Search the Community

I never had an original wedding ring. 47 years ago, when I ordered my original wedding ring it never arrived in time for our wedding. The jeweller lost my request. I was heartbroken. I got married in my sister's wedding ring and chose a new ring from a different jeweller when I returned from honeymoon. Years later that ring was stolen. Then I began wearing a deceased parents ring that got too small when I started gaining weight. I bought a second-hand ring that I wear now but like @omrhsn Its slipping off my finger when my hands are cold and wet. I will go back to the parents' ring but TBH, no ring feels like a true wedding ring as I didn't wear any of mine at the ceremony Maybe when we have been married 50 years we can renew our vows and I could get a new ring !

I was allowed to swallow anything smaller than a pencil eraser right after leaving the hospital - which for me meant all but two pills. One was calcium tablets, so I just got chewables. Can't remember what the other one was (it's been over seven years), but the PA at my bariatric clinic said it would be OK to wait for a couple of weeks to start taking those - and by that time, I should be able to swallow them. He was right.

Are you still in touch with your DS surgeon (are they still in practice?) They would be your first source of help as they know all of the odd quirks of the DS (my wife is a DS, class of 2005.) Standard calcium citrate is the most absorbable that I know of; the patches seem to work for some but not for others, mostly not from what I have seen from other DSers. Also to look into is the entire calcium/absorption complex - vit D3, of course, but also K (usually K2) and also magnesium. I would expect with your problems that the thyroid numbers have been checked and things are going the right way, but that is something to be up on as well. Is there an RD (dietician) associated with your surgeon's practice, or elsewhere who is knowledgeable about the DS (not just bariatrics, but the DS specifically.) An endocrinologist can also be very helpful with these problems, again particularly if they are familiar with the DS. I don't think that there are any injectable/infusable forms like there is for iron, but I don't think that getting it into the bloodstream is the hard part, (just the first step,) but rather getting it from the blood into the bones (and not the other way) and that is the tricky part where there can be lots of subtleties.

You sure have been through the wringer. While there are some who have had severe complications from their WLS, their cascade of events will likely be different from yours, so won't be directly comparable. The best that I can suggest for second opinions would be a major regional cancer center that has a GI department, as they will usually have a more experience with a broader spectrum of unusual cases than an ordinary bariatric or GI department. Duke has a good bariatric program with a reputation for doing complex revisions, so they may be a place to try as well if they are in your area. Good luck in getting this resolved and getting back to the health that you were aiming for.

That's the Holy Grail of bariatric surgery. Well done you / lucky you. Proves it does happen for some of us!!!

It is a recipe on Pinterest under soft bariatrics. Creamy Chicken Casserole. It is super easy.

This is creamy chicken casserole soft bariatrics from pinterest.

You seem to have a really cynical outlook on all of this. I, too, am a scientist by profession, and I've always been a bit of a pessimist, but I think sometimes, it's worth giving people the benefit of the doubt. It looks like you don't think your bariatric team has your best interests at heart. I know you've been burned before, and I also know what it's like to be constantly judged as stupid, lazy, noncompliant, untrustworthy, unworthy, etc. because of my weight, so I can understand your feelings about this, but don't forget that these are people who have devoted their careers to providing weight loss surgery. I'm not saying that they all genuinely care about alleviating the plight of the obese, or that they're sympathetic toward those of us in a position of needing this surgery, but I doubt there are very many medical professionals in the bariatric surgery field who are out to punish and criticize fat patients just for fun (or out of personal dislike of fat people). If for no other reason than their own self-interest, chances are that they want patients to succeed with weight loss surgery, and they are probably doing what they believe will contribute to their patients' success. Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes people can be right for the wrong reasons. I've run into this in my own job, where someone has told me something that didn't seem to make sense, and I (as someone like you with an inquisitive mind) have gone looking for the real story, only to find that what I was told was correct, even though the reasoning was not. In this case, your dietitian might be giving you good direction even if she doesn't actually understand what she's talking about. Just because that dietitian (or even the whole bariatric team) doesn't know or understand the reasoning behind the rules, it doesn't necessarily mean that the rules are incorrect or arbitrary. Finally, if you hang around this forum for long enough, you will see that many patients want and need a lot of hand-holding. Some people would rather be given strict but arbitrary rules than loose guidelines. People are constantly on here posting questions like, "I had surgery X days ago; can I eat Y?" And honestly, considering that, I can't blame surgeons at all for wanting to make things as black and white as possible so they don't have to spend all their time answering these incredibly specific questions, tailored to each individual patient. Most patients are not medical researchers, and many want definitive instructions from their doctors. Many people would be paralyzed with indecision if they were told, "Some studies say X and others say Y; you figure it out." Ultimately, it's up to you to decide how closely to follow your surgeon's directions, and if you do your own research and believe you have found a better way, you can make that decision. But I would venture to say that you will likely have a better experience if you have a mindset of working WITH your bariatric surgery team instead of taking an adversarial approach.

