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Studies show that the likelihood of losing this much and maintaining without surgery is basically 0%. So, the real choice was staying where you were (and likely gaining more) or WLS. I'm sorry that you're struggling. Your outcome seems to be quite extreme, both physically and emotionally. Are you working with your WLS team to address? Engaged in therapy? This constellation of challenges seems to be beyond what you can address without help from medical professionals.

You got this. I was so afraid if I gained a pound they wouldn’t do my surgery, I didn’t gain and everything went well!!! Sending good vibes.

Thank you summerseeker that is a really clear description. I’ve 4 children and avoiding those things in the house isn’t easy though I try, that said I find my biggest problem is the portions of things I eat more than what I eat if that makes sense so that makes me thing even more that this will work for me I hope you are super helpful I’m so glad I posted @bariatricks thanks for the honesty here, was it the ESG or the sleeve you’ve had? Can you pinpoint what the thoughts are at the times you feel regretful? I do have a worry about missing food, for instance last night I cooked the tastiest meal and I kept going as I just loved the taste, I think I’d have felt disappointed if I had to stop, that sounds ridiculous now I’ve actually written it down. I’m also worried about how much it will affect my social life as most meet ups are around food etc. all I know is my weight and discomfort takes up my thoughts 90% of every day and I’m hoping that can change

Hello guys! Just thought I would introduce myself! I'm Sonya and I am now officially on this beautiful weight loss journey. About a week ago i received my surgery date for lap band surgery after months of dietician and medical appointments; I am schedule for surgery Oct 18 and currently which is day one for me I'm on my pre-op liquid diet. I'm a bit nervous because this will be my first ever surgery. I would love some words of advice or encouragement because i am really freaking out a bit; especially when the my doctor explained a few things for the day of surgery when the procedure is all done. Thank you guys! I'm happy to be here!

If you don't find the info you want then here goes ... Slider foods are all the good stuff. Chocolate, ice-cream, cream cakes, biscuits, sweets and crisps. All high calorie and really easy to eat lots and lots of. If you ate these all day for a week then you will gain. For some reason these foods do not fill the stomach up. 50 grams of protein, meat, chicken, will fill me up but I managed to scoff a whole 100 gram, M&S cream and apple turnover and it did not touch the sides, had there been another, I might have been very tempted. I don't have bad stuff in the house normally but it happens

Gosh. Thank you for sharing OP but lots of us have had a very different experience. So sorry that you've had such a difficult time adjusting to your surgery. I totally agree that most people on this forum have tried to lose weight in the traditional ways (diet and exercise) and failed many many times. I'm not sure how you are relating that to your current experience though. Please may I ask you - if you had to do it all again and not have the surgery and stay at 265 lbs whether that would now be your choice?

Oh lord OP I asked exactly the same question here 18 months ago! The answer is there is no answer. The more I research WLS the more I believe that the surgery plus our dedication to our programmes plus our bodies determine our eventual weight. If you adhere to your surgeon's/team's goals then I think you'll be OK. I wish you the best of luck.

I will share my 6month post sleeve progress.....I am 54 and 5'1. I was 230 on surgery day, and now weigh 162.5. I have lost a total of 67.5lb. I have lost a total of 54 inches all over plus more, but I didn't start my measurements till 1 month post op. As of yesterday, I have lost 9 inches off my waist, 12 inches off my hips, 7 inches of left thigh, 8 inches off my right thigh, 4 inches off right and 4 inches off left bicep. 1 inch off my neck and 7 inches off my chest. Figures we lose weight in our chest 😭😜. I feel amazing already! I will be honest and say exercise has been at a minimum since the surgery. I know I will have to start exercising regularly for muscle tone, my heart etc. My 6 month bloodwork was awesome and all in the normal zone. Even my iron was in the normal zone this time. My A1C was 5.3 (it used to be 5.6-5.7). My cholesterol is 180 (which used to be 238 for many years). My knees hurt less, I am no longer on the CPAP machine, and I feel better about myself. I have not had any nightmare incidents relating to weight loss surgery. The only thing I still deal with is constipation which seems to have gotten a little better with broadening my diet. I average 700-800 calories a day. I consume 60-70g of protein. I know I do not drink what they recommend in ounces, but I am not far below the liquid requirement. This is one of the best decisions I have made in my life to help myself. Thank you to everyone on here for the great advice and support.

