Caybot

Great to read everyone’s updates! I’m doing wonderfully. I am the happiest I have been for years and I feel great in my skin. I don’t know my weight but a few weeks ago I was at 199 (215 pre op) which I am delighted with. I know from my clothes it is still coming off but I am working through a bunch of issues with the scale so I’m not weighing myself. I’m also super lazy and I am sure it would be coming off quicker if I actually worked out once in a while. Note that I eat three times as many carbs as my dietician recommends and I eat significantly more calories than I need to survive. I am content to gauge and eat when I am hungry and as an ED survivor that is a huge win in itself. I’m not in a hurry. I’m cooking almost everything from scratch and it’s delicious. I can eat about 3/4 cup to a cup depending on consistency. No heartburn or any other adverse issues, and I stopped omeprazole two weeks after surgery. I consider myself very fortunate. My main reason for the revision was so I could eat dense foods that would just come right back up with the band. I am so grateful to take a big bite of anything and I feel a wonderful freedom with that. cay

We're almost exactly the same starting/current weight but I'm a couple weeks ahead of you. I only weigh once a week for my own mental health but I'm going on 3 weeks at the same weight. It's normal. Just keep doing what you're doing, search for "stall" in posts here, you're doing great! With a lower BMI to start we aren't going to see the type of numbers others will post. I do wonder if you are consuming enough. 300 kcal sounds very low, but your team should be able to advise on it.

This doesn’t happen to me, but I feel I can eat/drink more than many when I read others’ posts here. I can take a big gulp or a big bite without any issue for the most part. If I do eat or drink too quickly I do experience a slight pressure sensation but it passes. I will add though that I had a band for 11 years and thus I likely have already assimilated to eating and drinking a LOT slower than most. For the last 7 years or so if I didn’t I’d bring it back up. That is the reason for my revising to the sleeve and so far I’m already able to eat denser and different food than I have been able to before (4 weeks post op on Wednesday)

I had my surgery on a Thursday and my husband went back to work on the Monday. To be fair he helped me a lot on the Thursday and Friday and after that it was mostly just moral support and company for the weekend. It’s good for us to get ourselves up for water, bathroom etc just as soon as we can. I was walking up and down the stairs unaided the day after surgery. I went back to work on the Wednesday following so depending on your recovery I hope you would be just fine alone after a couple of days. Good luck! This is exciting stuff for the good of your future quality of life and although folks who love us are sometimes not enthused or do not wholly support, your peeps here can help you with that 🙂🙂 cay

Mine looked just like that right after I pulled the drain, but within a day or so it had scabbed over. I imagine the strip has kept the air from it and once it is off and you just have neosporin or whatever ointment and a regular gauze it will heal just fine.

In full liquid phase, I boiled up a chicken carcass for stock, added green cabbage, onion, carrots, celery, garlic, cooked to very soft then used immersion blender. It blended well. Watered it down if it was a bit thick. It was delicious! Once I was on purée stage I added the chicken to it and blended that in the blender. cay

Hello sleevers, I read a lot about "I could tolerate this" and "I tried things one at a time to see if I could tolerate that" and I have a question - what exactly does it mean to you when your body does NOT tolerate something? Is it regurgitation, nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, sitting heavy in stomach, something else? So I had a revision band to sleeve and I think not being able to tolerate something with the band might be quite different to with the sleeve, There are many foods that were off-limits to me with the band (some made sense, some totally did not.) Thank you very much for your input. Cay

Congratulations @KevinS62 on your theee weeks! Same for me. I did get on the scale for the first time yesterday and I’ve lost 15lbs which I am very happy with. 25 to goal. Clothes are fitting better and I have a lot of energy for the first time this week. Biggest challenge is not eating because boredom. I’ve been able to tolerate everything I have tried, in much smaller portions of course. I am about to go to “regular food” this weekend. Not being hungry is an interesting feeling, I’ll try to make the most of it while I can. Im heading home to the UK for a trip next weekend and very excited to see my family. hope everyone else is doing well!

I'm sorry you're still struggling, @Kbennettaz, I remember you were having nausea pre-op as well. I hope your doctor can help you get that under control. I despise feeling nauseous, one of the vitamins the nutritionist recommended made me feel queasy even when taken with food (it was the iron content/format) so I switched that out. For me, I have to find something which is "safe" when I feel that way. It's psychological but after a surgery when I was 15 the only thing I could keep down was ice cold milk. Nowadays it is still my go-to if I get nauseous and don't have meds.

@MrsPinedo I’ve definitely been going through grieving for the ritual of dinner. I can say that it DOES get better. The first two weekends post op I had to just watch my husband eat and though I wasn’t hungry I was envious. I felt like I had lost my best friend. I had. Although I still can’t eat much, this past weekend I was able to enjoy dinner for the first time with him and it nourished my soul! I love to cook and I’m trying to only eat “real food” so I’ve been able to pass the time making different recipes from scratch for my different stages of post op. Now I’m finally on something resembling “normal food” stage, I was able to have sushi (four pieces) one evening and a Parmesan garlic chicken/zoodle dish the other evening. Again, tiny portions, but I was full and satisfied! I am a boredom eater, too, so I have to keep that in check. I’m clean and sober and this post op time is very similar to when I first stopped drinking many years ago. I’m trying to find something to fill the hole. And then getting annoyed. If that makes sense. Now this isn’t my first rodeo with WLS so I’m sure some of my experiences are different but I just wanted to witness and validate your feelings! I hope the pain from the incision is improving, too. cay

Good luck Grace! I was back to work after 7 days and probably could have gone in after 5 so sending good thoughts for a smooth recovery!

