Daniel Davis, M.D. Dr. Daniel Davis is my hero! Dr. Davis is a skilled, laproscopic surgeon. He handled my unusual case with determination and superior ability. His bedside manner is kind, friendly, and professional. Because of his confidence in handling difficult cases, I felt I was in expert hands with Dr. Davis. After consulting with 5 different surgeons, none of whom were confident they could take-down an old Kuzmak gastric band, a friend suggested I pursue THE BEST surgeon in the area from NY Presbyterian at Columbia. I'm sure glad I did! I have recovered nicely and am losing weight easily. Dr. Davis' practitioner, Gio Dugay, gives me the attention and care I need. When I was hospitalized post op practitioner Gio Dugay was at my bedside as often as possible, Dr. Davis, Dr.Bessler and their team worked super hard to ensure my recovery. Dr. Davis' administrative assistant, Kristen, administrator of their office in Ridgewood, NJ was friendly and on the ball! I give this surgical team the highest possible rating for expertise in handling difficult cases like mine and patients in general. They are truly the BEST!.................... {{My first WLS was perfomed by Dr. Lubomyr Kuzmak who gave me one of the first Adjustable Gastric Bands in 1988. I required a revision in 1993. Both the initial gastric banding and the revision were done with full, OPEN surgical incisions that left me full of adhesions and scar tissue.rnAfter AGB (Adjustable Gastric Banding) surgery I realized that Dr. Kuzmak did not fully explain the nature of how the lap band supposedly decreases food intake. I was told I would feel \"full\" or \"satisfied\" after eating a small amount of food. Instead, after eating or drinking even a tiny amount of anything,rnI immediately felt the need to vomit.rnDr. Kuzmak told me to AVOID eating or drinking soft foods because the wholernpoint of the operation was to eat dense foods thatrnI would not be able to tolerate so that I would eat only a forkful or so for any given meal.rnEven that forkful would not stay down and I rnvomitted for a year after the initial gastric banding until my insides were so inflamed, the band had to be replaced.rnI believe that Dr. Kuzmak failed to provide referrals to professionals who could address rnthe cure of my compulsive over eating. Dr. Kuzmak rninsisted on keeping my band super tight because he told me I was a \"poor candidate\" for surgery to begin with and would most likely defeat the surgery. Dr. Kuzmak reprimanded me for not losing weight atrnthe expected pace. He retired without referring me to a surgeon who might be willing to reverse the band (thoughrnthe reversibility of the operation was onernof its selling points). When I contacted Dr. Bertha, the surgeon who supposedly adopted Kuzmak's practice, he was unwilling to even see me for a consult.}}.....................................rnrnDr. Davis had the complex task of 'taking down' the old AGB installed by Kuzmak. Although I was on the operating table for longer than anticipated, Dr. Davis was able to keep me closed and complete the surgery laproscopically! Dr. Davis performed the 'take down' and the Bypass that has helped me to save my own life. I believe Dr. Davis is one of the few surgeons in this country who could have handled my case successfully.rn
Lisa is the author of TheSkinnyOnline.Blogspot.com following her daily struggles to recover from a severe binge eating disorder, morbid obesity and depression. She shares her real life experience about her fight for life after Gastric Bypass surgery (RNY August 16th 2006) in a world that shuns and shames the morbidly obese.
"Here is a trick to improve your digestion and help you eat less food, if you tend to overeat. Chew your food until it is liquid in your mouth before swallowing. Digestion starts with the enzymes in the mouth, so the more you mix the food with saliva, and the more you break down the food with your teeth, the less work your stomach and digestive tract has to do... ...If you have any digestion issues, this can make a big difference. ...This will also slow down your meals, giving you the opportunity to enjoy the taste of the food, and may help you eat less, because you will feel satisfied before you have gulped down huge amounts of food... ...It takes a while for the satiety center to send out the message that you have eaten enough, so if you eat quickly it is easy to eat too much before you get the signal. Then you suffer by feeling stuffed."
- from Paul Chek's
"How to Eat Move and Be Healthy"
Gastric Bypass patients can suffer from something called "dumping syndrome" if we eat too much or too fast or eat something we cannot tolerate (click here) but I remember suffering from dumping syndrome BEFORE THE SURGERY.
Yep.
My binge eating was that bad.