Yay! Here's mine for all the weight/health related stuff. https://instagram.com/shrinkingmytiara My other account is pretty much solid cat photos. 😂

since we cant edit our original post, i added my 6 month weight as a reply. Hope that works

My 6 month weight is 162.5

That's wonderful Jill! You are already in Onederland! I hope the rest of this process continues to go well for you and it is a straight shot to your goal weight!

In the same vein as @hills&valleys, we all start out wildly different. The most comparable metric between people is percent excess body weight lost. Your "ideal" body weight is around 145 lb, assuming you're a man. You started with an excess body weight of 164 lbs and you've lost 76 lbs of that or 46%. At the 18 month mark, for RNY, you expect to have lost around 70% of your EBW, so you seem to be doing fine. I'm at about the 6 month post-op mark and I've lost 64% of my EBW from when I started my pre-op diet, and 79% of my EBW counting from my highest weight a few years before surgery.

I cant say for everyone but I was not able to eat beyond my stomachs capacity. I did not try the slider foods. Still can not. When you are healed enough to get the full signal, about 6 - 8 weeks out, if you have one mouthful more it will sit in your chest like a brick. You will probably become very nauseous and will be unable to drink for hours till you have got rid of the extra food. It will be a very unpleasant feeling. There is no way that I can eat when I feel this way. As for worrying if it was the right decision ? yep I did. Its lots of money to take away from the family. It cost me over £12.000 so that would have been lots of holidays they would miss. It was a huge leap into the unknown for me. All I knew was at my age and size my heart was struggling with the most simple household tasks. Then they told me I was diabetic .... no brainer anymore. I booked a appointment with the surgeon the same week. Everything has failed for all of us before. Doctors now believe that Bariatric surgery is the only way to keep weight off. I am not at maintenance yet so can not say if its easy to do it but I know it takes work and regular monitoring. I am overjoyed that I was able to do this. I am a different woman now. TBH I feel blessed

This is the first time I’ve made a post on bariatric palsy. I normally just read things but today is really big day for me. I am six months postop. My highest weight was 250 pounds and I was 242 pounds at the day of surgery, as of this morning I am 198 pounds with a total weight loss of 52lbs and 44lbs surgery. I’ve lost 13 inches off my waist 10 inches off of my apron belly 12 inches off my hips and 7 inches off of my bust. I am currently in a women’s extra large down from a 3X I can fit larges now but they’re still a little too tight for my comfort. I have not been this small since I had my first child at 19 I was 150 pounds before I got pregnant with her. This is the smallest I’ve been in 10 years. It feels amazing but it also doesn’t feel real. I keep getting on the scale to double check if I’m imagining things, but it feels really good to come this far and have all the health changes that I’ve had.

Since we all started at different weights, heights, etc., I find comparisons to be best evaluated by percentage of body weight lost. At 6 months, I had lost 28.5% of my body weight. Now at 7 months and one week, I have now lost an additional 4%, for a total of 32.5% of my starting weight. Comparisons are a gauge but be careful when comparing yourself to others. We may all be vying for the same destination of better health and slimmer selves but our journey is uniquely our own with hills and valleys.

I lost all of my excess weight (over 200 lbs), but it did take close to two years to do it. Weight loss slows down the further out you go, but if you continue to work hard, you can always lose more weight.

