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Zgoodgirl
Member
08-22-2003
| Monday, July 23, 2007 - 5:43 pm
Thanks Rissa for the advice, I will have to ask them about that when I check in. I think the nerves would be a lot less if I had surgery before, which I haven't. So most of my questions have been how will I go under, and how will I feel when I come out. I haven't even had an IV before!
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Thursday, July 26, 2007 - 2:22 pm
I just had my first band adjustment. This is absolutely amazing. I can't wait til you girls get started on yours. I am thinking of you zgood, I sent you an email with contact info if you need anything. Good luck tomorrow, it will all go fine and it will be in no time when you over the surgery and getting to the good stuff.
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Zgoodgirl
Member
08-22-2003
| Sunday, July 29, 2007 - 11:38 am
Well, I am home and was told it was a successful surgery with no complications. I did have to spend the night, which is required for the bypass. I have a little pain pump coming from my stomach that I will be able to remove in a couple of days when it has emptied itself. Everything is staying down, getting my protein, though am having a little problem with any thick soups, and coffee. My staples will come out in a week, and I cannot wait until the swelling has completely gone down so I can start really moving around. I am walking right now about 30 mins a day, and doing my breathing exercises which I must say helps ALOT! Hope this made sense, I am still a little loopy from all the pain meds. But I am glad that it is finally done with.
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Rissa
Member
03-20-2006
| Sunday, July 29, 2007 - 12:48 pm
So glad everything went well and hopefully your recovery will as well !!
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Cndeariso
Member
06-28-2004
| Sunday, July 29, 2007 - 3:25 pm
sounds like everyone is doing well. glad to hear this. dh has lost just over 37 lbs. now. take care.
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Monday, July 30, 2007 - 10:15 am
I have lost 5 lbs! I am so excited. It is absolutely amazing to me how this works. You just can't eat after a certain point, it just kindof blows my mind. I had company all weekend, my college roomie and her daughter that I have not seen in 2 years. So every meal was eating out. For the first time in my life I brought home a doggie bag from every meal and better yet, they are all just sitting in the fridge with zero desire to touch them. Glad you are doing ok Zgood, let me know if I can help with anything.
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Rissa
Member
03-20-2006
| Monday, July 30, 2007 - 10:23 am
Stacey, sorry if this is a dumb question... I don't know a lot about this. I know the body can survive/thrive on much less calories then most people consume but what about fluids? Do you also find your capacity for water, etc is also reduced? Are you having to monitor yourself to make sure you get enough because the *urge* is not there? Congrats on the weight loss!
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Monday, July 30, 2007 - 10:41 am
No dumb questions, cause it is all new to me. I have watched my mother do it since Jan. But you really have no idea until you feel it. I was secretly petrified that it wouldn't work on me. I have always been an over eater, even when I know I am over eating I keep doing it. So I was scared I would continue with issues. My doctor explained it to me this way. They have created something similar to a kitchen sink in my stomach (the smaller pouch) it will drain like a kitchen sink. If you add water/liquid to it, it will go down smoother and faster and will want more sooner. All liquids will go down it at all time. They ask you to not drink with your meals (which is a struggle, and if I don't chew enough, it hurts and I have to drink) But, that will allow the pouch(sink) to fill up completely and then it drain on its own and you won't be hungry. You should drink 90 mins later. It is tough on my mom at times too, she sips occasionally suring a meal. The only way to cheat the band she says is liquid calories. The sink won't hold them and you won't fill up on them or stop so to speak. Even prior to this I only drank water and diet coke so that is not an issue for me really. The thing I have to monitor is protein intake and I have been using fit day to do it. A lack of protein I will see hair loss they say and they also say that is common as people get used to it and don't eat protein enough at first. She told me when I go out to dinner an idea meal would be some sort of large portion of meat or chicken, not fried a side of vegetables and a side of starch/carbs. I should start with the meat, if still hungry the veggies and very last if I still had room the starch. I have done that and haven't even come close to anything but the protein/meat. The pouch loosens as you go and I will eat more than I am right now, but still better than I was pre surgery. It is just weird, here is a perfect example. My friend's daughter is staying the rest of the week with me. We just watched a movie on tv and had gold fish crackers. Normally she would eat maybe just under a cup and I would have sat and ate that bag while we watched and not noticed it. She is 8. She ate probably about a cup and I hate 6 and thought I had just ate Thanksgiving dinner! I am telling you it is amazing.
