Optifast Crisis

Are you preparing it as cold as possible, ie. with crushed ice?  I found that helped immensely with making the shakes more tolerable.  Actually, I enjoyed them this way, whereas just "cold" or forbid "room temp" the shakes were very off-putting.   Just a thought... something to try??    I mixed in a tablespoon of decaf instant coffee too, which took the edge off as well.

Mister Diminishing!  Yes, I have been making them with loads of ice, crushed and blended in my blender.  There would be absolutely no way that I could drink it at room temp.  Once the ice melts and the drink separates I really start having the most problems.

Okay.

In case you can't get hold of anyone in any of the clinics, you need to think of options.

Not EVERYWHERE uses OptiFast - there are apparently one or two clinics that agree to let their participants use other liquids instead of with the OptiFast.

So my suggestion would be to have a backup plan -

1) clear broths and jellos
2) clear teas
3) lots of water
4) some crunchy water-filled vegetables like celery and cucumber

Try ingesting every two hours in order to keep up you fluids and calorie intake.

I'm not suggesting going off OptiFast altogether, if it does stay down, obvoiusly keep trying.
But rather than constantly vomiting (which is also not good for you) maybe a regimen of the stuff listed above would work.

After all, this surgery has been around for years ... what did people do to de-fat the liver before they had OptiFast?

Thanks so much for this help....

I haven't been able to reach a single dietician at TWH :(  They all have auto-responses on their emails too that they are out of office until January 3rd or 4th.

 This is exactly one of the reasons why I was so glad that I changed my surgery date till after the holidays.  It freaks me out to want and need help/advice and not be able to reach anyone from the clinic.  Sorry that you haven't had any luck so far.

 Oh Melissa, so sorry to hear you are having issues with the Optifast, I am actually worried that this will happen to me too.  You may simply have an intolerance to it and may just need to do an alternate eating plan like others have suggested.  Good Luck and I hope you find some relief soon!

 I had the exact same problem. Call and ask to speak to any dietian they will all be willing to help. They can give you a high protein low carb diet that can help you. For me though I just had protein shakes and had 3/4 of a cup of peas or beans at night if I needed to eat something. My surgery was December 14th and my surgeon told me it went great and the protein shakes and beans didnt affect me at all. I couldnt even take a sip of optifast after my 3rd day. Good luck!!

Hi Melissa - again :)

Since you haven't been able to reach anyone, I thought I'd pass on the following info from a purely anecdotal / non-medical point of view.

About 10 years ago I was referred to a program at the King's Health Centre in downtown Toronto, where they ran a three month Optifast / educational / exercise program for obese people.  The Optifast worked very well as a diet, I lost 75 lbs, but I couldn't manage the transition to maintenance.  I enquired whether I could get more Optifast from them, but since the program was being shut down this wasn't possible.  At the time the dietician suggested I look for an alternate product like SlimFast with a similar nutritional makeup to Optifast.  Suprisingly, this wan't hard to find.  The point I took away from this was that there is no "magic" to Optifast.

My point with this rather long story is, if you are still having trouble and need to get through the weekend before you can reach someone at TWH, perhaps trying to eat along the same nutritional lines as the Optifast  might be an option. 

I found some nutritional info on  Optifast 900 on this site http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/nutrition-calories/f ood/generic/optifast-900/.  

Good luck, and hope the weekend goes OK.
Claire

Thanks so much Claire!  I am pretty convinced that I am allergic to something inside of this Optifast. I am going to have to come up with an alternative meal plan for this weekend and Trish is going to help me come up with something.

I feel so defeated.  What a let down....... :( 

Hi Don't feel bad, I had the similar situation, with an itchy mouth too. HRR told me to do a low carb diet, so I ate egg whites, salads, lean meats only water and decaf drinks no pop and I had two weeks and I lost 6 lbs before surgery and my liver was awesome.
So don't beat yourself up about it, just eat clean and you will be fine till they get back to you on the 4th.

Sue