Usually the symptoms of dumping syndrome are nausea, vomitting or pain.
A lesser discussed symptom is a racing heart beat.
I suffered all three BEFORE I ever had surgery.
The amount of food I ate before I had surgery was obscene.
I'd eat
whole pizzas washed down with diet soda,
boxes of Entemann's cakes,
tubs of onion dip with two bags of chips,
multiple value meals from the drive thru,
just an inhuman amount of food.
The aftermath was awful.
Pain, nausea,
dizzyness and the all too familiar rapid heart beat.
My heart would be so hard and so fast I thought I'd have a heart attack.
The over stuffed sensation was paralyzing.
There were times when I felt so sick I would pray to die.
I'd tell myself: Never again.
I'd pray to God that I'd never do it to myself again if only he'd get me out of the pain and slow down my heart.
This would happen one or more times per day.
That's why I looked for a drastic solution: weight loss surgery.
Getting the bypass bought me enough time to get on the path to wellness.
I'm very close to being completely well
but an old symptom still remains.
The oh-my-God-I-want-to-die feeling and rapid heart rate that comes with post-op dumping syndrome.
It doesn't necessarily take a lot of food to make it happen.
I dumped yesterday when I ate two tablespoons of peanut butter.
That's what happens if I wait too long to eat.
Hey, sometimes I'm just not hungry.
I'll go about my business with an empty stomach.
Then suddenly the ravenous hunger hits.
I panic.
I eat too much too fast and whammo!
I'm down on the sofa feeling like my heart will beat itself to death.
The peanut butter was lovely, made by hand crank on an Amish farm, as organic as can be, and fresh!
But peanut butter is a very dense food.
It takes a lot to break it down during digestion.
I SHOULD have eaten it very slowly and chew chew chewed it!
I didn't.
Instead I gulped it down, chasing it with cold milk.
Holy crap.
I thought I would die.
My heart was hammering at a shocking rate.
I could feel it beating in my ears.
I uttered the familiar words: Never again.
Never ever ever again.
When I eat I have to tell myself to slow down and chew!
That's not just a recommendation for bypassed folks. We all need to chew our food.
Many of the digestive disorders people suffer from come from improperly chewed food entering our guts too fast.
Ever watch the average person at lunch time?
Gulp gulp then wash it down with something.
We're a nation of dumpers!
We gulp down big bites of food on the run and wash it down with soda or Snapple or some other drink.
That's what I used to do.
I paid the price in many ways for my hasty eating.
Now I know better but sometimes I still need to remind myself that digestion begins in the mouth.
If we want to get well we need to stop gulping and slurping and become a nation of chewers!
*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Paul Chek tells us to chew our food down to a liquid.
Digestion begins in the mouth.
AND chewing our food lets our bodies imprint the food with our chi.
He's an expert and he's in phenomenal shape.
I believe him! click here or click below Posted by Lisa Sargese
I've tried a lot of stuff in 3 years.
This blog just nicks the surface of my struggles to be....what?
Thin?
Small?
Not fat?
Was there ever a time in my life when I really wanted to be healthy?
I SAID I wanted to be healthy, but really I wanted to be thin.
To be thin meant to be socially acceptable, attractive, worthy and even enviable.
I'm finally getting to the point where I value my health more than I value my dress size.
All it takes is losing something.
Sometimes you have to lose something so you can realize its value.
I lost my health.
Now I understand the value of being able to wake, walk and function!
Thin??
You can't be serious.
Not after what I've been through this summer.
Thin is no longer the goal.
Healthy is the goal.
But but but...don't we all believe that we have to be thin to be healthy?
That's the bill of goods I was sold all my life.
My fat body was automatically judged to be an unhealthy mess.
In my efforts to take off the offending fat I ruined my health.
I won't even touch on the weight loss surgeries right now.
In a nutshell? Disasters.
What I do wish to touch on is the pride I took in eating virtually NO FAT for almost 2 and a half years.
It wasn't just that I was eating diet foods with tons of sugar or fake sugar with the words NON-FAT emblazoned on the label.
I was eating tons of whole grains, tofu, red sauce, fruit, vegetables, rice cakes, egg beaters, skim milk, soy milk, sugar free jello, sugar free ice pops, diet foods...and for what?
Sure I took off 140 pounds.
