onikenbai

I'm set to have my first IV Iron infusion on Monday. Wheee! I waited to see the hematologist for four months while my iron was in the gutter, and I feel so awful that I haven't been able to work full time for months. I've been mentally foggy, walking into walls, my hands and feet buzzing, the whole bit. Since October I've been taking 300mg of Feramax a day and have got my iron up from 11 to 15, so I'm feeling slightly better than I was and not passing out randomly, but still not feeling well at all and falling asleep at my desk. For those of you who have done the IV iron, how long did it take you to bounce back and feel sort of normal again? I have to do three consecutive weeks of IV treatments but I'm hoping it won't take me a full three weeks to start feeling human again. Work wants me back full time and I think their patience grows thin on the medical leave as I've been getting some hostile looks from my boss. I really miss my brain. I currently have the thought capacity... SQUIRREL!!

The only things I can't eat are dried out meats such as poorly prepared pork chops or dry chicken breast. Mostly there are things I don't eat unless there are no other options because I shouldn't be eating them in the first place. I don't do most breads, although I will do a flatbread or a wrap occasionally for convenience sake. Don't do rice or Pasta as they're just empty calories. I eat a lot of salads, and a lot of chicken and fish. I still find I can eat only one main meal of the day: if I have a half way decent lunch I am very not hungry for dinner and I have to force myself to eat something. The biggest change is that taste often changes and things you routinely ate before the surgery tend to repulse you after because they are too sweet or just too deep fried to be palatable. I'll still occasionally have a cookie, but really most of them taste over sweet and over processed to me now, so it's not worth it unless they're quality home baked ones, which I don't come by very often, so I just stay away from Cookies. Some people dump on cookies. I don't. Some people dump on grapes. The thing is you won't know until you've had the surgery and no doctor can promise you otherwise. Dumping sometimes doesn't even show up until 6 months to a year after the surgery. It's weird like that. I think where a lot of people slip up over time is either in portion creep, or in allowing the high calorie extras to come back into your life. Just because you can eat more, should you? Take a break while eating and you often find you end up not wanting to finish that plate after all. Be careful of the sides as well as the main. sauces and dressings add a lot of calories to the dish and we're often fairly heavy on those, especially if it's a food we think we may get stuck. Somewhere there is a hell especially for ranch dressing. I know the US doesn't have sugar content labelled on its food the way Canada does... man, you should see the numbers on the prepared drinks like bottled iced teas and just about anything you buy at a convenience store. Most of them have more sugar than Coke. Make Water your best friend. I never got the period of rapid weight loss right after surgery (because I am a medical freak) so I'm still fighting to lose weight one pound at a time every two to three weeks. I had a two year stall when I didn't lose a single pound, and an unfortunate two weeks when they put me on a new drug and I gained 20lbs for no reason at all (I've finally shed them). Although I'm not maniacal about what I eat, I am pretty careful. The good news is that my stall is finally over and I've started losing again. Five pounds in 12 weeks. Yay! Whichever surgery you choose, go in knowing it is a tool only in helping you; there is still a lot of work and sacrifice involved, but it's worth it in the end.

