Dizziness

So I'm just over 3 weeks out from my sleeve surgery. Feeling pretty good most of the time, and very little pain. Meeting my protein and water goals. But I'm having some pretty concerning bouts of dizziness. Called the nurse practitioner at my bariatric practice yesterday and she didn't seem to concerned. Just wondering if anyone else dealt with this. 

How are your overall calories?  Does it happen more when you are standing up?  Or getting up from laying down?

Are you drinking enough fluids?  Dehydration can make you dizzy.

There's also a condition called orthostatic hypotension which can be common among WLS patients.

By any chance are you on medication for high blood pressure? If so, you may need to have your dosage adjusted - talk to both your bariatric center and your primary doc. I was shocked at how quickly I had to start reducing the dosage of my meds - and it was several very scary dizzy spells that alerted me.

I was having bouts of dizziness and it turned out that I needed to come off my blood pressure meds at the 1 month appointment. 

Oh yes, and eventually realized it was from different reasons. Here are the common culprits:

1. Low blood sugar. Initially I was trying to do the under 40 carb thing, and my blood sugar was going low. Adjusted the carbs to fix this.
2. Low sodium- the biggest problem turned out to be sodium. I was losing my balance at work, nearly passing out type issues. Docs in general did not seemed worried (cancer docs included), but it was a real problem for me. Finally at one of my vsg follow up appointments the doc noticed the low blood pressure, and that it was a trend. (It was low enough they kept thinking it was just a off reading at the other appointments.) She pulled did bloodwork, and suggested i drink 1 Powerade zero a day. That helped. Bloodwork came back and my sodium was way under normal. Made sense. My new eating was whole food based, nothing processed, and I didn't use any salt when preparing food. So, worked in including more sodium in the diet, took a sodium pill here and there, and sure enough once the sodium in the blood work got up to the higher end of the normal range no more dizziness.
3. Medication needs to be adjusted. My husband lost 100 pounds with me. He was taking metformin and blood pressure medicine. With the weight loss, dizziness set in. It was his meds causing it. He was able to stop them entirely, and the dizziness resolved.

Thanks for the replies. My blood pressure and pulse do tend to be low. In fact in the hospital they woke me up in the middle of the night because it was so low. I am getting plenty of fluids and meeting my protein but I do think my sodium levels must be low because I'm getting most of my protein from shakes not food. And eating very little food. It's good to know other people have dealt with it and it gets better. Thanks. 

With your BP being low naturally, it may be helpful to give it a little boost.  I have the same problem and simply added more salt to my diet and it worked wonderfully

I had some tremendous problems with this for a little while after surgery.  I went from normal BP to low. It was low enough that the CRNP suggested I add some more salt into my diet.  I did that, drank even more water, and talked politics whenever possible.  All that helped quite a bit.  Every now and then I will still get a brief bout of lightheadedness, but for the most part my BP has returned to the low end of the normal range, and everything is fine.  For reference, I am a little over three months out from surgery.  

Politics....good one, Little Bill.