Sure I trotted off to the gym 6 days a week.
So why did my health crash and burn??
I burned out my adrenals.
I burned out my my ability to heal.
I totally malnourished myself.
And this summer, I broke down!
Just plain broke.
The exhaustion was too much.
If you read my blogs from the beginning of 2009 you'll see how desperate I was. I talked about feeling as if someone was pushing down on my eyelids.
I was drinking a pot of coffee a day and still struggling to get from task to task.
People keep asking me why I started this whole nourishing traditions way of eating.
They asked if something led up to this, some sickness.
Yes.
I hit an impossible plateau in my weigh loss despite a super low fat, supposedly health diet and ridiculous work out regimen
and
I had no energy left.
Before I could save myself my knee blew out over Easter weekend.
I'm spending most of the summer in a wheelchair.
Something radical needed to happen.
Another weight loss diet??
No.
I don't think so.
It's time for a different approach.
It's time to focus on health.
If I hadn't broken down the way I did, I'd still be hoping to lose weight even at the expense of my health.
Does that mean I'm giving up on losing weight?
Well, that depends on how you look at it.
Following a rehabilitation diet as prescribed by my nutritionist
along with exercise designed to reconnect mind and body
will lead to many changes in my health.
One of those changes will be regaining my ability to lose excess body fat.
Losing weight is not the focus.
It's the side effect.
Health is my priority, now more than ever.
I lost it.
Once I get it back, I'll never neglect it again.
*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
What part of a watch tells time?
Remove one part and the whole watch stops.
Trying to lose weight?
Let's take care of our bodies and trust that the weight will take care of itself.
And it will.
Focus on fat loss is isolationist thinking.
Focusing on health will succeed because it acknowledes that it takes a whole watch to tell time! Paul Chek talks sense, always. click here Posted by Lisa at 7:15 PM Labels: adrenal fatigue, fat, healing, healthy, Paul Chek
"I have so many things to do today that include;
paying fines that I have accumulated over the span of the past year,
a large and filthy smelling pile of dirty laundry
that starts next to my bed
and stops down in the basement next to my silent washer and dryer,
overdue scheduled vehicle maintenance of my vehicle
that I don't want anymore
but am still making payments on,
and dozens of additional tasks
that are just as unpleasant.
Why don't I just run out in front
of a fast-moving garbage truck you ask?
Hmmm, good question!" - blogger Joe Frawley
It's only day 3 of my food diary
and I'm already learning quite a bit about my eating habits.
I'm an unapologetic grazer.
Yes, yes, yes, I know we're not supposed to graze after bypass or banding for fear that we'll out eat the surgery.
I know.
I get it.
But if I'm hungry I'm going to eat.
If it's stomach hunger, emotional hunger, mouth hunger, *heart hunger or whatever hunger, if it's there, I'm feeding it.
*“Heart hunger” or “emotional hunger” = We feel an ache and emptiness in our hearts due to unmet emotional and/or spiritual needs. Rather than acknowledge our feelings and work through our issues, we try to fill the void with food. Or sometimes we try to use food to “stuff” our feelings down. Although there can be physical discomfort in the gut when we’re upset, it is a distinctly different sensation from stomach hunger.
I can make good choices about what goes into my mouth.
Good,
better,
more nutritious.
Last night I had the late night munchies (I get them every night).
I ate sugar free jello, 3 raw peppers and some almonds.
Hey, it's better than "slider" foods like cakes, pretzels or ...or... other pretzels (I don't eat chips so, what else is there?)
My appetite is HUGE at night.
My appetite is so-so during the day.
I find it very easy to eat like a gastric bypass patient during the day.
Then nighttime hits and I'm ravenous.
I'm probably legitimately hungry. I could be depleted.
How would I know??
I haven't had ANY blood work done since the surgery.
My surgeon is fit-to-be-tied over this, but what can we do?
I have no insurance.
If I can't pay for the blood work, it ain't gettin' done!
But there's a solution.
As part of my catch-up-on-paperwork effort I filled out all the necessary paperwork for Charity Care at my hospital in Summit (where I go for my check-up from the neck-up).
I'm sure I'll get approved.
Then my neck-up doc will write a scrip for blood work and send the results to my bariatric doc.
I'm just waiting for that approval to arrive in the mail.
And yeah, I'm tired.
