CyclicalLoser

I heard that about greasy foods. I (used to, now?) love BBQ/smoked food. Smoked Brisket was my downfall in general but it is incredibly fatty. Smoked Tri-tip was my "healthy" go-to. I've had what I think is the full gamut, the california emulation of the south, real kansas city BBQ, real Texas BBQ, and carolina style (In virginia though). I've had it in other places as well, but they were just emulations. I'm hopeful that I can throw a chicken breast in the crock pot and add some liquid smoke to the broth and that it will satisfy the BBQ urges. So far the unjury chicken broth is working great and I've migrated to the premier protein clear drinks.

I also went band to bypass. I had the band for 7 or 8 years, can't remember. I've had the band "opened up" (No restriction) for several years. Got so tired of choking. My hospital wanted to let me out the day later (1 night stay) but after a round of dehydration and general (pretty bad) pain, they held me another night. I was in my early 30's when banded and now early 40's. My pain tolerance is lower than it already was. Will it hurt? Yeah, and it hurt more than I expected the first 2 or 3 days. After that, it got a lot better each night. I woke up to less pain each day. I stopped the pain meds about 3-4 days after hospital discharge if that helps. Mt surgeon said that I had a lot of scar tissue, so my surgery time was 5 hours. I was in recovery for 3 hours, and then up to the normal rooms. I expected 5 incisions like with my band, but I had 7. Two of them were about 1-1.5 inches long. 2 are pretty far out on my sides, not as concentrated in the center as I would expect. I did have robotic assisted surgery, so maybe that is why the extra incisions. My port was on my left side and was flipped pretty good, but oddly the two larger incisions were on the right side. It is a bit unusual to go from "only eat 3 times and no snacks" to "eat at least 3 times, with snacks in between". I am consuming about 400 calories a day right now and just got "a talking to " by my surgeon as he wants me to up it to 800 calories. I give that as an example for how little I want to eat. Expect tastes and smells to change. I think having the band already prepped you for what to expect and I'd wager that the doctors and nurses would agree us revisionists generally freak out less about things post-surgery. I am very glad I did it, and I'm sure you will as well!

I am 2 weeks ahead of you. I have a low tolerance for pain, but I can tell you that about 5 days after the surgery, 90% of the pain was gone and here at 2 weeks, it feels even better. Getting in the fluids was/is difficult, but I use a stopwatch app on my phone and another app medisafe to remind me of the pills. BTW my recliner was my best friend for the first week or so. Congrats and be prepared to see an amazing weight reduction every day. I'm about 18 pounds less than my surgery weight.

I'm just curious, has anyone ever tried taking lactaid + premier protein? I gave the doctors 2 options I'd try and they went with the whea isolate instead of the lactaid idea. I have my appointment tomorrow with them so I will nag them again, but I'm curious if it has worked for anyone.

Do it right now instead of months of worrying? Sign me up! Congrats and I'm sure it will go great!

Thank you both, I did reach out to them today and they seemed to think that the Milk of Magnesia could be causing it, so they had me discontinue it. I mentioned James' remark about the lactose intolerance because my wife has it, and after describing it to her, she thought it was as well. The nutritionist didn't think it was the premier protein because he said it only had 1g of lactose, but he did suggest a few mentioning that "whea protein isolate" had zero lactose. My wife had some of her protein powder (Orgain protein powder) and I tried one sip and wow did it taste bad. My wife found a unjury chicken soup protein packet that was given to me prior to surgery and it is delicious. Thus far, absolutely no issues at all. The team of doctors and such were not overly concerned because my bowel issues were not happening several times a day, but only once or twice. I think I may try a few other ones only because I priced out the unjury stuff and wow is it expensive. Thank you both!

I have insomnia extremely bad, there are several times I will not sleep at all. This was all before I took 3mg of melatonin. Once I had surgery, they took me off it and I needed to use the pain killer just to get me to bed. Obviously not sustainable, so I called my doctor and asked them if I could take a single benadryl tablet (25mg) because I wanted to get off the pain killers. This 'kind of' worked, but didn't knock me out long enough. After some more talking to not my doctor but a resident doctor (Who assured me it was all placebo), they allowed me to take the melatonin. I am now able to sleep about 6-8 hours, and usually fall back to sleep another hour or two (I'm post op, so I'm still taking sick time). I suggest trying melatonin, you can get it in strengths as low as 1mg. For some people I've suggested it to, it didn't help, but others it did. But to answer your initial question, yes I did/do(?) have a hard time sleeping...I never got to the "I'm tired" stage. Hope this helps.

