teacupnosaucer

I guess I should have phrased it as "I" instead of "you"

You are going to be in pain. Quite a lot of pain. If you're being medicated with morphine, you will drift in and out of consciousness a lot and have weirdo dreams nearly every time you close your eyes. Your belly will be HUGE with the gas they used to operate on you laparoscopically, and that will hurt. They will want you up and walking as soon as possible to get that gas moving around and out of your body. Your goal in life is suddenly to fart a lot. Putting warm blankets or a heating pad on your belly will help with the pain and the gas, but the walking is key. It will be hard to sit up because it uses your abs. Try rolling onto your side, then pushing yourself up sideways, using your back and shoulders to lift your body instead. When you walk you may feel a "pulling" sensation on your incisions, or like your belly is going to fall off/open. It's not, but it feels that way. Walk with a pillow held to your abdomen, or just straight up carry your belly around with your hand to help alleviate that feeling. You can also try a post-surgical binder or control top underwear/shorts. Your mouth will be very very dry and you may or may not be allowed anything to relieve it. Try asking for mouth wetting sponges from the nurse, just in case. You will not get to eat or drink until after you pass your swallow test, which is where they make sure your stomach has no leaks. You will have to stand and drink for that procedure. My technician gave me a straw, but I did not use it because in our clinic we are not allowed straws. Your sense of taste will completely change when you get your first meal. Things will taste too sweet. Eat and drink veryyyyyy slooooooowly, but make sure you're getting your fluids in so they can get you off the IV fluids and you can go home. Experiment with water temperatures if you're having a hard time drinking it. Nurses will come in and take your vitals frequently, and also give you MULTIPLE injections of blood thinners. Those shots leave a hella bruise, but after the first one they don't hurt nearly as much for some mysterious reason. Stay on a pain med schedule. Ask the nurses to write down when your last dose was and how often you can have them. It's a good idea for the first night to ask for meds (or use your pain pump) as soon as you're due a dose instead of waiting for the pain to make you ask. If you stay ahead of it, you hurt less. If you're sent home with codeine, use it as necessary but try to taper off as soon as you can because codeine makes you constipated and the last thing you want is to be constipated, TRUST ME. Within 5 days, if you don't have complications, the pain will massively subside. I am 13 days out and only rarely hurt.

sounds like you are absolutely making the right decision and are in good hands then! you have lots of good compelling reasons why surgery will improve your quality of life, and you have a professional in your corner to help you do it safely and correctly. you can't ask for much more than that (except to be rich enough to afford a personal chef and trainer like oprah i guess LOL!) I won't lie and say it's easy... it's not. it's painful and hard, but it can be done, and it is so, so, so worth it! stay the course, dedicate yourself to the lifestyle changes, and you will do amazing and have a whole new life! I got it done to prevent type 2 diabetes as I get older too so I completely understand why you don't want to go down that path.

Find your surgeon/clinic's post-op food list and buy stuff that's on it. For me that meant high protein milk, plain greek yogurt, pre-made smooth soups (the campbells gourmet cartons were great!), plain instant oatmeal, and popsicles. Also consider getting rid of stuff that's gonna tempt you unnecessarily. Don't have your favourite cookies in the house waiting for when you're going crazy with your fiftieth bowl of pureed soup! Remove the temptation! LOL. I also would suggest investing in a plug in heating pad. That thing was SOOOOO nice on my belly when I was all full of gas and in terrible pain. I didn't go anywhere without it! You could get one of those microwavable ones, too, but the plug in one lasts alllll niiiiiight. Other suggestions: comfy stretchy pants (I had the same belly I did when I was 6 months pregnant after my surgery!), a bralette without underwire (I had an incision right below my boobs that my bras absolutely tortured!), a compression shirt or tank (you may or may not like the extra support but it's good to have in case... the first week I felt like my guts were gonna fall out every time I walked and the compression helped!). Biotene dry mouth spray for before you're allowed any fluids to help with the dry mouth (just check with your medical team that you're allowed it.) Don't stock up on anything. Buy one of things, because I found after surgery my tastes changed. All those brown sugar high protein oatmeal packets were WAY too sweet to tolerate and I had to go out and buy plain ones instead. Shakes I used to love were suddenly intolerable. Etc.

