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Today has been One year and a day, since I have had my surgery!  I have lost 116 pounds since the surgery.  I feel MUCH BETTER, and am no longer a diabetic.  My last long term diabetes test was 5.  Anything over 7 is considered a diabetic.  The test checks for the blood sugar levels over a 3 month period.  My physicians are astounded, and have changed their mind about Weight Loss Surgery.  They were all against my having this procedure done BEFORE I had it, and NOW some are suggesting it for their OTHER obese patients!  Every time I walk into my doctor's office, I am peppered with questions by both the doctors, and their assistants about the procedure.  Of course, I have nothing but good things to say about the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy.  The last few months of weight loss have been slow, of course, but that has been because of the lowered thyroid hormone levels.  My doctor lowered my dose of thyroid medication because it was too high, and the more weight that I lost, the higher it got.  He could not keep up with the weight loss, and dropped the medication too much to try to get ahead of the weight loss.  Unfortunately, he dropped the medication too far, and caused a stall that lasted for about 6 months as he gradually increased the dosage.  I got tired of the rate of increase, and increased it, myself until I began to lose weight again. 

I found this article on line today.  It is concerning the efficacy of bariatric surgery on the average patient's health.  It is a fairly interesting read, although it is targeted at the average reader's level of comprehension, and does not get technical. 

http://www.everydayhealth.com/publicsite/news/view.aspx?id=618684&xid=nl_EverydayHealthHealthyAging_20081217

Today I woke up and I hit the scale and I hit the 100 pound mark!  I was SOAKING WET and right out of the SHOWER!  I am SO EXCITED!  I am now down to 249.  It has only been 5 months and 15 days since my surgery!  Thank GOD and my lovely WIFE that I have HAD this surgery.  I am just GRATEFUL that I went THROUGH with it and did not back out at the last minute like so many people I have heard of.  While I was somewhat trepidacious, I also knew that obesity WAS going to kill me EVENTUALLY.  It was BETTER to DIE TRYING to regain my health than to SUCCUMB to the eventual CERTAINTY that was the MISERY that I was facing with OBESITY.  I now have a CHANCE at a near normal life.  I did not HAVE that before!   All of this in only 5 and a HALF months!  It is AMAZING! 

I saw an interesting article in yesterday's paper that I thought I would share with everyone about a new procedure that is being cooked up for weight loss.  It seems to be basically a pacemaker type device that tricks the brain into thinking the stomach is full.  I figured that I would share this with folks.  The link to the article is here:  http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/23610179.html?location_refer=Health%20+%20Wellness:highlightModules:3  .

It has been some time since I have posted to my blog and I just wanted to assure people that I AM alive.  I have been QUITE busy of late.  As of TODAY, July 15, 2008, I have lost 89 pounds since my surgery on March 1, 2008.  have been MUCH more active lately being able to actually move about without the debilitating pain I had been suffering from while carrying the extra weight.  I have even fixed up my bicycle and have been riding with the kids some.  It is funny how the tires will go FLAT while you DON'T use it but seem to stay aired UP while you DO.  There is some kind of sermon about SOMETHING concerning neglect there. 

I have been promising some folks a study about some information that I have been looking at regarding Aspartame.  I suffer from MIGRAINES.  It appears that I am unusually SENSITIVE.  This is NOT unusual for ME, since I seem to be unusual in MOST things!  I am fond of saying, "The only thing NORMAL on me is my HAT size."  It is almost a guarantee that if I go to see the doctor about something, he is going to tell me that SOME portion of my anatomy is abnormal in SOME way.  The pulse in my foot is found in a different place than where it normally should be.  The vein in my arm runs in a different direction than most people's and it is difficult for phlebotomists to draw blood unless they KNOW this.  My stomach was twice as large as normal (empty) when it was removed which means that it could hold THREE TIMES the volume of food that a NORMAL stomach would.  The list can go on.  I can't.  Unfortunately, this month has found me hit with the double whammy of being hit with computer troubles ( I have THREE computers down at home--YES, THREE--We DON'T share well) and pretty much CONSTANT severe migraines, PROBABLY brought on in PART by the computer problems (staring at the SCREEN all day trying to fix the damned things may be triggering them) and a possible SINUS infection.  The SHORT of this story is that I AM working on the Aspartame research. 

It seems that Aspartame is a Migraine trigger for me.  While I do not have the time to go into all of the details NOW, I do promise that as soon as I get things sorted out with all three of my main computers (I actually have more than a dozen--most I do NOT use but I keep trying to SELL them or give them to folks who could use them--Seems that NO-ONE wants an 8088 anymore--Go figure)  ;-) I will get the research and MY conclusions on what I found and what it means for the weight loss community as a WHOLE posted.  In the meantime, for those who come looking for the information that I had promised:  I ask that you be patient.  I am sorry but it was only due to my OWN quick thinking that I was even ABLE to save the information on DISK before I had to wipe my hard drive.  I now have to RESTORE my hard drive to FIND that information before I can even RESUME the research.  That is to be done AFTER I repair my computer.  I had a big fat drop of WATER from a leak in the roof land RIGHT SMACK DAB in the CENTER of my KEYBOARD on my little laptop!  I now have to replace the motherboard. 

I curse the former owner of this house on a regular basis.  He fancied himself a handyman.  I will admit, and READILY, that he was GREAT with woodwork.  There are some wonderful cabinets in the house made out of common plywood.  He was TERRIBLE with engineering, design, basic carpentry, plumbing and electrical!  He added an extra room onto the back of the house; what is called a "Texas Room" in these parts and is essentially an enclosed back porch.  He then added a NEW back porch.  To COVER all of this, he stretched the back roof by tying into the back of the roof on the house.  Instead of going to the PEAK of the house, at the main part of the house, he went to the peak of the attached garage and "Mother in Law's room" which then tied the back roof to the MIDDLE of the slope on the back of the house.  This leaves the back roof with a split pitch with PART of the roof at a 45 degree angle (which is something like a 9/12 pitch) and part of the roof  has a 3/12 pitch.  What the 9/12 and 3 /12 pitch MEANS for those that don't know, is that for every LINEAR LEVEL foot of roof traveled, the roof DROPS so many INCHES.  It is easily MEASURED by taking a LEVEL and a RULER or tape measure to your roof and measuring a foot out on the level while it is at level with one end resting on the roof and at the one foot mark, using the ruler or tape measure to find out how many inches the roof drops from level.  To be truly accurate, you would need to use a plumb bob, but these are just ROUGH estimates and good enough for my purposes at the moment.  Putting a roof on the house isn't exactly ROCKET science, for crying out loud.  A 3/12 pitch is TOO SHALLOW for a shingle roof.  It is too shallow for most METAL roofs.  It is ALMOST a FLAT roof.  A roof like that requires a SPECIAL type of METAL roof or a MEMBRANE roof.  The IDIOT who built the addition, put on SHINGLES!  When we BOUGHT the house, the roof was leaking like a sieve!  One of the conditions of our MORTGAGE was that we had to RE-ROOF the house!  I knew THEN that I need to do something OTHER than shingles, but I didn't have the MONEY to do the job RIGHT, so I did the BEST  damned shingling job I could.  It has lasted 8 years.  That was longer than  I expected.  NOW, I need to go BACK UP on the roof and do it RIGHT.  I would LOVE to do it in METAL!  I may be forced to do it in MEMBRANE.  It is HARD to find the right kind of metal roof where I live for the shallow pitch of this roof.  I don't think my wife will let me take the roof OFF of the house and REDO the WHOLE THING!  We could even add some attic ROOMS in the house by adding some room to the PEAK!  I don't think I can sell THAT job, though.  Alas, my cup is half empty.  ;-)  Oh, yeah, As I sit here banging away at my little damaged laptop using a USB Keyboard so that I can type this, I sit UNDER an umbrella that rests on some EAVES in my Great Texas Room where my laptop Lies at State.  I have purchased a motherboard from eBay to replace the damaged one and await it's arrival with baited breath.  In the MEANTIME, I am taking NO CHANCES!  I am PROTECTED from stray drops of falling water!

 

Intil I I can come back again, Have fun, Be patient, and EAT HEALTHY!

 

Hugh

I found THIS gem at  http://www.thinnertimesforum.com/post-op-gastric-bypass/8652-does-carbonation-really-stretch-our-pouches.html. It was a post written by a woman named Whitney  The ONLY changes that I have made to this document were to correct the typographical errors that the original poster had left in the original post.  NOTHING of the information that was presented was changed.  The website for the Newsletter that WROTE the document can be found HERE: http://www.beyondchange-obesity.com/.   The Document I found follows:

Okay - I subscribe to a small locally produced newsletter called "Beyond Change - Information Regarding Obesity and Obesity Surgery"

They are so small that they oftentimes take months to transfer current printed newsletters to their website, so I will hand type their most recent research on carbonated beverages here (please forgive any typos – I spell checked only, but didn’t re-read the whole thing). Forgive me as it is really long:

"Why Carbonated Beverages are "TABOO" after bariatric Surgery"
By: Cynthia Buffington, Ph.D

Did you drink carbonated soft drinks prior to your Bariatric surgery? Do you still consume carbonated soft drinks? Were you advised by your surgeon or his/her nutritional staff NOT to drink carbonated drinks after surgery? Do you understand why drinking carbonated beverages, even if sugar-free, could jeopardize your weight loss success and, perhaps even your health?

A carbonated beverage is an effervescent drink that releases carbon dioxide under conditions of normal atmospheric pressure. Carbonated drinks include most soft drinks, champagne, beer, and seltzer water. If you consume a soft drink or other carbonated beverage while eating, the carbonation forces food through the stomach pouch, reducing the time food remains in the pouch. The less time food remains in your stomach pouch, the less satiety (feelings of fullness) you experience, enabling you to eat more with increased risk for weight gain.

The gas released from a carbonated beverage may "stretch" your stomach pouch. Food forced through the pouch by the carbonation could also significantly enlarge the size of your stoma (the opening between the stomach pouch and intestines of patients who have had a gastric bypass or biliopancreatic diversion). An enlarged pouch or stoma would allow you to eat larger amounts of food at any one setting. In this way, consuming carbonated beverages, even if the drinks are diet or calorie free, may cause weight gain or interfere with maximal weight loss success.

Soft drinks may also cause weight gain by reducing the absorption of dietary calcium. Dietary calcium helps to stimulate fat breakdown and reduce its uptake into adipose tissue. Epidemiological and clinical studies have found a close association between obesity and low dietary calcium intake. Recent studies have found that maintaining sufficient amounts of dietary calcium helps to induce weight loss or prevent weight gain following diet.

The high caffeine in carbonated sodas is one way that drinking carbonated soft drinks may reduce the absorption of calcium into the body. Studies have found that caffeine increases urinary calcium content, meaning that high caffeine may interfere with the uptake of dietary calcium into the body. Keep in mind that one 12 oz. can of Mountain Dew has 50 mg of caffeine, and Pepsi and Coke (diet or those with sugar) contain 37 mg of caffeine each.

Colas, such as Pepsi and Coke (diet or with sugar), may also cause calcium deficiencies from the high amounts of phosphoric acid that they contain. Phosphate binds to calcium and the bound calcium cannot be absorbed into the body. Both animal and human studies have found that phosphoric acid is associated with altered calcium homeostasis and low calcium.

Drinking carbonated beverages may also reduce dietary calcium because these beverages replace milk and other nutrient-containing drinks or foods in the diet. Several studies report inverse (negative) relationships between carbonated beverage usage and the amount of milk (particularly children) consume.

