pintsizedmallrat

I have a "second job"/side hustle that involves me taking a weekend from home every month to work on it (it's a YouTube channel). It's a LOT of driving. Since I'm usually by myself I tend to rely on a few different stand-by items that can easily be obtained at gas stations or small grocery stores (cheese, hard boiled eggs, I'm still on soft foods but eventually things like deli meats could factor in). Even before the surgery I tended to skip restaurants in favor of a series of snacks to eat in the car, probably to save time.

My goal is to get down a little turkey, and maybe have a little spoonful of the inside of a piece of pumpkin pie. Luckily my whole family knows I had surgery so they're going to be pretty understanding of my inability to eat much and will just be happy I'm there.

Hi everyone: I had my VSG on 9/16 and just had my one-month followup on Thursday. Over the weekend I started having really bad difficulties getting even small amounts of water down, and have only managed to eat about 5 tiny bites of food in 3 days. Additionally, the upper left part of my abdomen hurts incredibly bad and the pain has moved into my left shoulder--I have tried everything to deal with the pain, they have me on a list of gastrointestinal meds and tylenol and nothing is even coming close to making a dent in this pain. Making matters worse, my partner has gotten extremely frustrated with me because I should have been back to normal by now, and I just seem to keep getting worse. He's worried "This is our life now" and that I'm going to be incapacitated forever. I don't even want to tell him what's going on with me and have just been pretending everything is fine, but I'm in agony. Doing things like dishes or even leaning over to pick something up off the floor is torture. But I have to act like everything is fine or he will get frustrated. I don't want to lose him. This is the first time I've felt this way since the procedure but I really wish I hadn't had the surgery; I may have been headed toward a heart attack in my 50s but at least I was happy. I don't want to live an extended but miserable life.

I think what happened is that I burned the lower part of my esophagus via acid reflux, and it seems to be on its way to healing. (My bariatric team had me start taking two acid reducers)...it's the weirdest thing though, I never had acid reflux before the surgery, and I know there were at least a few times things were coming up my throat in my sleep. Over the last week I've been able to eat 2-3 small "meals" each day (my dinner was two rice crackers with thai chili tuna on them, for instance), which isn't where I should be, but it's a damn sight better than being able to only get water, protein shakes, and juice down.

I always forget when making statements on here like that how very different every surgeon's rules are. Mine have me on zero caffeine for six months, but I know I've seen people on here who were served regular coffee in the hospital so I'm sorry if I made a "definite" statement that was inappropriate. I'm still new here so I hope you won't hold it against me.

Warm herbal tea helped me a lot when I was having trouble getting down water (you can add a little splenda or something if you like it sweet)...avoid green/black/white tea at this stage because of the caffeine, but things like peppermint, chamomile, ginger, etc can be very soothing. Be careful with fruity herbal teas, though: some of them have a lot of acid in them from the fruit pieces and those were sort of irritating to my stomach personally (I've had a lot of problems with acid reflux, though.)

I have PCOS and endometriosis. The two BC methods that have worked the best for me were a Mirena IUD and the "four-times-a-year" birth control pills like Seasonique. If you don't plan on getting pregnant for 5 years, once inserted, the Mirena is really a breeze to live with--my periods completely stopped about 2 months after insertion and I didn't get another one until it was removed.

I CRAVE icy and frozen liquids. For whatever reason i have a really hard time finding sugar free popsicles around here. I ended up buying myself a popsicle mold and have been putting yogurt with a little pureed fruit in them, or chucking one of those tiny Honest Kids juiceboxes (which are watered down juice and only have like 30 calories) in the freezer for a couple hours to make "slushees" out of by squishing the box and pouring out the contents into a cup. I eat it with a spoon.

I got the first signal mine had "changed" about a week in while I was still on liquids. Anything artificially sweetened (to include protein shakes, Propel, Mio, etc) began tasting like gross, bitter chemicals to me and I couldn't even begin to choke them down. I have been basically drinking plain water, and occasionally some juice and water that has been diluted like 4-1 water/juice just for some fruit flavor, and later, plain white milk, which I HATED before my surgery but that first small glass of skim milk tasted so fresh and nourishing after a week of water.

I'm not sure at what point I'm going to need a new photo, but my license that was issued in the spring already looks nothing like me after having lost almost 50 pounds.

WHOA I had no idea this could be a thing and now I sort of hope I end up needing that surgery because pit shaving is for the birds!

I do this with the old-school high octane amber colored Listerine and it also works very well.