Hello everyone, I have not been on here a while, but I had my revision from lap band to RNY surgery on July 9th. I was about 280 day of surgery and left 2 days later at 287 (?). Today I'm down to 274. I was out for 5 hours, the surgeon said there was a lot of scar tissue. I thought it was kind of cool because the surgery was robot assisted, which I haven't seen used much for bariatric procedures. Anyways, the root of my post...Lately I've been having strange dizzyness and head compression feelings. I strongly do not think this is related to the RNY because I've actually been able to get 60g protein and about 48oz of liquid per day. I've found I can drink more than 1oz per 15 minutes without feeling poorly, and my urine color is not dark yellow. BP is normal and blood sugar is normal (I checked it even though I'm not a diabetic) Also, I've had these kinds of dizziness/pulsed-compression feelings before when I tapered onto or off of antidepressants. I'm almost positive that's what I'm feeling. I take 75mg in the morning of lamictal for cyclothymic disorder (Essentially a version of bipolar-II where I don't have mania, but instead have atypical depression). I am on a very small dose, in the past, small doses worked very well for me. I believe the normal bipolar-2 dose is about 150mg. Anyways, I take 3x25mg tablets in the morning. I've done some reading and found that lamictal is poorly metabolized post RNY, so I was wondering if anyone here had to change theirs, and if so, by what multiple? (e.g. 4x amount, 2x, etc..). I know my psychiatrist is very willing to work with me on it, but I'd like to have a general idea before I go see him. I should have had them check for blood levels post surgery, but alas, I didn't. I also have panic disorder/General Anxiety and that was "more or less" under control with 2x25mg Luvox in the morning and 2x25MG Luvox in the evening. Luvux is also supplied in a very small tablet. (Both Luvix and lamictal are smaller than a claratin). I haven't seen much on Luvox directly since it is an older SSRI that everyone has pretty much forgot about, but for me it worked much better than the newer ones like Lexapro. Typically, with me, I get abnormal yawning reflexes when my Serotonin is being affected by an SSRI, and I'm not seeing it, so I suspect the metabolism of the lamictal is more the culprit (Although the wierd dizziness happens with SSRI taper as well). My doc told me that I did not need to crush any tablets smaller than an M&M, so I have not been crushing them. Thanks for any thoughts and I'm excited to be part of the RNY club.

Thank you all for all of your help. Newmebithebypass, thank you I was completely unaware of trileptal. My doctor did explain the serious rash/death side effects that sometimes can happen to people, but he said it was that or seroquil, and that the people that could tolerate lamictal were very happy with the med and were not overly drowsy, brain fog, or weight gain. I am seeing your post after my visit, but he put me on a single 100mg sublingual dose in the morning. He gave me the option of the chewables and even if I wanted to adjust the dosage, but I am the "slow and steady" type personality when it comes to mental medications. He explained that lamictal originally came out as a sublingual, and that sublingual was the best way to get the medication into the blood. He did say (And expect) some flack from my insurance company, so it might take a week or two before I start it (My pharmacy is small and usually has to order out-of-the-ordinary meds). I will update this thread once I get on the sublingual ones.

That is what I felt (I'm only 2 weeks out so I still remember it vividly). I have had anxiety/panic disorder for the last 20 years give or take, so I kind of knew what to expect. In my case, I asked the anesthesiologist beforehand if I could take Xanax before I arrived at the facility, to which they told me I could, so long as I took it 2 hours before my arrival time. Doing so made the pre-knocked-out part 1 million times better than normal for me. Otherwise, I would try to distract yourself and do some fun things that you won't be able to do for the first couple of weeks. Take a walk, country drive, go boating, go to the movies... basically anything that you enjoy that will not cause you to get "hurt" (Allergies, etc.) before the surgery. I'm sure everything will go fine, but I will pray for you tonight!

