Hop_Scotch

Hope it all goes well for you! it will be over before you know it

I am not 7+ post op, but am interested in what complex health issues you may be experiencing? Do you think these issues are related to your surgery or perhaps co-incidental? The questions you are asking seem to be far-reaching...perhaps it would be better if you set out your history of weight surgery, outcomes and complications etc

If you lose a lot weight in the few weeks before weight loss surgery it very likely you won't lose as much as someone who doesn't have a strict pre-op liquid diet. All that fluid retention/bloat etc has already gone before surgery. That said you are doing great, everyone is different, some will have lost less than you in the first month and others will have lost more. As long as you are following your post op guidelines all is good.

What is the carb content? Maybe check in with your dietician or nutritionist see if its okay or if a small amount not too often is okay?

Interesting. What evidence/studies do they have? What do they suggest immediately post op to consume insead of protein shakes? Is the nutritionist aligned with your surgeon? What post op guidelines does your surgeon have if different than the nutritionist? Do you have an option to use another nutritionist/dietician?

I would hold off on those thicker/creamier foods for another week or so, and try again then. For now try full liquids or thin the pudding / yoghurt down with milk perhaps.

If you want to reply to a particular post you use the quote button which is at the bottom of that post. Like I did here.

20lb not a lot? It's great regardless of the start weight. Don't compare yourself to weight losses you see on shows like 600lb life etc. Some will have lost less weight than you, some will have lost more weight than you. All that is varible dependent on age, start weight, recovery, incidental activity, gender, their post op guidelines, etc etc

The OP is referring to bypass not an a VSG....its in the thread header and is posting in the bypass subforum.

Please ignore the naysayers, do not even engage with them, its a bit a like religion and politics, we aren't going to change their stance and they aren't going to change our stance. There will be some who believe we should be open and tell our weight loss surgeries to all and sundry, be an advocate for it. That is not our responsibility, our responsibility is to our own well being, and if that means keeping it private to ourselves and/or trusted family or friends so be it.

Did you surgeon give you an idea how much you may be expected to lose over the weeks/months? My surgeon didn't have any expectations (or if he didn't he didn't share them with me). I didn't set myself an amount to lose each week or month, I just kept to my post op guidelines. If I didn't lose one week I knew the scale weight would catch up. Weight loss after surgery is a bit fraught with danger, some people expect to lose a lot of weight quickly, but the reality is a lot different. There is the post op weight gain from iv fluids and inflammation, there are stalls along the way that could last from a week to many weeks, sometimes there will be temporay gains due to various reasons. Some experience a stall within weeks of the surgery....the infamous three week post op stall...it doesn't always occur at three weeks out some experience it a little quicker for others it may be delayed. Some people are fortunate enough not to experience stalls in the first few months. Generally each of the surgeries has an average weight loss after year 1, year 2 etc, but some people will have lost less than that, others will have lost more than the average.

So you've lost about 40lb in two months, that is excellent given your start weight, I would say your fluctuations are just that and no cause for panic. The small weight gains you've experienced (along with the excellent weight loss) may be your weight loss pattern. Very few people lose weight on a continually down pattern...most of us have stalls, weight gains and and losses, this is just how our bodies are even with weight loss surgery.

Hi and welcome, just a quick note you may want to change your user name from your email address, there are lots of spam bots that troll the web for emal addresses and you will be bombarded with spam. Oh and don't forget to fill in your profile and make it public, it gives context to questions and helps members tailor their responses. I am not sure there isn't anything I'd which I had known, I had researched for about 18 months on a non surgical weight loss procedure and found this site along with another plus facebook groups as well as many youtube channels, then in the the between the ESG (Oct18) and VSG (Mar20). I wasn't surprised by stalls or the fact that i would feel instantly full with some foods (for a while). I wasn't surprised that weight loss surgery isn't a magical tool, I know from research that it wasn't and it wouldn't instantly save me from my unhealthy habits or sugar cravings. These I had to resolve for myself with help if necessary. I was probably more suprised how well I recovered and tolerated foods (with an exception or two) etc.

It would be helpful if you filled in our profile particularly your start and current weight along with your height, it gives context to questions and helps those replying to give a relevant response. Even with weight lost surgery scale weight can fluctuate on a daily basis due to a lot of factors: hormones, exercise, dehydration or rehydration, medication, sodium intake etc etc. Are you eating to your surgeon's and/or dietician's post op guidelines? If you are fairly tall or carrying a significant amount of weight, less than 500 calories may be too low for you and you won't be meeting nutritonal goals...you don't want to lose too much muscle weight you want to be losing body fat. The weight gain and loss may well be your weight loss pattern, keep track on a daily basis if you are going to weigh daily (but if you can't cope with the daily fluctuation of scale weight don't weigh daily) and you will be able to spot the trends. Its all good as long as the long term trend is going down.