I have a lot of words I'd use to describe this woman, but as a new member here who hasn't quite figured out where the line is yet...I don't think any of them are appropriate to type out. Good for you for setting a boundary. It's completely out of line and unacceptable for her to speak to anyone like that.

I'm still not able to get much down beside liquids. I've been able to successfully drink some protein shakes and some juice but I am extremely apprehensive about anything more substantial than that. I'm in a unique situation because I had surgery 3 hours from where I live. My surgeon's office had me to go to the emergency room for a scan to determine if the shoulder pain was a blood clot and to have a blood panel run to see if I was dehydrated. Long story short, between COVID patients and drug overdoses in the sad Appalachian city I live in, I was in the waiting room at the ER for 7 hours with no timeframe for when I might be seen, so I just left. I was to a point where I felt like I was going to pass out from a combination of no liquids, no calories, and having to wear a mask that long when I wasn't feeling well (with my gross, dry mouth puffing away in it). The good news is that my partner's behavior last week was just a bad day, and he has been wonderful since then. He did some reading and found out my recovery is more normal than not at this point and has completely stopped giving me crap about it.

Every surgeon seems to have slightly different rules for the various diet stages--even the pre-surgical diet. I had to do 1 week of clear liquids, 3 weeks of puree, weeks 4-12 are "soft foods" and then I get to start eating whatever my body will tolerate at week 13.

I did a soft version of this. I was on the clear liquid diet, and toward the end of the first week I began to feel...well, the best way to describe it is "depleted". Run down, no energy, and feeling physical hunger for something a little more nourishing. I ended up "cheating" and drinking a couple small glasses of 1% milk over the following few days, with no issues.

I was not using the beans or the corn, this was just chicken and salsa and some seasoning (pre-surgery we were using it as a taco filling)...but about a pound of chicken from frozen was perfect in about 12 minutes on high pressure (and you release the pressure immediately when the timer goes off, not naturally), and then I use a hand mixer to shred the chicken.

I've done something like this in my Instant Pot!

I'm going through a version of this with my "better half"--he was originally planning to have the same surgery after we get married next year and he can be on my much-better insurance. After seeing what I've gone through the last 3 weeks, he has decided it's not for him. He is 6' tall and about 290, and even after me losing 32 pounds already my BMI is still 2 points higher than his. He has a LOT less weight to lose to be comfortable with himself (he has a very broad build and quite a bit of muscle, and feels he would look best around 230) than I do, and I keep telling him that once my diet expands to a point where I can cook for both of us again, the weight will likely come off on its own because of the reduced portion sizes. I've been cranky a lot lately because I can't seem to get anything down--I'm on week 2 of purees and I am so sick of yogurt and shakes, and try as I might unless I'm really forcing myself to eat I seem to keep ending up falling short of my protein goals and am eating way too few calories. He's been very patient with me but anyone would be frustrated by that.

I'm about 3 weeks post-surgery and every time I see someone eating something I won't be able to have for a few months, it makes me crave it...and it's not the items you'd think. Every time I see someone eating a salad on TV I keep thinking how good and fresh it looks meanwhile I'm over here with my 1/2 cup of plain Chobani like....

I understand that about ER doctors, but the decision and diagnosis was made with my surgeon, who was contacted and provided with my chart. I actually didnt say anything about it happening "on water"--if you read what I had actually said (I am not the OP; I am a commenter from downthread), I ate scrambled eggs on my first day OFF liquids moving to purees. So I did not experience dumping syndrome "on water", I experienced it "on" Scrambled Eggs one week post-surgery.

Well the doctor at the emergency room AND my surgeon seemed to agree that was what happened. I trust their opinion.

That's what I ended up doing too--the next day it was protein shakes and brothy soup ONLY. I've eaten scrambled eggs since then without issue, I just think it was too much too quickly.

I had this happen on my first day moving from liquids to purees--I ate about 2/3 of a scrambled egg and it hit my stomach like a rock. I felt full for hours afterward and couldn't eat anything, and then ended up fainting in my bathroom. I nearly gave my fiance a heart attack and I got to take a fun ride in an ambulance. 😐

Me too, actually--he wasn't in the list for me to choose him so I listed Dr Curry because he was originally supposed to be my surgeon...he was great! Even texted me a few days later to see how I was doing. I cannot recommend JourneyLite highly enough. I moved to WV from Cincinnati a year ago while surgeries were on hold in Ohio, and after a thoroughly disappointing experience with trying to restart the program with a hospital in WV (St Mary's in Huntington...their dietitian made me cry!), I went back to JourneyLite and was nothing but happy with the care I received.