Draggy, sluggish, half asleep, possibly anemic.
There might be a medical reason for it.
It might be fixable.
My '5 Minutes a Day in 2009' project will help me take care of business so I can better care for myself.
I'm learning to do my 5 Minutes of stuff in an as-you-go fashion.
I'm creating the habit of answering emails when I get them instead of putting them off for some future time when I'm 'in the mood' to answer them (when does that mood happen anyway?)
I'm filing things as I open the envelopes instead of putting them into a to-be-filed pile.
I keep my books in places where I can read for a few minutes during my couch time (I'm currently reading 'The Dance of Anger' by Dr. Harriet Lerner and 'Why We Love' by Helen Fisher)
I do exercises throughout the day like yoga poses, stretches, rehab stuff, walking, breathing.
The list is pretty doable.
The one item that's giving me the most trouble is book-writing.
I'm still treating it like it's a monumental task that can't possibly be broken down into do-able chunks.
I'll have to reframe that megillha!
Meh, I'll put it on the to-do list.
It seems like writing stuff down helps me to get it done.
I highly recommend it.
*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Exercising a lot and eating a little (1500 calories a day is very very little for grown people who exercise) WILL make you lose weight.
No doubt.
But what about addressing all the complex issues of eating disorder recovery??
Learning to eat smaller portions - depleting calories without increasing nutrition - won't help.
I still use food to soothe my emotions.
I think the fact that the foods I eat are nutritious, low fat and high fiber makes a big difference.
Reframing the way I view my behavior as being self-soothing rather than self-destructive has helped.
Binge eating on crap is self destructive.
Eating well is an act of self-care, even if the portions and frequency are higher than normal.
I wish I could partner with the folks at New Haven to help these people get well for good.
In the meantime, I have great compassion for them....and when I can, for me. click here or click below
“Only work which is the product of
inner compulsion can have
spiritual meaning.”
- Walter Groupius
I understand compulsive behavior.
Wait, let me rephrase that.
I experience compulsive behavior.
Do you know how many games of Scrabble I had to play (against the computer) just now before I could start writing?
I dunno, 10 or 12.
Compulsive behavior seems to be hard wired into me.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that certain behaviors can be thwarted, blocked, redirected.
Take the gastric bypass for instance.
The weight loss surgery keeps me from over-binge-ing.
Yesterday, I spent the day preparing for a glorious, low-fat feast here at my lil' apartment.
In the middle of preparing an oven stuffer chicken surrounded by turnips, carrots, celery and 12 grain stuffing, I craved a piece of carrot cake. I had to have CARROT CAKE!!
Now, as you may know if you've been reading this blog for a while, the bypass makes it very, very uncomfortable for me to eat fats. A piece of carrot cake would definitely make me feel terribly nauseated. Even just a few bites would make me feel sick for an hour or more.
But I wanted carrot cake.
I ran out to the store, hair askew, no makeup, no earrings, just wearing my gross cooking clothes and picked up a few items. I bought Betty Crocker carrot cake mix, egg beaters (they have zero fat), baby food strained carrots, sugar free vanilla pudding mix and fat free sour cream (in hindsight I should have gotten the fat free cream cheese but I was not thinking clearly).
Came home and baked a cake.
A sorta delicious carrot cake with vanilla pudding icing.
I substituted the baby food carrots for oil.
Used the egg beaters instead of whole eggs.
Beat the vanilla pudding mix with part soy milk and part fat free sour cream to fac-similate cream cheese icing, licked the bowl and baked the hell out of that f*cker.
The pre-gastric bypass Lisa would have devoured the entire cake by now.
As of this typing, I've only eaten a fifth of it.
So, yeah.
I'm still compulsive.
But at least my compulsion won't kill me.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I am grateful to you, my readers, for paying attention to me as I put myself back together after a lifetime of self-destructive, addictive behavior.
I've always wanted to be lean, strong and healthy.
Well, sorta.
A more honest statement would be: I've always wanted to be thin and pretty.
I dress it up in the more respectable phrase - lean, strong and healthy.
That's what I would recommend to a client, or student, or friend.
I would recommend that they lose weight and/or get in shape for the sake of their health and well-being.
I would try to convince them that "if you have your health..."
or however that old cliche goes.
But when it comes to pinpointing my own dreams and my own goals...I'm full of crap.
