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I had a 4 month long period when I started depo (13 week cycle). I spotted all through the first shot, and for a few weeks after the second, before it finally stopped. Have not had a period of any kind since (5+ years!). I've read that it is VERY common, and cycle changes after surgery probably don't help. Give it some time, keep in touch with your doctor, but it will likely resolve after your next shot.

Hi there! I have been anemic all my life. I recently saw a hematologist at the suggestion of my dietician. My ferritin was at 3, and he immediately had me do iron infusions. He also discovered that I was severely B12 deficient. Has your doctor checked your other vitamins? I've been able to maintain (although its been 6 months) But what worked for me was the 5 infusions along with b12 shots. For the first 4 weeks the shots were weekly and now I am maintaining at 1 a month. Also, post surgery I am doing the iron melts with Vitamin C. I have more bloodwork in March to see if its sustained the levels. Lastly, I HIGHLY recommend a hematologist rather than a PCP/OBGYN. My PCP and GYN just kind of brushed it off and told me to take vitamins. The one that got to the bottom of the cause of my anemia was a Hemo.

I had my bypass revision on 12/13/2022, my period came down a few days after. It has now been close to 4 weeks of it non stop. Some days it's bright, other days its brown but the one thing is that its been constant. Previous to my surgery I had a Mirena for 1 year, I had not had a period for over 10 months. The Mirena was removed in November, a few days later I got the depo shot. So my depo was fairly recent to my bypass. I called my gyno and she is not concerned at this point since there is no odor, pain or fever. Has anyone experienced this? Do you guys think its the shock of surgery? A mix of all the BC hormones recently?

Thank you for your words of encouragement! Sorry about your reflux, I can definitely say that the revision has completely corrected that issue for me, I wish you luck and hope all goes well. As far as my protein intake, I think I have been managing fairly well especially last week. Since I knew I was going to overexert myself I upped my protein and even reached 100g a couple of the days. I am still early on so I am limited on what I can/cant eat and I am terrified of dumping so I have stayed away from carbs and sugar altogether.

I am 3 and half weeks in and am being sick every day. I particularly can't keep water down Anyone out there had the same.problem and got through it??

It's normal. Your body is adjusting, we all have gone through the stalls. Your body was probably in shock from the low calories and then walking Disney too.

CHK, I had bypass the day after you and get to start Phase 3: purees on Thursday. I plan to make a lot of the soft food recipes without some of the chopped vegetables from the Baritastic app and puree them: Ricotta bake, Cottage Cheese bake, cauliflower puree, and the tender turkey meatloaf. I also am going to really blend down chicken salad, turkey chili, taco seasoned ground turkey w/ guacamole, and regular ground turkey or low-fat ground beef with low carb/sugar marinara (I like the Pomi brand). I also plan to make thinned down mashed potatoes & sweet potatoes. I have a whole lineup. I'm sick of liquids, too, between the 2-week pre-op liver shrinking diet & the 2-week post-op clear liquid and full liquid phases. I'm also a seasoned weight lifter but tend to do more modified CrossFit/cardio strength conditioning workouts. Once, I'm cleared, I will transition to body weight calisthenics workouts. I have been a little more active each day and noticed that my stomach (and?) have been pretty sore yesterday and today from keeping my core tight or being a little too active. Sent from my Pixel 5 using BariatricPal mobile app

Dec 5th was a few weeks ahead of me. I had a bypass on Dec 28th and I am curious how you all that had the surgery before me are doing? I am just now starting the phase 3 diet which is nice because I was getting really tired of soup and protein shakes. I sincerely hope that you all who went before me are getting exactly what you wanted out of your surgery. I am so looking forward to being healthy again. I played sports my entire life and lifted weights heavily in high school and college, I pray that there is some muscle memory there. It is still too early for me to start working out (other than walking) but I am so motivated to get in shape that I am counting the days until I can actually start to work out and lift and do sit ups etc.. What are some good meals that you have found that satisfy your cravings and fill you up? Any advice from you all who were a few weeks ahead of me would be appreciated. Good Luck all!