I posted this on another thread about revision, but I had a hiatal hernia and bad GERD so it applies for this thread too. I want to preface that this is about to be a long message, but it's my journey. Thanks for reading. My 1st Bariatric journey started in 2009 (I was 26 years old). My heaviest weight was 250 lbs. I did a month liquid diet as my preop diet and got down to my surgery weight of 220 lbs. I had a sleeve done in Sep 1, 2009. I got down to around 175 lbs from my surgery weight of 220 lbs. I got down to a size 12. I did regain some weight years later, but that was my doing (not eating the best, not exercising as I should). In addition to gaining some weight back, i developed a 5/6cm hiatal hernia and had really bad heartburn and reflux. I started taking Nexium for years. Finally 14 years later (now 40 years old) in April of 2023 I decided to ask a doctor about taking daily Nexium (after hearing constantly from family that it wasn't good). My surgeon gave me 3 options. 1. Continue taking Nexium daily 2. Fix my hiatal hernia (but he did warn me that hiatal hernias are known to come back) 3. Fix my hiatal hernia and do a revision from Sleeve to RNY. Before any of that to make an informed decision I had to get an upper GI with contrast and an endoscopy with a Bravo study. I had the endoscopy done and the Bravo capsule placed on my esophagus. After the 1st endoscopy my GI doctor said she didn't even need to see the results of the Bravo study...seeing my esophagus alone was enough to see how inflamed my esophagus was and she confirmed the bigger sized hernia. Either way, the Bravo capsule was placed in and I did the 3 day study. The results came back and like my GI doc said...it was bad. The acidity in my stomach and esophagus was ridiculous. I use to take generic Nexium 20mg but my GI doc said that wasnt enough for how bad my esophagus was. I was told to bump it up to 40mg 2x a day. So I did that and it helped to heal the massive amount of inflammation I already had in my esophagus. To confirm that I had a 2nd endoscopy done. The Bravo study, the upper GI scans, the endoscopy was all completed so that I could make an informed decision on how I wanted to proceed. Which of the 3 options discussed did I want to proceed with. I decided option 3 was best (revision from Sleeve to RNY with a hiatal hernia repair). For me my insurance approved the procedure and it was fairly a quick process because I went the general surgical route vs the Bariatric route. I could have had the revision in July but I had a cruise planned in August and I wanted to be able to drink and eat and ENJOY my vacation so I opted to wait and had the revision 2 weeks after I came back from my cruise on September 11th. I was 215 the 1st day of my preop diet. I got down to 206 but then mother nature decided to show up the week of my surgery so as women we gain water weight during our cycle and the day of surgery i weighed in at 209. I was so pissed. I knew it was water weight because of my cycle but still nobody wants to see the number on the scale go up. Surgery went well. I had no complications. My recovery was A LOT smoother. I had BAAAAAD nausea and gas pains after my sleeve becauseof the anesthesia. With the RNY I had 0% nausea. I had a little bit of shoulder pain because of the gas and I did have another pain when I inhaled big because of the hernia repair, but it was all normal and pains of that nature were expected. I was just sooooo glad that I didn't wake up extremely nauseous after the RNY like I did after my sleeve. So now I'm 31 days post op. I've been at 195 since like September 26th. I hope that I've HOPEFULLY lost at least 1 pound now since I've been stalled at the same weight for 2 weeks. Btw I'm 5'4 for reference. My size 14 clothes button again and my 16s are getting a little loose on me now. I'm not swimming in my clothes or nothing but it's a small progress. I was wearing XL shirts and now Large shirts fit me a lot better. I feel less like a sausage in them lol! Oh and tonight I tried on this bra that I know for a fact a couple of weeks ago could not button or even come close and today it fit. So now a 38D will fit. Great non scale victory! I can tolerate all food and as long as I don't take huge bites and I chew my food well and eat slow, I'm good. Otherwise I've already had my 1st reminder of what it feels like to throw up because your food feels stuck. I had that happen after the sleeve sometimes too and it sucks, but it's a process learning how to eat again and reminding myself that I can't inhale my food. I am taking a daily vitamin with iron and then 3 calcium citrate chewable daily. My doctor also still wants me to take 1 Omeprozole daily for 6 months post op to give my esophagus and hernia repair time to truly heal. 1 month down....5 months to go. Then I'll be able to see if I don't have any GERD or heartburn without any medication. The weight loss is a perk and I definitely want to lose more weight and get down to 150 or at least my best sleeve weight of 175, but I always have to remind myself that my goal of this entire revision surgery was to not deal with heartburn and reflux anymore. So yeah...thats my revision story so far. Please let me know if you have any questions. I'll be happy to answer.

