Clear Fast product - how many of you used this before surgery

[Sosewsue61 3,185]

Good morning. How many used the Clear Fast product 2 hours before surgery? Please tell your experience.

Has anyone asked their surgeon about it if he doesn't recommend this method? Anyone go against and use it anyway?

[GassyGurl 428]

My surgeon doesn't use it, nor did I ask. I bought it on Amazon, and drank one around 10 the night before. Research says it's out of your stomach in like 2 hours, so when I took my meds the morning of surgery, I took then with a huge gulp of Clearfast. I think it was about 3. 5 hours before surgery. I thought about drinking the whole thing, but I chickened out.

I Woke up from surgery in no pain, and had absolutely no nausea. I walked without difficulty and rated my pain level at a 2. Went home after about 30 hours. My worst pain was the gas. But I took a quick trip to the beach the next day, and shopped at costco.

So, I don't know if the Clearfast helped, but it didn't hurt, and my experience seems to match the results that are expected when using it.

I would use it again.

Sent from my XT1254 using BariatricPal mobile app

[DropWt4Life 957]

I have never heard of Clearfast before, but I couldn't have it anyway. My instructions were nothing by mouth after midnight the day before surgery. I wonder if this is approved for bariatric patients though as I didn't see anything about it being good for stomach surgeries.

I will say though that everyone that had surgery with me had hydration issues, and inserting the IV was harder. I ended up having surgery at around 4pm, and hadn't had anything to drink since probably 10 o'clock the night before. Had I known what I know now, I would have had at least some Water that morning as my stomach would have definitely been emptied in plenty of time before surgery. Even my surgeon said that it would have been okay. They just have to tell you that, because some people go overboard with it.

[GassyGurl 428]

The there are Bariatric programs that use it. Blossom Bariatrics in Vegas uses it and it's where I got the idea. I figure if a well credentialed (surgeon of excellence, center of excellence, Bcbs center of excellence, etc) uses it on all patients, it was worth considering.

[GassyGurl 428]

https://drinkclearfast.com/

[OutsideMatchInside 10,166]

Drinking Complex Carbs when you are on a liver shrinking diet/trying to drink your liver is counter intuitive. It might be fine for a normal surgery but not a bariatric surgery.

Plus no nutritional information on their site or on Amazon. No thanks. I won't touch anything that won't tell me what is in it.

Found the nutrition information. It is only available on the medical version of the site. 50 carbs, no thanks. I was a diabetic prior to surgery, this would not have been an option for me at all. Not worth having surgery cancelled due to elevated blood sugar and it would make it seem like I wasn't following my pre-op diet as instructed.

Edited October 5, 2017 by OutsideMatchInside

[GassyGurl 428]

I also found this post online.

https://blossombariatrics.com/dr-tom-becomes-brand-ambassador/

You can also google "surgery carb loading", and read stories here where plenty of surgeons are ditching the "nothing after midnite rule" for better outcomes. I asked this question before my surgery and the responses were not pleasant. Research shows positive results, but it doesn't seem to be main stream yet. I found enough evidence that led me to try it. Side note, I had pre-diabetes, but didn't know it - my sugar was borderline but my PCP never was concerned. Here is a very quick google search result listing two articles.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16919107

http://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1308/003588414X13824511650614

Results:

Seventeen randomised controlled trials with a total of 1,445 patients who met the inclusion criteria were analysed.^5–21 The size of the studies varied from 6 to 252 patients. All trials excluded patients with metabolic disorders including diabetes mellitus, ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) grade >2, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease and those associated with factors affecting gastric emptying (obesity, pregnancy, sliding hernia of stomach, medications). The protocol for provision of preoperative carbohydrate was variable. Multiple combination of outcomes were analysed by all the studies, making the data too heterogeneous for a meta-analysis.

[OutsideMatchInside 10,166]

Since Dr Umbach is actively selling it, he is biased, so his opinion isn't really valid. You wouldn't be able to use him as a source on a college paper without a lot of explaining...

Excluding patients with diabetes and all metabolic issues, a common co-morbidity to obese patients seeking WLS, also doesn't seem to provide much use either.

[GeTnBackuP 192]

hmmm! Went to pre-op meeting yesterday and was instructed to buy 4 bottles of Clear Fast. 1 the night before, 1 the morning of and bring the last 2 to the hospital. I asked if it was cleanse like for the colonoscopy and was told no, it is a pre-op system hydrator and nourisher. Didn't question it. What I am learning is that every doctors program is different, vastly at times. From pre-op to the time spent on eating phases. I don't really question it since for the most part they work for the patients but its odd there is no real standardized program. Oh well.