I'm flying to Turkey next month to have my revisional surgery from sleeve to Gastric Bypass. However, I'm actually terrified. Like, I'm just so scared. Funnily enough, my heart nor my gut is telling me anything out of the ordinary. It's almost like I want to be scared? With my sleeve, I was so ready to go. Not a fear in my bones. But this time, I'm afraid and reading things on mortality rates and everything. It's just so unlike me as I already know the risks involved. Perhaps this is happening because it's my first time having surgery abroad, but I think it's also because my labs. My blood work came back lower than they would have liked, and told me to wait until February to have my surgery. My surgeon assured me that if my iron is still low, they will give me an iron injection prior to the surgery. Okay, cool! That was until I started googling and read that iron infusions are best 2-3 weeks before surgery and that having it right before surgery will do nothing! So that places me in a place of doubt. Before anyone asks, I'm having the surgery abroad because it's far too expensive to have it done here, and to have it covered by insurance will take a lifetime and even then, it's not guaranteed since my sleeve was so successful (the words of my surgeon here in my country). Those of you who had surgery abroad, specifically Turkey, can you lend some reassurance? What about those of you who had lower iron levels prior to surgery? I'm just looking for words of encouragement here.. Even typing this out, I feel kinda silly. Lol. 😅 Maybe that was all I needed; to just let it out.

Thanks Lorie. Im laying here in my post Op hospital room about 24 hours after the surgery. So far so good. Having done this before, even though I don’t remember much for that first time 10 years ago has helped. I too look at it as a chance to not make the same mistakes twice. I lost 20 lbs (8% EBW) just in the 2 week Optifast preop diet and I’m taking that as a win. Defiantly a bit skittish about stressing this little pouch so I’ll sipping slowly. Only clear fluids in hospital and certainly no hunger yet. Incision sites are painful, walking around the ward seems to help with the gas. No GERD or coughing so that’s the real blessing! Anything else is just extra

Thank you so much for sharing. As I am hearing more successes I am feeling more comfortable. I am less than a week away and just want start living my new normal life without reflux!

yes - I had the same problem since I had the same reaction to either the surgical glue or the tape that my plastic surgeon used. I broke out in hives a day or two after surgery, but it was too early for him to remove the tape, so he put me on prednisone (I think for a week or maybe 10 days) to calm down my immune system until it was safe for him to remove the tape. There were no issues with that and my RNY.

Hey all: I had what I hope is my last minor skin revision on Friday of last week. I developed a pretty nasty reaction to the steritape used to cover two incisions. I’ve had this reaction before. My plastic surgeon and the CNP in his office determined it was essentially hives. I have removed the steritape and followed the office’s instructions. They called in a Medrol (prednisone) 6 day course of steroids for me. Does anyone have experience with taking short term corticosteroids after RNY? To be safe, I’m taking them with a 20mg Omeprazole and food or milk. Is there a risk of pouch irritation/ulcer for a short term course? I’m 9 years post-op.

Hey yall! This is my first post. I had a VSG in 07/2017, everything was wonderful. I went from a HW of 390 to a LW of 200. The weight came off EXTREMELY quickly. COVID came and it just completely derailed me. Due to regain and heartburn, I just had a VSG revision to Bypass on 12/13/2022. I will be 4 weeks post op tomorrow. Everything was going amazingly great post op, I felt great from day 1 and did not even need pain meds (as opposed with my sleeve). I have been at a stall for 2+weeks and it is driving me absolutely insane. I have lost a total of 26lbs since preop diet (12/01/2022), I have spent the last week walking a TON at the Disney parks and did not weigh myself all week HOPING that when I came home the stall would be broken. I thought maybe the stall was because I was not having frequent BM's but all the walking did help in that area. Much to my surprise, I actually gained a pound when I got home. I am eating well, I am hydrating but just very confused as to why I am stalling for so long. I try to not associate it with my sleeve as my VSG the weight was coming off very rapidly, I was also way heavier. My doctor did warn that I will not lose as much and as fast as the sleeve since this is a revision. I just want to be on the losing path again, has this happened to any of you specifically with a revision?

I also prep things that freeze well. Chili Make a whole chicken (or turkey) and pull it apart and freeze in desired weight bags. I actually froze my leftover turkey from Thanksgiving and used some last week and make turkey stir fry instead of chicken. It was delicious! I buy the frozen bags of chicken so I can pull 1 or 2 pieces out as needed- Shake and bake is my jam for a quick easy and healthier (15-30 cals per serving) "breaded" chicken or pork. Make a big batch of pasta sauce and freeze in smaller amounts Homemade meat balls and freeze raw or cooked Homemade turkey or regular burgers. Soups freeze well, although I am not a soup person so I don't make them I started freezing more because learning to cook after WLS was not easy..lol.. I threw away tons of food. So I started freezing anything before throwing it away to see how it was after being thawed and reheated. Worse case I just threw it away later but then I knew and learned about what freezes well. I also meal prep lunches for work, so make bulk and eat it for a few days. Mainly to stay on track but it would also save you a lot of time for dinners too. You could cook the lean ground beef/turkey and use it for different things through the week. Spaghetti? Tacos? Etc.. Cook a larger amount of chicken and do the same thing? Chicken salad, chicken stir fry, chicken ON a fresh salad, chicken and veggies..etc.

