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Thank you all for responding. I know myself and turning to alcohol is not a potentional problem. I can live without certain foods but I like to have drinks once in awhile. So from what I understand aside from calories and not loosing weight, the sleeve is not affected from occasional social drinking.

I was told to avoid it the first 6 months. I have found drinking alcohol does guarantee me a STALL...sometimes for up to a week. I try to avoid it now, not just because of the empty cals, but because of the frustrating stalls afterwards.

I was not told no alcohol ever but I was told to wait until 6 months. I'm not much of an alcohol drinker so it didn't really concern me. I'm one of those people who might drink once a month and have 2 or maybe 3 glasses of wine if it's a really long evening.

My doctor says no alcohol forever and I signed something to that effect.. You will get responses from people who have had no issues with an occasional drink. Besides the carbs, my doctor stated some statistics related to people who have weight reduction surgery turning their food addiction to an alcohol addiction. In fact there was someone on this site struggling with that problem.

Hello, I wanted to ask about the rules and experiences with people who are sleeved and drinking alcohol. I am planning to get sleeved. I am a social drinker and drink about 2-3 times a month and typically drink 4 glasses of wine or 3 to 4 cocktails. I understand alcohol is empty calories. Could drinking alcohol on occasion hurt the sleeve? How long until after you ate sleeved can you drink? Thanks!!!

Alanon is for family of alcoholics and alateen is for children of alcoholics. They teach family to apply the 12 steps in their own lives so they may be less affected by the alcoholic and his/ her actions. It's something you could do just for you. There are meetings everywhere and can be found in local yellow pages online. I urge you to try it. I hats to see you suffer, babe.

Dear Krystal7K, I am sorry to read about your struggle. I am retired from work in the field of domestic violence and higher education. i spent my life advocating for women. Alcoholism is, yes a disease but the drinker has to want help. You are the mother of 7 who is also recovering from major surgery and need support and love. You also, deserve to live in peace with your children. Your children maybe pre-disposed to alcoholism by genetics and living in a home with an alcoholic, doesn't help. There is help if you want to move on with your life. One place to consider is the domestic violence hotline. You may not be being physically abused, but emotional abuse can also be deadly. If you need financial assistance, each state has some type of help. There maybe private programs that can help with housing and developing a safety plan to leave. I raised 6 children on my own, got a higher education, had a wonderful career and all my children had the opportunity to attend college. I'm just a woman who God blessed to step out on faith, he did the rest and it's history. God Bless you, you deserve better and you can do it.

There are changes to be made, especially for the first 6-12 months post op, but I will go out on a limb and say "never say never" when it comes to the post-op rules. i'm 8 weeks out. I eat anything I want. Granted, I made a lot of changes to my diet pre-op and "what I want" isn't the same as it was a year ago... I've made my share of sacrifices, but I never was a beer drinker and stopped drinking sodas about 10 years ago, so it was never a big deal to me that I couldn't drink carbonated drinks. I think it's important to know why something is on the "DO NOT DO THIS AFTER SURGERY" list before deciding whether or not the rule applies to you. I'm not advocating going against drs orders, I'm simply saying that we're human and we have to make choices for ourselves, also. Beer/alcohol is full of calories, as I'm sure you know. Also, when you have a reduced stomach, you absorb the alcohol faster and can affect you much differently than it did pre-op. Also, as you lose weight, it takes less to get you intoxicated. Many people struggle with cross-addictions - meaning they no longer have food as a comfort, so they indulge in booze or drugs instead. For these reasons, and I'm sure others, it is not recommended that you have alcohol for 6-12 months post-op. Beer/carbonated drinks, besides being full of calories/carbs, are also more likely to give you painful gas. Again, with the reduced capacity of your stomach, filling it with tiny air bubbles can cause gas, pain, bloating, cramping - all unpleasant side effects that are easily avoided by not drinking these things. However, some people never have these problems. You'll only know if you can tolerate it if you try it. But because of the other reasons listed, again, you should avoid these things 6-12 months post-op. That's not to say you can never have these things again! You'll have to try them out when you're ready. And you may find you don't have a taste for it anymore by that point - or that you need much, much less of it to be satisfied. You will be healthier and happier and will find new, wonderful, fun hobbies to share with your wife! Why does it feel like a weak way out? Surgery is not fun or easy.

