Home after revision sleeve to RNY and questions!

Hi Babsinga,

I had sleeve to RNY. I'm two weeks out today and have just started with the nausea. I can't take the sweet shakes or popsicles any more either. I was fine with them for the first week, but now even the thought of them makes me nauseous. In fact, I just took a pill for nausea that my doctor prescribed to have at home following the surgery. I haven't needed it until today.

I was very hungry the first week as well. I don't think it was head hunger. I know how that feels. My stomach felt hollow, empty, and hungry. I thought that seemed so strange because I didn't feel that immediately following sleeve surgery. Anyway, if you are concerned about it, I can tell you that for me, it has dissipated. I am on thickened soups and yogurt, etc. That hunger feeling is gone for now.

Good luck to you!

Jessiegirlie

:-)

You have a longer history with WLS than I, who am 2.5 post RYN, with that said, what you write sounds like my first week post RNY. I just wanted a morsel of real food, just one puny morsel that wasn't procssed. You have done so good post op and are at the end of the worst of it. Way to go girl. Resist so that your stomach can heal. SF popcyces were a help. One night my head hunger was so bad and the dog kept farting and I was really not feeling as well as I thought, I took a pain dose and went to bed. It was better in the am.

I also had a hiatal hernia repair with the RNY. It has been such a blessing not to have persistent heart burn. So, remember, as I was told, you really had 2 surgeries and your recovery is a bit more difficult than jst RNY. The dr didn;t tell me, but research says that hiata hernia repairs often fail (which is why they are not often repaired on their own), but in fact, the sucess rate is better for when they are done with RNY. For me it is important to really chew chew for the hernia repair as well as the RNY. At 2.5 yrs post op, both the RYN and hernia repair are doing well.

As for your protein: 80 grms is the target for most of us long term. It takes a while to build up to it. Is there some reason that you are targetting more. Even for the build up for plastics and its recovery phase, the goal is 100gms of prot.

THere is a formula for your grams of protein, ask me I and I will try to find it (It is from an OH nurse presentation).

Babasinga, do you have a plan (ie help) to deal with the mental aspects of this journey? This is your 3rd WL surgery and I hope it is the charm, but this is the time to get find a good eating therapist to have so that if you need it, you don't then have to start looking around for one, you already have a vetted resource to call.

Best of luck!!

Hi,

Thanks for the information. It is a slippery slope keeping the weight off long term although statistically I have been successful keeping off 2/3 of my initial loss over 15 years. To me that is a major accomplishment.

The practice where I got my revision from sleeve to RNY has a great psychologist who has had the RNY five years ago. He evaluated me. He is actually married to the surgeon who did my revision procedure so if I need that kind of support, I can call him. Most of my issues hasnt been food compliance rather lack of exercise and menopause. Thats why I was able to keep off 2/3 of my initial losses at at 9 1/2 years out from the sleeve.

Compliance wasn't an issue for me with the band. When I had restriction, I lost and ate healthy.The reason I gained part of my losses back was due to lack of restriction and a prolapsed empty band for two years and chronic GERD. I lost 154 lbs in 18 months which was 80% of my excess weight. The sleeve revision lasted nearly 9 years and I got to a new low of 165. I stayed there for a long time in the 165-172 range. I exercised daily and wore a size 8-10. However, I had chronic GERD, undetected hernia and developed multiple autoimmune disorders which I had to take steroid and it impacted my physical mobility. My autoimmune diseases are in remission.

Should I have gone for a RNY first? At the time I had lapband surgery, it was the next best thing to apple pie. Should I have gotten the sleeve? At the time nearly a decade ago, they were using different bougie sizes and very little was considered like motility testing to see if I would have long term GERD issues with the sleeve. Had I known now what I knew then, I may have gone to RNY but it scared the crap out of me.

Babs

I read your tag and saw CW221, LW165 and GW145 and my comments were addressed to those goals. Sorry if I misread your situation, because you are correct, keeping off as much as you have for as long as you have is success!!

Do you have any more info on your prot goal? How much are you shooting for? Shellfish is my secret weapon, a little shrimp ****tail at a party and everything else is not that tempting. I'm sure you have some secret weapons of your own.

Best of luck on this phase of your journey!!

Hi Sharon,

My protein goal on liquids is 80+ per day. My stomach is still in revolt. I plan almost all of my protein from real food. The real challenge as we all know is keeping the weight off permanently. After 15 years of losing massive weight and regaining some of it, I am tired of the yoyo. I plan to target 100 grams a protein a day at 6 months with just one shake a day.

Babs

I think the 80 is good. When I used the OH formula, that is where I netted out and the Plastic Surg wanted that up to 100 gms to aid post op healing, so I think the 80-100gms is a good target. 28 gms=1 oz, so 100 grams is not really that much long term, although shortly after surgery it probably seems like a whole cow.

PS I do not know if RNY would have been a good first step 15 years ago - it was still mostly an open surgery and more risky back then. Lots of things have improved since then!!

Regarding protein intake: some folks don't aim for 100g per day. Some program guidelines suggest 60 - 80g, which works for some people.

On the other hand, some people just plain DO have terrible menus.