I dump on sugars and fats. There is early and late dumping. It isn't just a WLS thing as non-ops can dump. Gastric Bypass just makes it easier in many cases. Early dumping usually hits 20-30 minutes after eating. After 20-30 minutes if there is still food in reach there can be vomiting but generally it's just dry heaving with nothing coming up. There is also sweating profusely, weakness, diarrhea, and rapid heart rate, sometimes a headache. Late dumping happens an hour or three later with similar symptoms except for dry heaves. Usually I just start sweating and the other symptoms, if they occur, seem much milder. Dumping is a great educator as it's not something I wanted to repeat so I learned quickly to avoid certain foods. 19 years out from surgery I know what foods in what quantities generally make me dump. But if I am tired, stressed, med conflicts, or a myriad of other situations my dumping threshold could move and I get surprised. At this point it's just something I take as part of the joy of being me. Good luck, Tek

I had revision to bypass on 12/13/22 due to GERD/acid reflux that also caused some regain. Recovery for me was a lot worse than sleeve, but thankfully that sounds uncommon so please do not get nervous reading my story; I only tell it to share my experience. I was scheduled for outpatient surgery, but had to be admitted for one night to the hospital due to not coming out of the anesthesia quickly, an abnormal EKG post-surgery and low blood pressure issues. I spent about 8 hours in post-op recovery and was finally admitted when I didn't improve. I suspect the difference in recovery had to do with the first surgery being done at my doctor's clinic, while the bypass was performed at a hospital (insurance requirement) so same doctor, different surgical team/anesthesiologist. I was given something pre-anesthesia which the nurse told me can make coming out of anesthesia more difficult. I requested that they not give it to me, but I was asleep before the mask went on my nose, so I suspect I was given it even though the nurse told the anesthesiologist I didn't want it. I was also given fentanyl in post-op, which I would not have approved had I been awake enough to object to it. I guess it is common in emergency rooms, but I was not happy to hear them saying they were administering it to me while I was mostly asleep. I also got a corneal abrasion during surgery, which caused intense pain and watering in my left eye in post-op. They gave me drops for it and it calmed it down. Other than these issues, my post-op stay at the hospital was great - I had an amazing team of nurses that seemed like they were dedicated only to my care. Comparing to my sleeve post-op, for that surgery I was released same day just hours after surgery and aside from being sleepy for a day or two, I had no post-op issues except for constipation, which I have not had with bypass. I had a JP drain for 1 week post-surgery. I continued to have low BP for a few weeks post-surgery and very little energy. I didn't eat much for the first 2 weeks (I completely overbought on the liquids and puree foods). I was able to get my water in no problem. I wasn't able to stomach the protein shakes until week 3, they just gave me nausea. At about the 3-week mark I suddenly recovered one day from both the low BP and low energy, and now I am feeling amazing. Aside from a little heart burn a few days out of surgery I have not had any GERD/acid reflux, thank god! So far with bypass I have not regained my hunger pangs yet (yay! hope that lasts a while) and am down 20 lbs, compared to having lost 18 lbs my first month post-sleeve. I'm very happy I had the revision surgery at this point. Try to not feel frustrated, my doc told me many people need a revision, especially with GERD. I didn't realize just how much it affected my sleep, eating, daily life until it went away. Such a relief to have it gone! I wish you the best of luck in your surgery!

I had a revision to bypass on December 13th and the first few weeks were a struggle. No energy, horrible recovery compared to my VSG. i had a brief moment of "what did I do" thinking and then it was gone. At just about the 3-week mark I suddenly got ALL the energy back.. like deep cleaned my entire house energy... almost overdid it! I was SO happy to feel back to normal. You'll get there, too.

I found cauliflower thins to form the crust of my pizza, added pizza sauce and turkey pepperoni topped with mozzarella. At 4 weeks I was puree. 8 weeks soft foods, scrambled eggs, meatloaf, mash potatoes, taco or italian flavored ground turkey with guacamole or marinara respectfully. Just chew well to applesauce texture before swallowing.