Re: does it really matter I mean, yes. There are other possible bad outcomes besides literally dying. If the effectiveness of bariatric surgery comes down in large part to microbiomic changes, for example, suggesting that I remove all fiber from my diet until over 6 months post surgery and introducing large amounts of artificial sweeteners into my diet could in fact work against positive changes to the gut microbiome. If my ability to lose weight pre-surgery comes down to emphasising foods that extend satiety (fiber, protein, fat), dramatically reducing my fat and fiber intake before surgery could cause me to overeat or binge eat and my weight loss to stall or reverse. If long term success comes from following one's hunger cues, teaching myself to eat according to the clock they've set, whether I'm hungry or not, in order to meet arbitrary goals could limit my weight loss long term or trigger binge eating again. They're not suggesting I take a spoonful of arsenic at bedtime, but that doesn't mean that their suggestions are neutral. They have no systematic evidence that their program creates success for the average patient or not. (The great part of this sort of program, from the practitioner perspective, is that you can almost always blame poor outcomes on non-compliance.) Some of the program requirements for the pre-surgery diet are literally impossible to follow at the same time. I can't take one or two bean-sized bites per minute, finish meals in less than 30 minutes, and eat 2200+ calories per day without a significant portion of those bites being high fat meats, full fat dairy, or, I dunno, peanut butter straight out of the jar, all of which are verboten. So regardless of what I'm doing now, I'm not compliant. It's not possible to comply fully. (The handwavy answer was "healthy fats". I have no idea how much avocado my dietitian expects me to be able to eat. I suppose technically if I ate just chicken breasts with avocado and nothing else...) I'm also not the average patient anyway (it's probably pretty clear at this point that I'm not neurotypical, for example, I understand that people with regular would either comply or lie without much difficulty either way), so even if their arbitrary program did create success for the average patient for whatever reason that means very little for whether it would work for me. The arbitrariness and the ultimatum annoy me. The fact that I'm being asked to disregard everything I know about how I personally deal with change to adopt a post-surgical style diet (low-fat, regimented, and frequent) half a year before any potential surgery date with an intact GI system, that I'm expected to throw away everything I know about what I need to lose weight, stop binge eating, and have the energy to do intense exercise frightens me. I'm terrified that I'm going to gain weight or relapse into binge eating (thus getting denied for surgery) and I feel like they're pushing me into that direction. All because Typical Tammy deals best with gradually introduced changes over a long time period and simple, unambiguous, authoritative instructions from medical professionals she sees as trustworthy experts? Nah. I mean, I'm sure there are, but this is the only one I have access to. And, ultimately, it doesn't really matter, as long as I can jump through their stupid little hoops, I can get what I need from them. It's just.... a long and irritating process of circus training. I'm not really looking for advice or anything, I understand the options and am resigned to them, this is a rant and rave.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if there's one thing you'll here on this site perhaps more than any other it's this: don't compare yourself to others. There's nothing good that can come of it. Even if you found someone that was your exact same starting weight, height, and even had surgery the same day, there are still way too many other variables that could impact your progression. Just some examples: age, physical fitness, %body fat, basal metabolism, diet, bougie size, surgical complications, etc. Honestly, it sounds like you're doing fine. If you're not happy with your loss so far, talk with your bariatric team. They may have suggestions for you such as increasing the amount and type of exercise and/or changes to your diet. Best of luck!