Carbonated beverages, then, may reduce dietary calcium because of their high caffeine or phosphoric acid content or because drinking such beverages tends to reduce the consumption of calcium-containing foods and beverages. Such deficiencies in dietary calcium intake may be even more pronounced in Bariatric surgical patients.

Calcium deficiencies with Bariatric surgery have been reported following gastric restrictive and/or malabsorptive procedures. The reduced amounts of calcium with bariatric surgery may occur as a result of low nutrient intake, low levels of vitamin D, or, for patients who have had gastric bypass or the biliopancreatic diversion (with or without the duodenal switch), from bypass of the portion of the gut where active absorption of calcium normally occurs. Drinking carbonated beverages may further increase the risk for dietary calcium deficiencies and, in this way, hinder maximal weight loss success.

For all the reasons described above, including calcium deficits, reduced satiety, enlargement of pouch or stoma, drinking carbonated beverages, even those that are sugar-free, could lead to weight gain. Carbonated beverages that contain sugar, however, pose a substantially greater threat to the Bariatric patient in terms of weight loss and weight loss maintenance with surgery.

Sugar-containing soft drinks have a relatively high glycemic index, meaning that blood sugar levels readily increase with their consumption. The rapid rise in blood sugar, in turn, increases the production of the hormone, insulin.  That acts to drive sugar into tissues where it is metabolized or processed for storage. High insulin levels, however, also contribute to fat accumulation, driving fat into the fat storage depots and inhibiting the breakdown of fat.

Soft drinks with sugar are also high in calories. An average 12 oz. soft drink contains 10 teaspoons of refined sugar (40g). The typical 12-oz. can of soda contains 150 calories (Coke = 140 calories; Pepsi = 150; Dr. Pepper = 160; orange soda = 180; 7-up = 140; etc.). Soft drinks are the fifth largest source of calories for adults, accounting for 5.6% of all calories that Americans consume. Among adolescents, soft drinks provide 8%- to 9% of calories. An extra 150 calories per day from a soft drink over the course of a year, is equivalent to nearly 16 pounds and that weight gain multiplied by a few years could equate to "morbid obesity".

In addition to the adverse effects that carbonated drinks have on weight loss or weight loss maintenance, carbonated beverages may also have adverse effects on health. Soda beverages and other carbonated drinks are acidic with a pH of 3.0 or less. Drinking these acidic beverages on an empty stomach in the absence of food, as Bariatric patients are required to do, can upset the fragile acid-alkaline balance of the gastric pouch and intestines and increase the risk for ulcers or even the risk for gastrointestinal adenomas (cancer).

Soft drink usage has also been found to be associated with various other health problems. These include an increased risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney stones, bone fractures and reduced bone density, allergies, cancer, acid-peptic disease, dental cavities, gingivitis, and more. Soft drinks may, in addition, increase the risk for oxidative stress. This condition is believed to contribute significantly to aging and to diseases associated with aging and obesity, i.e. diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, reduced immune function, hypertension, and more.

From the above discussion, do you now have a little better understanding of why your Bariatric surgeon or Bariatric nutritionist advised you NOT to consume carbonated sodas after surgery? Your Bariatric surgeon and his/her staff want to see you achieve the best results possible from your surgery – both in terms of weight loss and health status – and so do YOU. Consider the consequences of drinking such beverages now that you understand more clearly why such drinks are "Bariatric taboo".

I can't take credit for THIS. it was COPIED pretty much verbatim DIRECTLY from the website given in the introduction.  I hope this helps clarify MY stance on drinking carbonated beverages.  NOTICE that it was WRITTEN by someone with a PhD and NOT a LAWYER.

Hugh

THIS is only PART of a document that refers to SPORTS drinks for athletes but I think it BOLSTERS my argument in part.  I found it at:
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showexcerpt.cfm?excerpt_id=3204  .

You can read the whole article there if you want to ensure that I have not changed anything or have taken it out of context.  My point regarding this issue is that if there is bloating in the stomach then there is PRESSURE in the stomach.  If there is pressure in the stomach, then that pressure can cause the stomach lining to stretch.  The quote starts HERE:

Regarding the carbonation issue, consider that part of your body’s natural process of producing energy relies on the oxygen (O2) you breathe. A byproduct of the process is carbon dioxide (CO2). You don’t want a lot of carbon dioxide in your system because it’s poisonous to cells. It’s important to eliminate the excess, which you generally do through normal cardiovascular processes (blood flow and heart action) and respiratory processes (breathing). Endurance athletes, such as marathon runners, however, demand more than normal functioning from the body. When you push hard aerobically for an extended period of time, you tax your body’s ability to eliminate excess carbon dioxide, and you face a potential CO2 buildup. As your body works to eliminate the extra CO2, don’t choose a recovery drink that’s carbonated—that is, a beverage made bubbly by the infusion of CO2 gas. Ironically, you will sometimes see beverage companies offering bubbly drinks during and after races. At the very least, dilute any carbonated beverage by adding an equal amount of water before your drink it. Otherwise, beware of the most obvious negative reaction: carbonation can cause stomach bloating. In short, you may feel lousy in addition to the beverage not providing the benefits you seek. (End Quote)

Now, I am not saying that ONE can of Pepsi is going to KILL you.  I , however, was drinking up to 3 to four LITERS of DIET carbonated beverages a DAY in an effort to quench my hunger pangs and my sweet tooth.  When I spoke to my Surgeon and asked how BIG my stomach was when he pulled it out, he took out a pad of paper from his desk that was about the size of my hand or approximately 2/5ths the size of a normal sheet of printer paper and said, "This is about the size of a normal stomach."  He then took a sheet of paper from the printer that was next to him on his desk and put it next to the pad and said, "This is about the size your stomach was when we took it out."  He then took that SAME piece of paper and rolled it up short-ways into a tube about the size of my thumb and said, "This is the side of your stomach NOW."  This is the man that has pretty much turned my life around.  HE was the one that originally TOLD me that much of America's obesity problem is most likely DUE to the consumption of carbonated soft drinks to begin with.  He was the man that TOLD me that the carbonation was responsible for the stretching of the stomach in many people and thus causing more Americans to overeat.  Frankly, I don't need much more proof than THAT but an argument on the boards has caused me to search for more information so that I can be prepared for the next confrontation.  I shall continue in my search for more support to bolster my side in the argument but I do have a life, so it may be slow going.  

I have done an experiment at home.  Intuitively I knew that twice the surface of the stomach on the OUTSIDE meant that it would hold about THREE times as much FOOD on the INSIDE.  I couldn't remember the mathematical FORMULA that would PROVE my hunch so I did the next best thing I could think of.  I TESTED my hypothesis!  I took a piece of paper and folded it in half.  I stapled it together and then placed an EMPTY Minute Maid Light Lemonade can in the resulting "pouch."  There was enough room left over for two small medicine bottles so I put THOSE in TOO.  I was then able to pinch the pouch shut and "Seal" the "Stomach" thus enclosing the contents.  The "Normal" size stomach that I had created could hold a 12 ounce can and 2 small pill bottles.

I then took TWO sheets of regular sized printer paper and stapled them together.  I was able to place THREE 12 ounce cans and two MEDIUM sized pill bottles in the "Distended times 2" stomach.  While I am sure that this is not an ACCURATE approximation and that there is a more accurate way to do this it does come CLOSE to showing that a stomach that is TWICE the normal size when it is removed and deflated actually holds MORE than twice the normal amount of food.


I found a scientific article dealing with some experiments that dealt with EXACTLY what I am talking about but it is difficult for the layman to read. Basically the article talks about experiments on RATS that were performed regarding Gastric distension or to put it simply, the stretching of the stomach lining. The experiments were done to see how the pyloric valve affects the distention of the stomach.  This has been one of the focuses of my argument about the consumption of carbonated beverages. The article can be found HERE:

http://jp.physoc.org/cgi/content/full/533/3/801

To simplify what was written, the article starts off by stating that, "The pylorus (a valve in the bottom of the stomach that opens and closes to allow food and liquid to pass into the intestines and the rest of the digestive tract (a more in depth description can be found HERE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pylorus) plays an important role in the regulation of gastric emptying. In addition to the autonomic neuropathy associated with long-standing diabetes, acute hyperglycaemia per se has effects on gastric emptying. In this study, the role of the central nervous system in modulating the effects of hyperglycaemia (High Blood Sugar or Diabetes More can be found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperglycemia) on gastric distension-induced pyloric relaxation was investigated." The next few sentences basically tell of the various ways that they induced the rats to maintain the gas pressure in their stomachs instead of allowing the pressure to be released as it NORMALLY would be in a healthy rat. The researchers used various methods including cutting the vagus nerve to the stomach; neural receptor antagonist hexamethonium (more info HERE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexamethonium ) that targeted the nervous system and specific organs, In this case it was probably used for it's side effects on the stomach; N ^G-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (more can be found on this compound here: http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=47121) was used to limit the permeability of the stomach lining.

After setting the stage with all of this by creating the conditions similar to those found in the average diabetic person, they set the experiment up by inducing sleep with anesthesia and used an IV drip to administer to the rats a solution of sugar water that contained 20% sugar.  They allowed this to drip for 30 minutes which increased the sugar levels in the rats' blood from 5.4 to 12.8 mM. This, "significantly inhibited gastric distension-induced pyloric relaxation." In other words, it caused the pyloric valve to "tighten up" (this would cause any gasses trapped in the stomach to REMAIN in the stomach and NOT be expelled as they would in a healthy human).  A DIRECT injection of sugar water to the BRAIN did the same thing.

These higher blood sugars also had an effect on a brain neurotransmitter called hypothalamic neuropeptide Y (more on this found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7479313).  It increased this neurotransmitter and it seemed to be responsible for a reduction in the production of insulin (that last observation is mine based on the research I saw that can be found at the site listed above). Introducing the neurotransmitter hypothalamic neuropeptide Y into the brain directly also caused the pyloric valve to "tighten up" and not allow the trapped gasses in the stomach to escape.

The introduction of a neuropeptide receptor antagonist (Y1 receptor antagonist, BIBP 3226) and a neuropeptide antibody (titre 1:24 000, 3 l) caused the symptoms caused by the increased blood sugars in the body and brain and the increased levels of hypothalamic neuropeptide Y in both the body and brain to be reversed.

The researchers concluded the abstract by saying, "Taken together, these findings suggest that gastric distension-induced pyloric relaxation is mediated via a vago-vagal reflex (more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagovagal_reflex) and NO release. Acute hyperglycaemia stimulates hypothalamic NPY release, which, acting through the Y1 receptor, inhibits gastric distension-induced pyloric relaxation in rats exposed to acute elevations in blood glucose concentrations."

Basically, in simple terms, this means that the experiment found that stomach stretching is caused by a tightened pyloric valve caused by damage to the vago-vagal reflex (a part of the vagus nerve). This in turn causes the blood sugar to rise and stimulate the hypothalmus gland to release a neuropeptide that causes even more tightening of the pyloric valve in rats exposed to high blood sugar levels.

The MEAT of the article goes on to say that basic health of the pyloric valve plays a big part in making sure that the stomach empties properly. The study mentioned that mice with a certain gene (nNOS gene) severely depleted developed severely enlarged stomachs with greatly enlarged pyloric valves. Partial paralysis of the stomach known as gastroparesis (more here: http://medical.merriam-webster.com/medical/gastroparesis) can cause nausea, abdominal pain, bloating, the feeling of fullness early in the meal, belching, anorexia, and vomiting. The article goes on to say that the most common CAUSE of this condition is diabetes. They state that getting control of the diabetes often can reverse the symptoms of the disease. The article mentions that tests done on humans showed similar results to those using the rats using, "a test meal in human volunteers."

