ClareLynn

Mine looked fine on the ultrasound and then had to quickly be removed within a month (I had to wait a bit longer but it was seriously bad). I am unsure if sludge actually shows up on ultrasound? That's what I had and in retrospect, some intermittent pains I had attributed to heartburn were actually my gallbladder before the surgery causing trouble. If I could do it over again, I would have had it removed at the same time just to avoid a second surgery. I occasionally feel uncomfortable when I eat very fatty meats, like carnitas or a ribeye but otherwise don't notice that I'm missing it.

Shoot, they consider that cosmetic too https://www.premera.com/medicalpolicies/7.01.523.pdf

Thanks, I had only been focusing on the pannus part (which insurance wanted to see intractable infections) but hadn't looked into the diastais repair part. I'd assumed that fixing the bulging tummy was cosmetic too.

I found everyone's posts about which procedure and surgeon they went with to be really helpful when I was struggling to find the right surgeon so I thought I'd start a thread for mine too. I've lost over 170lbs total and am currently 16 months out from my surgery, and at a stable weight for over 3 months. I just scheduled an extended Tummy Tuck for this August with Dr. John YS Kim in Chicago at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. There will just be a single scar, and even though I do have a bunch of extra skin above the belly button too, he said I didn't need a Fluer de Lis which is great. I had also seen Dr. Shifrin who had recommended a circumferential lower body lift to get all my extra backside skin too, with "auto-augmentation" to make it rounder. Dr. Kim recommended to not try to do that at the same time since the recovery would be quite difficult with both front and back worked on at the same time. I was having a hard time understanding how I would even recover when it would hurt to be on my back, front and sides so it wasn't hard to convince me. I was really unsure of if I was "at weight" or not and as long as I was standing there naked in front of him, I asked if I had more weight to lose or not, or if it was just skin. I find it impossible to tell. He said that I actually don't have much fat, just some on my pubis and above belly button which he'd remove with liposuction at the same time. It's nice to just focus on being a stable weight and not wondering if I'm getting it done too soon. The surgery should take 4 hours, and I would go home the same day, and then see him once a week for the next 4-6 weeks. There will be 2 drains in place and removed 2 weeks later as well. Plus a binder/compression garments for 3 months. The surgeon fee was $16,000 with a non-refundable 10% down when I scheduled and the remainder due 3 weeks before the surgery. With hospital and anesthesiologist fees it came to $20,800. If I change my surgery date, I lose the the deposit so I can't chicken out. 😅 There was another surgeon there, Dr. Galiano, whose fee was $10k less which was tempting, since it was still a great doctor at Northwestern hospital, but I really liked Dr. Kim and kind of wanted "the best". Dr. Shifrin who performs the surgery in an outpatient surgical center at his office would have cost $22k. I didn't feel comfortable doing these surgeries outside of a hospital so that helped narrow down my choices too. I have BCBS and only one of the surgeons was willing to try to document skin irritation so that insurance would pay for some of the procedure. Everyone else was just like "lol no it's cosmetic" and that was the end of it. I get infections from time to time but they do respond to medication and don't happen all the time so I felt like it was really unlikely that I could go that route. Insurance said that if your pannus was below your public line AND you have infections that don't clear up, then they would pay for just the Panniculectomy. The entire experience really convinced me that you have to see multiple surgeons because prices are ALL OVER the place, even within the same practice/hospital, and everyone had a different idea of what work I should do, the combination of it, pain management, etc. After the first consultation, I learned that I suck at asking questions while in a paper gown, and gave the surgeon a printed copy of my questions and asked him to walk through each one with me, which also was a great way to way to feel out their personality and willingness to work with me. My plan is to also get a breast, arm and inner thigh lift but none of the doctors wanted to talk about surgeries that wouldn't happen for maybe a year or longer out. Once I'm recovered from the tummy tuck, then we'd discuss the next area to focus on which for me would be arm/breast combo. So this process is going to take a while, with having to save up all of my vacation for the entire year for each surgery.

I just scheduled an extended tummy tuck for this August with Dr. John YS Kim in Chicago. It's pretty far out but August turned out to be the best time for me to take off work anyway. I asked him how long before I would go back to work (desk job) and he was pretty confident that it was 4 weeks minimum. If I can go back sooner, I will but I managed to get the time off so if I need it I have it.

I had my sliding hiatal hernia repaired post sleeve without having to switch to a bypass. It went well and I don't have GERD anymore. I also take hydroxychloroquine and it crushes fine, mixed with applesauce, still works.

Thanks, it helps to hear someone else say that these are a big deal.

