BlackBerryJuice

I've never experienced this problem myself, but I did a rotation in dermatology and what I learned is that basically there's no effective treatment. It's still not quite clear what triggers the autoimmune attack on hair follicles and why it stops in some people and continues for a long time in others. You can get steroid injections in the bald spots, but they have only limited effectiveness. If it's distressing to you, it'd be worthwhile to consider those; otherwise, I'd just shave if I were you (or, on the contrary, grow out a longer beard so you can cover up the bald spots).

Are you working out? If not, you should be.

I guess the most important question is, is this a new problem or have you had this since the surgery? It should be investigated regardless, but if it's a new problem, then it'd be even more urgent.

That's plenty. Most surgeons in North American hospitals are only in the OR like 2-3 days a week (the rest is clinic consults, teaching, research activities....), so your average surgeon probably only does 15 mid-length procedures, like the VSG, every week.

Ohhh, that's an awesome idea! On their website now - so many flavors to choose from!

Loved meat pre-sleeve. Love it now. The only meat I have trouble tolerating is BBQ ribs, for whatever reason - I have more than 1 rib and start sliming immediately.

I have the same problem with getting hungry quickly after meals. It was always like that for me, even pre-surgery - no matter how huge of a meal I had, 3-4 hours later I'd be starving. I've heard theories about more rapid gastric emptying due to high acidity and/or overactive peristalsis, and of course you can never rule out more serious things like some sort of malabsorption issue. As a healthy person who had gastritis as a child and seems to have a pretty rumbunctious bowel, I subscribe to the high acidity/overactive peristalsis theory. To deal with this, I simply eat 5-6 meals a day. You can still keep your calorie intake under control if your choices are generally healthy. Re: sweets. Yeah, they can be your downfall. The sleeve is idiot-proof AS LONG AS you avoid junk food. I have an occasional day where I overindulge in sweets. This is usually the result of having them readily available in the house. I'm maintaining my weight now and I'm physically active, so I don't dwell too much on a bad day. Therefore, I keep them in the house now, but I did not keep any while I was in the losing phase. I think reducing your access to them will be 80% of the battle. If I really craved chocolate, I'd go and buy a single-serving bar. Similarly, avoid grocery shopping when hungry. Also, I prevent myself from getting too hungry by eating healthy Snacks (e.g. Greek yogurt, berries, bananas) throughout the day. They are sweet, but don't cause sugar crashes. I also satisfy my sweet tooth with tea or lattes with splenda.

I was a DDD. Now I'm a DD, just a much smaller band (32 instead of a tight 38).

I'm 1.5 years out and eat an average of 2000. I eat out almost every day, so I am not sure about the exact count most of the time. I work out hard 3x/week.

GAWD, so tired of overhearing this guy's crap. This is a family firm and my fiance will buy in before the end of the year once the patriarch retires, so it'll be just him and this guy. First off, a while ago my fiance told me that the he suggested this guy go out on a date with my fiance's former coworker who apparently had the hots for him. The guy's response? "I can't go out with someone THAT fat, everybody will make fun of me." Chick's like 40 pounds lighter than me at my heaviest, maybe like a size 10-12? That was only a few months after my surgery, and this guy knows I had surgery, so it was totally inconsiderate - and, considering some other comments he made about women before my boyfriend and I got engaged and he finally realized we were serious and shut up - probably a passive-aggressive indirect jab at me. Then they were recently looking for a new admin person and it was pretty hard to find someone who was good and yet would be content with this type of job in the long haul. They went through like 200 resumes and interviewed like 5 people the first day. My fiance said one lady was a cut above all the other interviewees and that he felt that she'd be the best hire, but then he told me the other guy didn't want to hire her. Reasoning? "I don't want to hire a fat person." I asked just how big this woman was and she's probably just about my size pre-surgery (I looked up her pic on Facebook, too, to see for myself). She's also had several kids! I wanna see what this dickwad would look like if he popped out like 3 kids. Anyway, they interviewed like twenty more people, wasting a ton of their own time and these other women's time just because this bonehead doesn't like "fatties." In the end, that woman did end up getting hired because she was still better than everyone else. GOD, I can't STAND this guy, but it looks like he's gonna be in my life for the long haul since my SO is buying into the business.

I started with light exercise 2 weeks post-op - couple of laps in the pool, 20-min walk, things like that. I remember going for a walk 5 days post-op and feeling absolutely BEAT after 2 blocks. I started more challenging exercise - bootcamp, etc - about 2 months post-op. That's a bit earlier than the surgeons suggest, but I was active before my operation and felt fine, so I went ahead with it. These days, I do Crossfit 3 times a week on average, and I also try to stay active on a day-to-day basis - we walk rather than drive when we go out to eat, etc.

That's nuts!

Haha, so true! I can't believe that it seems NO ONE makes an omelet with less than 3 eggs these days. I can eat 2, but not 3!

