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OK here goes. I have been using my cell to piddle around on here I figured it is time to get on a computer. I have had an extremely rough journey. So I figure it best to give you folks a timeline. January 16th Wednesday Surgery day, everything went well took a little less than an hour and about an hour in recovery to wake up. Once awake they transport you to your room. Its like a blur because you are still groggy. January 17th Thursday Released from hospital wishing they would keep me another day. But that is the way they do it get you in and get you out. That night I was in so much pain I attempted to lay in the bed but it caused so much pain I ended up sitting up on the couch to sleep. I could not get up or down on my own due to the pain in my abdomen. Mainly one incision. It turned out this is the incision they pull the stomach through. I didn't sleep this whole week. Regretting what I have done to myself. I had a few breakdowns this week due to lack of sleep. I would sleep about 2 hours at a time. I have no answer as to why but I would just wake up as if startled. Also I was having trouble getting down my pain meds. Hydrocodone, it was so gross I would at times throw it up. But eventually found they would flavor it. Grape bubblegum is a fav I find that because it is like 2 flavors its way better. Plus now I chase it with a drink lol. My diet is consisting of soup soup and soup with some yogurt and Popsicles.. January 19th Abdominal binder! YAY!!!. An abdominal binder basically keeps everything for moving and promotes circulation and healing. January 24th Thursday First follow up visit. I explain to my surgeon the extreme pain I am in. I can barely get up or down on my own and I am basically in tears in her office. She explained to be that my belly looked fine and all my incisions were healing well. I was told "Well Nicole you know your young you have never had major surgery or kids and this is a lot for you to adjust too." At this point im thinking well im never having kids lol. She then made me get up from the table on my own trying to teach me how to roll and then sit up. I felt as I had ripped my belly open. By later that evening I was throbbing. January 25th I noticed I am a bit more swollen and believe it is due to the drs appt. I start wearing my abdominal binder again. Also I rotated heating packs and ice packs in hopes of reducing swelling. January 27th I am now red and swollen. I was still using the ice packs in hopes of reducing the pain. I had emailed the RN in her office over the weekend because I was having low grade fevers constantly about 99.9 January 28th My surgeon calls trying to get me to come in and is quite disappointed with me when I tell her I have no one to bring me in when she is available due to her timing I would have to wait til my follow up January 31st That morning I go to get in the shower before my fiancee leaves for work. Keep in mind at this point I couldn't even put my own pants on due to pain. I get in the shower look down and puss and blood is shooting out of my incision. I then do what anyone in my position would naturally do...scream for my fiancee lol I go to the drs office and they let me know I have an infection and that they need to clean it out. ME not knowing whats going to happen next goes oh ok. She took a tool and ripped my incision open without numbing me. Then she squeezed everything out. I at this point am yelling. and being told to calm down. And just so everyone knows this is common for drs to do! They feel like by the time they numb it which it doesn't totally work they would be done. I have been told this by quit a few nurses. I am sent home to do my own packing when I went back to the dr my skin had started coming off and I had some necrotic bits. I was immediately sent to the hospital and there I stayed til February 6th. I was nauseous the whole time and didn't eat for almost the whole time I was there. January 31st-February 6th Hospital February 6th Home, they wanted to me to stay another day but I said nope. I was tired of being sick. February 8th Finally no longer nausea's and eating food. Tuna, Salmon, Real crab, Hard time with protein shakes, threw that up a lot in the hospital. Nurses now come to the house repacking every day twice a day. February 13th Changed to silver packing. Only needs to be changed every 3-5 days. Less nurses less money lol.

Im hoping we can work together on this ebcause i just read your story and let me tell you a little about my story -- LAP-BAND® 9/2005 02/06 - slip 03/06 - re band throught the past 5 years I have STRUGGLED and the ONLY time i lost weight was when the bad was so tight I barely could drink water. One day I would be able to eat yogurt, the next day it would get stuck -- it was this way constantly and Id never know what i coul or couldnt eat unless i tried - so in teh end I have a band with 1/2 fill so i can eat normally but it defeats the purpose of even having TWO surgeries because here I am weighig in 10lbs les then my 1st surgery and 10 more then my second.... Just went to the Dr. yesterday and he suggested I look into the bypass revision. He made it sound really good but he also didnt leave out the fact that because it is a revision - the risks are automatically higher for compications. I sit here wondering if my body had this many compications with a simple band who will ti react to a bypass? Maybe I will do great with bypass and i will finally see results Ive been striving to see forever what is I am the 15% that thigs go drastically wrong My job now covers this revision - if I waitr health care might change ................................... I too dont know what to do! Complications? What kind of complications? Like is its "dumbing" more often.. k I can handle that.. If its leakge... that can cause death.. IDK I wish I could survey 100 ppl who had this themself! Help for us both What ever we decide , we r not alone!