I would like to get extensive body contouring now that I've lost 170lbs and seem to be in a stable spot in my weight. What I'm most concerned about is how long I would need to take off from work though. I would like to get an arm lift, breast lift, tummy tuck and thigh lift, which I believe would be 3 separate surgeries (combining the arm lift with the breast lift). The recovery time sounds a LOT longer and rougher than the actual weight loss surgery so I'm having a hard time gauging how long I'll be needing lots of help at home, when I could go back to doing my WFH office job, and when I would actually feel better after surgery. I went to real self and they said * Tummy Tuck - 2 weeks until back to work, but ideally give yourself more time and 6 weeks to fully recover * Arm Lift - 2 weeks but really it sounds like 4-8 before the incisions are mostly healed * Thigh Lift - 2 weeks until back to work and 6 weeks until fully recovered I am not a fast healer and have chronic pain/disability from other illness, so it took me 5 weeks to get back to work from my SADI. I'm worried that this would be like 3 months of time off work total and I'd have to split it up a year for each surgery just to get the time off. Am I looking at this all wrong or are these surgeries just that brutal to recover from? 😬 I don't even know how to start explaining that much time off to my boss either.

I’m had mine taken out 3 months after my DS. I felt immediately better after the surgery. It was quick, maybe an hour or less and done by the same surgeon. I still had “gall bladder” attacks for maybe 2 months after surgery probably because I ate too much fat before I was adapted to life without a gallbladder. But nothing so painful as what you are describing. My liver numbers were also too high but that started before the surgery and is unrelated. I was back at work 3 days post op and felt it was a very easy surgery to recover from. I think something is wrong and I hope that you are able to get your doc to take it seriously. I’m sorry you are in so much pain.

My doctor never gave me goals or macros, beyond "eat protein first, stop when you aren't hungry anymore, don't eat on a schedule, eat only when hungry". That's been working well for me. I've lost 170lbs total, 120 of which is post surgery, and I'm still slowly losing. Most days I get 700-900 calories a day, though I don't track unless I hit a 3+ week stall. I'm not sure what to do when I get to maintenance but then again I'm not sure when I should stop losing anyway. I'm 5'7" at at 161lbs (large frame) and while I look fine in clothes, when I see myself naked with all the extra skin, I can't decide if I am still overweight, too skinny or what since I'm bony all over but also comically saggy and wrinkled. I don't like stressing out about it though so I'll just keep doing this until either my surgeon tells me to eat more or I get hungry enough to naturally go into maintenance I guess?

I have had lifelong taste issues and was surprised that a bunch of them got better post surgery: I went from exclusively drinking water my entire life to not being able to make myself drink it at all. I only drink tea or diluted apple juice now. Water didn't used to have a "taste" but now it's gross. I only used to eat salt and butter. No pepper, or any other spices. I now love spices (not talking about spicy food), and overseason everything with black pepper, mustard, garlic, etc. I can now eat onions and mushrooms. I love them. Previously I would gag and couldn't eat them. After a few months of thinking everything was too sweet, I'm back to where I was before surgery and enjoy them again. Oops! I don't get it really but I appreciate being able to eat more foods without gagging.

I had the hiatal hernia repair on Oct 28th (1.5 weeks ago). A lot of people had told me that recovery would be similar to my original DS surgery but it was a lot less awful. In hindsight, my original surgery made me a quite fail/vulnerable and I didn't recover as quickly as most people report, so I'm glad it wasn't as scary as my DS. I'm already back to eating a mix of soft foods and easy stuff like well chewed seafood. There's still some residual swelling in my esophagus so it's not easy to tell if the surgery was a total success or not yet. The surgeon said that my hernia was bigger than expected based on presurgical testing. It was supposed to be just a 2cm sliding hernia but he said it was much bigger than that when he fixed it. I have had trouble swallowing for the past 2 years, always feeling like there was something stuck in my throat. That feeling is mostly gone (though does come back sometimes). Having any reprieve from that gives me hope that once all the swelling is gone, I'll be all better. I can now drink or eat, then bend over and not have it immediately come back up though which is a big win for me. That's been a problem for nearly my entire life. So yay!

I had frequent persistent hiccups for like 9 months. It wasn’t related to being full or eating fast. For me they were triggered when I stood up or sat down. I went from 20 a day to less than 1 a day but it took a long time.

Mine too! One week I am on meds and blacking out when I stand up. So I taper off, it looks great for a while and then my BP goes up too high again.

I had my gallbladder out and it was a very easy surgery to recover from. I took just 3 days off work and felt great immediately after surgery because my gallbladder wasn’t bothering me anymore. Well the hernia is still there so I will be scheduling the hernia repair soon. Thank goodness With everything I have hit my deductible!