The article states several times that the researchers don't fully understand many of the reasons for some of the results that they saw. They do not understand how high blood sugar impairs Gastrointestinal motility for example.

The article then goes into detail about how the experiment was conducted and what was discovered. Most of the details are discussed earlier and pretty much too boring to go into detail about. if you are interested in looking at them go HERE: http://jp.physoc.org/cgi/content/full/533/3/801 .

The article stated that "disordered motility in diabetes mellitus" or to put it simpler, messed up intestinal movement in diabetes has been "Traditionally" said to be caused by irreversible nerve damage to the "control system" or autonomic nervous system. Recent studies have shown that High Blood Sugar levels, "causes a reversible impairment of motility in various regions of the GI tract." or more simply put, the problem can be fixed in certain areas of the Gastrointestinal tract by simply lowering blood sugar levels. The article suggests that High Blood sugar levels or "Diabetes" can indeed affect how the stomach empties and whether or not gas can remain trapped and cause the stomach to expand.

The study concludes that control of the pyloric valve is primarily under the control of the vago-vagal reflex (or nerves that are related to the Vagus nerve and act as a control system for the body) and the release of Nitric Oxide (more information found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_oxide) from the myenteric plexus (found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auerbach's_plexushttp://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?myenteric+plexus). It also discards the possibility that the tests results were due to swelling of the pyloric valve due to a super sponge like ability of the pyloric valve to soak up the sugar water or as the researchers put it, "This effect was not due to hyperosmolarity, since I.V. infusion of mannitol did not have any effect." The study goes on to say that High Blood Sugar Levels have no effect on the vagas nerve when it is stimulated to cause the pyloric valve to relax. The study also says that relaxation of the pylorus using neurotransmitters was also not effected by increasing the concentration of sugar water in vitro (in the controlled environment of the test tube). The authors of the article postulate that this suggests that this means that the High Blood Sugar Levels are causing these problems elsewhere because of the results shown in the tests mentioned in this last chapter. They also noticed that the effects were noticed after injecting sugar into the BRAIN and not injecting sugar into the body itself. They believe that this means that the effects are due to the High Blood Sugar’s effects on the Central Nervous System rather than the system that is localized around the stomach itself. 

I found this NEXT bit of the article to be MOST enlightening, "Williams and colleagues have demonstrated that NPY concentrations in the hypothalamus are significantly increased within 3 weeks of sustained hyperglycaemia in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats, and elevated concentrations of NPY in the hypothalamus in diabetic rats have been suggested to be responsible for diabetic hyperphagia (check here for a definition: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/hyperphagia) (Williams et al. 1988). The present study demonstrates that NPY concentrations in the hypothalamus were also significantly increased following acute hyperglycaemia in rats."

Basically what THIS is saying is that a neurotransmitter named NPY (more found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropeptide_Y) are increased in these diabetic rats and sustained for 3 weeks. It is suggested by the article that these elevated levels of neurotransmitters may be responsible for excessive hunger in diabetics.

I am going to let the authors speak for themselves first for the conclusion of this part of MY article. I will then put what was said into simpler terms for those who find the scientific jargon too hard to follow. The authors’ conclusion finishes with these two paragraphs: "It is concluded that hyperglycaemia stimulates NPY release in the hypothalamus and inhibits vagal activity via the hypothalamic NPY Y1 receptor in anaesthetized rats. Reduced vagal efferent (definition HERE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efferent_nerve ) activity in the setting of acute hyperglycaemia decreases release of NO from the myenteric plexus (Definition Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auerbach's_plexus) and results in impaired pyloric relaxation and delayed gastric emptying.

The present study suggests that the hyperglycaemia associated with diabetes mellitus may have acute effects on gastric emptying. These effects are in part mediated (Definition Here: http://www2.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwmednlm) by the actions of NPY in the central nervous system. The deleterious effects of hyperglycaemia on gastric motility emphasize the importance of rigorous metabolic control in the management of diabetes."

Translated to layman’s terms that means that the authors of the article say that High Blood Sugar Levels cause the neurotransmitter called NPY to be released into the hypothalamus which is a region of the brain that links the nervous system to the pituitary gland. This in turn inhibits or restricts the activity of the vago-vagal reflex nerve fibers through the neurotransmitter receptors in the hypothalamus of anesthetized rats. They further say that reduced activity in the Vagal nerve due to High Blood Sugar Levels decreases the release of Nitric Oxide from the myenteric plexus (Definition Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auerbach's_plexus). The authors go on to say in the second paragraph that the High Blood Sugar levels associated with Diabetes may have severe effects on the stomach’s ability to empty. They say that these effects are in part caused by the neurotransmitter called NPY which acts as a transmission agent and a causal agent on the central nervous system. They say that the harmful effects of High Blood Sugar on the intestinal system’s ability to move food brings to light the importance of strictly controlling the Blood Sugar Levels of all Diabetics.

Here Is some MORE information that I have found on Gastroparesis.  The site that I located this information is located HERE:  http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/gastroparesis/ .

The people who set up the site are listed below.
  

The site is:

What is gastroparesis?

Gastroparesis, also called delayed gastric emptying, is a disorder in which the stomach takes too long to empty its contents. Normally, the stomach contracts to move food down into the small intestine for digestion. The vagus nerve controls the movement of food from the stomach through the digestive tract. Gastroparesis occurs when the vagus nerve is damaged and the muscles of the stomach and intestines do not work normally. Food then moves slowly or stops moving through the digestive tract.

I would like to interject HERE to state that according to the study ABOVE, this is the OLD way of looking at the problem.  The research that was done in the study above showed that not ALL of the cases of Gastroperesis were caused by PERMANENT damage to the vagus nerve and that many, if not MOST of the cases could in fact be REVERSED by simply lowering the blood glucose level for a sufficient period of time (approximately 2 weeks).  This would cause the levels of neurotransmitter NPY 1 to drop and allow the Vagus nerve cluster to resume functioning as normal.

The digestive system

What causes gastroparesis?

The most common cause of gastroparesis is diabetes. People with diabetes have high blood glucose, also called blood sugar, which in turn causes chemical changes in nerves and damages the blood vessels that carry oxygen and nutrients to the nerves. Over time, high blood glucose can damage the vagus nerve.

Again, I would like to interject here that the study above suggests OTHER possible secondary causes for gastroperesis.  The INITIAL cause is not in debate.  The high blood sugars are indeed one of the main triggers for gastroparesis.  The SECONDARY causes are what is at debate here.  The old style of thought claims that the high blood sugar levels cause permanent damage to the nerves.  There MAY be some cases where that has happened.  I don't claim to be a medical expert.  According to the research above, the nerves are NOT permanently damaged in many cases and can RESUME their normal function after the blood sugar levels have been maintained for a short period of time (again, about 2 weeks).

Some other causes of gastroparesis are

• surgery on the stomach or vagus nerve
• viral infections
• anorexia nervosa or bulimia
• medications—anticholinergics and narcotics—that slow contractions in the intestine
• gastroesophageal reflux disease
• smooth muscle disorders, such as amyloidosis and scleroderma
• nervous system diseases, including abdominal migraine and Parkinson’s disease
• metabolic disorders, including hypothyroidism

Many people have what is called idiopathic gastroparesis, meaning the cause is unknown and cannot be found even after medical tests.

What are the symptoms of gastroparesis?

Signs and symptoms of gastroparesis are

• heartburn
• pain in the upper abdomen
• nausea
• vomiting of undigested food—sometimes several hours after a meal
• early feeling of fullness after only a few bites of food
• weight loss due to poor absorption of nutrients or low calorie intake
• abdominal bloating
• high and low blood glucose levels
• lack of appetite
• gastroesophageal reflux
• spasms in the stomach area

Eating solid foods, high-fiber foods such as raw fruits and vegetables, fatty foods, or drinks high in fat or carbonation may contribute to these symptoms.

The symptoms of gastroparesis may be mild or severe, depending on the person. Symptoms can happen frequently in some people and less often in others. Many people with gastroparesis experience a wide range of symptoms, and sometimes the disorder is difficult for the physician to diagnose.

What are the complications of gastroparesis?

If food lingers too long in the stomach, it can cause bacterial overgrowth from the fermentation of food. Also, the food can harden into solid masses called bezoars that may cause nausea, vomiting, and obstruction in the stomach. Bezoars can be dangerous if they block the passage of food into the small intestine.

Gastroparesis can make diabetes worse by making blood glucose control more difficult. When food that has been delayed in the stomach finally enters the small intestine and is absorbed, blood glucose levels rise. Since gastroparesis makes stomach emptying unpredictable, a person’s blood glucose levels can be erratic and difficult to control.

How is gastroparesis diagnosed?

After performing a full physical exam and taking your medical history, your doctor may order several blood tests to check blood counts and chemical and electrolyte levels. To rule out an obstruction or other conditions, the doctor may perform the following tests:

• Upper endoscopy. After giving you a sedative to help you become drowsy, the doctor passes a long, thin tube called an endoscope through your mouth and gently guides it down the throat, also called the esophagus, into the stomach. Through the endoscope, the doctor can look at the lining of the stomach to check for any abnormalities.

• Ultrasound. To rule out gallbladder disease and pancreatitis as sources of the problem, you may have an ultrasound test, which uses harmless sound waves to outline and define the shape of the gallbladder and pancreas.

• Barium x ray. After fasting for 12 hours, you will drink a thick liquid called barium, which coats the stomach, making it show up on the x ray. If you have diabetes, your doctor may have special instructions about fasting. Normally, the stomach will be empty of all food after 12 hours of fasting. Gastroparesis is likely if the x ray shows food in the stomach. Because a person with gastroparesis can sometimes have normal emptying, the doctor may repeat the test another day if gastroparesis is suspected.

Once other causes have been ruled out, the doctor will perform one of the following gastric emptying tests to confirm a diagnosis of gastroparesis.

• Gastric emptying scintigraphy. This test involves eating a bland meal, such as eggs or egg substitute, that contains a small amount of a radioactive substance, called radioisotope, that shows up on scans. The dose of radiation from the radioisotope is not dangerous. The scan measures the rate of gastric emptying at 1, 2, 3, and 4 hours. When more than 10 percent of the meal is still in the stomach at 4 hours, the diagnosis of gastroparesis is confirmed.

• Breath test. After ingestion of a meal containing a small amount of isotope, breath samples are taken to measure the presence of the isotope in carbon dioxide, which is expelled when a person exhales. The results reveal how fast the stomach is emptying.

• SmartPill. Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2006, the SmartPill is a small device in capsule form that can be swallowed.The device then moves through the digestive tract and collects information about its progress that is sent to a cell phone-sized receiver worn around your waist or neck. When the capsule is passed from the body with the stool in a couple of days, you take the receiver back to the doctor, who enters the information into a computer.

How is gastroparesis treated?

Treatment of gastroparesis depends on the severity of the symptoms. In most cases, treatment does not cure gastroparesis—it is usually a chronic condition. Treatment helps you manage the condition so you can be as healthy and comfortable as possible.

Medication

Several medications are used to treat gastroparesis. Your doctor may try different medications or combinations to find the most effective treatment. Discussing the risk of side effects of any medication with your doctor is important.

• Metoclopramide (Reglan). This drug stimulates stomach muscle contractions to help emptying. Metoclopramide also helps reduce nausea and vomiting. Metoclopramide is taken 20 to 30 minutes before meals and at bedtime. Side effects of this drug include fatigue, sleepiness, depression, anxiety, and problems with physical movement.

