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Post-Op questions

D

Dee324

Member
Hi guys! I’m new to the group and wish everyone the best of luck in your endeavors to better health!!
I had gastric sleeve surgery on 2/4/2020. Pre surgery: I am 5’1 and weighed 202. Post Op currently, as of today 4/19/2020, I have only lost 25 pounds and stand at 175.
I cannot consume much of anything, and lately have been battling vomiting just about every time that I eat. My max intake is 3-4 bites...regardless of what I’m eating, and even that tiny amount has been making me sick lately. I feel like I have a constant “bubble” moving up and down my stomach and throat.
I feel discouraged bc I thought I’d lose weight faster, and more so than I have due to the vomiting issue.
Is this normal??
 
Welcome Dee!

First thing: your weight loss does not seem abnormal but it is a little slow. I will come back to that later.

Second thing: have you had follow-ups with your surgeon? This feeling you describe of something going up and down is something you should be telling your doctor. This group exists to give you support and sometimes accountability. We can share our experiences with you, but I guarantee you they will run the gamut simplistic to super weird.

This isn't the sort of thing you want to trust to strangers. Make sure that you are doing everything you are supposed to be doing , that you are at the stage of eating that you are supposed to be at, and if all of that is in place, check with your nutritionist and your surgeon.

Assuming you're doing everything right and there's nothing wrong with your procedure, the third step would be to look at your actual eating. Sometimes we don't really know how much we are taking in, and when a person is feeling unwell, oftentimes we do turn to small quantities of comfort Foods. If that describes you at all, be aware that most Comfort foods are high in sugar and fat and can cause dumping, which is a horrible horrible thing.

I am almost 13 years out from my surgery and I still weigh and measure things. I count calories, carbohydrates, fiber, and most important of all I count protein. If you aren't getting the required amount of protein, you will not heal well or quickly. Plus, proteins escalate weight loss.

Lastly,how much water are you drinking? The recommendation is 1.9 liters or 96 oz of water every day. You don't sound like you're dehydrated, but you just might be stuck because you do not have balance in your diet.

Put your health first in the hands of your surgeon. Then take control at home and measure everything, keep a food diary Faithfully that documents every crumb of food that goes in your mouth, and do not eat anything with sugar or fat in it for at least a year.

You don't need to go to a gym or fitness center, but you do need to make sure you keep moving. Everything works better when you're addressing every system in your body. If you don't have workout equipment and you feel like it would be helpful to have it, just go to your pantry and get a couple of cans of crushed tomatoes or refried beans or soup or anything and do curls using the pantry weights.

Fill a pair of athletic socks with rice or beans. Tie a knot at the open end and wrap these around your ankles. Lift your legs, walk, anything's that you feel like doing, including household tasks if you do those like vacuuming.

Do a search on the internet for isometric exercise. This type of exercise simply pits one part of your body against the other, like pushing your palms of your hands together as hard as you can and then releasing and repeating.

if you have access to physical therapy tools, get a strip of elastic that you can tie in a knot, creating a a ring. Step into the ring and pull the elastic up around your ankles then, using one leg at a time, try to k i c k toward the front, toward the back, and toward the side. Allow the stretch of the fabric to make this difficult for you.

Don't exercise to the point of pain. Be very gentle with yourself. And don't forget to take your vitamins, minerals, and supplements. You have to take these for the rest of your life because choosing bariatric surgery means choosing malabsorption. Supplementing is the only way you will be able to get enough vitamins and minerals into your body so you do not become malnourished.

It probably goes without saying that you can never have your old life back. You are in a new world and I would like to introduce you to your new best friend, whose name is Dee.
 
Last edited:
You're welcome, but I actually was referring to weird phenomena, not to weird people. Most of the people here are fabulous. You might want to read my reply again because I accidentally sent it too soon. I pulled it back so I could edit it and finish my thoughts and then I reposted it on the same thread.

Best of luck at your virtual appointment. I think you're going to feel a lot better after that happens. You sound like a really determined and optimistic person. I hope you will just build on that.
 
dianeseattle said:
Welcome Dee!

First thing: your weight loss does not seem abnormal but it is a little slow. I will come back to that later.

Second thing: have you had follow-ups with your surgeon? This feeling you describe of something going up and down is something you should be telling your doctor. This group exists to give you support and sometimes accountability. We can share our experiences with you, but I guarantee you they will run the gamut simplistic to super weird.

This isn't the sort of thing you want to trust to strangers. Make sure that you are doing everything you are supposed to be doing , that you are at the stage of eating that you are supposed to be at, and if all of that is in place, check with your nutritionist and your surgeon.

Assuming you're doing everything right and there's nothing wrong with your procedure, the third step would be to look at your actual eating. Sometimes we don't really know how much we are taking in, and when a person is feeling unwell, oftentimes we do turn to small quantities of comfort Foods. If that describes you at all, be aware that most Comfort foods are high in sugar and fat and can cause dumping, which is a horrible horrible thing.

I am almost 13 years out from my surgery and I still weigh and measure things. I count calories, carbohydrates, fiber, and most important of all I count protein. If you aren't getting the required amount of protein, you will not heal well or quickly. Plus, proteins escalate weight loss.