I had this at the hospital, but it did go away after a few days. The doc said it is the body getting used to the new way the body works. Personally I thought it was baloney, but either that did happen, or something else did because now I can consume liquids twice as fast as my surgeon said without problems. Yes, if I am-time for my liquids all day, then after several hours, I will need to stop for a while because I feel like I filled up my intestines (Even if this is not what is really happening LOL) Try and stick it out, but if you think you are getting dehydrated or the pain isn't getting any better, maybe call your physician's office? That's why they get paid for and they're used to it, so make use of it if you need to!

My mother did (With the sleeve) but I have to say my mother is the strongest lady I know (Of course, I'm biased). She was in her 60's when she had it done, and had almost no help. I wanted to help, but I live on the other side of the country. My mother has an extreme tolerance for pain - she slipped on ice, fell, tore her entire abdomen, then became septic. She went through a lot and personally, being ~2 weeks post-op, I would say it is almost impossible, but my mother showed me where there is a will, there is a way. So I suppose if you were going to do it, I would suggest several things based on what I'm dealing with now, and what my mom went through: Get yourself a lot of stretchy clothes. I would say at least 2 weeks worth, because it is painful to bend over to do laundry. Same thing with groceries, keep them all high on the counter. Get yourself a grabber tool from harbor freight as well as a cane. I would buy a bunch of disposable cups and put a day's worth of meds in each one before hand, so you don't have to stand up in the kitchen portioning them out. Make sure you have a lot of bed linens ready, or even put several layers on your bed so that instead of doing the laundry, you could peel off a layer. I'd make sure you have a lot of pillows easy to get to by your bed, and in your favorite chair in the living room. I'd recommend to clear off nightstands and end tables so that you can use them as soon as you get home without cleaning. Of course, get yourself some books, a kindle, laptop, movies (etc) for entertainment. Have your telephone or cell phone charger near your bed/chair so you can easily switch between the 2 locations. My doctor wants me measuring urine, so make sure you can easily do so in your bathroom. Consider putting a chair in shower and if you don't have a tall toilet seat, then get a "booster" with handles. These are all things that a second caregiver would handle for you, so I'd prep as much as you can to get you to the 2-week mark. I'm at the point where I could probably handle everything by myself if I needed to. I hope this helps!

That is a great idea! I haven't thought about trying to water the drinks down (Nor those flavors). I'm drinking the light Hawaiian punch right now, but it isn't great by any means.

Tealael, thank you and before surgery (Well, when I had the lap band) I was addicted to it. Actually, it was pretty much the only thing I would drink. Even my co-workers knew to expect me to show up with Vitamin Water Zero "Squeezed" (All the sudden one day I hated "rise" and had to switch) It is still what I'm drinking, but it doesn't taste very good

I've had lower back pain for the last ~15 years or so. I experienced a lot of back pain at the hospital and a little at home post recovery. My theory is that my fear of moving my torso (feeling the abdominal pain) kept my back in one position. I normally move quite a bit and frankly am surprised I don't roll off the bed by the morning - this is because if I sit too long my back hurts. I had an MRI last summer after a series of incidents left me unable to walk for about a week. I have L4/L5 and L5/S1 bulges, and spinal stenosis for pretty much the entire back. I also have some spinal compression as well as disc degeneration. At the hospital, they gave me muscle relaxants in the IV, and the dilaudid and later Hycet controlled most of the pain. Because of my previous lap band, I'm used to only using tylenol and hoping it will work. I'm almost 2 weeks post op, and most of my torso pain had subsided, so my back pain is considerably lower. I do think that weight redistribution will affect gait/posture and I do expect to have some changed pain centers 50 pounds from now. What I can recommend, provided your surgeon is okay with it, is a TENS device. I am a very skeptical person, but I dropped $25 on one (on a web site named for a tropical forest) one particular night when nothing helped. I will say the TENS device works quite well. I recommended it to my sister-in-law who is dealing with a tremendous number of issues (Basically all of her woman parts + bladder "fell" in her abdomen and they had to use several meshes to put the parts back) and she said it was a life saver. FWIW, I got interested in the TENS device when I saw a quell commercial saying it was FDA approved. No, I didn't drop nearly that much on a quell though From one back pain patient to another - I pray you get some relief, I would not wish back pain on anyone!