• Erythromycin. This antibiotic also improves stomach emptying. It works by increasing the contractions that move food through the stomach. Side effects include nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps.

• Domperidone. This drug works like metoclopramide to improve stomach emptying and decrease nausea and vomiting. The FDA is reviewing domperidone, which has been used elsewhere in the world to treat gastroparesis. Use of the drug is restricted in the United States.

• Other medications. Other medications may be used to treat symptoms and problems related to gastroparesis. For example, an antiemetic can help with nausea and vomiting. Antibiotics will clear up a bacterial infection. If you have a bezoar in the stomach, the doctor may use an endoscope to inject medication into it to dissolve it.

• There is a relatively NEW treatment for gastroparesis that this text did not cover but that the study above suggested.  That treatment was Weight Loss Surgery.  Again, I must state that I am NOT a medical "Expert" but I am merely stating what the study suggested.

Dietary Changes

Changing your eating habits can help control gastroparesis. Your doctor or dietitian may prescribe six small meals a day instead of three large ones. If less food enters the stomach each time you eat, it may not become overly full. In more severe cases, a liquid or pureed diet may be prescribed.

I am again interjecting here to say that those of us who have HAD the weight loss surgery are FORCED to follow this suggestion of a changed pattern of eating behavior.  While we often do not resort to such extreme measures as the liquid or pureed diet for LIFE as suggested above, we usually (I do STRESS the word USUALLY) avoid the High FAT foods as suggested below.  Many of us DO try to eat a diet high in FIBER though.  I do not know how they would affect a person that suffers from Gastroperesis and has had Weight Loss Surgery.  Those issues were not addressed in the research.

The doctor may recommend that you avoid high-fat and high-fiber foods. Fat naturally slows digestion—a problem you do not need if you have gastroparesis—and fiber is difficult to digest. Some high-fiber foods like oranges and broccoli contain material that cannot be digested. Avoid these foods because the indigestible part will remain in the stomach too long and possibly form bezoars.

Feeding Tube

If a liquid or pureed diet does not work, you may need surgery to insert a feeding tube. The tube, called a jejunostomy, is inserted through the skin on your abdomen into the small intestine. The feeding tube bypasses the stomach and places nutrients and medication directly into the small intestine. These products are then digested and delivered to your bloodstream quickly. You will receive special liquid food to use with the tube. The jejunostomy is used only when gastroparesis is severe or the tube is necessary to stabilize blood glucose levels in people with diabetes.

Personally, I think I would try Weight Loss Surgery BEFORE going this route!  Just MY personal choice though. 

Parenteral Nutrition

Parenteral nutrition refers to delivering nutrients directly into the bloodstream, bypassing the digestive system. The doctor places a thin tube called a catheter in a chest vein, leaving an opening to it outside the skin. For feeding, you attach a bag containing liquid nutrients or medication to the catheter. The fluid enters your bloodstream through the vein. Your doctor will tell you what type of liquid nutrition to use.

This approach is an alternative to the jejunostomy tube and is usually a temporary method to get you through a difficult period with gastroparesis. Parenteral nutrition is used only when gastroparesis is severe and is not helped by other methods.

Gastric Electrical Stimulation

A gastric neurostimulator is a surgically implanted battery-operated device that releases mild electrical pulses to help control nausea and vomiting associated with gastroparesis. This option is available to people whose nausea and vomiting do not improve with medications. Further studies will help determine who will benefit most from this procedure, which is available in a few centers across the United States.

Again, I think I would try Weight Loss Surgery BEFORE going this route!

Botulinum Toxin

The use of botulinum toxin has been associated with improvement in symptoms of gastroparesis in some patients; however, further research on this form of therapy is needed.

What if I have diabetes and gastroparesis?

The primary treatment goals for gastroparesis related to diabetes are to improve stomach emptying and regain control of blood glucose levels. Treatment includes dietary changes, insulin, oral medications, and, in severe cases, a feeding tube and parenteral nutrition.

As the study above suggested, often controlling the diabetes will allow the person suffering from gastroparesis to control THAT as well.  If you are obese, the Weight Loss Surgery CAN be a VERY effective tool in getting your blood sugar BACK under control WITHOUT the use of medication.

Dietary Changes

The doctor will suggest dietary changes such as six smaller meals to help restore your blood glucose to more normal levels before testing you for gastroparesis. In some cases, the doctor or dietitian may suggest you try eating several liquid or pureed meals a day until your blood glucose levels are stable and the symptoms improve. Liquid meals provide all the nutrients found in solid foods, but can pass through the stomach more easily and quickly.

Once again, those of us who have HAD the weight loss surgery are FORCED to follow this suggestion of a changed pattern of eating behavior.  While we often do not resort to such extreme measures as the liquid or pureed diet for LIFE as suggested above.

Insulin for Blood Glucose Control

If you have gastroparesis, food is being absorbed more slowly and at unpredictable times. To control blood glucose, you may need to

• take insulin more often or change the type of insulin you take
• take your insulin after you eat instead of before
• check your blood glucose levels frequently after you eat and administer insulin whenever necessary

Your doctor will give you specific instructions for taking insulin based on your particular needs.

Hope through Research

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases’ Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition supports basic and clinical research into gastrointestinal motility disorders, including gastroparesis. Among other areas, researchers are studying whether experimental medications can relieve or reduce symptoms of gastroparesis, such as bloating, abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting, or shorten the time the stomach needs to empty its contents following a meal.

Points to Remember

• Gastroparesis is the result of damage to the vagus nerve, which controls the movement of food through the digestive system. Instead of moving through the digestive tract normally, the food is retained in the stomach.  this text as filler so that a bullet soes not show wOnce again I nInce again I Once again eOnceedhen  Once again I need to interject and state that this is the OLD way of looking at the problem.  According to the research above, not all the cases of gastroparesis would be caused by vagus nerve damage.  Many, if not MOST, would be caused by high blood sugar levels causing a rise in the neurotransmitter NPY1.

• Gastroparesis may occur in people with type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes. The vagus nerve becomes damaged after years of high blood glucose, resulting in gastroparesis. In turn, gastroparesis contributes to poor blood glucose control..   I will use this text as filler soOnce again I I Once again need tOncOncee again hat a Once again I need repeat what I stated above.

• Symptoms of gastroparesis include early fullness, abdominal pain, stomach spasms, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, bloating, gastroesophageal reflux, lack of appetite, and weight loss.

• Gastroparesis is diagnosed with tests such as x rays, manometry, and gastric emptying scans.

• Treatment includes dietary changes, oral medications, adjustments in insulin injections for people with diabetes, a jejunostomy tube, parenteral nutrition, gastric neurostimulators, or botulinum toxin.  The lateThe latest TreTHEThe  atstt  The Latesrt treatment  suggested for this disorder is Weight The Latest iweTH  The latest treatment suggested for this disorder is Weight Loss Surgery.  Once again, I must state that I am NOT a medical EXPERT.  I am merely stating what the research suggested.

The U.S. Government does not endorse or favor any specific commercial product or company. Trade, proprietary, or company names appearing in this document are used only because they are considered necessary in the context of the information provided. If a product is not mentioned, the omission does not mean or imply that the product is unsatisfactory.

THIS article (Disordered gastric motor function in diabetes mellitus by M. Horowitz and R. Fraser) states that , "Gastric emptying is abnormal in about 50% of diabetic patients." (The article can be found HERE: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t777t34672825073/). The full article follows:

Summary: The application of novel investigative techniques has demonstrated that disordered gastric motility occurs frequently in diabetes mellitus. Gastric emptying is abnormal in about 50% of diabetic patients and delay in gastric emptying of nutrient-containing meals is more common than rapid emptying. The blood glucose concentration influences gastric motility in diabetes. In IDDM patients, gastric emptying is retarded during hyperglycaemia and may be accelerated by hypoglycaemia. Gastroparesis therefore does not necessarily reflect irreversible autonomic neuropathy and blood glucose concentrations must be monitored when gastric motility is evaluated in diabetic patients. There is a poor relationship between gastric emptying and gastrointestinal symptoms and the mechanisms by which abnormal motility causes symptoms are unclear. The introduction of new gastrokinetic drugs has improved therapeutic options for the management of symptomatic patients with gastroparesis considerably. The contribution of disordered gastric emptying to poor glycaemic control is unclear, but the demonstration that the rate of gastric emptying is a major factor in normal blood glucose homeostasis suggests that this is likely to be significant.

Combine the 2 pieces of information and you have the possibility that there may be up to HALF of the uncontrolled diabetics suffering from gastroparesis with a large part of THOSE suffering from gastric distension due to pyloric valve problems caused by the diabetes itself.

I found another article about GERD and the role of role of the lower esophageal sphincter. The article is titled "Physiology of reflux disease: role of the lower esophageal sphincter" by P. F. Crookes (The full article can be found HERE:  http://www.springerlink.com/content/851h78051112m121/fulltext.html). In it the article mentions the historical struggle with understanding GERD and the influence of the disease on the creation of the current technology of laproscopic procedures. The article also comments that there are basically two schools of thought regarding GERD with one looking at the disease from the viewpoint of having the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) basically damaged to the point where it no longer keeps the stomach’s contents in place because it can no longer exert enough pressure and the other camp thinking of the disease as basically the contents of the stomach being pressurized to the point where the pressure overcomes the ability of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) to contain the stomach’s contents any longer. The author of the article attempts to bring the 2 camps together and explains that they are like the six blind men in a poem by John Godfrey Saxe:

It was six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind.

Each of the blind men grab a different part of the elephant and each describe something completely different than the other. Each believes that he has the "TRUE" picture of the elephant but he only has PART of the picture.

My concern with this article has little to do with GastroEsophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) but with one of the possible underlying causes mentioned in this article. I will take a PORTION of his article and quote it in it’s entirety. The numbers that you see in brackets in the quote are for references that the author used in his work. I have not copied them to my work. If you would like the references, follow the link above to get them from his article. There was also a figure that I did not include that is referenced in the article. If you want to see the figure, use the link above.

"We hypothesized that some elements of the modern diet predispose patients to reflux by reducing the resting parameters of the LES. One dominant feature of the western diet known to cause gastric distention is the consumption of carbonated beverages. Like many epidemiologic trends in this country, such as the incidence of reflux disease and obesity, the consumption of carbonated beverages is also greatly increasing. It is estimated that approximately 1.3 billion products of the Coca-Cola Company are drunk every day. The average American drinks 53 gallons of soft drinks per year. This environmental change is just one of many factors that could potentially contribute to the development of GERD.

We recently reported the changes that occur in the resting LES parameters after ingestion of carbonated beverages [24]. Although the situation is not completely physiologic, in that the examined subjects were lying flat on the manometry couch, there is a clear and consistent reduction of pressure, abdominal length, and overall length of the LES after ingestion of widely varied carbonated drinks, from cola with and without caffeine to sparkling water (Fig. 1). It has been known for a long time that many foodstuffs typical of a western diet cause a reduction in LES pressure, but no previous study showed a change in the morphology of the LES as a consequence of gastric distention. Experimental work by Mason et al. [25] produced similar changes in the morphology of the LES by inducing gross gastric distention in anesthetized baboons with the pylorus ligated. Because of the artificial environment in this animal preparation, the relevance of the findings to typical reflux has been disputed. The results of our study, however, indicate that an individual can induce similar morphologic changes by drinking a can of typical carbonated beverage, and because three beverages (cola, caffeine-free cola, and sparkling water) produced comparable effects, it seems intuitively likely that the presence of carbonation and distention of the fundus is responsible. We hypothesize that in patients with normal LES parameters studied in the laboratory, the consumption of these materials may reduce the resting LES status to a level normally regarded as defective if it occurs in a fasting patient. It is thus clear that LES pressure and length measured in a fasting patient represent the optimal performance of which the LES is capable. By extension, if the LES is found to be defective when measured in the manometry laboratory in the fasting state, it will deteriorate even further after a meal.

