Adipex weight loss medication, has anyone been prescribed this by their surgeon post op?

Hi all, I recently went to my surgeon and due to my post op weight gain he prescribed me a medication called Adipex. It is supposed to be an appetite suppressant and also has a form of ephedrine in it as an energy booster. I am also wary of trying any sort of diet pill but since he is a Bariatric surgeon and he said there has been a lot of success with other patients I. Tried it. Today is day 4. I am supposed to do high intensity exercise 2-3x a week plus maintain a 1200-1600 cal a day diet trying to get in a lot of protein. I was also told to use an app called fitness pal. So far things are going well, no real side effects accept for some dry mouth. However since starting this med I have been very gassy! I always am generally which I hear is just a common annoyance of post GB patients. Normally I can control it avoiding cheese a lot of dairy and some veggies. However this time I am basically having major flatulence..very offensive( sorry if TMI). It is so embarrassing. I have also noticed more indigestion and burping. Has anyone tried this medication or know much about it? And did you have this same issue? I cannot figure out how this type of medication could increase this issue. I have increased the amount of fruit I am eating but this is crazy!! Anyone? 

Interesting post.  How much post-op gain and when was your surgery?  Eating lots of protein can cause constipation and flatulence.  I will be interested to hear how the medicine works for you.

Why are you increasing your fruit to try to deal with the gas? Increasing carbs is the last thing you want to do if you are trying to lose some regain.

Rather than taking the Adipex and eating additional fruit and eating up to 1600 calories per day along with the high intensity exercise, why not just keep the exercise, drop the excess carbs from the fruit (and whatever other source), and drop your calories by 400-500 per day? 

I am always quite surprised when a bariatric surgeon is so quick to put people back on diet pills to address regain!  A bariatric surgeon should know better than anyone that diet pills aren't effective for weight loss or weight maintenance.  If they were, your surgeon would be out of a job!

This is just my opinion, but since amphetamine and amphetamine-like diet pills are for short term use only, and have never been shown to do anything to assist with long term weight maintenance, i don't think you are going to find it very useful.  What WILL work long term is figuring out what contributed to the weight gain, eliminating those things, and reinforcing health food choices, portion sizes, and physical activity.

I have known a couple of people who tried diet pills after RNY and they had no more success with them than before surgery.  I have yet to meet anyone, though, who cut their calories and made protein-forward healthy food choices and did NOT lose the weight.  Doing that reinforces the habits you need long term.  Diet pills only reinforce the old dieting mentality (and the psychological ramifications of dieting failure).

Lora

I was prescribed Adipex (phentermine) pre-op as well.  In my case it worked very well for me at first and I lost about 30 pounds in 2 months or so.  But just as the above poster stated, the effects are only short term.  The medicine stops working after about 2 months and the weight came all back.  

I think it is great for short term to boost some weight loss, but definitely not a long term solution.  I don't remember having any issues with gas just insomnia and constipation.

I was prescribed adipex about 3 yrs ago under a different diet plan. It didn't make me gassy but it did make me feel jittery. I think the higher protein and fruits are causing the gas. And I too am surprised that the surgeon prescribed this. 

Get back to basics. 

Thank you all for your replies! I appreciate you taking the time! To answer one post, I had the surgery in July of 2008 and initially lost 60 lbs in two months post op. But since then I have regained almost all of it back minus 15 lbs. I think this is why my surgeon decided to prescribe the medication. He was very harsh with me saying that my obesity was like a cancer that I needed to be cured from. But I see that I needed to have someone be harsh with me and kind of wake me up a bit.  I have been using the my fitness pal app on my phone and it seems to help me with keeping my calorie intake low enough. I read some other posts and it seems people have had success with Devrom as far as for the flatulence odor etc. I have them at home but didn't see any difference but I will keep trying them. Thank you all again..I will keep taking this medicine and see if it is helpful even just short term to get me on the right track again. The surgeon told me if I followed his plan that I would lose about 20 lbs in a month..seems like a lot to me!