The reality is, the science is far from settled on almost everything regarding diet, especially when it comes to bariatric surgery patients. I'm going to suggest the one thing no one has yet: Be compliant. Unless they were proposing something that was literally harmful (it doesn't sound like they are), it won't hurt you to let go of your biases and trust the process. The vast majority of the dietary changes proposed by these bariatric teams is based on their real-world experience with what works and what does not for the the average patient. Sure, some of what they are proposing may seem odd or wrong to you, but does it really matter? You won't die from it, and might even benefit. As a scientist, open your mind to trying something new and testing out what they have proposed.

Hi All, I posted a while back about being interested in getting surgery at Blossom Bariatrics. After much going back and forth, them quoting me almost 19k... I decided to look more into going to Mexico. To be totally honest, I kept thinking I was off my rocker to go to Tijuana for a gastric sleeve. But after a ton of research, I decided that Dr Ariel Ortiz at OCC (Obesity Control Center), was the surgeon for me. I do have Kaiser Southern California insurance and while I was approved for surgery through them, in fact they would pay it all, it could take a year give or take for the entire process. Honestly, I couldn't wait a year and do their classes. For me, I have to get my health on track ASAP. Also, I understand nutrition from university classes I've taken, I have done a ton of reading and watching up on pre and post op protocols... and I didn't feel like the 2 month class through them online would teach me anything I hadn't already heard of or learned. I'm no expert, by any means... but I've definitely feel prepared and ready. Anyway, I reached out to OCC and immediately there was a totally different feeling in my communication with them in comparison to Blossom and the 4 other places I reached out to in Southern California. They were ON TOP of it all. They were patient with me (Olivia is who I spoke to most at the beginning) as I asked a million questions, I didn't feel rushed, like I was bothering them, like a number or like I was being "sold" a gastric sleeve. That's how I felt with the other places I had contacted. It has been completely seamless with OCC. I did take out a $6k loan through a company that does health care loans and I'm confident that I will thankfully be able to pay it off before the interest kicks in. But it all has been totally worth the out of pocket money so far. I've definitely had my fair share of surgeries in the past for other things, and I have to say, I have NEVER and I mean never, received the amount of communication and hand-holding as I have received through OCC so far. I feel totally safe to the point where my wife will be staying back at home with our dogs since they are basically our children. It's pretty incredible how the American Healthcare System is in comparison. The level of care thus far just makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with our health care system! LOL. Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience so far. I'm excited to have surgery in 9 days (October 7th). I know it wont be easy.. but it will be worth it. Feel free to reach out. I'll post once I am post op!

I look at this whole process in that I am the customer and they are providing a service. I will lean on their experience but will always question if I do not understand and then I fully expect as a customer that they will explain. This is a paid transaction and they are there to make money just as any business does and I am a customer seeking a paid service of the highest quality. Luckily, my Bariatric team has been nothing but professional and accommodating. Remember, it is a 2-way street of respect and communication for this process to work. BUT, IF I had encounted a Bariatric team that I did not feel comfortable with, then I would look into a different service provider.

Everyone fluctuates. Bariatric or not, it is normal. Try to stop weighing yourself so much, try to keep it to once a week. Same day every week. Then you won't see every little up and down but will see the results.