I will skip some stuff to another part of the article that interests me:

"Obesity

The contribution of obesity to GERD is controversial. It is widely believed to be causative, and most treating physicians faced with an overweight patient recommend weight loss as a part of their overall advice. Epidemiologic studies from the NHANES III survey and other more limited surveys, such as that from Olmstead County, Minnesota, have shown a stepwise increase in the reporting of GERD symptoms and patients admitted with a GERD-related diagnosis as body mass index (BMI) increases [29, 30]. However, the category of greatest weight was a BMI of 30 or higher, and there was no attempt to identify whether greater degrees of obesity produced a greater incidence of GERD. Contrary to widespread belief, we found that morbid obesity is rare among patients presenting to a foregut clinic (Fig. 3), and that the incidence of hiatal herniation was no greater among morbidly obese subjects than among healthy volunteers. It may well be that the prevalence of GERD follows a parabolic pattern with weight increasing to a BMI in the region of 30 kg/m², but that above this weight, serious reflux disease becomes rarer.

I postulate that the reason that they found fewer obese patients with GERD was that people with the stronger lower esophageal sphincter are not subject as often to GERD and keep the pressure INSIDE the stomach where it causes the stomach walls to distend. This distension of the stomach walls causes the stomach to grow ever larger and the patient to grow ever more obese as he consumes more carbonated beverages and food to fill the ever growing stomach. I am not a medical expert. But the evidence I have seen and put together here seems fairly convincing, I think.

Hugh

 

 

Take this for what it's worth.  I am telling you up front that I am NOT an "Expert" on Weight Loss Surgery.  I encourage EVERYONE to RESEARCH EACH surgical option FOR THEMSELVES!  THIS is the information that I have found in MY research.  I have posted it here for people in an effort to help GUIDE folks and help them START their OWN journey into their OWN research.

There are a LOT of differences in the different types of surgical procedures.  There are a LOT of differences in different SURGEONS.  Some surgeons require more of their patients than others.  Some PROCEDURES require more of the patient than others.  You need to do some research and find the BEST fit for YOU.  I just had a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy 3 weeks ago.  My surgeon did NOT require me to lose weight.  I had a BMI of 43.6.  Now that isn't NEARLY as bad as many people.  Had I been HEAVIER, he may HAVE required it.  I don't know.  What I CAN tell you is that I was having problems with arthritis in my knees and my shoulder.  That was three weeks ago.  Now it is almost GONE.  There is just a TWINGE every now and again but NOTHING NEAR the constant agony that I was in before!  I was also a Diabetic 3 weeks ago.  I have had to DROP all of my diabetes medications a few days ago because the ONE glucovance pill that I was taking caused me to have my blood sugar to DROP to 53 POINTS!  My sugars are still a LITTLE high, but under 150 and WITHOUT medication!  In a FEW weeks with some MORE weight loss, I figure that my diabetes will be in COMPLETE remission!  I have lost 36 pounds in a little over 3 weeks with my surgery and it was done WITHOUT feeling HUNGRY! 

Here is a link to a site on AOL that gives you a brief overview of the most common weight loss surgeries plus one that is not quite so common.  It will give you an idea of what these surgeries are about but does not go into much detail.  Here is the link:  http://www.aolhealth.com/condition-center/obesity/weight-loss-surgery?icid=1615984945x1203971396x1200410494 .

From what I have learned, your MAIN options are the LapBand, the Vertical Banded Gastroplasty, the Gastric Bypass, The Duodenal Switch and the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy.  There are other options, I am sure, but these are the most common that I have found.  There are also combinations of these options ALSO available such as the Banded Duodenal Switch, the Banded Gastric Bypass, and the Banded Sleeve Gastrectomy.  The Banded options are basically the same as the Regular surgeries but they have a LapBand added as additional insurance in case of future need.

The LapBand: (http://www.obesityhelp.com/content/wlsurgery.html#LapBand) is well known.  It basically squeezes the stomach to make it smaller and creates a pouch with a restriction at the top of the stomach which fills quickly and empties slowly.  The advantages of this surgery are that it is reversible if needed and it is adjustable if needed.  It is a HIGHLY flexible procedure.  This surgery is well known and excepted by many insurance companies.  It may be best for people who have a history of cancer either themselves or in their family and may need to take chemo-therapy and for women in childbearing years who may become pregnant.  There are also other reasons for wanting this type of surgery, but I don't want to spend ALL day writing this.  There is an effective Excess body weight loss over 3 to 5 years of 50% to 60% noted in some studies.  The PROBLEM with this option is that there are sometimes complications with this device.  Some people have a reaction to the foreign object in their body.  People with immune issues should NOT have this device.  Lupus and MS patients for example, can have a reaction to the foreign body and it may trigger an immune system response.  Other issues with the LapBand are that it is common for the band to "Slip" on the stomach and cause the pouch to enlarge thus causing the person with the device to eat more and negating the purpose of the surgery.  Some surgeons have started stitching the band to the stomach to prevent this from happening.  It would be wise to ask your surgeon if you are considering this option if he does this.  Other times people have learned to "Eat around the Band" and force the food PAST the band to fill up the rest of the stomach and thus defeat the purpose of the band.  Actually, this is an issue with ALL weight loss surgeries.  All can be defeated by a patient who is either ignorant or intent on doing so.  It seems to be MORE common with the Banded options, however.  Another issue with Banded options is that occasionally the bands will erode the outside lining of the stomach causing damage to the stomach that often needs repairs and calls for a removal of the band and or a revision to some other type of weight loss option.  This happens in about less than 1% of the LapBand Surgeries but it IS something that needs to be taken into consideration.

I have recently stumbled upon an EXCELLENT video showing an operation that features a LapBand Weight Loss Surgery!   CAUTION!  THE VIDEO IS GRAPHIC!  IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH, I SUGGEST that you just START the video and put it in the background somewhere and LISTEN!  There is some GREAT INFORMATION given during the procedure and I found it to be QUITE FASCINATING!  The link can be found HERE: 
http://www.or-live.com/duluthclinic/2040/event/rnh.cfm?

 In the Vertical Banded Gastroplasty: (http://www.obesityhelp.com/content/wlsurgery.html#VBG) (commonly known as stomach stapling) the surgeon makes a cut into the stomach to create a pouch.  He sews the pouch and places a band at the bottom of the pouch.  This banded option has less chance of the band slipping since the cut in the stomach holds it into place.  It also has the advantage of being somewhat reversible but is not as easily reversible as the LapBand.  It is NOT as well known as it's more famous banded cousin, the LapBand.  There my be difficulties in getting this option with some insurance companies.  It has many of the advantages and disadvantages of the LapBand surgery with the exception that the Band does not tend to slip and let the pouch expand.

An excellent link that better explains the pros and cons of this procedure than I can can be found here: http://obesitysurgerynjnyct.com/weight-loss-surgery-options.html.   It also discusses some of the other procedures to some extent.

 The Gastric Bypass:  ( http://www.obesityhelp.com/content/wlsurgery.html#RNY) is made when the surgeon cuts the TOP of the stomach off and creates a pouch.  An OLDER version of this surgery left the stomach intact but had a line of staples that was used to create the pouch.  This method is no longer in use much if at all.  The surgeon then takes a length of intestine and BYPASSES it.  He takes the LOOSE end that is still attached to the intestines and sews it to the SIDE of the pouch that was created from the TOP of the stomach.  The BYPASSED intestine is then attached to the side of the intestine that was connected to the pouch so that BILE from the bile duct can empty bile from the liver into the intestine.  This option is often the DARLING of insurance companies.  Many companies that won't pay for any OTHER Weight Loss Surgeries will pay for THIS one.  THAT makes THIS surgery quite popular for many surgeons!  This surgery has the advantage of being a HIGHLY effective tool in the arsenal of weapons against the foe obesity!  It has an effective rate of weight loss and maintenance of 60 to 80% in some studies at 1 to 2 years.   The DOWNSIDE of this weight loss option is that there issues of malabsortion of minerals and vitamins due to the bypassed intestine.   This often leaves the patient reliant on his doctor for the special supplements required to maintain his or her health.  Other issues are dumping, nausea, and vomiting.  Dumping is basically when you have diarrhea that is caused by the intestine's inability to absorb the food that was eaten.  Along with the diarrhea can come intestinal cramping, sweating, palpitations and other unpleasant side effects.  Some people experience dumping with sweets. Others experience it with fats.  Each person seems to have their own issues but whatever they are, they cause them to excrete the food that they ate before it was fully digested.  Nausea and vomiting, while experienced by many in ALL weight loss surgeries is NOT experienced by ALL.  It does seem to be MORE PREVALENT in the GASTRIC BYPASS and DUODENAL SWITCH patients according to the research that I have seen.  The gas and foul smelling stool are also a result of the shortened digestive process due to the bypassed intestine in both the Gastric Bypass and the Duodenal Switch.

I have recently stumbled upon an EXCELLENT video showing an operation that features a Gastric Bypass (otherwise known as the Roux-en-Y)!   CAUTION!  THE VIDEO IS GRAPHIC!  IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH, I SUGGEST that you just START the video and put it in the background somewhere and LISTEN!  There is some GREAT INFORMATION given during the procedure and I found it to be QUITE FASCINATING!  The link can be found HERE: http://www.or-live.com/PinnacleHealth/2119/event/rnh.cfm?

"Mini Gastric Bypass": 
This was quite popular a while back but there where problems that were soon discovered that KEPT the procedure from REMAINING a popular option. You can read MORE about this procedure at this site: http://ezinearticles.com/?Mini-Gastric-Bypass---The-Ideal-Weight-Loss-Solution&id=361143 . What follows is a direct copy of the entry for the post on the Mini Gastric Bypass in the section defining the procedure under the Variations of the Gastric Bypass in WikiPedia. "Loop Gastric bypass ("Mini-gastric bypass"): The first use of the gastric bypass, in 1967, used a loop of small bowel for re-construction, rather than a Y-construction as is prevalent today. Although simpler to create, this approach allowed bile and pancreatic enzymes from the small bowel to enter the esophagus, sometimes causing severe inflammation and ulceration of either the stomach or the lower esophagus. If a leak into the abdomen occurs, this corrosive fluid can cause severe consequences. Numerous studies show the loop reconstruction (Billroth II gastrojejunostomy) works more safely when placed low on the stomach, but can be a disaster when placed adjacent to the esophagus. Thus even today thousands of "loops" are used for general surgical procedures such as ulcer surgery, stomach cancer and injury to the stomach, but bariatric surgeons abandoned use of the construction in the 1970s, when it was recognized that its risk is not justified for weight management. The Mini-Gastric Bypass, which uses the loop reconstruction, has been suggested as an alternative to the Roux en-Y procedure, due to the simplicity of its construction, which reduced the challenge of laparoscopic surgery. It is claimed that construction of a long tubular gastric pouch reduces the risk of inflammatory complications, and renders it as safe as the RNY technique." While it has been CLAIMED that the change to a longer tubular Gastric pouch reduces the risk of inflammatory complications, there is little research that PROVES it. If you are interested in having this procedure done, keep this in mind. The entry for Gastric Bypass in WikiPedia can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_bypass_surgery . Here is a short animation that shows what is done for the Mini Gastric Bypass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFQPLF9IjtI .