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Rissa
Member
03-20-2006
| Monday, July 30, 2007 - 5:03 pm
Thanks Stacey. I would definately be one of the bald. LOL My biggest dieting issue is that I *forget* to eat for sometime over a day. I have a short period of time when I am hungry but if I don't eat in fairly short order that turns to nasuea and I don't eat anything. This procedure is fascinating and seems so much easier on the body then the more extensive operation. The biggest attraction for me would be its reversibility (is that a word? LOL).
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Cndeariso
Member
06-28-2004
| Monday, July 30, 2007 - 5:09 pm
ack! there is no way i could do this. i go through at least 5 glasses of water/decaf iced tea/hot green tea/diet coke/whatever during a meal. i HAVE to have lots of fluids. i am so pleased to hear you are doing so well, stacey.
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Monday, July 30, 2007 - 6:13 pm
I found that you could reverse it appealing as well, since I have not had a baby yet. I wanted to make sure that diet surgery would not stop that process. Thanks for the well wishes, tonight my family all met out at a barbecue place here. I went with them and ordered the shredded pork. It came with fries, slaw, corn, and bread. I ate about just under a cup of the pork, and I was done. Didn't touch anything else. I must admit that I did sip on my diet coke a few times. It is a hard habit to break.
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Zgoodgirl
Member
08-22-2003
| Sunday, August 05, 2007 - 5:03 pm
Well, it has been one week and one day since my surgery and I feel wonderful! The swelling is gone as well as the soreness. My staples were removed Thursday and the Dr said everything looks OK. I lost 15 lbs since surgery, and the Dr says that it will slow down in about a week once I start adding different foods to my diet. I am on soft foods now and along with my protein drinks I think I am doing pretty good. I still think I have some problems getting my liquids in, but it will take time since I never seem to be hungry!
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Sunday, August 05, 2007 - 7:54 pm
Good for you Zgood, I have been thinking about you. I struggle with liquids as well. I get my band tightened again on Thursday and I am looking forward to it. Let me know if I can help in any way and keep up the good work.
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Zgoodgirl
Member
08-22-2003
| Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 10:15 pm
Stacey, checking in to see how you are doing. Also wanted to let you know about something I heard today from a friend. Apparently, there is some card that doctors have been giving out to their patients who have had some kind of WLS. You use it when you go out to eat and most restaurants recognize it and will allow you to order from the kids menu. A huge relief since I went out a couple of nights ago and only had 3-4 bites of food off of a full plate. Though we took it home and my BF took it to work for lunch with him the next day, it would have just been simpler and cheaper if I could have ordered a smaller portion. I go back to the Dr on the 8th and am going to ask about this. As for weight, I am now down 23 pounds total. I must admit I have told myself to stop weighing everyday, but the quickness is kinda freaking me out a little even though I was told it would be like this for a bit. My supplements and protein drinks are helping me tremendously, and I am not tired or weak at all. Kady, I am hoping you will post again. I have been thinking about you and was wondering how your journey has been going.
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Kady
Member
07-30-2000
| Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 2:51 am
zgood, i'm glad to hear you are doing so well. my insurance says i need to do a 6 month doctor supervised diet. so that is what i'm doing. everything will be well documented so my insurance should have no reason to turn me down. she put me on diet pills which of course is helping now. they are also keeping me up at night. i was really down that i couldn't get the surgery right away but i accepted finally and decided...whats 6 more months. i will have lost some weight by then and be in better shape for surgery. do you guys have a support group? we have 1 that meets once a month. i am learning alot from everyone there. i will be full of knowledge when the time gets here.
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Rissa
Member
03-20-2006
| Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 5:19 am
Zgood and Stacey, it's so good to hear everything is going well for you. You are making the whole thing sound so easy that I wish I could pop in and have it done for my twenty pounds. LOL I know of course it's not that easy and you deserve a lot of credit for your wonderfull attitudes and completely changing the way you look at food and eating.
