Melissannde

I got through Thanksgiving and Christmas last year without too much damage. I even managed to lose a little over the 2 months (8lbs) which is fantastic compared to what I would've done before banding. I wasn't with family (other than dh & ds) at TG, but I was at sisters for Xmas. She thought Shrimp Alfredo would be appropriate to serve a bandster.. LOL. I just ate the salad, took tiny bits of the crusty part of the bread, tiny tiny bits of Pasta and ate all the shrimp I wanted. I'd advise putting really small portions, like around a teaspoonful, of food on your plate and just move it around if you don't want to eat it. If you're pressured or bullied into eating it, you don't have enough on your plate to do that much damage. My husband and I went to a reception last month, and there were all kinds of dips & stuff. I took tiny portions of the dips and crackers, as much fruit as I wanted, and a few meatballs. They also had tortillas rolled up with good stuff inside.. I unrolled them and ate the meat out and gave the rest to my dh. Probably if you just push the stuff around on your plate, people will think you ate it. If they ask why you're not finishing it, you can say any number of things: "I'm just not hungry", "I'm saving room for ____", "I took more than I can eat, sorry", "I'm not feeling well and don't want to push it", or my favorite "Why do you ask?" Put the ball back into their court. Mom's just sometimes don't "get it" that they're putting pressure on folks.. they don't mean to. I've evidentally put similar pressure on my DD and did not mean to at all. My DD is slender and told me once she hated TG because she felt like she was forced to eat. We had to have a discussion about whether offering people food was pressure.... Good Luck to you. Hope some of this will help.

I've heard about difficulty with eggs from many bandsters. Some tricks I've heard to get around the problem: Have a cup of coffee (or tea or warm Water with lemon) a few minutes before you eat. Don't worry about the 30 min. rule with breakfast.. we're often so tight and dry from our overnight sleep that we need the fluids before eating. Make sure that you're not over cooking the eggs. Very easy to scramble them too dry, even when they look moist. Some folks have had good luck adding a tablespoon or two of cottage cheese to the liquid eggs before scrambling. Try adding some veggies to your eggs. Very often mixing textures works wonders. I like mushrooms & spinach with mine, but anything you like would be fine. I do my scrambles with 1/4 cup egg white & 1 egg. Cuts the calories, cuts the cholesterol, ups the Protein and maintains the taste. Try hungry girl's "egg in a mug" recipes. HungryGirl.com She uses eggbeaters in hers.. no reason you couldn't use real eggs or egg whites or combo as you please. Thing to try as last resort.. make a cup of hot tea and take a sip when you start feeling discomfort while eating. key word: SIP!! And don't wait till you are hurting.. that's too late. You have to take the sip when it's still just discomfort. I do this and it does not make me hungrier sooner.. but if it does cause your hunger to blossom.. then don't do it. Good luck.

7cc's in a 10cc band and only at first fill? My goodness that's aggressive. You might need to make your bites much much smaller (pencil eraser or little fingernail sized) and chew very well until things are nearly liquid. The band can seem tighter & loser at differing times of the day. It's very common to feel tight in the morning and loosen up as the day goes on. You can fine tune it a bit by choosing warm liquids in the morning to help loosen the band and cold drinks in the evening to help tighten it. Not a guarantee that it will help, but it often does. Personally I don't think I'd want more fill if I'm having issues with vegetables. I got stuck on broccoli last Monday and told my nurse on Wednesday that I didn't think I needed a fill. She agreed. Are you staying satisfied for 3 or more hours most of the time on your meals? That is the key question (but not the only one) that helps determine when you need more fill. Get Your Adjustment in the Green Zone | LAP-BAND® Good luck.