I'm not planning on advertising it, but I'm not going to keep it a "secret" necessarily, either. My family and husband know, and other girls who have had surgery know, and a couple close friends I can trust not to police my food or be assholes to me about it know. Now, if a fellow obese person asks me how I'm losing weight, I may tell her in confidence because I want to help her out... after all it was my hairdresser telling me about HER surgery that set ME on this path in the first place! But for people I can't trust to not be nosy opinionated turds, I plan on saying "I started a new exercise and healthy eating regimen"... which is 100% the truth, and anything else is not their business! I realize not being super open about my surgery means that the myth of weight loss being as simple and magical as calories in -> calories out continues on... but it's not my personal responsibility to shoulder the burden of correcting everyone I meet on that. The evidence about weight loss is all over the internet for anyone who cares to read it and acknowledge it. But like @OutsideMatchInside said before, not telling people your personal medical history is not the same thing as using your surgery before and afters to sell weight watchers or it works wraps. Luckily for me I lost 30lbs pre-surgery and got the sleeve, so my continuing weight loss might not actually be all that noticeable to most people, so I'm hoping to be relatively incognito. We'll see how it goes today, this is my first day back to my daughter's dance class in a few weeks and I've lost about 20lbs. We'll see if any of the other dance moms have questions

If it's coming from a place of jealousy and sabatoge, it's time to find some new friends... try joining an activity where slightly fitter people might gravitate to--I joined swing dance lessons and have already met lots of women who aren't complete couch-bound sadsacks like I used to be but also aren't complete gym bunnies who are going to scoff that I wear the biggest size in Lululemon. Or see if you can meet other post-bariatric friends your age to hang out with. I found a core group of girls in a local bariatric support group and we get along great and know what each other are going through. If it's coming from a place of love and cluelessness... try and invite them to do activities that don't involve food. Invite them to a movie and bring your own snack. Join an art class, or try out a drop in dance lesson, or get mani pedis together, or go bowling. So much of our socialization revolves around food and it doesn't HAVE to, but if it's all you know, it's hard to break out of that mold. Either way, there's nothing wrong with expanding your friend group, as well. I haven't ditched my friends from when I was fat by any means, but I have made some new friends too.

I'm a member of a bariatric clothing swap, which is a great way of passing on your clothes to women who need them and getting some new clothes for your new self! I'm keeping exactly ONE fat outfit so I remember what size I was, to help me visualize when the scale isn't being encouraging LOL. Everything else I'm selling, donating, or throwing in the trash (used panties for the last one lol!)

And having read the rest of the thread... you're not a dummy, and you don't deserve to be treated badly, not by anyone. You deserve to love yourself, and to have your man love you back, and be as faithful to you as you are to him. If he can't be that man, there's no shame in going your own way.

You are doing this for YOUR LIFE and YOUR HEALTH. If he can't see that your quality of life is more important than his visual stimulation... well, that's on him! I sure hope he straightens up his attitude, because if he doesn't I'd be finding myself a new man! I do hope it's like the people above said and that he's just insecure and lashing out, and that he'll realize how hurtful and selfish he's being and apologize... but if not, don't let him pull you down. I would suggest counselling. Maybe a counsellor can help him talk to you more respectfully and help him realize he's being unfair, and let him express how he's feeling in a way that you can comfort and reassure him as his loving wife vs. you being pushed away... and let you speak your mind too about how much this surgery means to you and why you need his support. I hope you two get through this... but if you don't, well, there are plenty of other men out there, including ones who will care as much about your wellbeing as they do about your looks! Either way, walk with your head held high.

I found some very nice bras at my local thrift store. It takes some hunting, but you can get $130 bras there for less than $10. Honestly with boobs my size paying anything less than 60 is basically impossible... and even then I'm settling for bras that don't fit the way I want them to.