I want to be thin and pretty.
Health is nice.
Universe, I 'm grateful for my health. Please don't try to teach me a lesson by somehow taking my health away so I that I can learn to appreciate it.
I DO I DO I DO appreciate my health.
It's just that I would appreciate being thin and pretty so much more.
Why?
Dunno.
Maybe I'm shallow.
Or maybe I'm scarred.
When someone suffers repeated, systematic abuse as a child, they're scarred for life.
Look, being damaged is no excuse for bad behavior,
but is trying to become thin and pretty really that bad??
It was my first criticism.
I don't remember being 'wrong' or 'bad' about anything prior to my pediatrician telling my mother to switch me over to skim milk because I was overweight for my age and height.
Did he ask about my activity level?
No.
Did he recommend more fruits, vegetables or lean protein?
NO.
With his irresponsible skim milk recommendation he started my mother down a slippery slope of imposed deprivation that contributed to my developing an eating disorder.
My mother embarrassed me publicly.
At social functions, while the other kids were enjoying dessert she would openly, loudly announce that I was on a diet and was not allowed to have any treats.
I sat there like a freak, watching the other kids.
If I sulked or showed any kind of disappointment, my mother would again embarrass me by asking me, openly and loudly, if I wanted to be fat like one of Cinderella's ugly step-sisters and if so, then GO AHEAD, have dessert.
I would put my head down and she would announce to everyone, SEE SHE DOESN'T WANT TO BE FAT AND UGLY!
On the rare occasions that I was allowed to visit a friend's house for play time or a birthday party, my mother would walk me to the door and tell the parent that I was not allowed to have any snacks, desserts or birthday cake because the doctor had put me on a diet.
While the other kids enjoyed cake or ice cream or god forbid, a Twinkie, they would look at me with wide eyes as I sat there watching them and feeling left out.
Even when the adults took pity on me and told me it was a special occasion, that it was alright to have 'just a little piece,' I would refuse, not out of discipline, but out of fear of my mother. She would grill me afterward. She would put me on the spot and ask if I had indulged in any of the forbidden food. I believe I DID slip up one time. I remember it vaguely. One of the mothers had convinced me to have 'just a little piece' and I did. She was an adult after all, an authority figure. If she said it was alright then it must be.
When I admitted this to my mother during her post-visit grilling she became enraged. How dare I let some other woman override her edict. What was the matter with me? Who the hell was so-and-so's mother to give me permission to eat cake? Did I want to go live with THOSE people instead? Since I was willing to listen to so-and-so's mother I must be UNhappy living with my own Mommy and Daddy and my cats, so I should go live with those other people if that's who I was going to listen to. She hollered at me. Sometimes she'd hit me, too.
In spite of all that imposed deprivation in and out of my household, I was still chubby. Back in the day, we ate Arnold's or Pepperidge Farm white bread, bologna and cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, Spaghetti-Os, sugary cereals, steak with butter, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, all in the name of the Four Food Groups and the All-American diet.
And I was sedentary.
I was not permitted to work up a sweat.
I was not permitted to run around outside with the other kids.
I was not allowed to make noise.
Silent, sedentary, and so hungry.
The crappy, processed foods I lived on were not filling.
The high corn syrup and corn starch content of most of my breakfast and lunchtime foods gave me energy highs, then dropped me down in the low blood sugar pits. My stomach growled by the time dinner was served.
I was starving when I sat down to dinner.
Starving and anxious.
My parents didn't get along.
My father was hungry and grouchy after his day at work.
His high ball cocktails before supper either brightened his mood or made him defensive against my contentious, offensive mother.
They could explode at any moment.
I wolfed down my food in a hurry. I wanted to be able to put away my first round of food and grab a giant helping of seconds before my parents were finished eating or started fighting thereby signalling the end of dinnertime.
My father scolded me for eating so much so fast.
He accused me of making noises like a pig when I ate.
It must have sounded that way as I gulped and snarfed at my food.
I often had the hiccups.
I was 5 years old when all this started.
The humiliation.
The derivation.
The dieting.
At five years old, I understood that if I were thin and pretty, the doctor would NEVER have recommended the switch to skim milk.
For more of Lisa's story and her DAILY look at post-op life:
http:/./TheSkinnyOnline.Blogspot.com
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