Hello there! I want to preface that this is about to be a long message, but it's my journey. Thanks for reading. My 1st Bariatric journey started in 2009 (I was 26 years old). My heaviest weight was 250 lbs. I did a month liquid diet as my preop diet and got down to my surgery weight of 220 lbs. I had a sleeve done in Sep 1, 2009. I got down to around 175 lbs from my surgery weight of 220 lbs. I got down to a size 12. I did regain some weight years later, but that was my doing (not eating the best, not exercising as I should). In addition to gaining some weight back, i developed a 5/6cm hiatal hernia and had really bad heartburn and reflux. I started taking Nexium for years. Finally 14 years later (now 40 years old) in April of 2023 I decided to ask a doctor about taking daily Nexium (after hearing constantly from family that it wasn't good). My surgeon gave me 3 options. 1. Continue taking Nexium daily 2. Fix my hiatal hernia (but he did warn me that hiatal hernias are known to come back) 3. Fix my hiatal hernia and do a revision from Sleeve to RNY. Before any of that to make an informed decision I had to get an upper GI with contrast and an endoscopy with a Bravo study. I had the endoscopy done and the Bravo capsule placed on my esophagus. After the 1st endoscopy my GI doctor said she didn't even need to see the results of the Bravo study...seeing my esophagus alone was enough to see how inflamed my esophagus was and she confirmed the bigger sized hernia. Either way, the Bravo capsule was placed in and I did the 3 day study. The results came back and like my GI doc said...it was bad. The acidity in my stomach and esophagus was ridiculous. I use to take generic Nexium 20mg but my GI doc said that wasnt enough for how bad my esophagus was. I was told to bump it up to 40mg 2x a day. So I did that and it helped to heal the massive amount of inflammation I already had in my esophagus. To confirm that I had a 2nd endoscopy done. The Bravo study, the upper GI scans, the endoscopy was all completed so that I could make an informed decision on how I wanted to proceed. Which of the 3 options discussed did I want to proceed with. I decided option 3 was best (revision from Sleeve to RNY with a hiatal hernia repair). For me my insurance approved the procedure and it was fairly a quick process because I went the general surgical route vs the Bariatric route. I could have had the revision in July but I had a cruise planned in August and I wanted to be able to drink and eat and ENJOY my vacation so I opted to wait and had the revision 2 weeks after I came back from my cruise on September 11th. I was 215 the 1st day of my preop diet. I got down to 206 but then mother nature decided to show up the week of my surgery so as women we gain water weight during our cycle and the day of surgery i weighed in at 209. I was so pissed. I knew it was water weight because of my cycle but still nobody wants to see the number on the scale go up. Surgery went well. I had no complications. My recovery was A LOT smoother. I had BAAAAAD nausea and gas pains after my sleeve becauseof the anesthesia. With the RNY I had 0% nausea. I had a little bit of shoulder pain because of the gas and I did have another pain when I inhaled big because of the hernia repair, but it was all normal and pains of that nature were expected. I was just sooooo glad that I didn't wake up extremely nauseous after the RNY like I did after my sleeve. So now I'm 31 days post op. I've been at 195 since like September 26th. I hope that I've HOPEFULLY lost at least 1 pound now since I've been stalled at the same weight for 2 weeks. Btw I'm 5'4 for reference. My size 14 clothes button again and my 16s are getting a little loose on me now. I'm not swimming in my clothes or nothing but it's a small progress. I was wearing XL shirts and now Large shirts fit me a lot better. I feel less like a sausage in them lol! Oh and tonight I tried on this bra that I know for a fact a couple of weeks ago could not button or even come close and today it fit. So now a 38D will fit. Great non scale victory! I can tolerate all food and as long as I don't take huge bites and I chew my food well and eat slow, I'm good. Otherwise I've already had my 1st reminder of what it feels like to throw up because your food feels stuck. I had that happen after the sleeve sometimes too and it sucks, but it's a process learning how to eat again and reminding myself that I can't inhale my food. I am taking a daily vitamin with iron and then 3 calcium citrate chewable daily. My doctor also still wants me to take 1 Omeprozole daily for 6 months post op to give my esophagus and hernia repair time to truly heal. 1 month down....5 months to go. Then I'll be able to see if I don't have any GERD or heartburn without any medication. The weight loss is a perk and I definitely want to lose more weight and get down to 150 or at least my best sleeve weight of 175, but I always have to remind myself that my goal of this entire revision surgery was to not deal with heartburn and reflux anymore. So yeah...thats my revision story so far. Please let me know if you have any questions. I'll be happy to answer.