I was told that the sleeve is a high pressure environment and that it will increase, albeit slightly, the predisposition to reflux. But of course so do spicy foods, milk products, fatty foods, alcohol, smoking and possibly caffeine, tight clothing and laying flat. What i do is take it every other day and if that works then i take it once a week. when it flares up ( in a month or three) then I start over. I lived with reflux before they invented any of these meds and it was horrible, i dont mind being on them and dealing with whatever problems may or may not come up. alex

A fatty liver can turn into cirrhosis. Once it reaches that stage, the scarring can only continue and never get better. I have a fatty liver and I was told to lose weight, exercise, and to avoid certain foods, especially alcohol. Keep with the diet and hopefully it will work out over time. I'm in the same boat, so you are not alone.

If people believe that you "cheat" if you have wls instead of doing it all on your own without outside help, ask them if they think an alcoholic getting sober without outside help is cheating? I get frustrated when some think that a person loosing weight without any tools are better than others. It´s like if I stop smoking using pads it´s not worth as much as if I stopped smoking cold turkey?

great question! I have had this conversation in my head a few times. For what its worth, what I came up with is the following: people get their cardiac anatomy rearranged all the time without the slightest hesitation or regret: cardiac bypass, stents. They are no more life saving than what we are doing. it may be more dramatic but both are arguably a result of genetic predisposition and lifestyle. I see no difference between the two, except that the cardiac rearangement is more socially accepted ( even if caused by decades of smoking and eating poorly and lack of exercise, excesive alcohol consumption etc.) and ours is judged much harsher. the question i asked myself, IF I had the evidence that I needed it, would I wait until i had a heart attack to get a bypass or would i act proactively? why not the same for weight induced issues ( of which heart disease is but one consequence)? alex

I have a different view on VSG. I believe that I am a food addict and my body and mind is predisposed to crave certain foods. And not only that, my body is very efficient at storing calories against future needs. Currently, food addiction is not a recognized condition, but who knows, in a few more years, it might be. And eventually it could be treated like alcohol or any other addiction. But there is one thing I do know, food producers are working hard to make foods that make us want more of them. That only makes sense, produce products that people want. Unfortunately, those same products work too well on people like me. I can't explain my preoccupation with food for so many years any other way. I could eat a filling meal and then, two hours later, I'd be thinking about eating again. I'd get cravings for certain flavors and could get them out of my head until I ate them. I believed all the hype that if only I could just cut back on calories and exercise more, I could be thin like the beautiful people. Not being normal was a failing on my part. Six months post-op, and I think all that crap about "just cut back" "push the plate away" is just that - crap. When your mind is telling you that you're hungry every two hours, it's like a little kid tugging on your arm saying, "I want a candy bar, I want a candy bar!" And I couldn't get rid of him. And eventually it just wore me down, till I gave in. Whether the surgery removed the part of my stomach that was producing the "hunger" hormone or if the surgery was just the psychological kick in the pants I needed, I now have a completely different attitude towards food. I no longer have that "little kid" tugging on my arm and the only cravings I experience now are for bananas\strawberries\watermelon - good for you foods. And most of the time, I only want them because I happened to walk past them at the store. Those days of suddenly wanting a cherry pie or a double cheese burger with fries - for no apparent reason - are gone. Now don't get me wrong, I still fight head hunger and sometimes try to keep eating even after I am full. So I've still got things to work on. But I'm on the downhill side and I don't feel like I am in an impossible to overcome situation. I know I was in imminent danger - mentally as well as physically, just undiagnosed.

I stayed an extra day in hospital because I could not get past liquids without nausea . When I got the wave they put an alcohol prep near my nose , kind of squashed the feeling imidiately and gave me zofran iv push and out it went. But in the hospital they told me if I needed I could take a script home with me for the zofran so I am sure its available in pill form, call your syrgeon you shouldnt have to suffer like this. And by some alcohol preps they work wonders. Good luck to you I hope your better soon.