If would be really helpful if you populated your profile data....start weight, current weight etc etc it gives people context to the questions being asked. I don't know if its too much, but if I were you I'd be eating to my surgeon's and/or dietician's post op guidelines. I am about nine months post op and depending on the foods I am eating I can eat a whole lot or very little. I generally try and keep my meals to about 1/2 to 3/4 a cup, but if full fluids (eg soups or smoothies) one cup. I can do one slice of bread with cheese...but that is a danger food for me so I typically avoid bread and cheese, also before my procedure bread and some breakfast cereal gave me a lot of acid reflux, so I avoid them now or try to.

Sorry can't help with the questions around hernia repair, but I do think you expectations are too high. You've lost about 25lb in a month, I wouldn't call that slow at all, I would call that wonderful. Have you spoken to your surgeon regarding the issues you are experiencing? If not, please do so, they know you, they know your medical history etc etc and will hopefully give you excellent guidance and support.

I had an ESG in Oct 2018, I had a VSG revision in March 2020. I do regret having an ESG, in Australia its not covered by medicare thus not covered by health insurance, I self funded. It was a waste of my money and. The sutures did not anchor properly and/or loosened. Looks like Dr Blosser has been around for awhile and hopefully well experienced with ESG. Questions I would ask are how many ESG procedures has he done? Success / failure rate after a year? Complication rate? What can you expect for recovery? What medication prior to and post procedure? What was the heaviest an ESG patient has weighed (his patient that is) and how much did they lose? How many of his ESG patients that he knows of have had a surgical revision? What is the average excess weight loss (EWL) % (it used to be about 20% it may have changed) vs EWL % for his patients. What is the post op program? How much on top of the procedure expenses will this cost? if you have to attend dietician and/or behavioural coach appointments)? One of the selling points of ESG is less complications and quicker recovery, however, this is generally offset by lower weight loss. If you have a lot of weight to lose (BMI 40 and over) you may be better off going with a surgical option. Typically a ESG leaves a stomach with more volume than the surgical option, hence, weight loss will not be as significant as for surgery. LIke the surgical options, many people have had success with ESG and many people haven't.

Have you progressed to 'normal foods' yet? Does your post op food plan provide guidelines for when going to normal foods? If so, are these fruits on it? Last question what surgery did you have? If you had a bypass the natural sugars may be too much for you at this time?? Regardless of which surgery I wonder if at this point (six weeks out) whether pineapple may be a bit too fibrous?

Your first reference point should be your post op food guidelines. At one month out my food guidelines had me on soft food progressing to more solid foods. It was pretty much trial and error what the stomach would tolerate. If it didn't like one food I would leave it for a few more weeks and try again.

Absolutely normal. There is the infamous stall that occurs about three weeks post op, but can occur at two weeks, four weeks or more out. Unfortunately it won't likely be the last stall, but knowing there will be stalls will hopefully help deal with them without worrying or panicking.

I had a failed ESG, if you have to self pay and the VSG is the same cost or just a little more you may as well go with the VSG to start with. I regret self paying ESG (to avoid a surgery) when a VSG was covered by medicare and private health insurance (in Australia) with out of pocket being about $5000. I wasted nearly $20k with the ESG, I wanted to avoid surgery and have a much easier recovery. When in fact, the surgery was really a none event, I was not nervous at all, recovery was great, there was some discomfort for a few weeks around the incision sites, I had some mild cramping when for a couple of days around sipping fluids, but that soon went. I had no gas pains that stood out but I did walk a lot and then I walked some more.

Five years? They certainly like to make it hard don't they. I know its not really comparable but in Australia, if the surgery is covered by medicare (then the right level of private health insurance applies too after a year) as long as the bmi and/or comorbities applies all is good . For someone to be covered by the public health system without health insurance or paying anything out of pocket generally strict criteria and could possilby be waiting up to two to four years. If all else fails can do full self pay which is quite variable from surgeon to surgeon, state to state. A lot of people go to Malaysia or Thailand or the surgery too.

Welcome. You may need to be clearer, how does what work? I assumed you meant the forum but that may not be the case?

Hope it goes well for you, but if TORe isn't for you there are other options. Ps another question to ask, should the suturing fail within a one or two year period does the surgeon offer a redo at nil cost or substantially reduced cost?

As you can see from my signature I had a surgical sleeve conversion from an ESG. My ESG failed, an endscope showed that all but one or two of the sutures had come undone or significantly loosened. This meant the restriction was no longer there. The pre-op and post-op diets were the same as the surgical diets, volumes are particularly important initially as the anchor points and sutures are healing, the scarring caused in the healing process are what helps them to hold better. If volumes are exceeded and the healing/scarring process is still underway it may compromise the anchor point/sutures. After the procedure I had a bit of stomach cramping but buscopan helped with that, a heated pad may help too. The cramping lasted a day or two from what I remember. Recovery was pretty good.