Hi everyone I’m new here 🙂 I have decided to go ahead with the esg despite being scared of the procedure I’m desperate to reduce my weight mainly for health. I have such a love hate relationship with food, I like eating healthily and am an reduce my weight but then have periods of time where I just eat everything in sight and these periods last weeks or months and I gain it all again. I've completed hypnotherapy and done so much work on why I do this. I do think if I can reduce my weight and exercise again this will help, my biggest fear is that I spend this money which is such a huge amount for me, then I feel I can eat through the full feeling, is that possible? As long as I feel really full I think I won’t do that. I just really really hope I can do this and feel nervous as everything else has failed eeeeeek i hope this makes sense but it was really a big old waffle of what’s in my head. did anyone else worry that they would mess it up but it was ok?

A perspective on what it is like YEARS after gastric sleeve. I was sleeved in January 2018. Start weight was 265 lb, and I am now 174lb. I wanted to get to 160, but haven't got there. I am 5ft 9. Am I glad I did it? I'm conflicted on this. It's SO permanent. I get very tired of not being able to eat a normal size meal. Going out to eat is expensive and frustrating, cause I can only eat about 1/4 of what is on my plate. Cooking seems to take away any appetite I might have (it's like the smell kills my appetite), so by the time I am ready to serve a meal to my family, I cannot eat a bite. I still suffer nausea and vomiting, yes even 6 years down the track. Even if its just dry retching and there is nothing in my stomach. I suffer from reflux which I never had prior to surgery, so I take a PPI every day. I also take vitamins, because my food intake is so tiny. But a lot of the time, I throw them back up. I am chronically anaemic due to lack of red meat or substantial leafy greens. The only thing that seems to help is to take tiny sips of iced water to try and settle the retching. Eating a small meal can take an hour, because I have to wait for my stomach to empty before I can take another bite. Eating sugary or carbohydrate foods makes me sweaty and shaky, and I still battle bouts of dumping syndrome (I am not diabetic). I suffer from irritable bowel syndrome due to the surgery, and I burp lots! Hardly ever prior to surgery. This is all awkward in company for lunch or dinner, and I don't feel I want to announce to all dinner companions (who may just be friends of friends) about my surgical history! I have lost 90 lbs, dropped 3 dress sizes, but if I had my time over, I wish I could have lost the weight through diet and exercise. I really do. So just know... there is no going back from this surgery. It's totally permanent.

Considering there are a multitude of thyroid disorders, without a specific confirmed medical diagnosis, it would be impossible to offer an opinion as to how WLS could affect your prognosis. As someone who has dealt with the extreme swing from stroke-level hyperthyroidism cause by the autoimmune disorder of Grave's Disease to a partial thyroidectomy during the early weeks of an unknown pregnancy which placed addition stress on my remaining thyroid causing the destruction of all thyroid function; I have run the gambit of thyroid crisis scenarios including a couple of life threatening emergencies with myxedema comas. I am closely monitored by a team of endocrinologists who specialize in unique cases. How WLS could affect your particular thyroid issue would be best answered by an endocrinologist who specialize in thyroid disorders. As far as my 40 years of experience dealing with the thyroid roller coaster, my tsh, uptake, t3 levels and thyroid medication dosage were never affected by my weight. Good luck to you!

Research Meralgia Paresthetica. I was recently diagnosed with this and had numbness/tingling down both sides of my outer thighs from hip to knee. It's caused from a compressed nerve. Mine from obesity and a lot of sedentary sitting pre-op. My chiropractor is treating it and says my daily walks and exercise have aggravated it. Before it was just a mystery numbness but now there is shooting pain on occasion. Mine is sporadic like yours but is improving as I lose weight, stretch and do prescribed exercises for it. Not sure this is what you have but sounds similar. GL

I’m wondering how everyone is tracking at their 6 month mark. I had my surgery May 3rd this year. My starting weight before pre surgery diet was 309. I’m at 233 as of today and hopefully I’ll get to 225 by 11/3 I was hoping to reach 200 by the end of the year but I don’t think it’s possible. My goal weight is 160.