Digestion in your mouth?

So I know we all have to chew food to applesauce, but my NUT said in group that we will have no digestion in our stomachs at all.  Is this more applying to bypass or does it apply to VSG?

Your stomach works like a normal stomach, just smaller. Most of the digestion occurs in the small intestine.

I hope you just misunderstood because if your NUT actually said that, well, [zips lip]

First of all, the process of digestion begins in the mouth. Saliva starts the process of breaking down the food. Having stomach surgery isn't going to change this. (It's also one of the reasons that chewing food and spitting it out isn't a good idea -- the hormones of digestion have already started just from the chewing process. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.)

Then, the stomach continues this process with a combination of agitation and stomach fluids/acid. The purpose of the stomach is to break down food so the nutrients can be absorbed by our intestines. Some people think food is absorbed by the stomach and it's not but that doesn't mean it's not digesting things. Digesting isn't just absorption. It's a multi-step process and all the steps are important.

In this rea we have a normal functioning stomach but it is smaller and a lot of the area that makes intrinsic factor is gone. So some VSG people do experience maldisgestion -- not being able to absorb enough of certain nutrients from food because it's not broken down enough before it leaves the stomach. But that's actually somewhat rare. The majority have no issues that way.

And, yes, chewing your food well instead of gulping it down can help. But there is no needs to chew it to the consistency of applesauce. In fact, chewing that much make everything you eat a slider food and you may find you have problems with satiety. Just chew it well like a normal person instead of taking two bites and gulping it down so you can shove more in as some (but not all) people with weight problems do. [I don't know why, but apparently eating too fast is correlated with obesity. It's certainly something I struggle with even now that I'm a normal weight.]

Once it's in your intestines, the villi absorb the macronutrients (protein, fats and carbs) and various receptors absorb the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). Since our intestines are completely unchanged, absorptions of nutrients should not be an issue for us assuming we aren't having issues with maldigestion.

So if your NUT said or meant that *absorption* doesn't happen in the stomach, that is true and is true for everyone even people who haven't had WLS. But if she truly said or meant that no digestion happens in the stomach than she doesn't understand what digestion is.

Your NUT lacks a basic understanding of biology.

You will most certainly still have the capacity to digest food in your stomach post-op.  Remember, most digestion takes place in the duodenum (first part of the small intestine).  Mechanical digestion happens in the mouth and stomach, but the majority of chemical digestion takes place in the duodenum.  The only chemical digestion that happens in the mouth is that of disaccharide sugars (table sugars, for example).

Thanks for the responses, all!  That is a huge relief. One of the things I liked about the sleeve is that it doesn't change the plumbing. If your stomach stops working as a stomach, what's the point???   I knew this was the right place to ask. :)