Day 6 post-op: feeling dizzy during the day and waking up thirsty at night

[cocoa8utter 32]

Hello Decembelles, how is everyone doing? I hope you are doing as well as I do on your journey. I am recovering very well, the incisions are healing nicely and they are not as big as I expected. Around the incision sites, the bruising is showing now. With the procedure of the RNY they discovered and fixed a hiatal hernia as well.

I tire easily but I am off my pain meds already. At times it feels uncomfy, but it doesn't warrant a liquid narcotic medicine. Walking is the key to a speedy recovery.

I am wondering why I feel dizzy during the day sometimes. I know that I am eating, or drinking for now about 500 cal until I hit day 14 post-op. Then I will start wonderful puréed food! Thank goodness I don't feel hungry, like I did the week of full liquids leading up and prepping for surgery. I am getting up around 3am every night because I am thirsty. Then I am sitting in the recliner sipping more Water, no issues when I drink 6 oz in a 10 min period. I have a full feeling but it doesn't cause nausea. My best to everyone and let us hear from you on how you are doing please!

[James Marusek 5,244]

Not sure what is causing the dizziness. It might be low blood sugar. If you were on diabetic medicine prior to surgery and still continue to take the same dosage of medicine afterwards, it might be the cause. I was on diabetic medicine for several years prior to surgery. Two days after surgery when I left the hospital, they took me off all my diabetes medicine and I haven't used any since. But if the doctor hadn't taken me off this medicine, it is possible that my medicine could have driven my blood sugar too low and cause the dizziness.

The other medical condition I had was high blood pressure. After about 2 weeks my blood pressure start to come down significantly, so I took myself off all of my high blood pressure medicine. I had been monitoring these parameters daily and continued doing so after surgery, so I felt I had significant data to monitor the reduction. Low blood pressure can also cause dizziness or lightheadedness.

Your body changes very quickly after surgery and medical conditions that were treated prior to surgery may go into remission within days. Therefore you might need to readjust your medicine soon after surgery because some of these conditions may go into remission (for ever and ever).

[Daniellewi 69]

I am 4 days post op. I stayed in the hospital for one day before discharge. They had me eat lunch and dinner before they would let me go home on pureed diet. I ended up going to ER yesterday because I had Breakfast of 1 hard boiled egg that I pureed with Water. I ended up having the the most horrible pain on my right side chest area that just kept getting worse and worse. Since it was Christmas day I had to call the hospital where I had surgery and have the resident on call. I have a great pain tolerance and this was at least a 9 out of 10 on the pain scale. I spoke to the resident and since the pain was in my chest area they told me to call 911. I wasn't about to do that so I headed to the local ER. They hooked me up to IV and gave me some heavy duty pain medication. Did CT scan, EKG and labs were done. All came back normal. I don't think I will puree an egg and eat it ever again! My incision site where they removed my stomach still hurts like someone is poking at it with a hot piece of metal so I'm still on pain meds to "take the edge off". I was told not to I have any more food for the rest of yesterday. I had my breakfast this am and it all went good. This was definitely a Christmas to remember! I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to get near the Protein and water numbers they want me to have. They also discontinued my allergy meds (ZYRTEC ) so my eyes, ears , and body have been so itchy.

So far this has really sucked but I'm keeping my eye on the prize! If anyone thinks this is the easy way out to lose weight they have no idea how hard this is!!!!!!!!

[KirstyKirst81 16]

@@cocoa8utter - Keep an eye on what you're going through and write it down in a journal so you can remember things you might forget, if you need to talk to your medical team. Are you getting enough Protein and Water? I know I'm always asking that, but it's the first thing that comes to mind all the time above all else.

@@James Marusek brings up a great point on meds adjustments.

@@Daniellewi - I had severe pain for about 20 minutes when I ate too fast. Although I chewed well, my bites were still too big (it was just eggplant BUT it had some breadcrumbs on the outside) and I ended up vomiting, but not from dumping. Still no dumping thankfully (but not thankfully - you know!) It was a weird experience. I've been doing amazingly well with Protein, with only yesterday missing my mark by 12 grams because I was careless and didn't check my food log before getting ready for bed (where I could have had a small Protein shake and met my goal...) At first I relied heavily on Protein shakes, sometimes one shake with 2 scoops of powder instead of 1. I've been working hard at trying to not rely on shakes, or only having 1 a day rather than each meal. It's really difficult right now, being on soft food stage and getting sick of foods but not having much of a choice in food either. On 1/1/16 I can go to solid foods, but will still use a lot of soft foods. (My intention, anyhow!)

You might have to drink more shakes in the time-being until you can get more foods in. A lot of times I have to force myself to eat something and I don't have any appetite either, so it's been a struggle, but a manageable one. You can do it!

[cocoa8utter 32]

Thank you all for your great tips. It is an adjustment, my calorie intake is between 400-600 cal per day. Hoping that once I start puréed stage I can up my cal a bit.

I had to quit my BP meds already because my pressure has been really low.

[AmusedMuse 15]

I just had my GB with Dr. Dillemans and stumbled across your post. How has your long term weight loss been since surgery?