Sessions with a psychologist are required as a part of our program and have been completely invaluable to me. I was diagnosed and treated for ADHD, which completely revolutionized my lifestyle even pre-surgery. A psych can help you with the transition, dealing with emotional eating and helping you find new and healthier ways to cope... and if you are a compulsive overeater a psych is 100% NECESSARY because compulsive overeaters often flat out hurt themselves eating post-surgery since what is going on with them goes far beyond hunger. And even if you don't have any "issues" to point out, a psych can help you work through the fact that you have made an irreversible decision and changed your entire life in the course of a day. Any person could use help adjusting to that! As ever, the surgery is on our stomachs, not our brains.

I do miss an ice cold glass of pepsi now and again, but I think of all the things I've gained and it seems like more than a fair trade. I'm nearly two weeks post-op and still on full liquids. Only very slightly hungry. Barely think about food. Only complaint is I'm bored of the lack of choice in my full liquid diet. Haven't had any overwhelming cravings at all, mostly just sitting there with my bowl of soup while my family eats BBQ steaks and wishing that were me!

Also, if you are getting surgery because it will help you "not cheat", I have bad news for you... people cheat post-surgery all the time. There are people a week out from their operation sneaking french fries and people two years out drinking 1000 calorie milkshakes and other "slider foods" and struggling with serious regain. Surgery helps reset your body's "set point" so that your body doesn't fight AS hard to regain weight, and helps to limit your portions TO A CERTAIN EXTENT but what you put into your body is still up to you. It's not something you do instead of diet and exercise, it's something you do WITH diet and exercise to make them actually work long term. That doesn't mean you can never ever ever treat yourself ever again, but it does mean that you will always be responsible for your eating habits, as much as anyone else. So many people think "I'll have surgery and never eat cookies again or even want to LOOK at cookies!" but that just isn't the case. Not trying to discourage you AT ALL, since it is still a proven fact that WLS works better for more people than any diet we've yet dreamed up but you need to go into it prepared to truly change your entire life. The surgery doesn't make you open up myfitnesspal six times a day to enter your food. The surgery doesn't make you go to Zumba classes or the swimming pool or join a walking club. The surgery doesn't make you pick a glass of water over a glass of sweet tea. That's all you! What the surgery DOES is that after making all those healthy choices, your body doesn't do everything in its power to make you fat again by conserving every calorie you eat and slowing your metabolism to a crawl. Do all the reading you can, enjoy your info session, and good luck! It took me about a year to really make my mind up that surgery was what I truly wanted. DON'T jump into it if you're not sure... but once you're sure, don't let nay-sayers (especially people who've never been obese in their lives) talk you out of it!

Try the Baritastic app, it has a built in "chew chew chew" timer that will help you slow down. I get that same pain when I get cocky and try to drink too fast. I chugged a half a glass of milk this am and had to sit down and clutch at my chest like I was having a heart attack.

Sales racks, second hand stores (go early in the morning before they're picked over is my suggestion!), local bariatric clothing swaps, local facebook buy and sell pages, and buying stuff that will last a couple size changes (for example these stretchy size 12 leggings I'm wearing today fit me at size 14 jeans and will likely fit me until I'm well into size 10s).

Two weeks post-sleeve as of Wednesday, but been bustin' my ass for 2 years! Finally seeing some RESULTS! 2X coat and size 18 jeans down to a 38DD sports bra and size 12 leggings!

I got it because I have tried over and over again to lose weight on my own and never succeeded. I got it because of comorbidities related to my weight and knowing type 2 diabetes was looming in my near future, I wanted to take control of my weight and my health. I don't know that they even do WLS on minors here in Canada though. At 15 I would have very much wanted it, but not needed it or been emotionally or physically ready for it. Weight Loss Surgery is hard and painful and requires you to completely restructure and revamp your life. At 15, too, you're still growing and your hormones are still changing. My brother was obese at 15 and now as an adult is as healthy as can be with no regain. His body has settled into a healthy adult weight. Mine never did, so at 31 I had a sleeve surgery performed. I worry, too, that the food restrictions of sleeve surgery might affect your natural growth since your body and brain are not done growing yet. Are you just researching, now, or have you talked to your doctor/parents? My personal advice to you is that maybe start now with the lifestyle changes: daily exercise in whatever form you are most likely to stick with, doing a food diary, seeing a dietician, and involving your doctor in your efforts, and once you are an adult THEN looking into the surgical option knowing that you've already made the necessary lifestyle changes for surgery to be a success. But I'm not your doctor, and that's the person who will have the best advice for you.

