nranz

First off, of course I am going to defer to what the OCC tells you should do post op. Now that that is done I will tell you what worked well for me. As far as baby food is concerned, I did that pretty early, like around day 10 or so. What was really easy for me to do was just to puree any and all kinds of soups and get those in. I did not strain them either. It was much easier to get the protein in and the diversity was so much better than one more blessed protein shake. I know this will sound terrible but I would take jars of baby food that were simply ground chicken and puree that into chicken broth or a pueed chicken noodle soup. It added 12 grams of protein right off in a very easy way and wasnt at all "gross".

As for the vitamins, I couldnt bear one more crushed pill as they can be SOOOO nasty. I ended up buying the OCC vitamis ENSPIRA as they can be opened and mixed into a lot of things. They were also incredibly easy to swallow as they are gel caps. I could do so very easily starting about day 7. If you decided to crush yours or break them into very small pieces that will work just fine. The emphasis just needs to be bariatiric ones.

Not sure if this will help, and I hope that by now things are getting better. One of the things that took me some time to figure out was to not let my stomach be empty. I was getting confused with the sick stomach feeling and finally realized I was just incredibly hungry. When i finally figured that out I always was sipping or spooning stuff in . I also used baby spoons as to not over do it. You can also try soy, almond or coconut milks if dairy is an issue and at this point don't worry about calories. You need to get the protein in and some electrolytes and calories. Hope this helps and good luck!

I just wanted to update this question as I can see that many people read the posts but have no answer or comments. For those of you who are considering the surgery and read these forums, I want you to know that the worst of what I was experiencing has passed. I spoke with Dr Ortiz on day 7 post op and he confirmed that I was ok and was just experiencing post op cramping which apparently plication patients experience more of post op. I am now 10 days post op and the cramps still happen but no where near as bad as previously. Sometimes they still wake me up and a couple make me catch my breath during the day but I have learned to not let my stomach get too empty for too long. I have also started to lose weight (thank goodness). I have lost 5 lbs since surgery and a total of 25 since I started to get ready for the surgery (started 3 weeks prior with very strict carb control). I have carefully advanced my diet a bit faster than recommended because I felt that my stomach needed just a bit of substance. I have taken thicker soups and just pureed the heck out of them. That really seemed to help. At this point I am probably eating about 500-600 calories a day and thats all I really want. Before surgery I liked to eat A LOT of volume. I find that I need to eat something about every 2-3 hours but its a fraction of what I could eat before, and I mean a fraction. I'm back to work but I would not say I feel 100% just yet. I'll keep things posted as best I can to give the best idea of how things go. At this point (10 days post op) I have not regretted my decision. I did regret it my first two days post op as I was SOOOOO miserable, but now I am getting excited about being more comfortable in my own skin. My personal goal was not so much a number but more of an ability. I want to crouch down and play with my kids. I want to go places with them and participate in activities without fear of spoiling them because of my size. I want to live longer than my mother did. I want to like my body as much as I like my self. Don't know if that resonates with any of you, but that was how I knew I was ready for this. I was more tired and afraid of being fat and becoming ill, than I was fearful of not being able to eat what I wanted or the side effects of the surgery. I was just "over it". Good luck to all of you out there trying to find your answer and your way. Hopefully, I now have a tool powerful enough to help me get to where I know I want to be.

Hello, I am reaching out to the more "experienced" plication patients out there on some issues I am having post surgical. I had my surgery July 22 and so far it has been rockier than I thought it would be. The first 24 hours after surgery were miserable for me with the amount of stomach cramping and vomiting. Every subsequent day has gotten better but almost 7 days out I am still having serious bouts of cramping right where my stomach is. From what I understand plication patients have more issues with recovery due to the stomach being intact. I am assuming my stomach is trying to "right itself" and thus the cramping comes. Has anyone else had this problem and if so when does it subside? I have noticed that if I eat something a bit heavier like very thin cream of wheat or cream soup it seems to get a bit better so I started to think they are hunger pains, but in my life I have never had hunger pains like that. They usually come back about 60 minutes after I eat.

In addition to this I just want to check in with others about the weight loss expectation. I have not lost even a half a pound since surgery. All of my surgical water weight is gone and I am eating less than 600 calories a day and nothing is coming off. I swear I could tolerate the cramping better if I saw the scale moving even just a little bit. How long does it take to start seeing weight come off after surgery?