I got through Thanksgiving and Christmas last year without too much damage. I even managed to lose a little over the 2 months (8lbs) which is fantastic compared to what I would've done before banding. I wasn't with family (other than dh & ds) at TG, but I was at sisters for Xmas. She thought Shrimp Alfredo would be appropriate to serve a bandster.. LOL. I just ate the salad, took tiny bits of the crusty part of the bread, tiny tiny bits of Pasta and ate all the shrimp I wanted. I'd advise putting really small portions, like around a teaspoonful, of food on your plate and just move it around if you don't want to eat it. If you're pressured or bullied into eating it, you don't have enough on your plate to do that much damage. My husband and I went to a reception last month, and there were all kinds of dips & stuff. I took tiny portions of the dips and crackers, as much fruit as I wanted, and a few meatballs. They also had tortillas rolled up with good stuff inside.. I unrolled them and ate the meat out and gave the rest to my dh. Probably if you just push the stuff around on your plate, people will think you ate it. If they ask why you're not finishing it, you can say any number of things: "I'm just not hungry", "I'm saving room for ____", "I took more than I can eat, sorry", "I'm not feeling well and don't want to push it", or my favorite "Why do you ask?" Put the ball back into their court. Mom's just sometimes don't "get it" that they're putting pressure on folks.. they don't mean to. I've evidentally put similar pressure on my DD and did not mean to at all. My DD is slender and told me once she hated TG because she felt like she was forced to eat. We had to have a discussion about whether offering people food was pressure.... Good Luck to you. Hope some of this will help.

You could also try a heating pad on low.

I had that happen too after a slight unfill, but I didn't ask my doctor about refilling me and I don't think they would've as he has a policy of only filling every 4 weeks. I got through it by pushing Water between meals (after waiting my 30 to 60 minutes after eating). It wasn't the easiest thing in the world.. but I got through it and did NOT gain. I even lost a bit, but less than a lb a week during this time. When I went back in 2 months after the unfill, they still didn't want to fill me back to where I was and by that time the extra hunger from the unfill had settled down. I went from May till September before I got the unfill replaced. And this was all over a tiny .2cc ROFL!! I'm not saying you shouldn't ask if you could have a tiny bit replaced.. I'm just sharing what I did in case your doc doesn't agree and makes you wait. It's a little bit of a struggle, but if I can do it, most anyone can. :smile2: Hope all goes well for you.

Um.. who told you you would never be able to eat steak, or fresh baked bread ever again? I've never been not able to eat anything I really wanted..even with a really good fill level. Now, there are somethings I CHOOSE not to eat, but I can still eat bread (but not much now), and steak is wonderful. When I was first banded, 20 months ago, AFTER I got through the liquid & soft foods stage...I could still eat bread, no problem at all. My nurses were surprised, but didn't tell me not to eat it. As I have slowly gotten more Fluid in my band, bread has become less attractive to me. I really don't want it much anymore and it was mainly a conveyor for butter. LOL I can and do sometimes, nibble at the crusts when we go out to eat. Or sometimes I'll make Ezekiel bread toast to go with Breakfast. Steak is a good Protein source. I just eat beef that is very tender and not huge servings. If we go out to eat, I'll order steak, section off what looks like about 3oz and eat that. The rest goes home in a doggie bag. It's very common to worry about giving things up and even going through a period of grief over losing a friend. However food has not been our friend or it's been a false friend, being good tasting in our mouths, but not doing nice things for our figures. How did I feel close to getting banded? I think I felt hopeful. I wasn't scared over surgery per se because I had had a much worse surgery for cancer a year and a half before and while no surgery is a "walk in the park".. I knew it wasn't going to be anywhere near as bad as the cancer surgery. Good luck on your big day.

ewww hate sports. lets get back 2 previous topic,,,it was funny

You are likely gaining muscle and by volume, muscle weighs more than fat. The good things are: Muscle looks a whole lot better than fat. Muscle is easier on the heart than fat. Muscle also burns more calories than fat. Keep on with your exercise, you will see results. I got really discouraged back in May of this year. So I started taking my measurements every month. Even when the scale doesn't move, I can see the inches come off. You might try that. Regarding Kettle Bells: I have a small one (7 lbs) that I bought last summer. With one thing and another I didn't get it out of it's box until a month or two ago. I think it's too light now!! You don't have to have a trainer to use one. The one I got came with a DVD with a few basic exercises. You might see what trainers cost in your area. I know some are quite expensive, but ones here aren't that much. You might hire one just long enough to learn good technique and then have them check you every few months. Congrats on your new healthy lifestyle. :eek:

Heck yes I would. Look at my ticker.. I'm down 173 lbs in less than 2 years!! Lundy, do I read your info right? You havent had an adjustment since January of 09? Do you go in for checkups ever so often even if you don't need a fill? Do you go to support group? And keep in mind that those with less to lose do lose slower. If you have other health issues, like arthritis or diabetes, that can make the loss a bigger challenge, but still doable. Hang in there and don't give up. We're all pulling for you.