Lastly,how much water are you drinking? The recommendation is 1.9 liters or 96 oz of water every day. You don't sound like you're dehydrated, but you just might be stuck because you do not have balance in your diet.

Put your health first in the hands of your surgeon. Then take control at home and measure everything, keep a food diary Faithfully that documents every crumb of food that goes in your mouth, and do not eat anything with sugar or fat in it for at least a year.

You don't need to go to a gym or fitness center, but you do need to make sure you keep moving. Everything works better when you're addressing every system in your body. If you don't have workout equipment and you feel like it would be helpful to have it, just go to your pantry and get a couple of cans of crushed tomatoes or refried beans or soup or anything and do curls using the pantry weights.

Fill a pair of athletic socks with rice or beans. Tie a knot at the open end and wrap these around your ankles. Lift your legs, walk, anything's that you feel like doing, including household tasks if you do those like vacuuming.

Do a search on the internet for isometric exercise. This type of exercise simply pits one part of your body against the other, like pushing your palms of your hands together as hard as you can and then releasing and repeating.

if you have access to physical therapy tools, get a strip of elastic that you can tie in a knot, creating a a ring. Step into the ring and pull the elastic up around your ankles then, using one leg at a time, try to k i c k toward the front, toward the back, and toward the side. Allow the stretch of the fabric to make this difficult for you.

Don't exercise to the point of pain. Be very gentle with yourself. And don't forget to take your vitamins, minerals, and supplements. You have to take these for the rest of your life because choosing bariatric surgery means choosing malabsorption. Supplementing is the only way you will be able to get enough vitamins and minerals into your body so you do not become malnourished.

It probably goes without saying that you can never have your old life back. You are in a new world and I would like to introduce you to your new best friend, whose name is Dee.
Click to expand...
Wow....what a great post.....Were you very scared in the beginning and wondering what y had done? Any regrets?
 
Welcome and thank you, podsky.

To be perfectly honest, I was skeptical. This is a problem I have and it doesn't look like it's ever going to go away. Whatever someone tells me no, my first reaction is skepticism. Then I go look it up. Then I decide if it's true or not.

your surgical team just does everything it possibly can to make your surgical team just does everything it possibly can to make you feel good and comfortable after you enter the hospital. You may be nervous but if so they're generally give you a Xanax or Klonopin or most likely Ativan. Then when you have calmed down a little, they put in the IV. Then they leave you alone and someone comes back and tells you that you're going to get an injection of something that's going to make you sleepy.

From the pre-op room to the surgical theater, things go the way you perceive them, but that doesn't mean that the order you remember is actually the order they happened in. But there is no mistake about the fact that someone puts a mask over your face and tells you to count back from a hundred and you generally get to about 97 and 1/2 and you're out.

When you wake up, it's all done, and you feel like you didn't even go to sleep or that you may be were asleep for a minute, but not hours.

post surgically everybody has a different experience. But most of the time medical post surgically everybody has a different experience. But most of the time medical people will bug you to get up and walk and if you have a catheter and are peeing into a bag, they won't let you leave until you can pee in the toilet. That's just Hospital stuff.

I I happily push the button on the morphine machine. I pushed it as many times as I could because I really loved morphine. Other people don't want to use opiates, so they take Tylenol. You can never take NSAIDs again, including ibuprofen. Your doctor will tell you all about this.

I was there two or three days and then went home and laid in bed and took opiates. Because I didn't have a sleeve surgery and because I had an open procedure, they didn't have to pump gas into me. So I didn't have the muscle pains that you get with gas if you are sleeved.

I vomited a lot of bile because they took my gallbladder, which was awesome. When I felt like getting up I drank bouillon and comforting warm liquids. It was the best food I ever had. I made one mistake. I didn't use a laxative after surgery. I should have been taking in some Fiber laxative as soon as I got home. You can't eat vegetables or other fiber that will help you evacuate your bowels. So I got constipated for the first time in my life, like passing a loaf of bread. It took 2 days for it to leave my body. And most of those two days I spent on the toilet or doing other things you don't want the details about.

Nothing happened to me that I couldn't handle. And I started to lose weight immediately. I took my supplements, I drank my clear liquids, I pounded down that water and followed my surgeon and my nutritionist exactly.

I became as active I became as active as I could as soon as I was able to. And that activity help the weight loss to continue and also made me stronger and cured my fat girl depression.

Pictures speak louder than words. Check out my pictures, beginning with this album:


I haven't had even one second of regret or remorse. I wanted and needed to lose at least a hundred pounds, and I did it and since that time I have done amazing things because I could do them, physically. No regrets.

I think it's important to say that a lot of people do have significantly more pain and nausea than I did. If you are extremely or morbidly or super obese, and you have several comorbidities, you might have more difficulty shedding the pounds. You might find a whole bunch of new problems crop up and you have to deal with them. The higher the weight when you begin, the more possibility there is for discomfort during the year or two that you will now spend losing all that weight.

You are an Italian sports car. You're getting your engine rebuilt. And as soon as it's done you're going to win every race you enter.
 
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