SpartanMaker

Welcome! Have you started making any lifestyle changes yet?

Thanks all for posting this topic and for the encouraging replies! I've been seeing all the bad issues people are having and was just assuming mine would be terrible too. (Normally if there's a way to have a bad reaction to surgery or issues due to a medical problem, my body likes to take that road.)

Awesome Job! You're killing it! Just be kind to yourself when the weight loss slows, as it inevitably will. It's all part of the process. Think about it this way. You're already 70% of the way to the 200's! You'll hit that before you know it!

Did I mention that having surgery in peak COVID sucks? It does. Now open heart surgery is hard enough, but I was in the hospital a 7 days and was not allowed any visitors the entire time. I think that was actually harder on my wife through. Especially the first few days. I had some complications, was in a lot of pain and was highly medicated, so I was unable to talk to her. My nurse was supposed to give her regular updates, but like most nurses, she was overworked and wasn't able to call regularly. Imagine a loved one in the hospital after major surgery, but you can’t see them, can’t talk to them, and have no idea what’s going on other than they are having “complications”. Now maybe I should explain these “complications” a bit. Basically I was having trouble breathing on my own and they thought they would have to reintubate me. For those not familiar with the term, it means they would have had to put me back on a breathing machine. They didn’t want that and though I didn’t know it at the time, I didn’t want that either. Some studies suggest the mortality rate of cardiac patients that are reintubated is over 40%. Not good odds. Thankfully they didn’t have to go there and I was finally able to make the staff understand that one of the drains in my chest was causing the breathing issues. They removed that drain and I was immediately able to take a nice big breath. Crisis averted. Once I went home, the story honestly gets pretty boring. The surgical recovery period was hard, but being a big fat dude made it harder. The important takeaway here is that my cardiologist said I’d need at least a year to recover from the heart surgery before he would even consider signing off on the weight loss surgery. So my hopes for WLS in 2020 were dashed, but at least there was hope for 2021! Those of you that realize it’s now 2022 (I know, with COVID, I lose track too), will also realize I’m still waiting for my weight loss surgery. Why I’m still waiting well over a year later is a tale for next time!

I now use part of a protein shake as "creamer". I used to use real cream, but knew that would potentially be problematic post-surgery, so found the protein shake works pretty well.

For sure. I have not tried these in a while, but I have made my own protein bars in the past. At least for those, I can pronounce all the ingredients! I may have to try those again?

I don't think I could eat those. A decade or so ago, I lost about 80 pounds eating a low carb diet. Highly processed items like those you're showing were a mainstay of my diet then. I eventually gained every one of those pounds back and then some when I reached my goal. I think the problem was that at the time, I never learned how to eat real food. For me, items like that are like a gateway drug. If I eat them, I soon want to have the "real thing" even more. I plan to just stay away and focus on clean eating.

Interesting. My surgeon did a complete metabolic workup pre-surgery. I assumed to have a baseline.

There are also low acid varieties for those that need to cut down on acid as well.

Have you tried decaf? It can take a while to find the right one (it did for me anyway), but once I found one I like, I drink it exclusively. I actually feel better now than I did drinking the "high octane" stuff.

Green tea still has caffeine, so might not be a good choice either. I drink herbal teas (both hot and iced), for this reason.

Here's a list of the ASMBS approved surgeries. https://asmbs.org/patients/bariatric-surgery-procedures If you're planning to have something done that's not on this list, I'd recommend asking your surgeon why they want to do this different surgery. Keep in mind too that insurance companies likely won't pay for it. They want proven techniques. FYI, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the list of forums, there is one for "Mini Gastric Bypass".

I work from home, so at first I was thinking a week at max. I asked the United Healthcare Bariatric Program nurse this question (she works exclusively with bariatric surgery patients), and she recommended 2 week. She said it wasn't due to pain, but just because I'd be extra tired and likely would be suffering from brain fog if I tried to start back any sooner. Hopefully that works, but I won't know until next month!

@The Greater Fool, thanks for clarifying on the duct tape! I totally missed where you said put something over the staple line! I was envisioning the duct tape going right onto the staples and it hurt just to think about it! I hear you on the medical tape. Some of them won't even stick to a bandage, much less your skin. Personally, I've found the cloth ones stick the best (and can be used without scissors, a nice bonus), followed by the plastic varieties. I've never found the paper tapes to work very well at all.

Have you tried herbal tea instead?

I think only your health care team can advise you, but I doubt it will be worse post surgery? One of the most common reasons for acid reflux is overeating. Certain medications such as NSAIDS can also lead to reflux. Having reflux at night is very common. When laying down, it's a lot easier for the food/acid to overcome gravity. Many people that have this issue find they need to sleep propped up to get the problem under control. It's also possible that one of the contributing factors to your reflux is something called a hiatal hernia. Up to 40% of bariatric surgery patients have this issue pre-surgery. This is where part of the stomach actually pokes through the diaphragm. Heartburn is a common symptom of a hiatal hernia and is something your surgeon will fix during your procedure. Best of luck.

