'd personally want to do on a permanent basis (some of the underlying rationales behind this diet I will keep, such as very low carbs), but no doubts whatsoever it, like the surgery, has/will be an effective tool for my goal of weight loss. Some of the other benefits I've had during this pre-op diet: - Stage 3 liver fibrosis: Significant liver improvement on liver function tests and fibroscan showing dramatic shrinking and softening, all liver function tests normal for first time in 1-2 years. I was heading toward cirrhosis (non-alcoholic), now liver is heading toward being healed. - Type 2 diabetes: hBA1c from 7.9 to 5.7, often times scoring 4.4-4.6 on fasts. I expect my June 1st hBA1c to likely take me off the rest of my diabetes meds. (being taken off 1 of my diabetes meds, Forxiga, immediately on Thursday) - Spinal injury: L5/S1 compression fracture, significantly more pain relief due to losing weight - RHR improved from 90-100 to 50-60 - BP improved from 150-170/110-120 to 110-125/70-90, being taken off one BP meds (hydrochlorothiazide) immediately on Thursday To say the keto diet has been beneficial has been an understatement, especially compared to the crappy RD's demands of liquid pre-op (consisting of just about entirely Glucerna, the crappiest overpriced meal replacement drink you'll ever taste) for 3 months.

Congrats! Wednesday afternoon I'm calling the hospital to get the time I'm going in for my sleeve on Thursday. Best wishes and good luck.

PPI. Like Zantac/Prevacid/Prilosec/some other stuff people have mentioned. Some of those foods are also reflux triggers in general. Because you are early on and the focus is healing, probably ask your doctor/surgeon what a safe PPI to take would be. Because your food choice is already limited for the time being, one can't yet be expected to avoid all foods that trigger reflux but it's something to keep in mind once you're at the "I can eat anything" stage.

I don't think there's much to learn from this 4 year old blog. It's pretty obvious that one should get rid of their psychological problems before having surgery. Not only do they stand to mess up (counteract) their surgery but complicate any revision if possible. It takes willpower to transition to that, I just find it easy given the health problems I have and the desire to be healthy again drowning out any voices of wanting to eat crap. One has to treat the addition like life and death and take control of it, not to mention change their mindset about food as something of comfort to something only essential for survival. It's not easy for many people, which is why they go down the road of eating crap early on post-op and wind up screwing up their WLS. Hell, how often do we see alcoholics on the verge of their liver being cirrhotic not stop? Sometimes people are just too far gone to help, and certainly some of those people are here, they won't learn, and they're destined for failure. Addicts also tend to lash out when people confront them with the harsh reality of life decisions.

I'm not sure what you can get in liquid form, I just know of calcium citrate and some other basic vitamins. I'd suggest maybe grinding the chewables up into food and trying that? Or maybe try another brand.. Bariatric Advantage has different flavored chews (like starburst) as well as chewable tablets. Otherwise you might want to look around for vitamin or health shops, just be careful of people trying to sell you junk at those stores.

I think this is more spot on. I didn't have sciatica.. in fact, I was misdiagnosed as having sciatica at first but i had no numbing of the legs. I just had a bad L5/S1 compression fracture. Facet joint injections were enough for me, but because they don't last long enough, in a few months I'm doing a medial branch block test for radiofrequency ablation. For those with sciatica, I would imagine one of the first lines of treatment following x-rays/MRI would/should be facet joint injections and nerve block, latter being very akin to an epidural. For facet injections one should be able to go home right away after being held a few mins to see how you react to the dye/freezing/steroids, but for nerve blocks, cannot drive home.

Month is flying by..

Psychological problems cannot be solved by WLS.

This post should be going in that ice cream thread.

I'm not so sure the second link adds much to the argument: The first one seems convincing, but the second link makes far more sense, as someone who hates the taste of splenda. Couldn't stand it in SF popsicles, not in Glucerna, can't stand Diet sodas.. not anything. I'd say it must be an acquired taste like coffee, booze, etc.