ClareLynn

I am still waiting to know if insurance will pay for the surgery, but I have started the pre-op diet, done all the last minute pre-op tests. The office said that they are confident it will be approved but it takes time. 🤷‍♀️ Or maybe it’s been approved and no one told me. My short term disability / fmla leave was approved though! After 2 days on the 700 calorie low carb (30g) liquid diet, I am completely off my insulin. Makes me wonder why I haven’t just been living off of protein shakes since I seem to do so well with them! 😅

During my pre-op x-ray the surgeon noted that I have a partially deflated lung and that I need to be extra diligent about breathing exercises. I had really bad pneumonia in 2018, and nodes in my lungs that have never gone away so I'm guessing that's where that came from. I just bought a spirometer so that I can start practicing my breathing now. Maybe that will help prevent problems during surgery. Did anyone else have a partially deflated lung going into their surgery? I'm not even sure if you can fix it once it happens or if I'm doing exercises to prevent even more from deflating.

My surgery is on the 24th and I just started the pre-op diet. I am supposed to do 4-5 shakes a day and ... that is actually more food than I normally eat. It's going to be a struggle to force myself to drink the shake when I am very much not hungry or even feeling nauseated from being too full. The ozempic I am on really doesn't work well for eating often. 😅 So this is going to be a weird 15 days for me. I was losing weight before the pre-op diet so we'll see what this does to my progress. As long as I have the surgery, anything else is just a bump in the road, I can deal.

The Kane Center in Hoffman Estates is where my mother, uncle and now I am having surgery. They work out of St Alexis in Barrington and also Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove. They are one of the places that BCBS works with in Illinois. My surgeon is Dr Paul Guske. Everyone at the office has been very helpful and respectful, they have the approval process pretty streamlined. I saw the surgeon in September and my surgery is scheduled for November.

Thanks! That helps me understand better about phase 3 vs. long term diet. I have another 3 appointments scheduled with the dietician for post-op every month. So I'll make sure to write down these questions and bring them to her. She's the bariatric dietician for the hospital so I'm sure that she knows her stuff. It's just that she focused on "what you need to know for pre-surgery" and not so much on the larger long term picture. I'm sorry that you developed an allergy after the surgery! I already have a gluten intolerance so I think now's the time to just write off wheat for good. I definitely do not want anything stretching out my new stomach. I didn't realize that those foods swell up.

I saw the dietician for a pre-op consultation about how to eat after the surgery. The booklet she gave me has 3 stages: liquid, mushy and then "general" diet (which starts after 1 month). I have gotten the impression from posts here that there may be a stage after this? For example, there are some foods that are prohibited in the stage 3 general diet that she gave me, and I want to understand if those are "don't eat them until healed and you test to see if it works for you in some small portion" or "never eat them ever again". Some of the things to avoid are: raw fruit, fruit skin, raw carrot, whole green beans, any starches (rice, bread, pasta). I was wondering if anyone has a link to what a good diet/food list looks like for someone in maintenance after a duodenal switch? I wanted to make meal plans for each phase and get a better understanding what to expect before I have surgery, when I'm still feeling okay and have energy to plan. 😊

Thanks, that's a relief! Hah, not like I don't want to lose weight or anything but I wasn't sure about the timing of it all.

I'm prepared to do another diet (and this time have it documented the way insurance requires) as it seems like my doctor didn't document everything the way insurance wants it. It's a huge disappointment because now instead of the surgery being literally free (I've hit my out of pocket this year), I'll have to pay $5,000 since this pushes it out to next year. My diet from this doctor has been working well. I've lost another 5 lbs, and am down a total of 40lbs. It's really too bad that we didn't realize what needed to be written down in the office notes so that the diet would count.😫 I wonder if insurance will get upset if I am successful with this second diet? I hope they go off my starting weight and not whatever I weigh immediately before surgery.

It's been a roller coaster the past two days! 😀 They scheduled my surgery for Nov 24th, and then called back the next day saying that it will be denied by insurance if I can't provide better proof of my 3 month medically supervised diet. I have been on a diet, medication and seeing my endocrinologist regularly for 3 years. I've lost 35 lbs total, 10 in the last couple months. The coordinator said that a letter from my doctor would be sufficient and I wouldn't need to do another diet. But now seems like whatever my doctor wrote isn't good enough. She hadn't given me calorie goals and instead we focused on the plate diet, limiting starchy carbs, filling it up with vegetables, lean meats and really really really reducing portion sizes. Also a lot of the focus was on blood sugar control since I'm on an insulin pump. My doctor just sent more notes from my office visits, and now I'm waiting to hear back on if I can still have the surgery as scheduled. So we'll see if I have to do some 1200 calorie diet again and have the surgery pushed out until next year or not. Fingers crossed!

I didn't think to search for that! Hopefully it's not a big complication, my surgeon didn't even comment on it when I listed it in my medical history. I'll look around and see.