I'm like you, I'd much rather "play" for fitness. I created a list of sports I want to try. Now this is my list and some you may hate the idea of, but perhaps some of them might appeal to you: Archery Backpacking Boxing Disk Golf Fencing Golf Hang Gliding Kayaking Kitesurfing Martial arts Mountain biking Mud runs Orienteering Parkour Pilates Powerlifting Racquetball Repelling Rock climbing Rowing Sailing Scuba Diving Skiing – cross country Skiing – downhill Snorkeling Snowboarding Snowkiting Snowmobiling Squash Stand-up Paddle Boarding Swimming Tennis Trail Running Ultimate Frisbee Volleyball Windsurfing Yoga

It's pretty normal for it to take 6 months to a year to get through all the steps. I'm going on 2.5 years, but I know I'm an edge case. Keep in mind that this is life changing surgery. Not only do you have to jump through a lot of hoops, but I think it's good that it takes a while because you need to mentally prepare yourself for this change. If you go into this thinking bariatric surgery will "fix" you, it's won't. Surgery is a tool, but the hardest part is the mental changes needed to be successful.

I'm assuming your liver must be smaller than most of us? The reason they give for the preop diet is typically to shrink your liver to make the surgery safer for you and easier for the surgeon.

I use MyFitnessPal. It's not bariatric specific, but works for me. Just avoid the forums, they tend to be anti surgery. I like that I can scan anything with a barcode to add that food to my log. It also has a huge database, though sometimes that can be a negative because you may find 30 different entries for one thing. Recipes are pretty easy to enter, but I find that work better on a PC instead of the app. It has both a free and a paid version. The paid version has some extra feature, but I don't miss them personally.

I have not had my bariatric surgery yet, but have had almost 20 other surgeries of various sorts including open heart surgery in 2020. The running joke in the family is that I collect surgeries. I've had at least one surgery a year since 2014. One thing I'd say is critical is to keep up with your pain meds. keeping the pain under control is a lot easier if you are constantly taking something, vs. waiting till the pain is really bad. You should be able to take Tylenol in addition to the oxy (check with your surgeon first though!) Tylenol won't make the pain go away, but it may take the edge off enough to make it less intense. I'm going to take the opposite approach on movement than the previous poster. I know it hurts, but moving increases blood flow, which means you'll heal faster. I can almost guarantee your surgeon told you to walk a certain amount and you need to do that religiously. One of the main reasons is to prevent blood clots, which can be fatal. Don't mess around and skip the walking just because it hurts. I'm also not sold on duct tape. I'd be worried it would pull on the staples? My preference would be a nice cushioned, non-adherent pad over the staple line. These can be taped (and the tape is away from the staples), or if you don't want to use tape, look into something called "cohesive wrap". It sticks to itself and in this case you would wrap it around your whole body. The slight compression from the wrap might also help with healing. If nothing's helping, talk to your surgeon! They may have other options for you. Good luck!

Do you know when you'll start the liquid diet yet? I'm supposed to start on Sept 6th.

I struggle with the same thing right now. One thing I figured out is that I have to start taking MUCH smaller bites first. For now, that's all I'm working on. Once smaller bites become a habit, I'll work on more thorough chewing.

Sorry you're having trouble getting the info you need. It might be that all the plans require the same pre-op stuff? In my experience, it's the employer, not the insurance plan that ultimately determines coverage requirements. For example, I currently have United Healthcare Choice Plus-HSA and had the same thing with my previous employer. One wanted six months of dietitian visits and the other only three months.

We ended with me lying on the table in the cath lab being told that I am in danger of imminent death. Now before I go on, I should explain something else about me. I’m severely hearing impaired. This is important here, because you have to picture me on that table, feeling pretty good (I think they gave me a Valium), and then waking up to find everyone in the room desperately trying to get my attention. I finally come around from my stupor enough to explain to them that I’m hearing impaired, so I don’t understand what’s going on. I’m pretty good at lip reading, but we’re in basically an operating room and everyone is gowned up and has masks on! Finally I explain that I have partial hearing in my left ear, so if they come around there and speak slowly and close to me I will probably be able to understand. It took a few tries, but I finally gather I really am in imminent danger and they were recommending that they put a stent in me RIGHT NOW. Doing so might seem like a no-brainer, but like lot’s of important decisions, there are always trade-offs. I didn’t feel alert enough, nor did I feel like I understood the options I had, so I told them no. Bottom line, they patched me up and took me out to recovery. (I’m sure they were all thinking I was an idiot and that they’d never see me again.) While in recovery, I asked them if someone could explain my options better. Fortuitously one of the heart surgeons had just finished up a procedure and he came by to discuss my options with me (with my wife present as well). After some soul searching and after better understanding the tradeoffs, I actually opted for open heart surgery. The reason is that if they had done the valve replacement via catheter (something called TAVR), I likely would not have been able to have a second one that way in the future. That would have meant that in 10-12 years, I would have needed another valve replacement and they would have had no option but to do it via an open heart procedure. I figured it’s better to get the open heart procedure done while I’m younger and save TAVR for later when I’m likely less able to tolerate major surgery. Yea, we get it dude, but what does this have to do with WLS? It means that in less than 2 months, I went from being excited to be having weight loss surgery, to knowing I’m living on borrowed time. I’m also realizing at about that time that my dreams of weight loss surgery have been dashed, or so I thought. Instead (assuming I make it to my heart surgery date), I was facing the reality of having one of the most major surgical procedures one can have. Oh yea, and I'd get to do it during peak COVID. How fun! We’ll stop there today, but in case you’re still in suspense, I still survived!