It'd be unlikely that you developed an ulcer while taking a PPI, especially if you haven't traveled outside North America where you'd be more apt to become exposed to H. pylori. Not impossible, but unlikely. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure I started eating >800 on a regular basis like 2-3 months post-surgery. If you are physically active, there's nothing wrong with eating 1200-1300. I avoid the excess hunger by eating frequently - I have NEVER been able to last more than 4 hours without eating something during the day - and eating low-calorie foods like fruit. E.g. loading up on grapefruit right now.

1.5 years out and I don't really feel that my stomach's capacity has increased after about 8-10 months post-surgery. Mind you, you can shove a LOT of food in your esophagus, but with experience, you'll learn to sense when whatever you ate is not making it all the way down and just starts piling up on top of your lower esophageal sphincter and then you know you should stop eating or else you'll feel unwell or have reflux later.

I read that and then clicked on the blog she was talking about. I swear to god this person was (and maybe is - I haven't been very active here recently, so I'm not sure) a regular poster here. I recognized the picture of her on a bike in the mountains - it used to be her avatar. Any of the older members recall who this is? ETA: also, on another note, just reading the author's comments to some of the posts, some of the things she says are not really relevant to VSG. E.g. she talks about this "post-gastrectomy syndrome," aka dumping. It's not that common; dumping is WAY more common with Roux-en-Y, and the type of gastrectomies that it occurs with is NOT the VSG type but rather the ones where the stomach is resected and reanastomosed to the small bowel. In VSG, the stomach is never reanastamosed to anything and the pyloric sphincter remains intact, assuming your surgeon has the faintest clue what s/he is doing.

I'm 1.5 years out. I basically eat anything I want, within reason (roughly 80/20 healthy/unhealthy). If I start putting on weight, I just take it easy with desserts and alcohol and eat more fruit. I put on an odd 2-3 lbs in the last month due to a crazy work schedule with constant availability of goodies and I just made a crap ton of fruit salad - blackberries, oranges, apples, bananas, and a tiny bit of Greek yogurt with honey - and ate that for Snacks and within a week, the weight was all gone. I don't count calories, but I probably hang around 2000/day for my average. For Protein, I just focus on the protein part of my meal and have Protein shakes after working out. Today, I had Greek yogurt with fig jam for Breakfast, 3 pieces of rainbow sushi roll and Bolthouse Green Goodness juice before working out, a Protein shake post-workout, and now I'm having a mixed greens salad with some avocado, mozzarella, and grilled chicken. In 2-3 hours, I'll have the remaining 3 pieces of the rainbow roll. Then the only meal left would be dinner - no idea what I'm having, maybe Indian food?

I didn't do a pre-op diet. I believe Aceves only requires it from people whose BMI is 40 or above.

I know what you mean, my lowest weight pre-sleeve since like age 12 was 145 (in the throes of an eating disorder), so when I hit 136, I couldn't believe it. The crazy thing is that as you lose weight, you realize that you had NO idea just how much extra weight you were carrying. I expected to hit 150 and be ripped to shreds, but then even at 136, there was definitely still weight I could lose and still remain healthy.

Ditto what Foxbins said. Also, I am not entirely sure why the people would be regretting the surgery. The only major long-term issue I can foresee with a surgery that was uncomplicated would be regaining the weight. To be honest, even if I regain all my weight by 2020, I still don't see myself regretting the sleeve - after all, it would've given me a decade of NOT being obese.

1.5 years post-sleeve, I have discovered an uncanny ability to raise the dead!

Holla! I decided to pop in here after a few months and was desperately trying to find some others from "back in the day"! I eat some garbage, too, so I can definitely relate to that. But to this day I marvel at my ability to order a Big Mac, eat half, and toss the other half in the trash - even though I COULD eat more. I got a Mini Blizzard at DQ the other day - the smallest size available, - ate half, threw out the rest. This would have been UNTHINKABLE before the sleeve. I find that the portion control you get from the sleeve overrides a lot of the bad choices we might make - although, of course, eventually things DO catch up with you.

I tried juicing shortly after getting sleeved since I was able to get a hand-me-down juicer for free, and the cost became a turn-off real fast. I just drink Bolthouse juices now - they are pricy at $5/liter here in Canada, but if I tried to make them myself, it'd be at least twice as much. I just use discretion with brands and read labels to ensure there's no added sugar, and choose juices that have a veggie component to them.

I went from 38DD+ to 32DD/tight 34D. When I dropped all the way down to around 136 lbs, they looked pretty sad when not in the bra, but when I put on a few lbs, the weight redistributed itself quite nicely. I'm quite content with where they are at. They are still a tad saggy, which is expected, but they do not look deflated anymore.

1.5 years out and no gallbladder issues - even though I had gallbladder sludge as a child/young teen, so I was sure I'd end up with stones post-surgery.