Going to get gastric bypass, worried

I recently found a surgeon near me to do my gastric bypass.

However, after talking with her nurse, I asked about the PRE OP diet and she said they didnt worry with shrinking the liver before surgery due to dehydration... Does this sound normal to anyone? Ive always been lead to believe the liver needs this before surgery.

Doctors have a very wide range of preop diets, and some question the idea of liver shrinking. But there is absolutely no correlation to a preop diet, of any kind, and dehydration. You can easily do a liquid diet, low carb diet, or anything else, and still drink all the water or zero calorie drinks you want.

I'm questioning how much that nurse knows.

The only reason you'd get dehydrated is if you didn't drink enough water, and I haven't heard of a single pre-op diet yet that doesn't allow all the 0 calorie drinks you want.

Not all Doctor's require a pre-op diet, so that is not necessarily abnormal, they also usually have done an abdominal scan so already have some idea of the condition of your liver. I know I was told mine was 'not that bad' even before the pre-op diet.

The whole dehydration thing? I agree there is no reason for that... but again that may just be the nurse's version of things. The problem with dehydration is more after the procedure not before or going into it.

My surgeon didn't require a pre op diet other than the pre surgery one day soft food and day of surgery liquids only. I did have to lose 10lbs during my 6 month program but there wasn't a diet per se

The only instructions I had were nil by mouth from midnight. I've never had a problem with dehydration. Drinking is not optional, it's pretty much your job before during and after.

I did not even know there was such a thing as a pre-op diet until reading about it here. At a followup medical appointment, I asked about pre-op diets. The response from one of the medical staff was, "too many patients reported the pre-op diet was hard to follow so it was dropped as a requirement." Had I known, I might have followed one on my own. Then again, maybe not.

I was NPO from 12a until surgery as well.

As for liver shrinking, both fasting and low carb diets shrink the liver. The primary mechanism is depletion of the glycogen stored there. Surgeons vary regarding their methods and medical information changes all the time. It is true we get a significant percentage of hydration from food, but as Grim mentioned you can still drink a multitude of fluids.

I'd ask them and see what causes the dehydration. I'm actually sort of curious now.