 The Duodenal Switch: (http://www.obesityhelp.com/content/wlsurgery.html#DS ) is the STRONGEST tool in this arsenal of weapons!  Many surgeons think it shouldn't be used lightly and often only recommend the procedure for people with a body mass index OVER 50!  In the Duodenal Switch, the surgeon REMOVES approximately 85% of the stomach including MOST of the region of the stomach that produces the hormone grehlin.  Grehlin is one of the hormones that create HUNGER.  Removing the section of the stomach that creates hunger is a HUGE feature of this procedure.  The surgeons then sew the rest of the stomach back together and create a tube shaped stomach that resists stretching.  The stomach varies in size depending on the surgeon and the patient but can be anywhere from 2 ounces to 6 ounces.  Perhaps more.  The next step of this procedure involves bypassing the intestine just like in the Gastric Bypass.  Instead of attaching the intestine to the SIDE of the stomach, it is attached to the BOTTOM of the stomach where the intestine used to exit.  The bypassed intestine is then sewn at one end near the liver and the far end of the intestine is sewn to the intestine that was attached to the stomach to pass bile to the intestines as it does in the gastric bypass.  This procedure is MORE efficient than the Gastric Bypass in losing weight.  This option has an effective rate of weight loss and maintenance of 70 to 90% in those same studies.  The downside when compared to the Gastric Bypass is that Insurance companies often do not know of this option and are often reluctant to pay for it.  This option has many of the same issues as the Gastric Bypass.  There are some severe malabsorbtion issues.  There are often issues with dumping, nausea, vomiting, GERD (acid reflux), gas and foul smelling stools.  Many surgeons have been reluctant to perform this surgery due to the severity of the complications that can arise.  This is why it is often reserved for those who are considered severely morbidly obese.  Many surgeons had looked for an alternative to this surgery which lead to what was initially considered a "Half Duodenal Switch" or as it later became known, the "Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy."

I have recently stumbled upon an EXCELLENT video showing an operation that features a Duodenal Switch!   CAUTION!  THE VIDEO IS GRAPHIC!  IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH, I SUGGEST that you do not watch!  There is NO AUDIO during the procedure but I found it to be QUITE FASCINATING!  It HELPS if you have STUDIED what goes on in this type of surgery since there is NO COMMENTARY. 

To get a better idea of what goes on in THIS type of surgery, I suggest you watch the videos for the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy, which will give you an idea of what happens in the FIRST part of this surgery, and also watch the video for the Gastric Bypass which will give you an idea of what goes on in the SECOND part of the video for the SWITCH part.  THEN watch the videos that follow.

The link for the Sleeve segment of the surgery can be found HERE (it is a WMP download of a video clip that is approximately 9 minutes in length--be patient):  http://www.advancedobesitysurgery.com/images/Lap%20Duodenal%20Switch%20Full%20WMV.wmv

Here is where you can find the section on the SWITCH part of the procedure (this segment is only a WMP download of 3 minutes and 36 seconds long): http://www.advancedobesitysurgery.com/images/
Duodenal%20Switch%20D-I%20Clip%20WMV.wmv

A digitalized and sanitized "Cutaway view" of the procedure can be found here to help better visualize what this procedure is about.  The video has no voice-over or writing and is self explanatory.  It is only One minute and seven seconds long so take some time and view it.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRzchYqUETs&feature=related

Some of these clips and MORE information about this type of surgery and OTHERS can be found HERE: http://www.gastricbypasssanfrancisco.com/duodenal-switch-interactive.htm

 The Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy:  (http://www.obesityhelp.com/content/wlsurgery.html#VSG) (if you get the same picture as the Vertical Banded Gastroplasy, just scroll UP) is a GREAT tool to use in the fight against obesity.  While not QUITE as effective as the Duodenal Switch, it is often JUST as effective as the Gastric Bypass without the severity of the side effects of EITHER of those two options.  The Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy initially started as an attempt to create a safer Duodenal Switch alternative.  While early attempts were not as successful in weight loss reduction, this was mainly due to the fact that the surgeons were relying on the larger size stomach often used for the Duodenal Switch patients who often rely on the "Switch" part of the surgery for some of the weight loss.  Once the surgeons started reducing the size of the STOMACH, the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy became a much more effective tool at helping the patient loose weight.  In the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy, the stomach is cut and approximately 85% of it is removed.  Just like the Duodenal Switch, most of the cells that produce the hormone grehlin are removed.  This eliminates most of the hunger that the patient used to have, if not all of it.  The stomach that is made from what is left is turned into a tube that is resistant to stretching.  This tube is often designed to hold from 2 to 4 ounces of food or liquid.  At this point the surgery is complete.  The surgeons just need to close up and the patient needs to recover.  The upside to this surgery is that it is simple and has one of the LOWEST rates of complications of all the weight loss surgeries.  It also has one of the HIGHEST rates of excess weight loss with one study in California coming in starting at 58% to 77.9% loss in a ONE to TWO year study and one doctor in England reporting that 100% of his patients had a weight loss and maintenance OVER 70% at 6 YEARS of living with the Sleeve.  He also reported that patients with hypertension, diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance, obstructive sleep apnea, asthma, or arthritis were all cured or improved after surgery.  It has also been said that this is the ONLY recommended option for people with immune system problems.  People with diseases like Lupus or MS can have this procedure because there is NO foreign object placed in their body.  This also is one of the few recommended options for people with organ transplants.  People with transplants need their intestines to metabolize their anti rejection medications.  There are possible issues with GERD in this surgery as there are with the Duodenal Switch There are NO malabsorbtion issues with this surgery.  There are NO additional foul odors.  There is NO additional intestinal gas.  While nausea and vomiting is common in ALL weight loss surgeries, it is NO MORE PREVALENT in the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy than in most of the other options.  If needed, the Vertical Sleeve Gastrecomy can be easily converted to a Duodenal Switch should additional Weight Loss measures need to be taken at a later date.  This act is called a "Revision."  Having your Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy converted to a Duodenal Switch would be said to be having a, "Revision of your Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy to a Duodenal Switch."

The Biggest DOWNSIDE to the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy is that it is considered "Experimental" by many insurance companies.  While it has not been practiced HERE in the US as a weight loss option for very long (about 5 years or so) it has been done for QUITE a while in Central and South America and in Europe for quite some time.  The surgery has been used HERE in the US for OTHER reasons for QUITE a while.  It has been used QUITE effectively to treat stomach cancers and ulcers with good effect.  These treatments have been done in the US for quite some time.

Options for getting surgeries that are not paid for by insurance can be found if you are persistent.  You can sometimes petition the company and get them to reconsider with a doctor's explanation.  You can also self pay or take out a loan.  Many times, the surgeries are cheaper in Mexico or other central or South American countries.  Do some research to find your options.

I have recently stumbled upon an EXCELLENT video showing an operation that features a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy!  Credit for this find MUST go to geauxtigers!  I clicked on a post that geauxtigers had made telling of a Video of a VSG.  Here I found THIS GEM!  CAUTION!  THE VIDEO IS GRAPHIC!  IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH, I SUGGEST that you just START the video and put it in the background somewhere and LISTEN!  There is some GREAT INFORMATION given during the procedure and I found it to be QUITE FASCINATING!  The link can be found HERE: http://www.or-live.com/ololrmc/2002/event_flash/rnh.cfm?

The StomaphyX:
 
There is a NEW bariatric procedure that has just come out.  It is called the StomaphyX Procedure.  Basically there is NO cutting involved.  The surgeon just goes in through the esophagus and puts some spike like devices into the wall of the stomach at two points in the wall and draws the walls of the stomach up.  He does this at various areas around the stomach until he has reduced the VOLUME that the stomach can hold by basically FOLDING the wall of the stomach in upon itself.  At the moment there seems to be no long term studies on weight loss results but if you are in need and are willing to try it then it may be worth the cost.  From what I have seen, the cost of the procedure is about $9,000.00 here in the US.  I don't know if you can get the job done in Mexico yet.  Recovery time seems to be very short with some of the comments saying that folks were back to work the next day.  At the moment the procedure seems to be used mostly to help folks with the Gastric Bypass that have started to regain weight after they initially have lost weight with weight loss surgery.  According to Wikipedia, it can also be used for some OTHER weight loss surgeries such as the Duodenal Switch and the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy.  The link to themorbidme.com stated that the procedure could eventually be used as a stand alone procedure as another weapon in the arsenal in the battle against obesity.   There is a link that talks about the procedure here: http://www.obesityhelp.com/ohblog/mode,content/cmsID,10601/ .  Another EXCELLENT link that talks about the possibility of this procedure being used for more than Gastric Bypass patients can be found HERE:  http://www.themorbidme.com/2007/09/stomaphyx-incis.html . Wikipedia has more to add to the subject and the link can be found HERE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StomaphyX .


Not every surgery is going to be right for every person.  Frankly, for ME, if I were an obese male with a BMI under 50 (which I am) or an obese woman NOT of child bearing age, I would choose the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (which I DID).  If I were an obese male with a BMI OVER 50, I would get the Duodenal Switch.  If my insurance company would not COVER it, I would get the Sleeve.  If not THAT, then the Gastric Bypass.  I would keep working my way down the list until I found SOMETHING that I could get.  If the insurance company wouldn't pay, I would try to take out a LOAN (this is actually what my wife did for me).  If I were a WOMAN of child bearing years or a person facing the possibility of chemotherapy or some other health issues that would require periods when I would NEED more sustenance, I would want the flexibility of the LapBand.  Not enough is KNOWN about the StomaphyX procedure for anyone to have an educated opinion yet.  The short of it is, Do YOUR RESEARCH and CHOOSE the right surgical option for YOU!  If you can't get ONE option for a reason, at least get another!  For the sake of yourself and the ones you love, do SOMETHING to fix the problem before it is too late.  If you die due to health problems caused by obesity, it is TOO LATE!

 Whatever surgical option you choose, for whatever REASON you choose, we are ALL here for the same reason.  We are here to HELP and BE HELPED.  Please, let's respect each other.

 I hope this helps

 Hugh.

WELL, WHAT a WEEK!  

My week started with me at 328 pounds.  It ended with me at 318 pounds.  This is a loss of 11 POUNDS in ONE WEEK!  ALL THAT FROM A PROCEDURE THAT DOESN'T EVEN WORK!  Or so I have been told from a self proclaimed "Expert" in Weight Loss Surgeries.  To be fair, the "Expert" did say that I would lose weight to begin with but would regain it.  I have research that proves the "Expert" wrong so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  I ran into this rather unpleasant person while answering a request for information by a young lady that was forwarded to my email mailbox.  This was my REGULAR email mailbox and not the one associated with the account for this site.  The young lady had asked people why they chose their surgery.  I answered and gave her MY story.  MY story was about MY options.  MY options included the LapBand, the Vertical Banded Gastroplasty, the Gastric Bypass and the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy.  There are OTHER types of surgeries out there, but I was not OFFERED them and I did not KNOW of MOST of them so I did not MENTION them.  Almost as soon as I finished my post, I was attacked for spreading inaccuracies about a surgical procedure that I had never even HEARD about, let alone MENTION!  The procedure that I was wrongly accused of maligning was the Duodenal Switch which I LATER found out was the PRECURSOR to the very surgery that I had undergone, the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy!  The Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy, I came to discover, is HALF of the Duodenal Switch!  In the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy, the surgeons remove about 85% of your stomach including most of the section of the stomach that creates the substance called grehlin.  Grehlin is a hormone that is instrumental in producing HUNGER!  Without the cells that produce grehlin, you no longer feel hungry!  The surgeons remove most of the stomach, as I said before, and then sew what is left back into the shape of a tube that holds roughly about 4 ounces of food or liquid.  With the Vertical Sleeve Gastectomy, the surgery stops here.  With the duodenal switch, the surgeons continue and cut a length of intestine out (about 10 feet if I recall correctly) and "Bypass" it.  They hook the end of the intestine that is still attached to the rest of the intestine and hook it up to where the stomach empties into the intestine.  Now, both ends of the "Bypassed" intestine are free.  One end is still hooked up to the bile duct.  The Surgeons close the end closest to the bile duct and hook the end FARTHEST from the bile duct to the intestine that was just re-routed to bypass the section that they just connected.  Now let me say this:  I am just a layman.  I am NOT an expert.  I have just researched this and some of the information MAY be a little off.  I don't THINK it is.  I wouldn't bet my LIFE on it though.  TALK to your SURGEON before making any PERMANENT decisions based on MY information!  I counsel you to do the same regarding ANY information that you get from this website!