I'm still on the quest for something that tastes decent for a liquid. Premier protein drinks have a terrible ending taste, almost like a medicine (Before I begin to taste the whea) Crystal light in the powder form has a nasty ending taste minute made canned lemonaide (5 calorie version) tastes like the metal cans it comes in. Propel flavored water just tastes disgusting all the way around. I tried powerade zero orange, and oh man does it taste like medicine! I have yet to try hawaiian punch light fruit punch...I liked it in the past. Frozen sugar free popsickles taste really good to me chicken broth still tastes good...One day that's all I drank (Other than the protein drinks) This will date me, but I was looking forward to trying zero calorie tang, but I looked it up and they stopped making it a long time ago. I have not tried any of the kool-aid sugar free products...yet I have not tried any of the liquid sweetened products (mia, etc). I like the idea of a liquid sweetener, but portion size is hard to control unless you want to count the number of drops. I can't eat it yet, but toast smells awesome. I used to eat toast maybe 5 times a year. I know I will have to toast well, and use a whole grain bread...And even then might not tolerate it, so who knows. Next Wed I go for my 2 week post-op, I can't wait to graduate to the pureed stuff.

I had my surgery on july 9th, so I'm still recovering too. Every once in a while I get what feels like a sharp poke (internally) on my left side. But - That was where my lap band port was, so I attribute it to that. For me, my left side is pretty pain free - my large incisions (two...I have 7 total) are on my right side. I can lay on my left side and pain is about (3/10). Right side is about (5/10). I'm a side sleeper, so I can't wait until I heal enough to tolerate it, this back sleeping is for the birds.

Wow sorry to hear about the leg cramp. I had a very similar story when I flex from LAX to DFW about a year ago. Got of the plane, and did some stuff work related, and was feeling pretty lousy, leg hurt, was swollen, and was warm to the touch. Went to an outstanding urgent care doctor who told me he was 99% positive it was not DVT, but because of the fact I would be driving in the middle of nowhere (Midland TX) the very next day, he made some calls and got me into an ultrasound imaging facility same day. He texted me on my cell phone once he got the results - nothing wrong. He was willing to call in a script for a narcotic, but I opted to just use Tylenol. In retrospect, in my case it was because I was dehydrated. I wonder if that's what's causing your pain? I know how hard it is to "make up" fluid...At least for me. Very glad you're feeling better!

I had the band placed in 2011 just like Matt. Typical weight was 263, surgery weight was 293 (Yes, I ate a lot of bad food prior to surgery for fear of never being able to eat it again). Got down to 220, then back to 303. Was it worth it? No. Was it the band's fault? I don't think so. While there are probably 200 pounds of medical journals which show the band is not successful many years out, I still have to be responsible for part of the failure. My mother has the sleeve. She loves it. But, I didn't want GERD and I actually wanted to get dumping syndrome to help me fight against the diabetes that runs in the family (I do not have it). I consider the sleeve like a better execution of the sleeve in that there are no bypassed segments of the intestines, and since a restrictive-only path (band) didn't work first, I didn't want to try another (albeit much better executed) method. I am only a week+ out, so I have yet to have dumping, and won't even know if I will get dumping, but at the end of the day I chose RNY over the sleeve because the "fad" (Band) didn't work, and this time, 7 years smarter, I decided to go with the gold standard as everyone mentions. I hope I made the right decision, I feel I did. I felt a little encouraged to get the sleeve, especially since I take medication that does have malabsorbtion issues, but I was determined to go with the RNY.

Kim - Thank you for doing what you do. I was in a university hospital surrounded by a number of RN's, PA's and NP's. My mother was a unit secretary. Even though the doctors get the glory for the procedure (Not downplaying what they do here) but the nurses are the ones that make the patient feel as comfortable as possible while recovering from something that is usually very painful. Out of the probably 40 (I'm not making this up, 20 alone would visit me during morning "rounds") nurses, not a single one was mean, no matter how many times I hit the call button because the IV was making a wierd noise.