This is just a rant. If you have a good deal of faith in medical science, just skip this one. Keep that faith, you'll sleep better at night and the placebo effect will work better on you. I'm intensely frustrated by having to deal with the arbitrary nature of the bariatric surgery process. So, I'm a scientist and I work in medical research. I know from the back end exactly how arbitrary and non-evidence based much of medical practice is, from the trivialities to treatment of life-threatening conditions. (And boy howdy, you would not believe it and it is frightening.) I'm at peace with it; we're working on it and we know that we're all doing are best. What I am not at peace with is knowing this on one hand (and my dietitian openly admitting this), but having to pretend that it's not the case. I hate lying and pretending. It's very difficult for me to pretend that I believe that it's critical that I don't eat consume any fiber during my pre-op diet, which has to be liquid because reasons. (I'm dumb and I asked why it has to be liquid, curious what the justification is. I was a little surprised to find that they don't even make something up. Honestly, disappointed, low effort guys. If you're going to torment us, at least have a plausible rationale.) It's very difficult for me to be presented with an arbitrary set of rules and just... follow them, because. Not because there's a reason to follow that rule or because there's research backing it up, but because people who have power have chosen that set of rules, for no particular reason, and if I don't follow them, they will stand in my way. I understand that this is how the system works. We are noncompliant, untrustworthy, stupid, and, most of all, we are unworthy. I'm losing over 1% of my body weight weekly, pre-surgery, by dieting and exercising, but If I don't stop drinking a cup of caffeinated tea with 15 grams of sugar in it (the only added sugar I consume at all) 6 months before my surgery date, I'm going to be denied. My dietitian was very explicit that she would not approve me. I mean, there's really nothing else she can put on her little goal sheet for me to show that I'm worthy and compliant. And I definitely need to prove that I'm worthy and compliant, even beyond what is necessary because I'm fat, because during my first meeting with the dietitian, she told me to seriously consider whether I wanted to go through with the surgery, because research showed that, unlike with weight lost through diet and exercise, people who have bariatric surgery have radically slowed metabolisms afterward. They did a study with the Biggest Loser people! I was stupid and impolitic and I questioned this, because that study is one of the (many) reasons I'm seeking bariatric surgery. (It showed the exact opposite of what she told me it did, and even more so with the follow-ups.) So naturally I was very concerned that I had gotten my facts wrong and instead of being smart and shutting the $#%^ up and looking it up on PubMed when I got home, I questioned her. (I wonder how many people she's talked out of surgery because she doesn't understand it. Best not think about that!) It chaps my hide extra knowing that her next patient will probably be someone who is barely maintaining their weight, is being coaxed into giving up their multi-can-a-day soda habit and doesn't know what a protein is, while I'm worried about eating too much fruit and having a teaspoon full of sugar set as an ultimatum. And that person will have less difficulty than I do accessing surgery. Obviously, I understand that the answer is to either follow the arbitrary rules or to lie my increasingly saggy butt off like a psychologically normal person. And obviously I'm going to do that, because that's what I need to do to get what I want. But I don't have to @#$ing like it!

You're welcome! Both medications delay gastric emptying, so that can definitely bring back the restricted feeling. I haven't had any side effects with Mounjaro yet. I ended my Saxenda run at the highest dose, so the beginning dose of Mounjaro (2.5mg) probably won't be an issue. I move up to 5mg next month, so we'll see what happens then. My side effects with Saxenda happened early on and were very mild...fatigue and a little nausea during the first week. I was fine after that. I am grateful to have a bariatric doctor that is educated on GLP-1s and open to prescribing them when needed. I didn't want to go the revision route (and probably wasn't a candidate because even with the regain, I've maintained over 70% of my original weight loss). I just needed an additional tool. [emoji4]

Mounjaro is a GLP-1 and GIP agonist medication specifically for diabetes treatment. It is not yet FDA approved for weight loss, though some doctors are prescribing it off label. It absolutely does NOT "reset" your pouch, there is no such thing. Your post-op stomach is what it is and over time the restriction will naturally decrease. However, the medication does work in part by making you feel fuller sooner and stay fuller longer by slowing gastric emptying. This is temporary though, and will revert as soon as a person stops taking the medication. Most doctors agree that for these types of meds to work their best (Wegovy Ozempic are similar), they need to be taken long term, if not indefinitely. They are NOT a quick fix for weight loss. That being said, they can be helpful in long term weight maintenance, blood sugar management, etc. If you're interested, I would strongly suggest speaking with your PCP and/or bariatric surgeon and make sure you understand how the medication works, what it does, what the side effects are (there are many and some are quite unpleasant), as well as what treatment looks like long term. Lots of doctors are seeing success in their patients with these new meds, but its really important that the patient understands them, they aren't a magic pill.

The BariatricPal Store has just added over 400 bariatric-friendly brands to its store! Check them out at https://Store.BariatricPal.com or click on the STORE button at the top of this page. So many new brands.mp4

I use BariatricPal Multivitamin ONE “1 per Day!” flavorless capsules from https://store.bariatricpal.com/collections/bariatricpal-multivitamin-one! BariatricPal has a special offer where it’ll cost you only $99 for an entire year's supply! Check it out at https://store.bariatricpal.com/99 With just ONE convenient & affordable BariatricPal Multivitamin ONE each day, you can get the bariatric vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy! BariatricPal Multivitamin ONE was designed and developed by a team of the world’s leading Bariatric medical professionals. Please take a calcium supplement separately to prevent interference with the absorption of iron. You can view a large selection of bariatric-friendly Calcium supplements at https://store.bariatricpal.com/collections/calcium. You can also find MANY other brands of bariatric multivitamins at https://store.bariatricpal.com/collections/multivitamins.