Kimaly was right. The band is not supposed to control your portions for you. The way the band works is to diminish your hunger so that you can make better choices. Until you get enough Fluid in the band, it is a struggle to eat the small portions and not get hungry in between. My surgeon recommends 3oz of Protein and 1/2 cup of low carb veggies for a meal, with healthy Snacks in between if needed. If you don't have a scale, 3oz is about the size of a deck of cards or the palm of your hand (minus the fingers). 1/2 cup of veggies is about the size of tennis ball. My nurses say a bandster should be eating about a cup of food per meal. I too could eat large amts at the beginning. I remember one day I ate 3 bratwursts wrapped in tortillas. Some other bandsters I told about that were horrified. I know where they were coming from now that I finally have enough fluid in my band. The changing tightness of your band (where one day you feel full on very little and the next day you could eat everything in the house) is also very normal. I know someone who says "the band is a fickle b*tch". You just have to work with it as best you can. Days when you are loose, drink more fluids to help curb the appetite. Cold drinks will help tighten the band. When you are too tight, the converse is true, warm drinks will help loosen it. I too did not get to a really good fill level until the second year of banding. I still lost weight because I followed the lean & green plan. Or as another bandster puts it.. Protein, Produce & Fiber. Reduce the white carbs if you can.. they tend to make you hungrier. Replace with whole grain if you must have bread. You're doing the right thing to continue to get fills.. hang in there, it gets better.

Skin issues depend on whether or not you EVER smoked, amount of weight gained/lost, how long you were obese and genetics. Exercising and drinking lots and lots of Water can help some too. Even with lose skin, I'm still so much happier at 212 than I was at 385. It's totally worth it. And they make lots of really good shapewear these days, even for guys. I know at the beginning of my journey I thought spanx? nah.. no way. Now I like them. Linda, I'm confused on your statement about coffee.. does your doc make you give it up? I drink tea frequently now, but still have a couple of cups of coffee a day. I try to keep it to 2, but not so rigid that I won't have a 3rd if I really want one.

B-12 should be sublingual (the kind that dissolves under the tongue) or liquid for best absorption. calcium citrate you can take the pills or do chewable, whichever works for you. I can't do the large pills, they hurt, even breaking them up and taking with applesauce (s/f of course) or yogurt.. did not work for me. I can take the Citracal Petites, but sometimes even those hurt.. even cut into small pieces. The calcium I prefer is Bariatric Advantage chewable lozenges. The chewy bites aren't bad either. None of them are going to taste absolutely wonderful.. but these aren't bad a'tall. :eek: Nothing magic about BA.. Celebrate, Bariatric fusion, Building Blocks and Opurity also have good vitamins/calcium for WLS clients. Write to each company and ask about samples. Many of them will send you some to try. Bariatric Advantage is EXCELLENT at standing behind their product. I wrote them to ask why over 1/2 my calcium lozenges were broken in my bottle and they sent me a free replacement. I eat Low fat cheese and get nonfat milk in my coffee and I still take extra calcium. I saw what my mom went through with hip fractures.. do NOT want to go there.

I agree with several other previous posters, that 600 is probably too low. However, we all vary greatly on what we need for weight control. I would bump it up slowly, maybe by 100 or 200 calories a day for a week and see what that does. If you will keep track of your weight on a website (I like thedailyplate.com) you will probably eventually see that it looks like rickrack.. up and down, up and down.. but overall.. it will be downhill. I only lost 2lbs the first 3 weeks after my surgery. I wasn't able to eat much, on liquids & very soft foods. When I finally got to solids..I dropped 20lbs in 9 days. You don't mention exactly what you are eating. I see lots of people on this site mention that they are still eating white carbs (white bread, white potatoes, white rice, white Pasta, all colors of corn). These are not good for weight loss. If these are still in your food plan, try to wean yourself off of them. If you want to understand why these aren't good for us.. do a search for Glycemic Index/ Glycemic Load. You'll learn alot about how these foods affect us. Basically, you are at the beginning of the Weight Loss Journey. Don't Panic. Follow MOST of the guidelines given to you by your bariatric doctor/support staff MOST of the time and the weight should come off for you.