So I've never really been a huge eater. Honestly. I do admit to a sweet tooth, but my personal hell is being forced to sit down to chicken wings with ranch dressing and a coke. Genetics is also not on my side an both my brother and I are quite large people. I've got pictures of my great Aunt Fanny in the midst of the depression and if she's not a solid 350lbs... Anyway, with 30 years of fibromyalgia, I had myself banded in 2009 at 311lbs at my doctor's suggestion to see if I could get some of my weight off, and to try to prevent more weight from accumulating. My body did not take to the band well. Either I had zero restriction or I had total restriction and I could barely even drink water. Two solid years of tomato soup and beef broth as I was pushed to suck it up and "quit lying about what I could eat" by my band doctor. (no protein shakes for me as I'm allergic to them) Total weight loss in two years: 5lbs. Finally as half my hair was falling out and I was sick as a dog, I had no choice but to force them to empty out my band completely. 2011 I revised to an RNY by a doctor funded by the province (FYI the province isn't putting in bands anymore because of their dismal failure rate) and his words were "you can't fail to lose weight with an RNY". Well I did lose weight on the stupid pre-op diet. Now, I'm still allergic to the opti-fast so I did this insane version of an all-food diet that induces ketosis. I lost so much hair, I started walking into walls, and I may or may not have promised to foster a pink hippo, but it did the job for the surgery. After surgery though, no real weight loss ensued. Yes I followed the post-op diet, the nutrition plan, etc. I don't get as much exercise as I should, but when you're thinking of shopping for canes and collapsing on the floor when you get out of bed in the morning, it's a touch hard to meet that goal, but I'm doing my best. Again, the surgeon said I must not be telling the truth and I must be chowing down on high calorie foods or something because it's hard to eat around an RNY. They deemed me an RNY failure and I've been put in the provincial database as such (since the government paid for it, the government keeps stats on everybody). A few weeks ago they decided to play with my fibromyalgia medications. They took me off a drug I've been on for the last 15 years. I lost 30lbs in 3 weeks. Yup, it's been the drugs all along. I lost my entire malabsorption window post-op, had to sit through years of disapproving lectures from doctors about my lying and cheating on my eating, and got the stink eye from my other WLS friends because they all agreed with the doctors that I could't get with the program and stick with the rules. Worst thing is that now I really do need canes and it's getting so hard to walk as my joints might as well be welded metal, and while I could have exercised away the weight in 2011, I'm not sure I can now. That makes me cry. The vindication makes me laugh. Sadly it's not continuing to come off that fast, but at least after 4 years, the stall is broken.

Amitriptyline was the evil culprit. I never had trouble getting off Cymbalta as it might as well have been like tic tacs to me: completely ineffective. They thought it might have been because of the RNY so they specially compounded it into a liquid to make it hit the body faster and nope, still like it doesn't even exist to my body. The only problem with coming off the amitriptyline was that I was using it to sleep and the amount I slept dropped to 2hrs a night, and it was a lousy sleep at that. I might as well not have bothered to go to bed. With my Iron also bottoming out at the same time, I've had to stop working full time for a while until I'm safe. Not so cool for a single income. Now I'm on Gabapentin and the jury is still out on it as it's good for my sleep but has some side effects that I'm not liking a lot. I may stick with it though since my need for sleep may ultimately beat out the unfortunate side effects. I used to do a lot of yoga but in my current state I can't. I might have another go when I get my iron back up but I won't make it through class now. I have no idea what I did to them but about last January my knees went insane, and oh god they hurt so much. I'm hoping it has something to do with the iron and it's only temporary. The elliptical is WAY beyond my capability. Hugely beyond. Going up one or two stairs is a challenge at the moment so something that involves so much knee bending as an elliptical trainer? Yah, no way. Pools don't mix well with my skin because of the chorine so no aquafit. Sadly, my inside is very tolerant to things but my outside isn't. I can take some of the harshest drugs out there but one swipe of soap, detergent, chlorine, perfumes etc, and I'm a walking ball of red. I went to the mineral pools of the Blue Lagoon in Iceland and I'd be totally willing to do that on a regular basis if you all are willing to send me. They were awesome. Walking is really my best bet at the moment because I can still sort of do it even though I look like a tin man. I still have to do it for work anyway. After a while I do sort of loosen up a bit. On a really good day, I can go about 4km before I completely collapse. I can barely move the next day though, so quite a lot of planning is involved. I actually found that my IBS improved quite a lot with my RNY. I would say it's at least 80 better. My mother is jealous.

My fibromyalgia definitely got much worse right after my RNY after years of stability. My doctor keeps saying this isn't possible but he's not the one falling on the floor in the morning and debating whether it's time to buy a cane. I probably still would have had the surgery though, as I figure the FMS getting worse was only a matter of time anyway.

