smith.99

I had the endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty about a year ago and have started regaining weight again and feel very little restriction. Not sure what to do now. Please continue to post updates on this.

I had this Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty on 11/15/17. I think a sleeve would have been a better choice. It was truly easy for me with no pain or discomfort at all, but I only lost in the first 3 months, then the weightloss stalled and the weight slowly started to come back on. My sister had the same surgery on the same day and had a lot of trouble since then. Most of it was due to gall bladder issues, but she recently had an endoscopy and it showed that the stitches have pulled and are not holding in certain areas. We still need to figure out what the next step is. I was hoping that this would be more permanent or last at least a few years. It was great while it lasted. I still have some restriction to the amount of food that I can eat and I am grateful for that. I am not sure what the next step is for me. It looks like I will be back to low carb for the rest of the winter.

Hi, All, I had the ESG on November 15, 2017. I haven't posted in a really long time, so I thought a quick update might be due. At this point, I haven't lost any additional weight since my last post. My spring and summer were full of parties, guests, business and school and church functions where I was surrounded by incredible food, drink at every turn. I must say, I am pleased that my weight stays in the same range (+-2 lbs) and I am able to eat much less. I learned that it is critically important to be mindful of the quantity of food. It is too easy to take one bite too many and it only becomes clear that it was one too many after the fact. I have lost only about 15% of my original pre-op weight, so I am disappointed that I haven't lost more than that, but I have been able to live like I have always dreamed...I can start my day with a small breakfast and then I am not hungry until many hours later. I can order an appetizer and be satisfied. I do regret that I did not go with the more invasive surgery. Ghrelin is still an issue for me and I learned that sometimes reflux can give a similar feeling to hunger, so I need to remember to take my antacid meds. As for the Ghrelin, I still take contrave and the combination of the ESG and the med seems to keep me really steady. So, I was also afraid that drinking alcohol would be a problem, but it is not at all. Well, one needs to nurse the glass of wine or drink for quite a while longer than normal, but alcohol does not hit me like a ton of bricks (usually.) A good vitamin is an absolute necessity. I have been using Secretagogue Gold (recommended by my Hippie-doctor (integrative med md)). If I don't take an easily digestible multi-vitamin, I have started to get nighttime leg cramps (and I am an absolute baby about them--screaming, dramatic:) As long as I take a good vitamin, I am fine. I had to have foot surgery 6 weeks after my ESG and so I really stopped exercising until the past few weeks. I wasn't able to walk without pain until this summer, so I had to start back slowly and have just started jogging on the treadmill again. Maybe this will help me get off of this weight plane. My sister had surgery the same day and has not had as easy of a time as I have. She is also stuck at the same weight and had to have emergency gall bladder surgery a few weeks ago. I think that was the source of a lot of her issues. She was having gall bladder attacks and thought that it was related to the ESG, but it was not--just a bunch of gall stones. She is much better now, although she is also stuck at the same weight as I am..(..sisters, sigh) She spent a lot more time on the phone with the nutritionist trying to figure out why her weight had stalled...too much food? not enough food? too many carbs? not enough? I just keep reminding her that she hasn't gained any weight (not even after ice cream and other treats.) So, was it worth it? $10K to lose ~30lbs? Well, yes, if this means that this is the new normal, which it seems to be. I can live like this. Eating smaller portions, no panic when I realize that there aren't any low carb items on a menu. I eat less, have less hunger and less body weight. Yes, this was worth it, but I do think that the laparoscopic gastric sleeve would have been a better choice for me in the long run. My 1 year anniversary is just 9 weeks away and I would like to have more weight off by then, but I am really going to have to focus to get that done. I'll let you all know how it goes. Have a good fall! I will check back in around mid November.

Thank you all for your posts. I haven't been online for a while and have gotten a little discouraged after my surgery. This all helps me to get into a better place after the holidays so I can get back on track. I had ESG on Nov. 15 and my weight loss seems to have stopped. I have been getting hungry and have been eating larger portions. I can eat anything at this point, although in smaller quantities. Some of you posted about coffee, but I find that I am not interested in it anymore, although I was a big coffee drinker. Maybe part of that has to do with the fact that eating and drinking need to be done somewhat separately after the procedure. The nutritionist explained that the satiety parts of the stomach are at the top and if you drink a lot before or during a meal, it causes your food to push through and empty faster making you feel a bit hungrier. For me, coffee always accompanied breakfast, so I don't feel like drinking it 30 minutes after I have eaten. Another topic that I saw here related to preparing for the surgery. I have to admit, I was nervous. I ate crazy stuff all through October, but 2 weeks before my surgery, I tried to pull myself together and started watching what I ate again. As others have said, that head hunger is a real thing, so those weeks were difficult. The doctor's office said that the most important part was to stick to the clear liquid diet in the 48 hours before the surgery, so I was sure to do that. I had absolutely no pain or nausea post-op. I was eating very soft foods about 2-3 weeks out and have been able to eat a nice variety of food. Nothing has really caused me any issue. The only thing that I haven't been good about is taking my PPI (Nexium or equivalent). I am not a fan of these medications and I have been in denial about needing them. When I miss a dose, I don't have a burning acid reflux, but my stomach feels achy. I have found that taking the nexium helps. I have been eating out of small dishes to help keep the quantities down and I make sure to really chew my food. Chunky food doesn't feel great, although it isn't painful, just uncomfortable. As for positives, my weight has only fluctuated within 1 pound over the holidays, so I wouldn't consider that a gain or a loss. I am going to list this as a positive. All three of my sons have been working out like crazy (90min/day, every day) have each gained 7-9 pounds since they arrived around mid December. I am the only one in the house who has maintained. I had foot surgery 2 days ago, so I am looking forward to getting active again. Maybe this will spur on my weight loss again. Also, I fit into my size 12's, which opened up a lot of choices for outfits for holiday parties. I am sure with all the yoyo dieting, many of you can relate to having a wardrobe in many different sizes. I was thrilled to be able to wear some of my older clothes. TBH, I have moments when I question whether this was worth the expense or if I should have done the more invasive surgery. I thought that the weight would come off faster. The nutritionist assures me that the weight loss will continue and stay off. I am just trying to remain hopeful that this is true. Like many of you, I have failed at losing weight so many times that it is hard to think that this will work. For now, I am trying to stay positive and get back on track after my foot surgery. Thank you for all the support here. It is good to have a place to write these things and put all of this into perspective. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you.