I've not traveled enough north/south since banding to experience all that much difference in altitude. I have gone East-West, from N.E. Tx to Tallahassee and don't remember having the issues you're referring to.. Sorry you're feeling slightly nauseous. There is a tummy bug going around here, hope it's just travel and not the bug. Might want to get some dramamine (if you can take it) or some crystalized ginger to suck on, just in case. Hope you feel better soon.

I work out in the mornings. I try to eat about an hour before I work out. I also change what I eat on days I work out. On workout days I try to eat some kind of whole grain and protein for my breakfast. The carbs in the whole grain fuels my workout better than protein and veggie carbs. You may find that this does or doesn't work for you.. experiment and see what works for your particular body and lifestyle. Good luck. :eek:

Are you eating white carbs? If so, you may want to get them out of your food plan, or cut way back. Veggie carbs aren't so much a problem. When you say you can "eat a lot".. define a lot. Does your doctor give guidelines as to how much? My doc says 3oz Protein, 1/2 cup veggies. My nurses say about a cup of food. Are you drinking with your meals? Teeny tiny sips are ok for some people, but if you're having issues getting hungry too soon, take your Water (or whatever) glass off the table and try not to drink at least 30 minutes after eating. Longer is better if you can do it. Drink right up to the first bite.. this keeps you hydrated and helps food go down. If you continue to have pain with meat.. try a cup of hot tea (or coffee or water w/ lemon or crystal light) before you eat. The heat tends to loosen the band and should help with the discomfort. Best of luck to you.

It takes more than one day for carbs to clear my body. I lost control last week and ate a 1/2 box of saltines.. whoops. Well, the next day I didn't eat any less than usual, but I felt hungrier sooner between meals. Two days after my saltines binge, I was back to normal. I went back and reread your original post.. this is your 4th fill with about 6.75 cc's in a llcc band.. right? Did you have the issue of getting hungry 2.5 hours after eating before this latest fill? What I'm leaning toward thinking is that perhaps you have so much fill that you can't eat enough to keep you satisfied for a sufficient period of time. I also see you're describing your meals as "chicken leg" and "spoonfuls of veggies". Is this how your doctor recommends you portion out your food? I know there are many ways to approach post WLS eating and they are mainly all valid, I'm just curious. My doctor has us eat 3oz of Protein and 1/2 cup of low carb veggies (without high calorie sauces). If we don't have a scale, to measure the protein as a deck of cards or the palm of our hands. Veggies .. about the size of a tennis ball. When I get hungry between meals I first check to see if I've drank my Water. I try to get 32oz in between Breakfast and lunch, and another 32oz between lunch & supper. This is just water. I don't count other beverages towards my 64oz goal. I find that drinking water does help keep hunger at bay. Then after water, I'll let myself have a small snack if still hungry. Something like a small apple and a cheese stick or a snack size of cottage cheese, or a bit of beef Jerky. I try to keep Snacks high protein and under 100 to 150 calories. Speaking of water & drinking.. you're not drinking with your meals are you? My doctor has us not drink for 30 min before or after nor with our meals. I followed this advice for a long long time, but finally moved to drinking as I wanted right up to putting the first bite in my mouth. I try very hard not to drink during my meal (only sips if I need them..) and do not drink for an hour after eating. I'm sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know and are following. Just can't tell from the information provided. :eek: You very well might need more fill, you might need an unfill.. or you may just need to let this current fill settle in. Call your doctor's office and ask their opinion. Go to your support group and ask for help there. I apologize for not getting back to this thread sooner. It's been a busy week. Hope you're doing better.

do a search for telogen effluvium. That's the term for hair loss associated with stress.. which WLS is stress to our bodies. I posted earlier today on this subject .. I think in the post-op section. Since you're a bit on the young side for menopause, that's not likely the cause.. but those of us who are nearing that, it can also cause hair loss. If it continues, go to your PCP and have blood work done.. there's lots of Vitamin and mineral deficiencies that can also affect hair loss. best of luck.