Now, the Duodenal Switch is a very powerful tool in the arsenal against the war against obesity.  The procedure, while often effective and with an Excess Body Weight Loss from 70% to 90%, has these issues: 

Malabsorbtion:  While often not as severe as that of the Gastric Bypass,  the Duodenal Switch usually leaves the patient reliant on vitamins to supplement their diet since they cannot get all their nutrients from the foods that they eat.  Occasionally, the Duodenal Switch patient may experience Malabsorbtion issues as severe as those found with the Gastric Bypass patients and he may require supplements that are supplied by his physician

Intestinal gas:  SOME patients suffer from severe bouts of cramping and flatulence due to intestinal gas caused by the undigested food being passed through the intestine made shorter for the switch part of the Duodenal Switch.

Severe nausea:  The nature and causes of this are often varied and unknown.  All weight loss surgeries report incidences of nausea.  It seems more severe with the Duodenal Switch and the Gastric Bypass.

Vomiting:  The nature and causes of this are also often varied and unknown.  All weight loss surgeries report incidences of vomiting.  It seems more severe with the Duodenal Switch and the Gastric Bypass.

There are also issues for people with immune system disorders and it is HIGHLY recommended that these people do NOT get this type of surgery.  Actually people with immune system disorders are really only recommended to get the VSG ONLY!  They are discouraged from getting the banded options as well as the gastric bypass.  The VSG is the ONLY option considered SAFE for people with immune system disorders!  Another group that is highly discouraged from getting this type of surgery are people who have transplanted organs.  Those people who need to take anti-rejection medications are HIGHLY discouraged from having this type of surgery due to the malabsorption issue affecting their medications.  MOST Weight Loss Surgeons prefer the VSG over the Duodenal Switch for people with a BMI under 50.  THIS is the primary reason the Duodenal Switch is not performed by most Weight Loss Surgeons!  They prefer to reserve the DS for those who need a more drastic weight loss regimen.  The same can often be said for the Gastric Bypass.  Many Surgeons seem to prefer to do the Gastric Bypass instead of the Duodenal Switch because it seems to be a simpler surgery for the SURGEON.  The Duodenal Switch is quite comlicated and takes quite a bit of time for the surgeon to complete.  Once again, I am not an EXPERT, but the nature of the two types of surgeries seems to suggest that a surgeon may be able to do MORE Gastric Bypass Surgeries in an allotted amount of time than Duodenal Switch Surgeries.  This MAY be a factor in the overwhelming popularity of the Gastric Bypass when compared to the Duodenal Switch.

Having gone through all that, I didn't KNOW this when I was BROAD SIDED by this person who attacked me from NOWHERE about a surgical option I wasn't even TALKING about!  Our initial discourse was HERE:  http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/amos/a,messageboard/board_id,
4856/cat_id,4456/topic_id,3560305/action,replies/page,2/#28005580
 
After disengaging from combat I went back to my "Home" forum and the folks I had gotten to know if only somewhat in an effort to lick my wounds and find out what kind of person it was I had just run into.  I had my suspicions, but I wanted to know for SURE.  I wrote and posted a thread on the forum that I ignorantly posted in the wrong place.  I also ignorantly used the person's NAME in the post.  The person's name was quickly modified and I was notified that my post had violated the web site's Terms of Service.  I felt bad.  I had read them but frankly, legalese pretty much puts me to sleep mode any more and I sleep-walked my way through the document.  Although my eyes had passed over the words, they apparently didn't register.  I didn't mean to cause trouble with the thread, I just wanted moral support from "MY" people and to get a few, "You did Good's" and, "Yea, I had words with them before." kinds of statements.  In the first few HOURS the thread had something like 200 hits!  I was getting ALL KINDS of statements from folks about how they had dealings  with this person and the "Gang" or "Posse."  Most were posted on the thread but some were PRIVATE messages.  The private messages were telling me that they didn't want to post publicly because they didn't want to be a target.  This person and the "Posse" appears to have had a BIG impact on a certain forum.  They hang out there.  They are all members of this forum and have all had the same surgery.  They all seem to think that their surgery is superior to every one else's and ridicule and harass people who have a different opinion than theirs.  They claim that they are "correcting inaccuracies" but often the spew inaccuracies around themselves like a lawn sprinkler set on HIGH flow!

Once I found out what kind of person I was dealing with, I stopped posting on the poor girl's thread.  I waited until my wife came home and when I could get access to some ACCURATE information (My wife is a nurse Practitioner and has access to information the general public doesn't and knows how to SEARCH for medical information), I made one last post and again, I left the thread.  Then I waited for the "Expert" to come find me.  I was sure that the person would, because that person had that type of personality that just wouldn't leave well enough alone.  Sure enough, like CLOCKWORK, JUST ABOUT when I expected the person to show up, POP!  There they were!  DING!  NEXT ROUND!   The "Expert" started hammering at me again but this time, instead of trying to make her angry, I just tried to answer her questions as reasonably as I could.  I wasn't trying to win her over anymore.  I realized that I couldn't!  This round I was playing for POINTS!  I knew I was going to be judged by everyone who read the thread.  This time I wanted to be sure I got MY information out there so that people could see that I KNEW what I was talking about and that even though I was NEW to the forum, I WASN'T stupid!  The supposed "Expert" tried to WOW me with some documents that meant ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  I dissected them word for word, translated them into layman's terms and then LAUGHED!  I then brought out MY documents to support MY arguments and did the SAME!  MY documents, however, actually SUPPORTED my arguments!  I made the supposed "Expert" look foolish right there!  The exchange went on for a few turns after that but I pretty much stopped the exchange and asked folks not to post before it turned into a name calling contest because I did not want to stoop that low.  The supposed "Expert" however was all too HAPPY to go that low and began launching into just that.  I ignored the  thread until another moderator switched it from the VSG forum to the "RANTS and RAVES" forum which is where I SHOULD have posted it to begin with!  After the change of venue, the thread got NEW legs.  It had already broken the 1000 hit MARK and was CLIMBING!  It was nearing the 2000 hit mark!  I once again posted to the thread and explained what had happened and how this HUGELY POPULAR thread just POPPED into existence right in the Rants and Raves forum and pleaded yet again with people to NOT post to the thread!  At that point, a moderator contacted me and told me via the site's email feature that I could have the thread KILLED if I wanted to.  I told her that I didn't mind if folks SAW the thread, I just didn't want people POSTING to it and providing more TARGETS for this so called "EXPERT" and the POSSE!  At THAT point, the moderator LOCKED the thread.  The last time I saw it it was quickly approaching 3000 hits (at the time of this writing).  If you are curious, the thread can be found at: http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/rantsandraves/a,messageboard/
action,replies/board_id,8418/cat_id,7617/topic_id,3561214/

Another EXCELLENT post I have stumbled on in an effort to MITIGATE the damage being done by my post was THIS one:  http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/rantsandraves/a,messageboard/
action,replies/board_id,8418/cat_id,7617/topic_id,3563775/  .
I t seems to me to be a very concise and well written report about the differences between the various types of surgeries and what can be expected of them.  It explains the POSITIVES and the NEGATIVES of each Succinctly!

The profile for the person who wrote the article has some GREAT reseach that was used in writing the article and provides GREAT information on the VSG Sugery.  The link to her profile where the information is located is HERE:  http://www.obesityhelp.com/member/lkh/

What I don't understand is how the moderators can allow something like this to happen for so long?  It is obvious to ME that this person has had a BIG impact on this community and it seems to me that it has been mostly in a negative way.  This person seems to be so caustic that they drive people away from the very surgery that they claim they are trying to help people GET!  This does not help the people LOOKING at different surgical options, the Forum, or ObesityHelp.com!  I think something needs to be done to STOP this kind of behavior!

I have found a thread that gives useful information in helping find "TROLLS."  Trolls, I have recently discovered, are the "artificial personalities" or "alter egos" created by some people who don't want to be identified when they go to a forum or board to create trouble.  The link that follows gives some useful pointers in helping to identify a "TROLL":
http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/rantsandraves/a,messageboard/
action,replies/board_id,8418/cat_id,7617/topic_id,3537877/

Here is ANOTHER link that is quite amusing and educaional TOO!
This one tells of the different types of "Flame Warriors" you can find on forums like this!  the link can be found HERE:  http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/index.htm


Here is some interesting information that I stumbled upon posted on the VSG board about the LapBand procedure by a CURRENT LapBand owner who is preparing to undergo a revision to Sleeve Gastrectomy because the LapBand FAILED:  http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/VSG/a,messageboard/board_
id,5463/cat_id,5063/topic_id,3569649/action,replies/

 

