One year post op yesterday and experiencing something new.

Yesterday was my one year mark and today was a really odd day for me.

I started off waking up this morning at about 7:30 am after going to sleep only about three hours earlier.  I decided to have my morning protein shake.  I have been adding in coffee recently and it ends up being a really dominant flavor and not in a good way.  It seems to actually upset my stomach some.  When I say adding in coffee I am using one of those single serve packets (similar to crystal light) like you add into a bottle of water except this you add to 6 oz. of water.  As I am using 10 oz of unsweetened almond milk already and I am shooting for flavor and caffeine I add it to about 3 oz of water and then mix it up and pour it in.  After today I threw the rest of those away.  

After about an hour I decided to try and get more sleep.  So I got in another 4 hours.  I woke up a little hungry but figured I would drink something instead.  I drank about 5 cups of flavored water over the course on the next hour which is nothing new for me.  Another hour and a half passed and I decided to have two Trader Joe's turkey meatballs.  This is about 71 grams in weight.  I just heat them up as they are pre-cooked and then I top with cinnamon (I am on a weird run of putting cinnamon on everything).  Still nothing really new here.

About an hour later a friend calls me up and want to go get a bite.  I figure I could eat  a little something.  I am in maintenance mode and actually still trying to gain a little weight and have been getting really low calories the past several days due to a injured knee and issues getting food into my apartment.  But anyway my friend ordered some fried pickles as an appetizer and I had tried some but filled up after very few.  I ordered for my main dinner a bowl of chili.  So by the time I got that I really was full but decided to have a spoonful to give it a try.  It was good so I had probably six more spoonfuls and called it quits as I was kind of really pushing it.  We left the restaurant at 8:30pm.  I got home and about an hour later I was still quite full but knew I was running low on liquids so I had three cups (24 oz) of Vanilla Caramel hot tea.  I was thinking this would settle my stomach a little.  I wasn't nauseated or off feeling ... just feeling extremely full.  Here it is at almost 12:30am and I am still feeling quite full.

That is the odd part.  I have had this full feeling for a lot longer than I can ever remember.  I know I should try to get more liquid in me but could call it quits as I have had 8 cups.  But since the only real food I had was turkey meatballs ... the 2 gave me 12 grams of protein and about 7 more grams for what I estimated was about 3 oz of chili and the protein shake this morning giving me 32 grams of protein ... I am only at 51 grams of protein for the day.  Since my day will likely drag on for a couple more hours I have an opportunity to try for more protein but I am feeling so full that it doesn't seem smart for me to eat any more this day.

At dinner out I obviously pushed myself somewhat but not to the point where I was feeling bad or sick in any way.  In hind sight going out to dinner was a mistake but with my knee being injured I have been in bed a large part of this past week resting the injury and I was going stir crazy from that.  Also my friend is aware that I am having extreme financial issues and wanted to buy dinner to help me out.  Plus I figured that if I got a bowl of chili that is really only $5 that would also become two meals it would work out well for me without being a huge expense for my friend.  Granted my friend would have been fine if I ordered a $12 dinner but I figured that the chili sounded great and would do the job nicely without being expensive in any way.

Really not sure why I am writing this out.  Just found myself in this weird position of being really full for now four hours after I had the chili with only the three cups of tea that I drank in that four hours.  I am hoping that there isn't something really wrong going on inside my stomach and this was the first time I can remember having this really full feeling for such a long time.  

Congratulations on your one year anniversary!  Can't help you with any of the rest, I'm only 4 months.  I have had that feeling many times.  Maybe you are just swollen.

Thank you ... it has been an amazing journey and continues to be a wonderful journey.  For the most part, other than a few things I suffered as a perfectionist, I have had a very easy time of it.  

Not sure what you mean by being just swollen.  That of course happens right after surgery but my surgery was a year ago.  Perhaps my stomach remembers what happened a year ago?  It is having sympathy issues ... lol.  

Either way I decided to make a protein shake to get in some more protein and after a couple of sips it is really not going down very well.  I am thinking that the shake I am trying to drink now is going to be the shake I drink when I wake up tomorrow.  

As I said it seems really weird to me that I am this uncomfortably full.  I am really hoping that nothing is blocking things from leaving my stomach.  That would not be a fun thing to deal with.  Especially without having any type of health insurance to cover any issues that might come up at this point.  

I am a little nervous about it but trying not to get all worked up at the same time.  

You can be swollen from hormones or water retention.  This can have an effect on your stomach.  Not the swelling from surgery as that was a year ago as you stated.

You do know I am a man right?  I have never suffered from either hormonal issues or water retention issues.  I realize that high sodium levels can give you these water retention issues. Since I have been obese most of my life I have had high blood pressure and this has led me to be very observant about sodium levels and never eat things that are high in sodium for that reason.  I can relax a little on that as over the last year my blood pressure issues are for the most part non-existent.  

Actually I found that the following day I experienced some of the same things but I did also experience hunger.  And today I experienced some hunger again as well.  Things appear to have gone back to what is normal or close to normal for me.  

I wish I could figure out what happened as it was the first day in basically one year post op that I ever had a full day of uncomfortable fullness.  So far it has been only that one day.  Really weird. 

I enjoy hearing opinions and thoughts on what is going on with this situation but I think since it was a one day event so far it isn't likely that I only had a 24 hour hormonal "bug" so to speak and a 24 hour water retention also sounds unlikely I am thinking.  This also makes me wonder if I may have eaten something that formed a blockage and wouldn't allow my stomach to empty as it should.  Eventually that something flushed on through.  That is my best guess at this point.  Either that or something else really odd is going on.

I appreciate the input though.  I just wish I could know what happened so that I could prevent it from happening again.  I guess it will likely be one of those mysteries.

Thanks

NO I didn't but, I do now.    Men can retain water and they do have hormones too. I was told the stomach is a living organ and will have changes from something as simple as stress or a slight allergy that wasn't bothering a big stomach.

I have no insight on your fullness issue, but I wanted to say happy anniversary, and I hope you feel better soon!

Thank you.  It appears that you are just starting your journey.  Hopefully yours will go as smoothly as mine has.  Sure I still sometimes eat too much (as today somehow I suppose) or too fast or perhaps one or two things you aren't supposed to but overall it has been a great journey.

It would be likely that I will wake up tomorrow and things will be back on track ... at least I hope so.  Either way I am going to be very cautious tomorrow to make up for today's issues even though I don't yet fully know what they were ... lol.

Thank you! So far, so good for me!

How are you feeling today?

Things seem to be OK so far.  I actually had another weird thing where after the first sip of my protein shake this morning I felt oddly full again.  I am really starting to think that there may be something going on.  However at this point in time which is about 5 hours after I am feeling hunger.  So once again I am going to try to eat something or drink something ... I am running a little low on fluids so it is a toss up on what I might try to do at this point.  I am thinking about the drink.  

It is an unusual thing as I am second guessing things at this point as I don't want to feel uncomfortable as I was yesterday even though I never really felt nauseated ... just overly full for the majority of the day.

It should prove an interesting day.