3/5/11~ About Me....

Mar 07, 2011

My first post...I am so glad I found this site

8 years ago on 7/3/03 I had an open gastric bypass (I couldn’t have laparoscopic due to internal issues…I have a scar from chest to belly button to prove it, yuck) and lost 200 pounds~ and have kept it off. But not without a lot of physical problems, mistakes, and learning along the way!  Would I do it again? Well, to be honest, if I could go back~ I think I would have gotten the adjustable band instead....yup.

Back then all this bypass stuff was sort of new. I knew no one who had one, and there wasnt much info on the internet, no groups in my area...nothing. I felt sort of alone and in the dark.  It is so different now.  post op i was in bed for a month. i ate cream of wheat and sugar free jello for over 4 weeks, and didnt eat real food for almost 4 months!...things seem to be so much faster and different now. Eating meat within a month? wow!!....it took me 6 months for my doctor to approve meat!!

My bypass procedure was called a “Silastic Ring Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass”.

Yucky, huh? Well, I never knew they were....as I never got them and read them before.  I figured if i had an issue, the doctors would contact me...right? NOPE.... no doctor has ever called me and said there was a problem. I trusted them. I put my health in their hands. Maybe i shouldnt have...maybe i should have gotten those labs and questioned them before. I didnt know.  humpfffffff.

After my surgery I was told "Go home, chew a  flinstones with iron twice a day and make sure to get B12 and Calcium".

OK. So I did.   I was never told WHY..or HOW....or WHEN.....and I didnt question it. No one I knew back then had a gastric bypass.....I was a pioneer baby!!  There was no info out there, and it was so new,  I am an old timer.  I just trusted the docs and went on my merry ignorant little way.  I chewed calcium carbonate (OOPS), swallowed b12 (OOPS), and ate plenty of liver to make sure i was getting my iron (OOPS). All for nothing. I didnt know we cant absorb calcium carbonate, i didnt know we dont absorb b12 by swallowing it, i didnt know we dont absorb most vitamins from food...wow.

I have had a few endoscopies done since I have gotten things stuck in my stoma, but other than that, I have not seen the doc except for my yearly blood tests.

WOW....For the past 7 years I have been SOOOO in the dark and mis-informed. And, I have been so DARN worried about my "STOMA STENOSIS & NAUGHTY POUCH & ULCERS" and how I cant "eat enough food to get good vitamins and minerals" that I didnt even THINK about the part of the intestine that the surgeon took out (the duodenom) and what that means to my body. Even if I could eat the food, my bypassed intestine wont absorb most major vitamins and minerals from food anyways!!  OMG...... I had no clue.

Also...did my surgeon take out MORE than the Duodenom (first part of the intestine)? Did he take out part of my Jejunum (second part of the intestine) like some bypass doctors do? I need to find out, as the more intestine they took out, the less vitamins and minerals will be absorbed. 

Click HERE to see a diagram of our intestinal tract….and the vitamins and minerals us bypass patients DO NOT ABSORB from food. It almost blew me away.

For the past year or so I took 1 vitron c  3-4 times a week, plus what was in my daily multi. Oops. Not enough iron.

I also didn’t know that taking your calcium with your iron is a no no….and was taking my iron pill with my calcium rich protein shake. Oops.

Oh, did I say Calcium rich? Well not for me it wasnt. I didnt know we need at LEAST 1500mg of Calcium a day....and cant absorb Calcium Carbonate. Oops.

I had no clue that I needed more vitamin D than the little amount that was in my Calcium CARBONATE rich shake. Ooops. And I thought I was being EXTRA good popping a TUMS now and again!

Also, I thought the B12 in my daily multi was enough. I didn’t know we absorb NONE by swallowing it. Oops.

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