So, I had sleeve surgery in July this year (2022). I didn't even think about the fact that they use titanium staples. I've had MRIs before, but they were all pre-surgery. I asked a bariatric nurse as well as the MRI scheduler if my sleeve surgery would cause issues with my MRI. The bariatric nurse said no because titanium staples are not magnetic. I also asked the MRI scheduler and she asked a supervisor and they said no, people with stuff like titanium hips have MRIs and they are fine. She said she'd put in a note for the radiologist stating that I have titanium staples and that I can ask the radiologist when I'm there, too...just to make sure. I'm scared that I'll get hurt

Thanks everyone! The consult I have is with a surgeon who does bariatric surgery as well as the Linx procedure so I’m hoping with his joint experience he will have some insight. I appreciate the advice and will ask him about the LES and roux limb possible issues. Thanks again!

There are some Facebook groups specifically for people who have had gastrectomies, both total and partial, and that may provide better context and patient experience than a basic WLS group like this. That said, it sounds to me, in my non MD view, that you may have some kind of stricture, where the stomach has twisted or folded over in itself owing to it now odd geometry; the sudden onset leads me to this type of conclusion. What you have had surgically is not a classic sleeve gastrectomy (most likely, at least) but rather some variation, particularly if they were trying to minimize the amount of stomach they were removing. That puts it outside the normal bariatric experience base. Frequently what is done in these cases is a partial gastrectomy that is more akin to an RNY gastric bypass, where they remove the lower part of the stomach including the pyloric valve, form a pouch with the remaining stomach and tie the exit some distance down the intestine. This, of course, depends upon where the tumor is, how much they need to remove, and surgeon's preference and experience. We rarely see these problems these days with a conventional WLS sleeve as they are fairly cookie cutter and routine once the surgeon has done a few dozen of them, but it does happen occasionally early on owing to inflammation from the surgery, but that usually resolves itself in a couple of weeks or so. The RNY type procedures are somewhat prone to strictures around the joint between the stomach pouch and intestine from scar tissue if that is the type of configuration that you have. The endoscopy (or a barium swallow test) should provide some answers, though I am a bit surprised that they aren't expediting that considering the situation. Hopefully you can get some answers soon.

Oh wow - such different post-op regimes (as ever here)! I needed to inject blood thinners for 4 weeks post-op. My surgeon told me he didn't care whether I was running a marathon by then, I still had to do it. I had no other risk factors than obesity and bariatric surgery.

Yea all the teams plans of what they guess ypu will need varies and it is different from patient to patient. It’s best to just take what they recommend and adjust after your labs as necessary. That being said, all I take is a bariatric multi and calcium as well and I am over a year and a half out from sleeve with excellent labs so far.

When you have an unusual situation such as you have, I have found it useful to get second and even third opinions. A general or general GI surgeon may not have that much experience with bariatric patients, and a strict bariatric surgeon may not have run into this type of problem before (though is more likely to be familiar with such complications. Is this a problem with something that's odd about you, or was there something odd about the way the bypass revision was done - good to get a fresh set of bariatric eyes on that to check. Is it a hiatal hernia - some bariatric surgeons have a hard time dealing with them, (and some don't...) and likewise some general surgeons may have a hard time dealing with that in a bariatric patient. A regional cancer center with a GI department can be a good place to consult, as they tend to have experience with a broader set of unusual cases, and they also usually have an associated bariatric department. I ran into an odd cancer situation a few years ago (thankfully fairly minor and early), such that even a major center might see one or two per year, and was a subject of one of the department's monthly meeting where the doctors all get together and discuss their "interesting" patients and brainstorm different approaches to the problem. You may need that level of "interest" to solve your problem hopefully not,) but it's good to be able to tap into that level of resource if it's needed. Good luck in finding a solution...