Hello again! I am almost 3 weeks out from my surgery (on 11/15). I hit my highest weight on 10/30 at 207.8 lbs and am down to 188.7, so almost 20 pounds lost in November. I was 202 before surgery, so 13.3 pounds since 11/15....not bad, but I feel like I am in a stall. I haven't felt any discomfort from the surgery at all. Nothing. Nada. The only way to tell that I have had the surgery is that I can eat much less. For two days prior to surgery and then the week following surgery, I was on only liquids. That was hard, but doable. Thanksgiving was 1 week post op and I was able to eat some butternut squash soup with a little crabcake mixed in. I also had home made cranberry sauce mixed with a little ricotta cheese. I do not believe in low fat diets at all (I follow Bulletproof and Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple), so all my dairy is full fat - yogurt, milk, ricotta. Cutting out sugar is really no problem. Getting in enough protein is the biggest challenge since dense food doesn't feel good. I have diced chicken really small and mixed with broth or thinned out with yogurt or the butternut squash soup. I did eat some refried beans thinned with salsa. I am talking very small quantities - table spoons of things. Although I haven't had any pain, I am full with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of food at a sitting. This is both weird and wonderful. Since I was not all that hungry (I am assuming that is the effect of the surgery plus the ADD meds that I take) I have had a hard time getting in enough calories. I was averaging about 350 calories a day for the two weeks post surgery and then I hit a huge stall in my weightloss. In the past week, I have only lost 2 pounds. The nutritionist said I was in starvation mode, so I had to try and get in more quality calories, which I have been able to do. My sister had the same situation happen, so she just added in shakes. As I mentioned in my previous post, she had more trouble than I. She has been uncomfortable (apparently she bled more in the actual surgery and has more swelling. She and I have always healed differently, so this is just par for the course for her.) She has been able to puree some Atkins meals and is satisfied with that. She has had a much harder time wrapping her head around the smaller meals and dietary changes. I have given up sugar and carbs completely many times and can live quite happily that way, she is a carb addict and a bad dieter (her own words!) LOL. She laughed and said that she has never lasted this long on a diet. It is hard, but we are both happy with the decision. They keep saying " This is a tool for weight loss, just a tool. You still need to do the work." and I am looking at it that way. The diet still needs to change. I had to walk away from all the desserts on Thanksgiving. (Did I mention that I served an extraordinary sit-down dinner for 20 on that day? I cooked everything, including home made bread!) I was happy to be able to eat less and not be driven back to the kitchen all day long. I think that using contrave, belviq or Vyvanse is still helpful post surgery to help get the brain wrapped around all of thie

Hi, Hope4momof4, I am a mom of 3 sons (17,19,21). I am 5'7" and pushed back up to 207lbs recently. I had given up hope of ever being able To keep this weight off, but then I read about this procedure. I have been considering some type of barIatic procedure for several years and finally decided on the ESG after tons of research. My sister and I have both been fighting our weight for the entirety of our adult lives so we finally decided to take this next step. We both went in for the procedure at Journeylite in Cincinnati on Nov. 15 . Other places that I researched were Johns Hopkins and Cornell Weill medical center. Journey lite was just closer and seemed more flexible for us. Neither of us was eligible for insurance coverage and we each had BMIs in the low 30's.(cost ~10K) The staff and surgeon there are terrific. We are out of towners, so we got all the preop stuff done ahead of time and then arranged to stay at nearby hotel until we had recovered enough ahead to travel home. So far, the toughest thing for me has been the clear liquid diet for the week of surgery, other than that, the the cramping, pain and nausea have been very well controlled with medications. (I would even say that it has been pretty easy for me) The staff there has a good Plano medications to get you through this tough time. My sister has had all the side effects of nausea, vomiting and gas pain, but I have not had any side effects at all. now, I am just trying to wrap my head around eating very little quantities and getting enough fluid. We both could have worked today if we had to do so. We arrived the night before our procedure and stayed two nights just to make sure that all of the anesthesia was out of our systems so that we'd could safely drive. I'll try to keep updating. I really like to see as much info about this procedure as possible, so I will try to do my part. As one of the other posters mentioned, my 17 year old son is so self absorbed, he has not noticed a thing.he never even questioned why I was out of town for 3 days...lol! I think my kids are so used to my dieting that this is just another day in the with moms crazy dieting.well, clear fluids for a few more days until I progress to Shakes. I'll let you know how it goes.