Ontario is fairly consistent as it's a government run medical system here. The party line here is that, while it's not absolutely prohibited, it is very strongly discouraged for your own good. Due to lifelong malabsorption issues, it will be hard for you to keep your Iron levels up in the normal range, and donating blood will affect you a lot more than the average person. It will take you potentially weeks to bounce back energy-wise and it could take months to build your iron level back up again. I wouldn't even consider thinking about donating blood for at least 3 years after surgery. I'm 2.5 years out and I'm just now crashing because of iron problems; this is how long it's taken me to deplete my body's pre-surgery iron resources totally, despite taking regular multi-Vitamin and high doses of iron. Iron crashing feels awful: months of exhaustion, nausea, dizziness, walking into walls, not being able to work full time... skip it if you can. I'm fairly sure that, barring massive disaster requiring all available emergency blood, you would be screened out of the donor pool as RNYers qualify as malabsorption issues. Unless you have a specific need to donate, just don't.

I have been officially labelled by my surgeon as an "RNY outlier". I NEVER had that post-surgery dream phase of magic weight loss when I lost 20lbs in 2 weeks. Technically I am an RNY failure on the books because of it. I ate like a post-surgery RNY patient after my surgery, but it didn't produce any significant weight loss like it should have, and it baffled the doctors. After two years of investigation, the only conclusion they've been able come to is "well that's just weird, and maybe it was the drugs for all the other stuff". While the whole lack of massive weight loss sucks for me, I've become fairly good at maintenance for somebody not that far out of surgery. It takes practice and a Yoda-like concentration to what you are eating. Not necessarily relentless calorie counting, but an awareness that you can't have pancakes for Breakfast, stop by Starbucks on your way to work and grab that latte, graze the corporate leftovers after lunch, plunder your desk to satisfy the cravings in the afternoon, eat with the family and then graze while watching TV before the bedtime snack. You can have eggs for breakfast, all the tea you want, whatever it is you packed for lunch and for your afternoon snack, dinner, and an evening Protein IF you're hungry. Eat your protein rather than drink it as it will keep you full. The TV is evil as there are far too many food commercials on there that drive people to eat. I personally can't have a TV. If you can watch the TV without going to the fridge, you are a better person than I. Get a fitbit or something to help keep track of some aspects of your life. Don't try to track everything as all you'll spend all day tracking your life instead of living it. Get a new hobby that is either a time hog or really doesn't mix well with food, such as stained glass, photography, knitting, hiking, yoga, meditation, music, auto repair... A lot of the local school districts have night time fun courses that start in January. Definitely sigh and just accept graciously when your mother congratulates your weight loss by giving you a bag of mint Oreos for Christmas because people like that will always be there to sabotage you and you just have to accept that these people exist and they are toxic and you should avoid them as much as possible. Also acknowledge that good chocolate cake is a gift from the gods and should be consumed in moderation. Stay the hell away from store bought drinks. I don't know how they post the nutritional information on them in the US, but the sugar content in them is insane, and Coke is usually the least of the offenders. Nobody is perfect, very least of all me. If there were a place called perfection, I would be down the hall, to the left. I did manage not to beat my mother with the Oreos though, so go me.

Keeping on top of your blood work as time goes by is important because it's easy to slide down hill and not really notice it. I'm in Ontario, which means it's government prescribed, so mine got done at 3, 6, 12, 18, 24 months by the bariatric clinic, and as necessary by the various doctors I see for other issues. Up until 24 months I was actually doing ok, but then my Iron just bottomed out in six months. I'm taking an extra 300mg of iron daily now, which is probably toxic to a normal person, but it's barely making a dent in my continued downward spiral. It's got to the point where my body is leaching iron from my brain and it's causing cognitive problems, dizziness, exhaustion, nausea, the whole bit. I can't work full time anymore, and when I am at work I'm a zombie. The point is that it happened fast and the doctors thought everything was fine until my labs came back and there was a sudden "oh crap" two and a half years after my surgery when my iron level is in the single digits. Ditching your labs, even for financial reasons is a bad idea. They should be done at least once a year. Every six months is better. At the very least, get your iron and Calcium levels done because they're hard to fix. It can take months to bring your iron level back up to normal without going the IV injection route. I'm waiting for my turn at that right now (there's a shortage in Ontario of the supplement) but I hear it can be most unpleasant due to allergic reactions.