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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 8:36 am
Thanks Z, Kady and Rissa. Things are really starting to change for me. I am down about 20 lbs. For my procedure the first six weeks is recovery and you do lose some, the next two is the first band adjustment, which only lasts on average 3 days. Mine lasted 4 total. Then I was "on my own" for a week and a half. This past Thursday, I feel like was truly the start of the rest of my life. I got my band tightened it will last until the next adjustment. I am just shocked at how it all works. I have been tracking my daily diet to keep track of protein. At the end of the day I am just too full to think about food and on average I have eaten 1200 cals a day and 62gs of protein. I often have to push the last 100 cals to get myself to 1200. It just blows me away that I have to actually force myself to eat sometimes, me?!?!? It is crazy. It is from this point on that the weight loss will be much quicker for me and I can't wait! Z, I am not 100% up on the procedure you had. Are you in a liquid phase now or are you doing your normal thing already? That is great at your weight loss. Be proud. I already feel healthier. I love that I am diggin in the back of my closet for the clothes I haven't worn in awhile. Oh, and my doctor gave me the card, but honestly there hasn't been anything on the kids menu that was worth it to me. Most of it is mac n cheese, chicken fingers or burgers. My boyfriend and I have been sharing our plate. We started with each our own, I ate maybe a fourth of the plate and he was eating half of what I had left over as well as his own plate! Then we decided that weight loss surgery was not meant to make him gain all I lost, so we went to sharing and it is really plenty for both. If we really don't agree we make sure to take home what I don't eat for his lunch. Keep me posted on how you are doing, we are in this for the long haul! Kady, glad to hear if nothing else that you at least have an answer. You will see the six months will go quick and you will be ready for all of this. Keep up on how Zgood and I are doing and you will be motiviated to get yours started, best of luck to ya!
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Zgoodgirl
Member
08-22-2003
| Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 9:14 pm
Thanks Rissa! People are now starting to ask me if it was worth it all. The first week, I really thought I couldn't give them a straight answer. I was sore and crampy, I was almost second guessing myself. But now I realize that I have been given this tool to help me through my weight loss, and I love the idea of having to question everything I put into my mouth. Kady, glad to hear that you are doing alright. A lot of insurance require the six months diet and just think, it will make your body a little more healthier for the procedure. I go to a group session held by my Dr's office the first Saturday of the month. I have been to about several since I first started seeing him, plus they have an online group that meets up for coffee and get together's once in awhile. It is true, you do learn a lot from them and I have gotten great support. Also, they do clothes swapping, which helps out a lot of people during their weight loss. Stacey, glad that you are doing so well. It is a good feeling to start seeing your clothes baggier, and to be able to pull things out that you haven't worn in a long time. I am off of liquids now and have one more week of soft foods as pasta, pudding, and soups. After that I will be able to add more foods to my diet. Though I think that there will be things that I still don't think I will be ready to try for awhile, such as breads and sweets, which is a good thing since my dietitian makes you focus more on protein and healthier carbs. We went to the Olive Garden, where I had a couple of sips on minestrone, along with about 4 bites of ziti. I thought it would be hard watching others eat, but it's not. It's just an odd, but welcomed feeling that I can look at something that I loved to eat, and just say 'no thanks'. I still have to be careful though, because my pouch is still healing, so it takes awhile for it to let me know I am full. I push for at least 1000 cals a day, but sometimes find myself short, around 800 cals. I do get my 70grams of protein in though. I found a drink called Nu-Whey that is only 3 ounces, but holds 42g of protein, with 0 carbs and fat and only 176 cals which has helped so much into getting my protein in. It taste good too.
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Gemma120in2002
Member
07-05-2003
| Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:18 am
Hi! I didn't know we had this topic on the board! Or if I did, I forgot it! LOL! Too many irons in too many fires! I had gastric bypass December 7, 2001 and I am so glad I had the surgery. I was bad about taking my vitamins and now I am dealing with anemia. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to absolutely take your vitamins. Eating foods with iron is important, but if you want maximum absorption remember to eat it with vitamin C. Eating a spinach salad with grapefruit and avocado for example will allow you to get the most benefit from the iron. You are able to absorb iron from animal sources of iron more easily than you can absorb vegetable sources of iron. Calcium blocks the absorption of iron and so do foods high in tannins. I wish I had been more vigilant about my vitamins because getting malnourished can be catastrophic for us. I am still so glad I had this surgery. I just have to be more responsible about my own health and not put myself in last place anymore. Does anyone else find that drinking milk makes you sick? I have a problem with cow's milk, but goat's milk or soy milk is something I have very few problems metabolizing. I think it's the lactose, I absorb it too fast and then get sick.
