Anxiety

[d3pooks 0]

I had my sleeve 9-13 and Im doing well. Im looking forward to being on soft foods next week instead of liquids... problem is IM SCARED. Is eating going to hurt? How do you know a full feeling compared to an air bubble feeling? Its funny that after eating for 33 years I feel Im learning all over again. Any suggestions would be helpful.:crying:

[sleeve 4 me 910]

I had my sleeve 9-13 and Im doing well. Im looking forward to being on soft foods next week instead of liquids... problem is IM SCARED. Is eating going to hurt? How do you know a full feeling compared to an air bubble feeling? Its funny that after eating for 33 years I feel Im learning all over again. Any suggestions would be helpful.:cursing:

Just make sure to follow the food list your doctor provides for you, and you should be fine. Remember it's very little food compared to what we are used to eating in the past. I totally feel your worry though, I start back on all regular food diet October 7th and I'm scared LOL!!! What in the world do I start with??? I'm really scared of eating meat again :crying:

[lunarose 97]

Hi, Everyone is different but I did not have pain when I first started eating soft foods. When you over eat it feels as if you ate a whole Thanksgiving dinner stuffed. Eat slowly for me I tend to eat too much too fast and then end up feeling uncomfortable. Start slowly one food at a time.

Nancy

[nurse_ally 0]

Don't be scared. Eating doesn't "hurt", but it definitely feels different. I'm almost 3 mos out and feel absolutely fantastic, and here's how it went for me:

For soft foods, I ate alot of fish, mashed potatoes, cottage cheese...some of the soft foods that others ate like tuna and scrambled eggs didn't feel very good on my tummy. Again, it wasn't "pain", just an uncomfortable feeling. Once I was on the soft foods for 10 days or so, I just began trying out little bits of normal food. The key is to chew the heck out of everything, pretty much until it's mush. Steak is no problem, I just chew, chew, chew it.

I don't know if I'm just really lucky or if I heal really quickly, but I haven't had one single problem. There have been times early on in regular foods where I've eaten something dense and either didn't chew enough or ate too fast, and food backed up in my esophagus and made me feel like I was gonna throw up, but once it worked its way down I was fine.

Don't worry, just be careful and don't push yourself. I know that by the end of liquids I was DYING to eat something, but go slow and enjoy the feeling of chewing again.

Good luck!

[wannalise 15]

We all have different full signals, if you eat really slowly you will begin to sense what your full feels like (and don't eat to fullness, there is a place that is literally a bite before fullness and if you can stop there you will be more comfortable.) My full signal is sneezing!

Anna

[JudyM 2]

if you look at my earlier posts, I was really scared of eating. My surgeon - who was technically fabulous - didn't givve me a diet sheet and doesn't believe in prescriptive eating plans. He just told me to have Soups, soft scrambled egg with tiny pieces of ham chopped into it and apple puree or yogurts. Apple puree good to guard against Constipation by the way!

I read what everyone else, especially in USA was being given, and thought I'd vomit or slime (still not sure what that is!). But actually, I was fine. I knew I had to get lots of Protein in, so made sure I ate as much as I could. eggs weren't brilliant - in fact, I'm still not keen on eggs post-op. But tuna with very light mayo is great - I still end up leaving the bread! I don't know if you have little jars of meat or fish paste in US but they were good. Sip at drinks all day. Someone advised me to get popsicles (is that the right word? Ice pops in English!), and they were fab to keep me hydrated. I made my own with lowcal fruit juice.

Now, I pretty much eat anything, though not in great quantities. The 'putting your knife and fork down physically between bites' is great advice, as it makes you eat more slowly - this gives the brain time to receive the 'I'm full' message from your stomach... if I overeat (which isn't often) I get hiccups!

Don't be afraid, just keep trying different things

x

[ouroborous 519]

Don't be scared. As long as you eat slowly, you'll be fine.

Look at it this way; you can get into trouble by eating too fast, but not by eating too slowly. So, to start out, just start with the smallest nibbles you can imagine of the foods your doctor recommends, and chew, chew, chew.

This will give your courage that it won't hurt, and start to train you how much you can eat in one sitting. Be aware that different foods will fill you up quicker, and also your capacity will change (probably increase, possibly as much as double) as you heal and the swelling goes down. So budget the first 3-6 months as a learning process, because if you're like literally EVERYONE else, you'll have to go through it.

It can be frustrating at times, and challenging, but it shouldn't be frightening. As long as you err on the side of caution, it's EXTREMELY unlikely that you'll hurt or damage yourself.