Not to be a huge downer, but you have to prepare yourself for the fact you may not be able to carry the baby because it's just too soon after the surgery. Your body is going through incredible amounts of stress right now and you are likely going to be losing weight like crazy. From a biological point of view, that is not an encouraging environment for a baby and, in nature, an animal would not be able to sustain a pregnancy in starvation mode. I hope it all goes well for you, but there is a good reason why you were specifically told not to get pregnant. The first year of a bypass is peak malabsorption. It takes a LOT of calories to build a baby and it's going to be hard to get those in now. There is also the physical danger of a baby pushing on your healing stomach, which has been completely rearranged. I too don't want to sound harsh, but this is a very serious breech of the rules with major health implications for you and your baby. Although I always want healthy babies, I am also a realist and you need to be prepared. Hopefully your team of doctors will have it under control and all you will have to sacrifice is your rate of weight loss. FYI, if you are having trouble tolerating the Iron pills because they are hard on the tummy, try FeraMax. It's much easier on the system. They're more expensive and you have to ask the pharmacist for them but they're worth it. Also the iron is in a more readily absorbable form than regular pills.

It's not uncommon for dumping to develop months after surgery and that's exactly what it sounds like it is. Often you don't really note the cumulative sugar in your total meal and attribute it to one particular food. Head for foods that have lower glycemic indexes and see if that helps as maybe you're just dumping your whole sugar into your gut at the same time and not releasing it gradually as you should be. Boiled potato is a weird one as usually it's mashed that does it. Yoghurt is standard. Stay far far away from raisins!

I am in the "meds are getting in the way" boat with you. I actually stopped taking my amitriptyline a few weeks ago and I lost 10lbs in 3 weeks after not losing anything for ages, and have had to fight to lose a chunk of weight I suddenly gained as a reaction to another drug I tried out earlier this year. I have a truckload of other issues that are getting in the way, but yes, meds can be a problem. Especially as meds can cause hunger. Concentrate on upping your Protein, and not in the form of shakes, but actual meat or other solids that sit in your stomach and keep you full. The surgery isn't a waste. If you hadn't done it, you would have likely continued to spiral out of control and gained and gained. That's more why I did it. I have a chronic medical condition which makes every movement painful and the RNY is a tool to for me to help me control my weight and appetite. Like me, you just have to try that much harder because there are additional obstacles in your way other than the weight. But it's probably easier with the bypass than without. Glass half full sort of thing.

Is there another external factor involved? I was put on a new drug earlier this year and I put on 15lbs in just over two weeks despite not changing my eating habits one bit. I got off that drug real fast and it took me months to get that weight back off. Another one of my drugs is known to give you carb cravings from hell. I just stopped taking it for the first time in 15 years and I've dropped 10lbs in three weeks. The liquid diet sets you up to fail because it leaves you unsatisfied. I don't do liquid Proteins (long story) so my pre-op diet was all actual food. If you want to do a reset, I can email you that. It's healthy and balanced and does the job if you stick to it. Now is the time to find a new, time consuming hobby that does not mix well with food: photography, knitting, stained glass, puzzles, swimming, tai chi, basket weaving, whatever. Anything to get you away from the TV and its endless food commercials. I don't have a TV at all because I just can't handle the commercials. You don't realize how much they drive you to the kitchen until you're in front of the TV maybe only once every two or three months and one night of it drives you insane.

They woke me up on the operating table after my surgery and I had to do some yoga moves to get myself off the table and on to the gurney on to the way to recovery! Back on the ward I had an opera singer with Alzheimer's. 3 solid days of opera.

Not uncommon. You're not eating full, solid foods yet. When you get to the full food stage it likely won't be a problem anymore.

Given the significant increase in your exercise, you probably need more calories. You're also building muscle which has more resting caloric demands, so you're burning more calories doing nothing.

Ricotta cheese with some tomato sauce in the microwave is high Protein and puree stage approved. It fills the pizza and lasagna cravings.

You are totally not a slow loser. You're supposed to lose 2lbs a week and you're about 8 weeks out so you're right on schedule. Comparing yourself with other people isn't really productive as you're not the other person so it's no use anyway. The first few weeks aren't always good for losing because your body is healing and is busy doing other things. Also, when you don't get enough calories, your body starts holding on to them for dear life and you don't lose weight. I am a slow loser. In my first year I lost a grand total of 30lbs, 25 of which were during the pre-op diet where I basically starved myself (I'm intolerant to the Protein shakes). They've since highlighted underlying medical causes for this that we're only beginning to address. After two years of not losing anything, I've finally started losing again, although I completely lost my malabsorption window so every pound for me will be hard. The doctors have now conceded they probably should have listened to my complaints about my problems that I wanted fixed before my surgery before they did my surgery. If I haven't given up in discouragement yet, you shouldn't after such a short time.