See what your doctor says, but I'd be inclined from what you've told us to ask for a little unfill, but not much. somewhere between .2cc's and .5cc's I'm amazed at the 1/2 cup amount. My nurses say about 1 cup is standard for bandsters. My doc goes by weight and volume: 3oz Protein and 1/2 cup veggies.

Hi Bay, Is there a typo in your stats above ? ^^^ Amazing if you lost 100lbs in 2weeks.. :eek: I just wanted to share with you that I started about where you were in March of 09. I was 383 day of surgery. Lost maybe 2 or 3 lbs during the recovery stage. But once I got on solid food.. look out! I dropped really fast. March 28, 09 I was 381. April 6 I was 359. Over 20lbs in 9 days.. It was so fast the nurses were reluctant to give me very much of a fill and were questioning me to make sure I was eating.. LOL. I wasn't even doing much exercise at the time other than walking my dog. I think it takes a while for our bodies to realize that it's ok, there will be food again and start letting some fat stores go. Also it looks like you had to do a pre-op diet? My doctor did not require one. I've made a very unofficial, unscientific observation over the past couple of years that those who are put on a preop diet, don't drop weight as fast after the surgery. Those who aren't required to lose before surgery.. lose faster afterwards. I've had a nurse who works in bariatrics confirm that this has been her observations too. Keep on keeping on.. follow the band guidelines as close as you can (perfection not required. ::grin::thumbup:, go to support group either in person or online and it SHOULD work for you.

I think you may be a tad too tight. At least I had a very similar experience when I had too much fill. Everything I tried to eat gave me pain. A very tiny unfill of .2cc fixed it for me. The amount of fill that you have doesn't really matter all that much. I know someone with the same band as me.. she's tight with 2cc's. I'm at a good level with 5.5. You could try drinking something hot (tea, coffee, Water with lemon, hot crystal light) right before eating. This will loosen the band just a little bit and might make it easier to eat. When I was too tight, I even sipped on hot tea during my meal. The key word is sip.. tiny ones. Not big drinks. The danger with being too tight is that you can fall into the habit of eating what's called "slider foods". These things are OK on a very short term basis, but over time, tend to be higher in calorie and less satisfying to fend off hunger, so we eat more of them.. with a result of reduced weight loss.. or even regain. I don't purposely change the amount I eat. I measure out my 3 or 4oz of Protein and 1/2 cup of veggies. I try to eat that and if I get too full before it's gone, then it gets put away for later. If I can finish that amount, then I'm done for at least 20 minutes. IF I am still feeling hungry after 20 minutes I'll let myself have more veggies. However, I eat my veggies fairly plain.. w/o butter or cheese. Usually only some lemon juice and/or salt on mine. Most of the time, the 20 minutes gives my stomach and brain time to communicate and they figure out I really have had enough. Hungry in 2 hours? I make sure I've drank 16 to 32 oz of water (not Powerade zero, crystal light, tea, etc... water). If I haven't, I get on that. Still hungry after water.. then I can have a small high protein snack. Apple and cheese stick is a favorite go-to. Also the small snack size cottage cheese. yup yup. I had the same experience. I hung out on yahoo bandster boards from fall of 08, reading and practicing bandster behavior until banding in March of 09. There's things that you just don't get till you're one of the club. :mad2: You're welcome. I hope it was of some use. Call your docs office and talk to one of the support staff.. see if they want you to come in for a teeny unfill or have some other suggestions to help you over this rough spot. Good luck!!