1. Yes I would. I'm only two weeks out and that first week SUCKED BIG TIME but with every day I get healthier and stronger and happier. Don't let anyone tell you it is easy or not a big deal.. it is surgery. 2. I had the sleeve. I am happy with it so far. The sleeve was my first choice because I thought the RNY was too invasive and had too many ill-effects and I am not convinced the difference in weight loss would be enough for me. I absolutely would not trade my sleeve for non-surgical weight loss. I lost 30 lbs pre-surgery and it took me two years of swimming a kilometer three to five times a week, as well as calorie counting, meal planning, avoiding eating out, weight management classes, etc. to get there. Two years!!!!! And who knows how long it would have stayed off? The reality is the 5+ year "success rates" of non-surgical weight loss is 5% or less. For the 5% that it works for, awesome, but I've lost 20 and regained 30 lbs enough times in my life I know that's not me. Surgery increases my odds of all my good lifestyle changes actually sticking. If you have 10-20 lbs to lose, do weight watchers. If you have 80+, surgery is your best bet... as long as you are ready to commit to the lifestyle changes too. It's not surgery - healthy lifestyle, it's surgery + healthy lifestyle. I do just as much work now (actually more) as I did on weight watchers. Period. 3. I'm still immediately post-op on full fluids, but because I got the sleeve (and am otherwise very lucky LOL!) I have had no issues with food intolerances at all so far. The only thing that has changed is my appetite is smaller and sweet things don't taste as good (that will likely go away as time goes on, as far as I hear.) I do have to give up pop forever, as does anyone who has surgery, but considering everything I have to gain from surgery, trading a couple cans of diet pepsi a day has been a completely acceptable trade-off for me. I'm wearing Lululemon leggings right now frchrissakes! Buh-bye, pepsi! The one thing I DO miss is being able to chug an ice cold bottle of water when I'm thirsty. Gotta go slow now. 4. My social life is BETTER post surgery. I made a bunch of fellow gastric surgery friends my own age and we go out together all the time. We go bowling or shopping or we go to dinner and all only eat a third of our meals LOL. And now that I'm a smaller weight, I'm doing stuff like going swing dancing on the weekends and joining dance classes and planning on joining a team sport. I went from sitting on my fat lonely ass on the couch watching TV I don't even enjoy to being a person who does activities and has friends. I'm sure there will be moments I'm jealous, going to Vegas with my husband and not getting my money's worth at the buffet, or going drinking with my non-surgical friends and not being able to let loose like them, but eh, once again, worthwhile trade. It's about rearranging your priorities. Here in Canada the wait for surgery is around 2 years, and that wait period really helped me to wrap my mind around the thought of all the lifelong changes I would have to make. The thing to really ponder on is remembering what do you stand to GAIN? because once you start seeing those things, the losses don't seem like such big sacrifices anymore.

There is no way of really preventing it. It's based on your highest weight, your age, the elasticity of your skin, your genetics, where you carry the weight, how fast it comes off, etc. Strength training maaaaaayyyyyy help but I'm not really convinced on that front. (Luckily, strength training is good for you regardless so you should be doing some anyway!) My opinion is that if it's going to be a big issue for you emotionally, there's no harm in starting saving now, and then if you get lucky and DON'T need skin removal, you know you can use it to go on a vacation or to pay off debts!

yeah, it can. I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting to it honestly because I'm still not hungry in between meals much of the time. I'll see how it all shakes out once I'm on solid food though.