Um no. The potential dangers of rushing into eating foods and straining stitches far outweigh the inconvenience of being hungry temporarily, even if you feel like you could eat. You call your doctor and explain the situation and work it out with your doctor where maybe you can get something in your stomach that has more staying power if it's causing you physical hunger pains. Clear Liquids go right through you so yeah, they can be sucky because you are essentially sitting on an empty stomach. Usually you are not hungry for the first few weeks, but it's not universally true. Just like the pre-op diet, the post-op phase is not fun. But it's temporary and you suck it up and deal with it. Stop watching the TV with all its food ads and that helps a lot. Now is a great time to take up a new, really time consuming hobby like photography that gets you away from food and distracted from head hunger. Once you move on to full foods you will be eating proper solid Proteins that will keep you full for hours.

Many people actually find their tastes change after their bypass anyway and a lot of foods become too sweet for their tastes. It becomes a lot easier to avoid the sugars to begin with than it is with the band because the band doesn't take away the cravings one bit. The truth is there is no way of knowing if you will be a dumper until the surgery is done. I am not a dumper but the sugar alcohol substitutes make me sick, which is also common. You're also more likely to dump on liquids because they go right through you and overwhelm your intestines quickly, which is the whole basis of dumping. So a smaller amount of liquid sugar may cause dumping while a larger amount of sugar bound in fruit may not. There are variables. The glycemic index of a food, which is a measure of how quickly the sugar in something is released into your body, is really useful if you a dumper. Raw carrots and cooked carrots have essentially the same amount of sugar in them except cooked carrots release their sugar very quickly and can cause sugars to spike. Same with boiled vs. mashed potatoes. Steer away from foods that release their sugars quickly and that can help in the dumping situation.

The brand of Iron supplement you took may have been the problem as many of them are super hard on the stomach and are well known for stopping up the works. If you do need to up your iron in the future, look into taking FeraMax, which is MUCH easier on the stomach and on the digestive system as a whole. It is also a form of iron which is more bioavailable and is better absorbed than the standard supplement. The only drawback is that it is costly and you to have to ask the pharmacist for it instead of grabbing it off the open Vitamin shelf. Well worth the money as I take it twice daily with no fibre supplements, softeners etc. required.

I second the Centrum Senior chewables. Of the varieties available at the grocery/pharmacy, they give you the most bang for the buck. Bariatric Vitamins are not commonly available where I live.

Ricotta cheese with some Pasta sauce thrown in the microwave tastes just like lasagna. Ricotta is better for you than you think it is too. High Protein, low fat.

Not everybody dumps on sugar after surgery. I don't and I wish I did. Unless I go waaaaay overboard on sugar by downing half a litre of fruit juice in 20 minutes or something, in which case I will have thoroughly deserved it because that's something like 150g of sugar right there in liquid form that goes right through you and hits your gut instantly. I do fine with some artificial sweeteners, but not the sugar alcohols: they are evil. They are also the sweetener of choice in most diabetic candies, which is why I stay far away from SF candies. I never could tolerate any of the Protein powders either, but that is because I am a special medical snowflake who is missing a digestive enzyme and physically cannot digest them rather than an RNY issue. You will just have to be more vigilant in your food choices because you have the flexibility. It's so tempting to grab that iced tea from the shelf, knowing it won't make you sick, but you have to look at the nutritional information and do the math to realize that the bottle has 56g of sugar in it. Then put it back on the shelf. I have found that my tastes have changed since my surgery and most drinks have become too sweet for me anyway. You end up saving a ton by drinking Water. You're just out of surgery so you don't yet really know if you're a dumper or not. It can develop over the next few months or you may find out you're a fat dumper rather than a sugar dumper, or an ice water dumper, or caffeine. Or eventually you will have something that hits your threshold and bam, dumpsville. Time will tell.