I was sleeved on 12/1! It's going great so far! I only had one week of Soups and liquids, and I've been on purées since Tuesday. I'm down 10lbs! I'm trying to get my Protein in by Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, tuna, canned chicken breast, Protein shake here or there. Can't eat too much at one time but I'm grazing. I'm failing on my fluids but each day I can take in more and more. Hopefully things stay this way! Let's all keep in touch and help each other out!

I ate a lot of refried beans. I also would pour some of the liquid out of lentil soup and put my immersion blender in it to eat the thickened lentils and vegetables. I ate greek yogurt and tofu. I think I was allowed to eat string cheese at that point as well. I was allowed to have eggs then, but only had them a few times at that stage.

I don’t have to do clear liquids till the day before. Right now I’m allowed yogurt and cream soups. But I also have to do a bowel prep, night before surgery.

Thank you so much. My pureed phase...uhhh... Ok I tried the pureed thing once aNd was disgusted. I basically ate yogurt And string cheese. It was real easy because I wasn't hungry anyways.

Soft foods... Well, i'm eating them. And, i'm not really following a plan other than no white flour or added sugar. Plus, I'm not really sure when i'm full. That is, until i feel awful. I'm not eating and drinking at the same time, and I'm chewing slowly. 2 weeks and 1 day in, I'm 17 lbs down. It is interesting that after a stressful work call, i ended up eating a yogurt. I wasn't hungry, and didn't need to eat. I was overtly full for the next 4 hours. Not fun. My favorite soft foods as of this moment are Protein pudding, salmon salad, almond milk yogurt, and hummos. I had some steamed dumplings that were fine until an hour after eating... Not sure if i will revisit and my balloon seemed to get lodged again. The downward dog move seems to work. My understanding is that several people who have had the "reshape" balloon have had to have it removed because of the size, that they get stuck.. Would love to hear any experiences.

You seem to be doing great , I am on day 6 and not really eating to much at all . Spoonful of yogurt here and there . I could not agree more with you about the planning around food . The past week has been really different from previous Friday night dinner out at our fav Italian restraunt.

I was able to transition to puréed -soft food and I'm very happy about that! Never thought I'd be excited to eat cottage cheese but it tasted wonderful. So meals have been Greek yogurt, hard boiled eggs and cottage cheese. Usually full after about 1/4-1/3 cup but it's such a nice change from liquids. The dietitian said the brain fog would fully lift as I got more carbs. Still have some residual blurred vision from the meds- but that should clear up soon. Bonus, don't have to go to the dry cleaner this week. My closet full of "shrinking" clothes ar now fitting again.

I've never tried powder with yogurt. Hmm.. Might be good for the puréed or mushy stage Sent from my iPad using the BariatricPal App

Ok three weeks out and get to start my stage 2. It says I can have canned tuna/chicken, ground meats, eggs, yogurt, applesauce, peanut butter etc Anyone else eat canned chicken 21 days out? It scares me.

I'm 7 weeks out and my NUT has us eating 5 mini-meals a day. I try to drink at least 1/2 Premier Protein shake (5.5 oz) in the morning. Second mini-meal has some type of meat (chicken, meatball, lean lunch meat) - 1 1/2 oz with 1/4-1/2 multi-grain or fruit serving . Third meal might be a cheese stick, Parmesan crisps, hummus or yogurt dip with cucumber slices, with 1/4 - 1/2 multigrain or fruit serving. Fourth meal is supper at home - 1 1/2 oz of meat (chicken, pork, etc) and some type of veggie - 1/4 cup and Fifth meal is the rest of my premier Protein Shake or glass of Fairlife milk.

I did a lot of cottage cheese and yogurt. I wasn’t allowed oatmeal or other carb heavy things

once I open a can of pumpkin puree, I use it pretty quickly. I'll make pumpkin protein shakes, pumpkin protein muffins, and pumpkin yogurt out of it. It really doesn't have any taste (unless you add spices, of course), so it's great for adding moisture (and fiber) to things..

I was the same way. A friend of mine who is nurse helped me but my issue was the sweetness, she added some FF greek yogurt, unflavored, the protein shake a a little coconut milk. It made a huge difference in my being able to tolerate the shakes without getting nauseous.