There are lots of diet plans, both pre and post WLS so it's hard to say exactly what you should do. Personal preferences also play into this a lot. I'd recommend talking to your team as they will have the best info regarding their plan and what they want you to do. As far as protein drink recommendations, I prefer the Fairlife Nutrition Plan pre-made shakes to most others. On the exercise front, sounds like you have a decent plan already, but I'd add a couple of things: Squats are great, but don't neglect your upper body or core. If you can, add in some planks, side planks, pushups and pullups. All of these can be modified to where you're at physically. For example, if you can't do a regular pushup, start with wall pushups. Progress to an elevated surface such as a bench, then move on to a pushup on your knees, etc. Make sure you keep in mind that you want to keep progressing in both the strength and cardio work. So maybe instead of walking just a mile and quitting, try to extend that a few minutes this week, then do a few more minutes next week, etc. Work up to 45 minutes to an hour a day. Instead of just increasing time, you can also vary your pace with walking "intervals". This would be maybe 30 seconds of all-out walking as fast as you can, followed by 2-3 minutes of a more normal pace to recover. Over time, make the all-out push last longer and/or shorten the recovery period.

if you're anywhere close to a normal BMI (including the "overweight" category), weight loss is going to be excruciatingly slow. I put on 10 lbs over the past year and am now trying to take it off. About 1/2 lb a week is about all I can manage. The reason is, your calorie intake now is probably MUCH lower than before you had surgery. So there are a lot fewer calories you can afford to cut. For example, when I weighed well over 300 lbs, I was probably eating over 3000 calories a day. Pretty easy to find 1000 - or even 1500 - calories in there that could be cut. That means it was theoretically possible for me to lose 2-3 lbs a week (since a pound is 3500 calories). Now, after my weight loss, my maintenance level is about 1600 calories/day. Cutting 1000 calories from that would put me at 600 cal/day. Ah...no way. You'd have to be under medical supervision to eat at that level. And deducting 1500 calories? That would put me at 100 calories a day. So....no. About the most I can cut and still maintain my health - and not be under medical supervision - is 300-400 calories a day. At a 300 kcal deficit per day, that's a 2100 calorie deficit a week - so a little over 1/2 a pound. If I dropped down to 1200 cal/day, then we're talking a 2800 calorie deficit, so maybe 3/4 of a pound a week (and of course, things like activity level, how muscular you are, etc, would also factor into this - but it probably wouldn't make a significant difference). So I have been eating about 1300 calories a day for the last six weeks, so theoretically I would be down 3.6 lbs. I'm actually down about 5 lbs, so I'm doing very well! if I had dieted for six weeks when I weighed over 300 lbs, I probably could have lost 15-20 lbs by now. But nope - 5. my point of all this is, you may be losing, but at a much lower weight, it's going to be S-L-O-W. And if you're at a normal - or near-normal - BMI, we're talking ounces rather than pounds. It WILL come off - but it'll be slow. I used to mentally roll my eyes at these barely overweight women who would moan and complain at how hard it was to lose 10 lbs. "Ha", I thought, "try losing 200 pounds!". Now I get it...

10 weeks post mini bypass and I cannot seem to eat anything as majority of food has an off putting of odour attached to it living on plain biscuits and coffee made with frothed protein milk anyone else experience this , very very disenchanted , have tried loads of foods but nothing is working

No way! Your sugar "slip" is being NORMAL. Hair loss, from surgery? Again, NORMAL. It took me 3 years to get to have surgery. I weighed 357 at my highest and was treated like it was 753 lbs. I went down 27 lbs on my own. However, I had asthma all my life and my body HURT. I retired from a job I LOVED for 25 years due to fears of working in a COVID spread environment and in order to deal with my weight. My pcp gave me phentermine to reach the arbitrary 315 lbs hurdle goal to get into surgery. Now, 6 weeks post op TODAY, it hurts to eat, I HATE protein shakes and it feels like I'm starving. Still, I feel immensely HAPPY. I am grateful for the surgery! I lost 30 first 2 weeks post op, then nothing more and gained back 4 lbs. Yet, I know it's a blip. You lost weight! You lost 60 pounds! That's like putting down a kid who piggy backed on you for however long. You're sixty pounds LIGHTER. Your hair will grow back! EAT foods high iron, biotin, and vitamins for hair skin and nails. My sister went through same and 5 years later she's back to normal, hair and all. She gains a little on holiday's but goes right back to losing what she gained with more activity and WATER. You are NORMAL. Enjoy what you've accomplished! Plus I just read people with surgery are living LONGER!!!😎🤟

I'd let your clinic know. I would think by six weeks out you shouldn't be feeling pain. If nothing else, it'd be peace of mind.

I have had a difficult time with pain after eating yet felt like I was starving. The protein drinks were making me gag and I stopped drinking them. I knew I had to get protein so I began drinking Fairlife and eating Oikos 15 gram protein yogurts as well as canned chicken. I eat very small amounts of food but I'm just wondering when will the pain go away? I feel most of the pain is at the stomach entry. I CHEW CHEW CHEW too. Even liquids hurt. I keep a lot of ice packs in the freezer because I need it on my stomach all day. Feeling anxious. Any advice is appreciated.