I had mine Monday. We talked a bit about my family support system and history. Why I wanted the surgery and what the risks are. About my eating habits and then I had to take a personality quiz on the computer which was 340 questions and I swear about 200 of them stated about alcohol,suicide and drugs in sneaky ways...you would think after the first few times I said I do not drink,I do not do nor have i ever done drugs and I do not feel like committing suicide they would get it lol

My brother is a highly intelligent man. This was proven decades ago, when IQ tests (performed while his teachers and parents tried to figure out why he was a miserable little bugger) showed a genius level IQ. I know that sentence sounds unsympathetic to my brother, but we were all miserable - our parents, his teachers, me, and my brother. The decades that have passed since then haven't given him any more common sense or made him any less miserable. A good example of that is his reaction when I first talked with him about my weight loss surgery. This highly intelligent and (by then) well-read man said, "Wow! So, you have the surgery, and then you eat anything you want and you still lose weight!" Well, no, I told him. Not really. In fact, nothing like that. During the 6 years of my weight loss surgery journey, I have (over and over and over again) witnessed bariatric patients who came out of the operating room after surgically successful procedures still wondering why they couldn't eat anything want and still lose weight. Their disappointing weight loss was and is a perpetual puzzle to them because somehow they had not grasped that behavioral change is required for weight loss success. It's easy to label those patients as stupid or ignorant or deluded, or to blame their bariatric team for failure to properly educate those patients about what would be required of them both pre- and post-op. All of those things could be a factor. In March 2012 I attended 2 sessions of a required pre-op nutrition and education class. My BMI then made me obese, but not morbidly so. I had gained weight after a complete unfill and was preparing to say goodbye to my beloved band due to medical problems aggravated by my band, planning to revise to vertical sleeve gastrectomy in the same procedure. The dietitian leading the class was a perky, pretty 20-something girl, adorably pregnant, who had clearly never struggled with her weight before. Her slightly condescending attitude was hard to take, but about halfway through the class I thought I could understand her attitude. She had just named a long list of foods we should not eat after surgery (including fried foods, candy, baked goodies, soda, alcohol, salty snacks, etc.) when I heard a woman nearby say bitterly, "I don't know. That seems like an awful lot to give up." Since I had known the before and after of WLS, I was strongly tempted to respond to her, but I held my tongue (wisely, for once). I don't know just why so many people think that WLS is magic, that you can eat anything you want and still lose weight; that you don't have to give up a single food or behavior or attitude in order to succeed. Maybe we can blame that kind of thinking on the media, or maybe we can blame it on the deeply-entrenched denial that tends to go along with obesity. But the fact is, you can't eat anything and still lose weight unless you're dying of cancer or AIDs or some other fatal disease, and probably don't want to eat a single bite of anything anyway. And I'd trade dying of cancer for WLS sacrifices and success any old day, wouldn't you?

What if you could eat anything you want and still lose weight? That sounds wonderful, doesn't it, but is it even possible? My brother is a highly intelligent man. This was proven decades ago, when IQ tests (performed while his teachers and parents tried to figure out why he was a miserable little bugger) showed a genius level IQ. I know that sentence sounds unsympathetic to my brother, but we were all miserable - our parents, his teachers, me, and my brother. The decades that have passed since then haven't given him any more common sense or made him any less miserable. A good example of that is his reaction when I first talked with him about my weight loss surgery. This highly intelligent and (by then) well-read man said, "Wow! So, you have the surgery, and then you eat anything you want and you still lose weight!" Well, no, I told him. Not really. In fact, nothing like that. During the 6 years of my weight loss surgery journey, I have (over and over and over again) witnessed bariatric patients who came out of the operating room after surgically successful procedures still wondering why they couldn't eat anything want and still lose weight. Their disappointing weight loss was and is a perpetual puzzle to them because somehow they had not grasped that behavioral change is required for weight loss success. It's easy to label those patients as stupid or ignorant or deluded, or to blame their bariatric team for failure to properly educate those patients about what would be required of them both pre- and post-op. All of those things could be a factor. In March 2012 I attended 2 sessions of a required pre-op nutrition and education class. My BMI then made me obese, but not morbidly so. I had gained weight after a complete unfill and was preparing to say goodbye to my beloved band due to medical problems aggravated by my band, planning to revise to vertical sleeve gastrectomy in the same procedure. The dietitian leading the class was a perky, pretty 20-something girl, adorably pregnant, who had clearly never struggled with her weight before. Her slightly condescending attitude was hard to take, but about halfway through the class I thought I could understand her attitude. She had just named a long list of foods we should not eat after surgery (including fried foods, candy, baked goodies, soda, alcohol, salty snacks, etc.) when I heard a woman nearby say bitterly, "I don't know. That seems like an awful lot to give up." Since I had known the before and after of WLS, I was strongly tempted to respond to her, but I held my tongue (wisely, for once). I don't know just why so many people think that WLS is magic, that you can eat anything you want and still lose weight; that you don't have to give up a single food or behavior or attitude in order to succeed. Maybe we can blame that kind of thinking on the media, or maybe we can blame it on the deeply-entrenched denial that tends to go along with obesity. But the fact is, you can't eat anything and still lose weight unless you're dying of cancer or AIDs or some other fatal disease, and probably don't want to eat a single bite of anything anyway. And I'd trade dying of cancer for WLS sacrifices and success any old day, wouldn't you?