The Latest on Nutrition and hair Loss in the Bariatric Patient by Jacqueline Jacques, ND Nutrition and Hair Loss A common fear and complaint of bariatric surgery patients is postoperative hair loss. While for most of us as people, our hair is important as part of our self-image and body image, it is not very important to our bodies. For this reason, nutrition can have a great impact on hair health because when forced to make a choice, the body will shift nutritional stores to vital organs like the brain and heart and away from hair. Hair loss has many causes. The most common type of hair loss after weight loss surgery is a diffuse loss known medically as telogen effluvium, which can have both nutritional and non-nutritional causes. Whether you are aware of it or not, for most of your life you are always in the process of both growing and losing hair. Human hair follicles have two states: anagen, a growth phase, and telogen, a dormant or resting stage. All hairs begin their life in the anagen phase, grow for some period of time, and then shift into the telogen phase,which lasts for approximately 100 to 120 days. Following this, the hair will fall out. Typically, about 90 percent of hairs are anagen and 10 percent are telogen at any give time—meaning that we are usually losing a lot less hair than we are growing, so the hair loss is not noticeable. But sometimes this can change. Specific types of stress can result in a shift of a much greater percentage of hairs into the telogen phase. The stressors known to result in this shift, or telogen effluvium, include the following: high fever, severe infection, major surgery, acute physical trauma, chronic debilitating illness (such as cancer or end-stage liver disease), hormonal disruption (such as pregnancy, childbirth, or discontinuation of estrogen therapy), acute weight loss, crash dieting, anorexia, low Protein intake, Iron or zinc deficiency, heavy metal toxicity, and some medications (such as beta-blockers, anticoagulants, retinoids, and immunizations). Nutritional issues aside, bariatric surgery patients already have two major risks of major surgery and rapid weight loss. These alone are likely to account for much of the hair loss seen after surgery. In the absence of a nutritional issue, hair loss will continue until all hairs that have shifted into telogen phase have fallen out. There is no way of switching them back to the anagen phase. Hair loss will rarely last for more than six months in the absence of a dietary cause. Because hair follicles are not damaged in telogen effluvium, hair should then regrow. For this reason, most doctors can assure their weight loss surgery patients that with time and patience, and keeping up good nutritional intake, their hair will grow back. Discrete nutritional deficiencies are known to cause and contribute to telogen effluvium. One should be more suspicious of a nutritional contribution to post-bariatric surgery hair loss if any of the following occurred: 1. Hair loss continued more than one year after surgery 2. Hair loss started more than six months after surgery 3. Patient has had difficulty eating and/or has not complied with supplementation 4. Patient has demonstrated low values of ferritin, zinc, or protein 5. Patient has had more rapid than expected weight loss 6. Other symptoms of deficiency are present. Iron Iron is the single nutrient most highly correlated with hair loss. The correlation between non-anemic iron deficiency and hair loss was first described in the early 1960s, although little to no follow-up research was conducted until this decade. While new research is conflicted as to the significance of ferritin as a diagnostic tool in hair loss, it has still been found that a significant number of people with telogen effluvium respond to iron therapy. Optimal iron levels for hair health have not been established, although there is some good evidence that a ferritin level below 40mg/L is highly associated with hair loss in women.1 It is worth noting that this is well above the level that is considered to be anemic, so doctors would not be expected to see this as a deficiency. Zinc Zinc deficiency has been tied to hair loss in both animal studies and human cases. There is data linking zinc deficiency in humans to both telogen effluvium and immune-mediated hair loss. Zinc deficiency is a well-recognized problem after biliopancreatic diversion/duodenal switch, and there is some indication that it may occur with other procedures such as gastric bypass and adjustable gastric banding. In 1996, a group of researchers chose to study high-dose zinc supplementation as a therapeutic agent for related hair loss2 in patients who had undergone vertical banded gastroplasty. The study administered 200mg of zinc sulfate (45mg elemental zinc) three times daily to postoperative patients with hair loss. This was in addition to the Multivitamin and iron supplements that patients were already taking. No labs for zinc or other nutrients were conducted. Researchers found that in patients taking the zinc, 100 percent had cessation of hair loss after six months. They then stopped the zinc. In five patients, hair loss resumed after zinc was stopped, and was arrested again with renewed supplementation. It is important to note that in telogen effluvium of non-nutritional origin, hair loss would be expected to stop normally within six months. Since the researchers conducted no laboratory studies and there was no control group, the only patients of interest here are those who began to lose hair again after stopping zinc. Thus, we cannot definitively say that zinc