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Gemma120in2002
Member
07-05-2003
| Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:27 am
Oh yeah, the reason I came to this area! LOL! I'm such a doof! I heard on the news this morning that they have discovered that obesity is related to a virus. The person contracts the virus (they didn't say which one!) and the virus, after infiltrating stem cells, changes the stem cells to fat cells. They are now working on creating a vaccine against this virus and hope to prevent at least this cause for obesity. How cool is this?!
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Cndeariso
Member
06-28-2004
| Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 5:51 am
my employee had the lapband surgery this past Friday. she had a really hard time the two weeks before being on the liquid diet. but, she came through the surgery just fine and should be back to work this coming Monday.
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Gemma120in2002
Member
07-05-2003
| Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 6:08 am
I'm glad she's doing so well. I know it will change her life in so many ways she hasn't even considered.
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Konamouse
Member
07-16-2001
| Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 12:00 pm
Not "new". Obesity linked to virus, new experiments suggest July 28, 2000 Web posted at: 2:35 PM EDT (1835 GMT) (AP) -- A cold-like virus may cause obesity, new experiments suggest. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison have found that mice and chickens infected with a common human virus put on much more fat than uninfected animals. They have also discovered that the same virus is more prevalent among overweight people, a strong indication that it may also cause obesity in humans. Here is the "announcement" at a Medical Meeting in Boston: Scientists Say Common Virus Could Cause Obesity Scientists at the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, Massachusetts this week presented the results of a study that suggests a common virus could be partly responsible for the obesity epidemic that is sweeping across America and other nations. They hope their findings will develop antiviral medication to treat "viral obesity". The hard part about these Presentations, is that they are not subject to Peer review (that is required prior to publication in a proper medical journal). That means the methodology is not reviewed by other scientists but it makes great headlines. That is why I don't like science news reporting from Meetings. Poster sessions & Seminars are always fodder for headlines. Interesting "Not all infected people will develop obesity. We would ultimately like to identify the underlying factors that predispose some obese people to develop this virus and eventually find a way to treat it." Overweight people develop the virus??? Not "catch" this virus? So, which comes first, the virus or the obesity? If it is true, then it could be ONE related cause, but you still have to have excess caloric intake to cause the body to need to produce more fat cells.

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Stacey718995
Member
07-06-2007
| Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 2:17 pm
Cnd, you can tell your co worker that the liquid part of the diet is much easier post surgery. The best thing I did was go get soups from Panera and puree the heck out of them. They tasted good and didn't feel like everything was broth, ugh
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Zgoodgirl
Member
08-22-2003
| Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 1:54 am
Gemma, they have been beating me over the head about keeping up with my iron. I have always been boderline anemic anyway, so have always had to take care of it. Thank goodness I like things like spinach and liver. I also have a friend who had the surgery a few months before I did, and was not very good at taking her supplements. She warned me today about it, for she is starting to slowly lose her hair. Thank goodness she has a ton of it, but it taught her not to be so sure. Right now I take Calcium, a multi vitamin, B-12, iron, and Prevacid. I will probably be taken them forever, but it is a small price to pay for the outcome. I spoke with my NT yesterday because I was scared that I am not eating enough. I am never hungry and seem to only be pushing in around 600 calories a day. She reassured me that it does take time and as long as I get my protein in, I should be fine. I am down 35 lbs and hit my 3 week post-op, so I can start testing foods out. I still cannot have raw fruits and veggies until 3 months, and I think that is what is killing me the most. Gemma, I am not having a problem getting milk down. But it does seem to fill my pouch quickly rather than other liquids. I had my first 'dump' last week. I took a couple of sips of my bf frappucino and then everything went to hell. I don't know if it was the sugar, or the caffeine, but I am pretty sure it was the sugar. Lord, I will never do that again, and I am kinda glad that I do dump so I will think again before I put something to my lips. I am so happy that you are glad that you had the surgery done. I am extremely happy that I took this step and hope to never regret it. All the Drs and nurses at the hospital kept asking me if I was ready to start my new life, and I wasn't sure what they met. Now I do.
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