I agree, Psychologists are not doctors in a medical sense - my sister is actually a psychologist and she has a PsyD which is a Doctorate's in Psychology. Generally, I would say that some psychologists by nature of their instruction tend to be skeptical about medications (Beliveing in the "environmental" cause). Others are more willing to work with a psychiatrist (Who can prescribe as noted, and due to their instruction tend to believe in the "physiological" cause) and those are, in my opinion, the ones that are worth seeing. I would have another heart to heart with your psychiatrist and express your desire to have the RNY, and your wilingness to work through the adjustment period. re Benzos: I get it and I actually do have both lorapezam and alprazolam for break through anxiety. I just need a lot of anxiety before I take them - I have used about ten over the last 20 years, but I did take an alprazolam before surgery so I wouldn't pass out from a panic attack like I almost did when I got the lap band 7 years ago. In general, benzos do have a huge addictive potential, but it sounds like you have that under control

Briswife15, you're welcome. My surgeon really wanted me to go with the Sleeve because of the lamotrigine, but I had my psychiatrist call him and give the okay. At the end of the day, we know our moods better than anyone, and we know if we can tolerate some trial and error. I called and I have an appointment on Monday, I'll keep y'all posted!

Missouri-Lee's Summit, thank you for your post and you are most definitely correct, shame on me for using a defacto name I know better than that, I just finished grad school. My psychiatrist gives me the lowest dosage forms possible because he has given me permission to alter the dose (Slightly mind you) so that I don't have to keep coming back every month. I've been a patient of his for years and based on my unwillingness to take a benzodiazepine medication, he is not worried about addiction issues. Because of this, my pharmacist probably hates me, but truth is most pharmacies have automated pill fillers anyway. I was not aware of the chewable lamotrigine, I will definitely ask to switch because the normal ones are extremely bitter and taste awful when crushed. I found some references yesterday that grinding them gave a little bit better bioavailability, so this morning I chewed all three of them and man was it nasty. Last night, as a test, I took an additional 25mg about an hour before bed. Half an hour later I felt better. Still not normal, but some of the discontinuation symptoms went away. The half life is 29 hours, so I'm wondering how I've been okay for almost a week. I suspect it may be fat soluable, or more likely my mind has been concentrating more on the pain and only now has enough spare time to realize things aren't normal. I'm going to call my psychiatrist and see if I can get an appointment. I will update this thread as I go so that someone else doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. I'd switch to a different medication, but lamotrigine is an absolutely outstanding medication, the only one I've been happy with over the last 20 years.

I noticed the same thing. I'm 8 days out. Pitts never used to smell, To the point where I stopped wearing antiperspirants and deodorants. Now...Whoa, they smell nasty. I'm kind of glad, makes me feel like something is definitely changing, and I had suspected Ketosis as part of it. FWIW I have hyperhidrosis, and that sweating level/odor has not changed.

I am not in the same boat, well, I sort of am. I am getting my band taken out and have been on the fence about a RNY revision. I should clarify, I'm falling off the fence onto the RNY side. I've had my band since 2010. 293 > 220 > 300. I went from 220 to about 260 and stayed there for a few years, dealing with the fun stuff we bandsters have to deal with, and eventually got tired of not losing weight and getting any/everything stuck. I had it completely dilated and I have slowly gained even more weight. I am kind of a loaner, so this might seem harsh, but personally, the only opinion that matters to me are God's, mine, and family. I have some friends that have opinions, but although I am willing to listen, they don't know the whole story because they don't get to experience the bad parts of being overweight. Nevertheless, if you feel like you need something to show your PT, then pull out any recent peer-reviewed studies showing the stats of lapband surgery. (* I'm sure there are people that it did (permanently) work good for). My surgeon said he only does bands about 2% of the time. The complication rate is through the roof (as I sit here and look at my port that requires inserting the needle almost parallel to my skin because of the 90* flip), and the long term success is quite poor. As I write this, I wonder when I was doing this why "It is reversible" is used as an incentive. If it works properly, why would I want to remove it? If I'm not sure it's going to work, then why have it placed? You might laugh at this. When I went to have it dilated, I asked if the doctor used lidocaine (He was a new-to-me doctor). He kind of gave me that "Are you a wimp?" look and I told him I'd give him $100 if he could find it in 5 jabs. He gave me the lidocaine, and finally found it after *20* tries. It was so difficult, he drew a map of how to find it on my medical chart. I was black and blue for the next week from being a human pincushion. Best of luck for you and remember it is your life, not anybody else's!