would prevent hair loss after weight loss surgery, and further study would definitely be needed to make this connection. A further note: The tolerable upper intake level (UL) for zinc is set at 40mg in adults. This study utilized a daily dose of more than three times that level. Not only can these levels cause gastrointestinal distress, but chronic toxicity (mostly associated with copper depletion) can start at levels of 60mg/day. Information related to this study has made its way to many a support group and chat room—even to doctor’s offices—with the message that “high-dose zinc will prevent hair loss after weight loss surgery.” Patients should be advised that high-dose zinc therapy is unproven and should only be done under supervision due to the associated risks of toxicity. A lab test to check for zinc deficiency would be best before giving a high dose such as this. Protein Low protein intake is associated with hair loss. Protein malnutrition has been reported with duodenal switch, and in gastric bypass to a much lesser degree. Little is known about incidence, as only around eight percent of surgeons track labs such as total protein, albumen, or prealbumen.3 Limited studies suggest that patients with the most rapid or greatest amounts of weight loss are at greatest risk.4 With surgical reduction of the stomach, hydrochloric acid,5 pepsinogen, and normal churning are all significantly reduced or eliminated. Furthermore, pancreatic enzymes that would also aid in protein digestion are redirected to a lower part of the small intestine. It is thus likely that maldigestion rather than malabsorption is responsible for many cases. Some studies have also implicated low protein intake.6 Research also indicates that low levels of the amino acid l-lysine can contribute to hair loss and that repletion of lysine stores may both improve iron status and hair regrowth. In a study of anemic patients with hair loss who were supplemented with 1.5 to 2g of l-lysine in addition to their iron therapy, ferritin levels increased more substantially over iron therapy alone.1 Biotin Many individuals believe that supplementing with, or topically applying, the nutrient biotin will either help to prevent hair loss or will improve hair regrowth. To date, there is no science that would support either of these presumptions. While biotin deficiency can cause dermatitis, hair loss is only known to occur in experimentally induced states in animal models or in extreme cases of prolonged diets composed exclusively of egg whites.7 Other Other nutrients associated with hair health include Vitamin A, inositol, folate, B6, and essential fatty acids. Hair loss can also be caused by systemic diseases, including thyroid disease and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and is influenced by genetics. Conclusions Hair loss can be distressing to bariatric surgery patients, and many will try nutrition themselves to see if they can prevent it. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that early hair loss is preventable because it is most likely caused by surgery and rapid weight loss. Later hair loss, however, can be indicative of a nutritional problem, especially iron deficiency, and may be a clinically useful sign. Educating patients about the potential for hair loss and possible underlying causes can help them to make informed choices and avoid wasting money on gimmicks that may have little real value. References 1. Rushton DH. Clin Exp Dermatol. 2002;27(5):396–404. 2. Neve H, Bhatti W, Soulsby C, et al. Reversal of hair loss following vertical gastroplasty when treated with zinc sulphate. Obes Surg. 199;6(1):63–65. 3. Updegraff TA, Neufeld NJ. Protein, iron, and folate status of patients prior to and following surgery for morbid obesity. J Am Diet Assoc. 1981;78(2):135–140. 4. Segal A, Kinoshita Kussunoki D, Larino MA. Postsurgical refusal to eat: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or a new eating disorder? A case series. Obes Surg. 2004;14(3):353–360. 5. Behrns KE, Smith CD, Sarr MG. Prospective evaluation of gastric acid secretion and cobalamin absorption following gastric bypass for clinically severe obesity.Dig Dis Sci. 1994;39(2):315–20. 6. Moize V, Geliebter A, Gluck ME, et al. Obese patients have inadequate protein intake related to protein intolerance up to 1 year following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. Obes Surg. 2003;13(1):23–28. 7. Mock DM. Biotin. In: Shils M, Olson JA, Shike M, Ross AC, eds. Nutrition in Health and Disease. 9th ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins; 1999:459–466.

Are you also taking a GOOD multi-Vitamin? Children's chewables may not be enough IF you are having hair loss. Look at this list of vitamin deficiencies and what they effect. Bariatric fusion | Nutritional Deficiency and Its Symptoms I went to my PCP and had him run bloodwork to check for all of these deficiencies, plus thyroid plus vit D levels (D was just 2 be sure as long as they were taking blood). Nothing came up as off scale.. so he sent me to a Dermatologist. I was put on Rogaine. Derm said mine was mainly post menopausal. In a bit I'll post a real long article about Telogen Effluvium.. which is what is USUALLY going on with post WLS hair loss.

BTW.. being pear shaped isn't such a bad thing. It helps protect our hips from fractures from falls as we get older. It's much healthier for our hearts to be pear shaped than apple shaped. I too am pear shaped and very happy that my dh likes pears. :frown: Working on being hourglass.. but I think the sand will always be more on the bottom than the top. ::grin::