Thanks !! Yeah I figured I could drink it all day. How else would I get my protein? Lol I try to have fish or chicken a lot and yogurt and that shake. But I'm no where near my 65 g. I still have trouble with my vitamins. I need tastier chewables

Congrats and welcome !!!! I'm on pureed but I have been eating fish with my dinner. I'm slowly adding new items but not all at once. My nut said that was ok as long as I am able to tolerate it. I found that the easiest way tot get my protein is scrambled egg for breakfast and protein shake throughout the day --I make mine with frozen fruit or fresh mango, a piece of banana, non fat Greek yogurt, some unsweetened almond milk and a scoop of vanilla cream protein powder. It has so much protein and its smooth enough and counts towards the liquid intake. I am in love with this smoothie. That's the easiest way for me to get close to my mark. Good luck!!

3 days.out only 1 sore incision site, was able to eat a full yogurt and a protein shake , still working on getting my water in it just tastes funny to me right now no matter what I put in it. Sipping, sipping, walking, walking

I'm allowed yogurt tomorrow. Pretty much I can go back to what I was doing pre surgery, just have to be more diligent about the no chunks what so ever in my soup and stuff. It'll be interesting. I tried jello this am and it was terrible.

Yeah. Right now I eat half a yogurt for breakfast, the other half for lunch, a protein drink or 2 of some sort during the day, and then 1/2 cup of soup for dinner. And usually a pudding cup in there somewhere. I've been averaging about 400-500 calories a day. I try to add more, but with all the fluids it's hard to get any more in. It's already hard between the soup and protein drinks and and a yogurt to want anything more. I have to constantly remind myself to drink because I forget. Oh, I do eat a couple few popsicles a day too.

I got a strainer to strain out the pieces in soups. Since everything tastes so nasty I was very happy that the yogurt wasn't too nasty like jello, Popsicles and sf drink mixers are.

Guess what?!?! Able to eat 1/2 container of Greek yogurt. I feel accomplished. I'm just waiting to get my cue to run to the restroom. Lol My insurance would cover my lovanox blood thinner injections and my zofran but not my liquid lortab. They wanted me to pay $75 for that. Bs! If I wanted the tablets it would be covered. But I can't take the tablets. And do I hope I am past the point of significant pain.

Dont beat yourself up for what you did in the past. Throw out any bad food in your house and only buy food that is on your diet. If you only have that food around you (sugar free pudding, coolaid, yogurt) then you wont be tempted to go for the fried rice. You cant control the past. Forgive yourself and move on. Try to get the temptation out of the house by only having the food you are supposed to eat around. When you go out, plan about what you can buy on the road that will be healthy. Go to Starbucks and get a caffeine free latte or herbal tea. Get chicken soup if you go out and tell them you just want the broth. You can do this! You are a strong person and have the power to do well on this. It will be ok.

If you have the desire to lose weight you need to start eating healthy. Frosties are nothing but sugar. Eat some yogurt. I think you may be sabotaging yourself. Remember your band is just a tool to help you eat less but your change of diet is the most important for you in the long run. I know it is hard to change a life time of bad habits but you need to nip it in the bud. You may even enjoy eating healthy foods if you give yourself a chance. Trust me, it will work if you are on the right track. Josephine 251/136 Surgery Nov. 10, 2005 No Fills

Bossstar...Back to work already! You're a trooper. I have so much leave time accumulated that I figure now is a good time to use it. Besides, what do I bring to eat for lunch?? Ha, ha, ... I know...bad joke. Chica....I was in the same predicament. I was so bloated I could barely get my Water down much less my Protein drinks. I figured my first priority was not to dehydrate so for the first 2-3 days, so I stuck to my water. Then I was going to try my chocolate unjury drink but I decided to call my dietician and make sure it was ok to have skim milk. Glad I did because she said no...wait one more day for milk. She suggested I have the unflavored Unjury with Crystal Light just like hopeinapril but I've got to say....it wasn't too good. Don't know if I have problems with the consistency or the taste (which it isn't supposed to have) or my continued bloatedness but it just took forever to go down. Today was my first day of real progress. I started my morning with my chocolate Unjury with skim milk...mmmm really good. Lunch was my chicken flavored Unjury...good enough. I ate a small vanilla yogurt for dinner and tonight I drank another Protein Drink called Muscle Milk-Light in Mocha Latte flavor...:blushing: yummy! Of course, I sip on water all day long. I found out about the Muscle Milk today at my 1 wk. appt./class. They gave us tons of new information with new products to try. They also said to blend the Protein Powder with your liquids..not just stir. Using a blender I'm told makes a big difference in the taste and texture. So I actually had over 60 grams of protein today. Bottom line....stay hydrated first...keep drinking your water and crystal light and then keep trying to drink as much protein as you can get in. It does get better every day. P.S. -- Lost 14 more pounds since 2 days before surgery! :thumbup: