Search the Community

I had a higher starting weight (My highest was 382 - down to 330 by the time I saw my surgeon) … I initially wanted sleeve because of many of the reasons you stated, but was prepared for my dr to recommend bypass because of my starting weight and reflux. After meeting with my surgeon I asked her opinion- based on my medical history and her experience of outcomes. I have IBS and for about 8 months prior to surgery was dealing with reflux. I also took a daily (2x a day) NSAID pre surgery that she advised that I stop until my post-op follow up, but that I could resume if needed after she saw me. I was really surprised when she told me she didn’t recommend bypass for me and why. She was a surgeon who had extensive experience with all of the surgery options, so I was confident she wasn’t steering me towards what she was comfortable with routinely doing. She actually recommended sleeve (with a hernia repair) and told me if I wanted a revision later - she’d recommend going with a duodenal switch. She mentioned to me that because of the extended length of the DS surgery time, she prefers to do that surgery in two stages. I was honest and told her the second phase of that surgery scared me a little. She was very understanding about that and told me that the sleeve and bypass had very similar outcomes in the 2 yr mark, reviewed the benefits and drawbacks of each and discussed with me that she has had quite a few patients have the sleeve (at my starting weight and higher) as the 1st phase who lost enough they decided not to go on to the DS, but knew it was an option if they wanted it. She was impressed with my weightloss up to that point and was confident with my history and medical conditions, I would be happy with the progress I would make with my surgery. I was 324 on the day of my surgery and at 10.5 weeks post op I’m down to 291. It’s definitely a slow progress, but I’ve had a few unrelated challenges in that time (being sick and dealing with issues from a car accident that occurred several years ago), but I’m headed in the right direction. At my followup she was very pleased with my progress and told me that she felt very good about the track I was on. I’m still very early in the process, but I’m glad I asked her what she recommended and why, based on her experience and my medical history. My husband and I were both comfortable with her explanations and very confident in our decisions because I felt like we had sound information to make a decision on. I’m hoping that I don’t decide to go in for a revision, that I can get down to a weight I’m comfortable with (I’m not sure what that number is yet, I’m hoping I know it when I feel it, lol), but if not - I know what my options are. Right now I’m still having some issues with being able to eat enough. I’m only able to eat very small amounts at a time, but other than that everything is going well. With the weight loss I’ve had - I have been able to stop my NSAID at this point. I had also stopped my PPI meds (but recently restarted it temporarily because a sinus infection stirred things up again… hoping to stop it as soon as that clears up). My IBS is still something I’m working with but so far it has been manageable. Best of luck in whatever you decide!

I'm 6 days into my 2 week pre-op diet. Surgery is the 7th. I didn't expect the pre-op diet to be so difficult. The first 4 days were absolutely horrible and had me rethinking everything. It's tolerable now. But my question is since starting it, I've had heartburn, indigestion, burping, and nausea. Anyone else experience this? The hunger pains were terrible the first few days but have gotten better but definitely still there. I'm getting about 550-700 calories a day as required with the diet guidelines. I had a few days where I felt sorry for myself because I couldn't have the food my family is eating (I still have to feed hubby and 4 kiddos) but told myself that is same the food that made me this way. I had to morn my unhealthy relationship with food for a few days. It was crazy because I kept reaching for food or getting ready to plan to go out to eat out of habit until I was like wait, I can't have that. Please tell me this gets better after surgery when the diet is even more strict? It's the hunger pains, cravings, and indigestion that needs to go. Sent from my SM-S115DL using BariatricPal mobile app

Congratulations! I’m 16 weeks pregnant. Have only gained 5lbs so far - bypass was Mar 8 this year. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have.

OMG! I got sleeved April 18 of this year and this past Friday October 28th I found out I’m 6 weeks pregnant😳🙌🏾🥰🥲 Guys, I’ve been with my husband for 12 years, married for 8. We have been trying to conceive for 7 years now. I was diagnosed with PCOS from a very early age and never had regular periods. We started fertility treatments in 2016, got pregnant via IUI 2017 and miscarried 1 month later. I was devastated and waited 3 years later to try again. Unfortunately I had to get uterine polyps removed that year and had to wait. Fast forward to 2021 where we started again and was told both tubes are blocked and we would have to do IVF but had to lose a significant amount of weight to be below the max BMI to do it. That is when I decided to get sleeved. It’s now Jan 2022, I started researching Dr’s, found one in February and we started the entire process. Surgery was a success, lost 86lbs reached my goal weight about 3 weeks ago and then BOOM this. Guys I’m so scared! I’ve read horrow stories of complications and etc. I do want to be excited for this miracle but I also feel like what if? Please share your stories with me, share any encouraging words, anything guys. I have waited what seems like a lifetime for this moment, for this blessing, for this miracle and I want to enjoy every single moment of it!

Hi friends! I had my surgery last Monday! Completing a week tomorrow. What is everyone's diets like? Anyone else having cravings seeing the rest of their family eat regular dinners? Sent from my EML-L29 using BariatricPal mobile app

I only take a multi with iron and two calcium citrate and my rx meds. I am able to take the rx meds with the multivitamin in the morning and I take the calcium at noon and three. I just set alarms. Some people like to use breakfast, lunch and dinner and/or bedtime. It really is dependent on how many doses you have to separate and what works best for you to remember.

I’m 8 weeks out and my team says 1000-1200. I think I’ve hit 1000 maybe once. I’m usually around 800-900, but I’ve seen many posts where people hit 1200 or more and are able to actually drop weight faster. Of course, each person and body is different, you have to find what’s right for you.

I am going in for my last prep appointment on 11/8 , so hopefully will have date then shooting for 2nd week of December (wish me luck)😊I wanted to ask about loose skin have heard so much about collagen but there are so many choices and does the cream work well or is it all oral? I also heard to use a brush on areas to circulate the skin - is that something anyone has done? I thought about going ahead and starting the collagen definitely going to talk to my team about it . Thanks for all of your support.

I was officially 4 years post op last week, and i was gonna go do a 4-yr anniversary post with pics, but alas i got lazy. So for now here is my OOTD at 4 years, 6 days post op, wearing my laze-about-at-home clothes (when its too hot to wear a shirt, lol). Surgery Oct 2018 - 235 lbs Goal May 2019 - 127 lbs Today Oct 2022 - 119.2 lbs

I’m almost 5 weeks post op as well and I have been exhausted as well. I am meeting my protein and exceeding my water and taking my vitamins so who knows? I have two small children and it makes it so difficult. My husband just yells at me for being “lazy” because I sleep in on the weekends. I get my labs drawn and see the doctor this Friday so hopefully it will get better.

Does anyone else’s doctor do the glucose test two hours after a “big meal”. I am supposed to do this this week sometime and he said instead of drinking the sugar drink I can have a big meal. Since I can’t eat a big volume I assume something with a lot of calories? I was thinking of a bacon cheeseburger with avocado and ranch would be really heavy even if I only eat like half. Do I need to have actual sugar though? I tried to google it but I think my dr may be a bit old school cause I couldn’t find anyone else who does the test this way.

I had the gastric bypass and I still can't sleep on my left, either. So sad! I've found that I am really sensitive to chemical tastes and smells. Perfumes make me itch. If the scale is causing you distress, stay off of it for a while. I've heard to stay off of it for the first 5-6 weeks, because our bodies are changing so much.

I've found keeping on top of the pain the best way to go. I skipped a dose thinking I'd be fine but really regretted it. The worst pain is in the incision they pulled my stomach out of. The surgeon said they have to cut through muscle and that's why it hurts so bad. I can't wait to be able to sleep on my side. I made a mistake yesterday thinking I could drink one of my Ghost Protein Fruity Cereal Milks and gosh it was disgusting. Tasted like drinking pure chemicals. My tastes really have changed a lot since surgery. I only lost 3 pounds this week. I know my body has a lot going on but I can't help but be a little disappointed. I keep reminding myself I lost 19 on the pre op diet. But ugh. I'm consuming less than 500 calories a day! I think I need to stop obsessing over the scale. I've been weighing every day. It's not good for my psyche. 🥺 Good luck to all the 10/31-ers tomorrow!

I had sleeve and I was told to take a bariatric multi with iron and two calcium citrate daily to start. They do blood work at the three month follow up and adjust from there if necessary. My labs were good at 3 and 6 month and one year. That seems to be working for me. I take the procare health multivitamin with 45mg iron. That and the bariatric advantage chewable were recommended by my team. I started with the chewable and I didn’t think it tasted bad (some people hate the chewables though) but it was more expensive and you had to take it twice a day so I switched to the capsule at about one month out and that’s been fine for me. I have it on auto ship which is convenient and it qualifies me for free shipping. I did keep my leftover chewables in case they ever didn’t arrive on time but a year and a half later that has never been an issue. The calcium citrate I take is just a normal vitamin from Amazon (just make sure it’s “citrate” though. The other one doesn’t absorb as well for us.

your surgeon should have told you exactly what is required. Since you are only 7 weeks post op. you probably have not had your 3 month blood work done which they test for vitamin deficiency. With that then they can adjust and let you know if you need to take anything extra. at 6 months you should have another blood work done to keep on checking and adjusting if needed.

Hello all. I thought I’d check in since I’m almost one week out from my surgery. My biggest impression is how different I feel today than i did at the beginning of the week. I was in a lot of pain, some of which I mistook for hunger which had me in a panic. I was really worried that I’d done the right thing, which seems to be a common theme in lots of posts about the early days after surgery! I also managed to get a dressing wet when trying to take my first shower after I got home, and flew into a full blown panic attack thinking I had really done something terrible. I know that probably seems like a massive overreaction (because, to be fair, it was!) but I think all of the worry and fear I’d been carrying around for weeks chose that moment to erupt. My partner was incredibly kind and patient and calmly replaced the bandage and let me cry. And that in some ways felt like a real turning point. A friend of mine who is a nurse and has also had the same bypass procedure suggested that I take my pain medication regularly for a few days whether I felt like I needed or not, and so I did like clockwork. That made a huge difference and I realised how much I had been trying to ‘tough it out’. By yesterday I was able to switch to plain paracetamol, and I’m feeling much much better - stiff and achey, no doubt, but on the whole pretty human. And I’m also excited to say that since the beginning of my two week pre op diet I have lost over 20 lbs - about a pound a day on average. I know it won’t continue at this rate forever, but it’s been pretty freaking motivating so far! And once I was able to differentiate between pain or gurgling, I realised that I wasn’t experiencing any hunger at all. Even when my partner eats around me, I feel pretty disinterested (annoyingly they’ve lost a stone as well in the past month through healthier eating, but I have to remind myself that they were 15 lbs overweight and I have over 100 to lose!) So far I’ve been sticking to clear whey protein isolate mixed with water, which means I am hitting my water and protein goals every day. I don’t love the taste, but I’m not particularly here for the taste. As far as I’m concerned, they are a nutritional supplement I have to take every day - just like my vitamins. With that mindset, it’s been pretty easy so far. In fact, I plan to speak to my team to see if it’s possible to carry on with them right through the puree stage, as I’m getting all the protein and vitamins and minerals I need and I’m not that fussed about tuna puree! 😂 And best moment of the week so far - this morning my partner told me that my KNEES looks skinnier! I have no idea what that means but I will take it!

7 weeks post op , I take my multivitamin, just wondering what other vitimins I should be topping up Sent from my LE2123 using BariatricPal mobile app

Hi All love reading everyone’s responses. I am doing so much better and feeling better. No more vomiting now it’s been worked out why I was. Im more active, But falling back into old habits. Prior to surgery I was never hungry and would eat Once every 2 days and struggle to drink 500mls a day. I think the Hiatus is playing up again. I have had to set alarms to remind me to eat or drink. But I’m normally out. So have to get use to taking snacks and fluid with me. But most of the time I’m out walking or driving. We Im still loosing a kilo a week. I meal plan. I think I have about a month worth of food in freezer. But never feel hungry. Bloods are all spot on. I e managed to get 2 out of 4 wedding rings back on. So I know I’m loosing. keep up the good work peeps

I'm 6 months out and I now eat between 1300 and 1800 calories a day. I'm 5ft 11" and female. I'm still losing weight at approximately 1lb to 2lbs a week with this calorie intake. To maintain my current weight, I would need to eat around 2200 calories a day. So anything less than that is likely to result in weight loss.

My surgery is scheduled for 11-4-22! I’m so excited. I’m doing 2 shakes a day and a small protein meal in the evening. I’m down 10lbs in a week!!

My surgery was 9/20. I went back and looked at my log and I'm currently eating between about 500 and 800 calories a day. Like many, I was not told a specific calorie goal, mostly to focus getting in my protein and water. Since I'm at about 6 weeks now, I don't have any restrictions in terms of food, but getting to my protein goals is hard on food alone, just because I can't physically eat that much. This means I have to rely on protein drinks some still. It's been said a million times already, but your bariatric team is your best source for your concern. Plans are different and we all progress at different rates as well.

Interesting! I'm almost 3 weeks out and I feel like I eat fast, but then I realize it just took me 15 minutes to eat a Tablespoon of egg salad, so maybe I'm wrong. That would have been a bite before! But I can't just sit here and twiddle my thumbs for the 20-30 minutes I'm supposed to take for meals, so I do read or something between bites.

Wow, a LOT of surgeries on Halloween. 🎃 One thing about that pre-op diet, though, is when you go through 2 weeks of liquid diet, it kind of becomes the "norm" - and I think it made the post-op part (since it's basically the same diet) easier and less of a transition. I am in no way saying it's fun at all, but it serves for more than a liver shrink. I also never want to do it again, so I feel your pain! Two more sleeps! Best wishes to you all.