Alcoholic beverages, sugar laden soft drinks, etc. are also ways to cheat around the band... flow right through, and are loaded with useless carbs with no other beneficial nutritional values. Add ice cream to the that list, too.

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/6-of-the-healthiest-alcoholic-mixed-drinks.html Here are some options.

And the skinny girl margaritas are ok just doesn't contain much alcohol.

I know we shouldn't drink, but what is the best thing to drink should the occasion arise? I've had Skinny Girl Margarita & Wine....both still have alot of calories.

How has everyone been? I've been so busy and lazy I forgot to check in. So what is new? I feel like I am getting back on track and things are back to normal. I don't feel like I have to be censored and everything seems to be natural now. So far I am keeping my food down and I am slowly added different fruit and veggies to my diet. I am just afraid to eat pasta, rice and bread. The other day I wanted some Raman noodles but I got scared and bake me some fries instead. Also I've been on a carb kick lately but at least I am choosing smart carbs. Wait smart carbs? Is that even possible? One thing I noticed about being back on track is my triggers days made an appearance and this past Sunday was it. AKA Sunday Funday. Why Sunday? Just in case you guys haven't noticed but I love sports and Sundays consist of sports. Also I love True Blood and Dexter. So did I handle my trigger day? Easy... I planned it. I know I will be drinking and there may be a possibility that I go off my healthy lifestyle because I will tell myself this is my "cheat day". So, I double my workouts on Sunday and preplan my dinner. Well I should say me and my friends plan the dinner. I love my friends by the way for two reason One the are on the mission to find lap band friendly recipes and two they found low calories drinks to make. How cool is that but I have a confession to make. Sunday I finished a whole bottle of Moscato at first my friends were like that wasn't too bad until one of them look up how many calories are in bottle. I am ashamed to say it but I will tell you this I see why alcohol is empty calories so I will need to be careful. Trust and believe I worked out another 30 mins when they left. I am still learning but I feel like everything is back to normal. Thanks for reading .

mine smells too. i noticed that as i lose weight my tummy is looking frumped over. like the top is now falling down and it covers up my belly button. what i typically do is after a bath/shower i wipe it dry with a towel and sometime a little bit of rubbing alcohol on a q-tip. or if i am going to be home i sometimes just stick a cotton ball in there (i have a deep button). it soaks up the moisture. i just leave it in for alittle bit. usually helps. while it was healing i would put a cotton ball in there for a while. just made it feel better. that's where my only incision is. not sure if these will help but good luck!

I am very heavy & after I wash my belly button...I dry it & put constarch baby powder in it. Tha keeps it dry & it smells good. Clean it out with alcohol & then put in the powder. I do it after EVERY shower & mine never smells. I use 2 have that problem bcuz Im so heavy & it is so deep.

I was diagnosed with an ulcer at the anastomosis at six months post-op. I was fortunate to not have any symptoms other than mild anemia. They did a stool test and picked up some blood which was followed by an endoscopy that confirmed the ulcer. My surgeon doubled my Prevacid along with some restrictions in diet and a second endoscopy five months later showed the ulcer completely healed. Ulcers at the anastomosis are relatively rare, affecting 7% to 15% of patients and can be caused by any number of things including alcohol, spicy food, caffeine, smoking, the use of NSAIDs and increased retention of stomach acids in the pouch just to name a few. Treatment options vary widely from oral medication to additional surgery in serious (but rare) cases. Ulcers are one more very good reason to do everything you possibly can to follow your surgeon's post-op protocol as closely to the letter as you can. But even patients who follow the protocol can develop ulcers from causes beyond our control. Regardless of the cause, ulcers are almost always treatable and can often be completely resolved.