I slept (propped up with pillows) on my back for the first four nights because I had a JP drain and I couldn’t sleep any other way. A recliner was more comfortable those first couple of nights. After that I’m right back to sleeping on my back and side (I move around a lot at night) and my sleep is the same quality as it was before surgery.

Definitely check if you can cut or crush what you have been prescribed, but I see you’re only four days out and may also have some soreness remaining from the tube down your throat during surgery. What you describe about only feeling it on the right side is exactly how I felt after my endoscopy and it cleared up after a few days. Good luck!

Oh gosh Kevin, you definitely have a firmer set of rules! One thing I was surprised at is how different the pre and post op diets are. For example I had a low carb low fat liver shrinking diet but I did not have a liquid pre op diet, I just had to stop eating at midnight the night before surgery. Some people are on weeks of liquids. But also, there may be something to be said for that for folks with higher BMI for surgery. I did read a post of someone whose surgeon went in and back out again because liver was too big. I’m generally a rule follower but I agree, if I was told I couldn’t even have cottage cheese until week 5 I might cry! And cheat a bit. I hope the next few weeks for you pass quickly and you’re back to eating real food soon! Cay

Hi July friends! Well, I’m two weeks and a day out from surgery today. Everything is fantastic so far. Just some very mild ache in the healing incision area when I first get up in the morning. I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost but my clothes are far more comfortable. I’ll weigh myself next week because they’ll ask at my next appointment but I’m trying to focus on being healthy and strong which works best for my personal mental health. Every food I have tried so far I have tolerated just fine. I just progressed to “mechanical” food which sounds very space-age but really is just anything you don’t have to cut with a knife. I’m going to try some fish this weekend. Chicken was just fine (I chewed it well) and cooked vegetables. Also scrambled egg and egg salad and egg foo yong made with minced chicken. A lot of eggs. For now I am not being very adventurous as I’m finishing off all the food I cooked and prepped for the soft stage. I am still drinking one shake a day to get to 80-90g protein. I can’t do it without the shake or I’d be eating all day. Hope you are all having a wonderful day and sending good healing thoughts to the folks who had/are having surgery this week. Cay

Welcome! Oh my gosh I’m sorry you had to have revision surgery but sounds like you caught it in good time and you’re on the mend now. I keep telling myself this soon shall pass! I’m on soft/purée foods now and so far so good. I still need to drink one shake a day to get my protein numbers.

Thank you so much for the helpful reply @Arabesque

Thank you! May I ask you, when you have eaten enough slash almost too much, how do you know? Is it like a solid pressure in the stomach?

Good luck today! I had an afternoon slot too(though it got moved up to noon the night before) - hopefully the day is passing quickly for you! Cay

I use nutritionix, because I saw a post here where someone was recommending it. I like it, pretty easy to use.

Good luck today @Kakinse ! Hope everyone post op is doing well! One week post op for me today and I'm back to work as of this morning. I am just working from my home office today but I'll be commuting into Seattle tomorrow. Still have the remnants of gas pain at the top of a deep breath but it's manageable. No pain meds except Tylenol for the past 2 days, and I removed my JP drain tube (under nurse instruction) myself on Monday. That was the weirdest experience! Full liquids until Saturday, then pureed food for a week for me. I'm looking forward to chewing something but that's more mental than hunger. Seems I've been fortunate with the (lack of) hunger hormone. I have my post op appointment via telemed this afternoon and I'm hoping to be able to get on the Peloton for a few minutes at a time starting today. Cay

Keep telling yourself! I know it’s the hardest thing but if you can stay off the scale it might help. I find it so hard not to be jumping on every 5 minutes but when I stay off for a week I am so much more healthy mentally! I lost 4lb on pre-op diet but I was not full liquids - mine was low carb diet, only stopped eating actual food at 6pm day prior to surgery. My surgeon sent me home with a photo of my healthy liver (kinda weird seeing your own insides) so I guess I did something right. I don’t know how much I’ve lost since but I’ll hop on the scale tomorrow as I have a post op appointment. When is your surgery? Three days’ time? Best of luck with it! cay

I was outpatient - I checked in at 10am, my surgery was at noon and I was on my way home before 5. I have a lot of thoughts about my experience but none of them are based upon staying or not staying overnight. I was happy to be in my own home that evening but I would have been okay to stay if it was required. I was nodding out for the first 24 anyway!

I’m day 4 post op today and I REALLY needed some savory too - I totally get what you’re saying about the sweet! I made a soup with celery broccoli onions and broth and then strained it. A quarter cup of that with a little salt totally satisfied the the savory/sodium craving. Don’t beat yourself up about it, like you say it was only one! and you don’t need to be told that eating crunchy rough food like crispy crown probably isn’t the best for new staples.

I just finished 3 days clear liquids and I was able to drink premier protein clear and Gatorade zero protein. I don’t use protein powder at all.