These are my blog posts from MySpace.  My Myspace name is (Guess what?) HuBarlow!  You can find me on MySpace at:  http://www.myspace.com/hubarlow . My Myspace Blog is at:  http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=219472017 .  I have a blog at AOL that consists of the same information as the MySpace Blog for those of my friends and family that do not have a MySpace account.  It can be found at:  http://journals.aol.com/hughabarlow/the-further-adventures-of-stupor/  .  Please feel free to look at these sites as they contain a bit more blogging than this site does since this site is dedicated to my adventures in getting and living with my Sleeve Gastrectomy.   Sunday, March 16, 2008 I Left My Stomach in Matamoros Update Current mood: grateful Category: Food and Restaurants   Well now: Friday came and I went to my scheduled doctor’s appointment in Matamoros.  THIS time I was not rescheduled to SATURDAY!  My lovely wife had me meet her in Brownsville at her place of employment and from there we went to a co-worker’s house and dropped off the kids.  My wife gave the co-worker some cash so she could take her kid and our 2 boys out for something to eat and we left her car there and crossed into Matamoros in my big old Chevy Van.  We bought the Chevy van from some Winter Texans about a year ago and it was in really good shape for the year.  It is a 1994 G-20 cargo van (that means it is a full sized 3/4 ton van) that was converted to a passenger van by a conversion company and sold at a Chevy dealership in Wisconsin.  The vehicle has over 180,000 miles on it but it has only been driven from the Northern edge of the US to the Southern edge of the US.  The Winter Texans who owned it had a car here that they drove when they got here and they had a car at home up north that they drove when they lived THERE.  All the miles were highway miles.  The thing runs GREAT but uses a TON of gas.  Unlike my wife’s car, the inspection on the VAN is current!  I drive THAT one.  It was a GOOD thing we drove the van to Mexico this time.  Officer "Friendly" was there at the border checking cars again but this time he wasn’t out in front where everyone could see him.  This time, he was standing NEXT to the toll booth operator.  I don’t think he was trying to hide.  The toll booth operator WAS cute!  The problem was, standing next to the toll booth operator made it difficult for us to spot him until we were locked into a lane into a toll booth.  Once we spotted him standing in our lane, changing lanes would have drawn his attention much more surely than shouting and pointing to the expired sticker on the windshield.  Since we drove MY vehicle, it wasn’t an issue and we crossed the border like we WEREN’T the bandits that we are!  ;-)  My appointment was for 4:00 PM and we were a little early.  As we crossed the International Bridge into Matamoros we saw that traffic was backed up WAAAYYYY past Garcia’s.  Traffic was backed up past the turn I usually made to get to Calle Primera (First Street) and was backed up for over a mile.  I am willing to bet that the wait to cross at the International Bridge on Friday at about 3:45 PM was close to 2 and a half to 3 hours by car.  We ended up driving about a mile and a half down the road past the Best Western Hotel and turning near the museum to catch Calle Primera and get to Calle Gonzalez and to my doctor’s office.  We got there with time to spare, entered the waiting room and were called to the office in a very short time.  Once again, I sat in the office as the doctor and my wife chatted in Spanish for quite a while.  I don’t know what they were talking about.  I think they were making plans to meet later.  ;-)  The doctor then asked me the typical questions, "How are you doing?  How do you feel?  Do you feel hungry?"  Stuff like that.  My wife asked him if he was going to weigh me and the doctor then had a sheepish look on his face and said, "I am sorry, one of my patients broke my scale."  Now, let me tell you, this scale was IMPRESSIVE.  It was a TOLEDO scale (which is NOT cheap) and although the measurements were in metric scale, actually went HIGHER than MY weight by about a hundred pounds or so!  I had NEVER seen a scale that went THAT high in a DOCTOR’S office before!  I used to weigh over 400 pounds at one time (back in my 20’s) and I never knew just HOW much I weighed because I could not find a doctor’s scale that could weigh me!  THIS one could have!  It LOOKED like a typical doctor’s scale but I noticed it wasn’t RIGHT AWAY when I went to weigh myself and the weights didn’t even go CLOSE to the edge of the bar like they did on EVERY OTHER doctor’s scale I had ever used!  In order to find out how much I weighed, I used to have to weigh myself on a scale at the MEAT PACKING PLANT that I worked at.  The worst part is, I never got to KNOW just how much I weighed at my heaviest because I had LOST weight BEFORE I started working there!  When I worked THERE, I was over 450 pounds!  Eventually, working hard at the plant, getting ANGRY at myself for allowing things to get THAT far out of hand and thus using that anger to REDUCE my caloric intake and becoming a STRICT VEGETARIAN (yep, I was a strict vegetarian working at a meat packing plant) helped me to drop to 230 pounds.  I was able to maintain THAT until my back went out in college from too much sitting!  I guess I was NOT meant to go into computer programming!  Anyway, as I was saying, some gorilla came in and broke the doctor’s beautiful Toledo scale.  I HATE to THINK of how big the ape was.  He MUST have DWARFED ME!  Yea, I know, It ain’t nice to say things like that about fat people and I should know better being a fat person myself, but this monkey BROKE a beautiful piece of MACHINERY!  I am not calling him an ape because he was FAT but because he was insensitive enough to know he was TOO DAMNED BIG FOR THE SCALE!  Even at my BIGGEST, I NEVER broke a doctor’s scale!  This one was made for BIG PEOPLE!  Fortunately, I had weighed myself that morning before I ate.  I was 328 on Friday morning (I weighed myself this morning and I was 327).  The doctor was impressed with my progress, asked if he could take a picture and asked for permission to use my picture and my story on his website (www.cero-obesidad.com).  I told him that I had NO problem with THAT.  I was then told that I had permission to eat any food I wanted as long as it wasn’t "Crunchy."  This was defined as NO chips, NO fried chicken and NO Raw Veggies.  Everything needed to be "Soft."  I can eat Grilled Chicken but not fried, broiled fish, but not fried, steamed veggies but not raw and baked potatoes but NOT potato CHIPS!  DRAT!  No more vegging out with a bag of Sea Salt and Vinegar flavored Potato chips!    Oh, well.  They were killing me anyway!  After leaving the doctor’s office, my lovely wife treated my big green pig (the G20 Chevy Van) to a FULL TANK of Mexican GAS!  The price per gallon in Matamoros was about $2.80 a gallon.  It looks like the Mexican Government realized that they couldn’t keep the price of gasoline on the border pegged to the price of the US gas like they HAD for a while.  Most Mexicans simply cannot AFFORD $3.15 a gallon for gasoline.  Pemex (the state owned gasoline station and the ONLY gas station ALLOWED in Mexico) gets it’s gas RIGHT OUT OF THE GROUND.  They refine it in MEXICO!  The cost per Gallon (or liter if you prefer) is MINIMAL.  The largest expense the government HAS in dealing with the gasoline is LABOR.  MEXICAN LABOR IS CHEAP!  That is why so many Mexicans COME HERE to find work.  Anyway, we had a couple of Mexican men, young boys really, help fill the van with gas.  One watched the pump while the other washed the windows with a squeegee.  ALL OF THEM.  The Green Pig has the front windshield, the two front door windows, the two BACK door windows, Two SIDE door windows, and then it has THREE "Picture" windows cut into the body.  I told my wife to get him a rag and see if he would wash the van.    My wife tipped the fellow about $2.00 in Pesos and got a look of incredulity from the poor guy.  He just couldn’t believe that someone would pay him EXTRA for doing his job!  We crossed back over the border at the Puente International Port of Tomates which is Mexican for the Veteran’s Memorial International Bridge.  The wait there was about 45 minutes this time.  This time I was driving.  I sat in the lane where the trucks where and as they pulled off to be inspected, we moved up 3 times faster.  Now, the WHOLE LANE wasn’t filled with trucks and CARS from the other lane kept cutting in front of them when they realized what was happening, so that alone kept us from getting out of there in 15 minutes instead of the HOUR it took my wife the LAST time, but the wait WAS significantly shorter.  My wife claimed that the line was shorter this time than last.  I don’t think so.  If it was, it wasn’t by much.  We still started sitting in line on the MEXICAN side of the bridge waiting to get to the security checkpoint.  Once past the checkpoint, my wife asked where I wanted to go for dinner.  I told her that it didn’t matter much to me, that I would be happy to eat nearly ANYTHING.  Her FIRST suggestion was the Golden Corral.  She IMMEDIATELY nixed THAT though because as she said, "It would be a waste of money to take you to a buffet restaurant NOW."  Her next 2 suggestions were both OK with me and she decided that if we couldn’t find Chilli’s right away, we would go to Bennigan’s.  We found Chilli’s right where we thought we would and pulled in.  The parking lot had only one spot open.  We had to wait for a table for about 5 minutes.  Once we were seated and given our menus, the woman asked if we wanted anything to drink.  Barb had tea and I had nothing.  I am not allowed to drink while I eat.  Drinking washes the food out of the stomach and defeats the purpose of the surgery which is weight loss.  I must stop consuming liquids a half hour before I eat and cannot consume liquids until half an hour after I eat.  This allows the food in my stomach to properly digest and not be washed out and leave me feeling empty. The waitress returned and took our order.  My wife had a chicken Fajita Taco.  I had the Chicken Margarita with Mashed Potatoes and black beans.  I was only able to eat 1/3 of the chicken breast and 1/3 of the mashed potatoes.  I never even TOUCHED the black beans.  We took the REST home.  NORMALLY I would have eaten a basket of chips with Pico de Gallo, maybe TWO, had my meal and asked for an extra side such as French Fries or something.  I would have washed all of this down with 5 or 6 glasses of iced tea or diet Pepsi.  My lovely wife ordered an extra burger for her co-worker who was watching the kids and we gave her a call as we left.  She told us that she would meet us at her house and we beat her there.  My lovely wife commented as we left Chilli’s, "It sure is nice to be able to leave a restaurant and not be embarrassed by the amount of food that you ate."  I thought that it was nice to leave the restaurant and not have such a big bill!    One of these days we are going to have to ask the doctor just how big my stomach WAS when he took it out.       Currently watching : Death at a Funeral Release date: 26 February, 2008 5:39 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, March 09, 2008 I Left My Stomach In Matamoros Update Current mood: animated Category: Life   Well:  I was supposed to go see my surgeon on Thursday to have a follow up visit and check up to see if the stitches in the incisions on my abdomen were ready to be removed but it appears that either my wife or the surgeon got things mixed up and either She misunderstood what he was saying or He forgot to put the appointment in the books because when my wife had me call the office in Matamoros to double check on Thursday, I was NOT scheduled for the visit and the doctor was shopping in Brownsville!  That's OK, I guess, because he just rescheduled me for Saturday.  I don't much care for Saturday Visits because they tend to interrupt CHURCH!  What can you do?  The wife is busy during the week and the surgeon seems to prefer a Saturday schedule.  Anyway; after my eldest son's soccer game which was a tie, we raced down to Mexico to meet with my doctor.  This was one week to the day after the surgery.  My wife was impressed with that fact.  She tells me that here in the States, after a surgery such as mine, the earliest you will see your physician for a follow up is 3 weeks.  We get to the border and get ready to cross and my wife starts to sweat bullets.  At the border is a Sheriff's officer.  He seems to be standing in traffic searching cars as they head for the border.  He may be there as part of an initiative to limit the number of stolen cars that actually MAKE it to Mexico but I don't know that for sure.  I do know that there have been a number of initiatives in the past few years to help reduce the number of stolen cars that make it across the border and there has been greater co-operation from Mexico lately in returning the stolen cars that are actually FOUND there.  It is STILL cheaper overall to KEEP the cars from getting to Mexico in the first place.  The last time we crossed, there was one of the Sheriff's Deputies on guard and he warned my wife that her inspection was more than a YEAR past due.  I had reminded her from time to time to take care of it but she kept putting it off, telling me that she was too busy.  Well she FINALLY gut up enough nerve to get the job done and the inspector tole her that she needed a new tail light!  The tail light is fine, there is a SMALL chip missing from the EDGE of the plastic that in NO way affects the FUNCTION of the light.  The entire lighted section of the tail light is intact with all areas that glow red glowing red when needed and all areas that are white fully intact.  There is no way that water can get into the lens to short out the bulb.  The inspector is an IDIOT!  You can drive around Texas with a shattered windshield and pass inspection but you can't have a chip in a TAIL LIGHT?  Anyway, it was going to cost $60 to get a tail light from a junk yard locally.  I went on eBay and found one for $30.  We are still waiting for it.  Needless to say, My wife's car STILL is not inspected!  THAT was why she was sweating bullets at the crossing!  My lovely wife snuck in behind a minivan from out of state and came through just as about 3 other cars were coming through.  The poor guy didn't know which way to look and missed my lovely wife's car.  I would credit my wife with some skill on the maneuver, but I am sure she had NO idea what she did to confuse the guy.  She got through on LUCK!  Having SAFELY made our dash across the border like the dangerous BANDITOS we are, We wended our way to the surgeon's office and waited for him.  We weren't there for more than 15 minutes or so when I was called to the back and told to go to examining room 2.  Once there, Joshua, one of my nurses (and if you ask me, the BEST one) from my stay at the hospital, asked me to wait for a minute.  He told me he would be right back.  I felt some urgency to use the rest facilities in the room and when I returned from doing so, there was a hospital gown draped over the back of a chair which I took as an invitation to take off my shirt, put the gown on and wait.  Joshua was nowhere to be seen.  I did the aforementioned activities and waited about 5 minutes.  The doctor then arrived and asked, "How are you doing?"  I said, "I am well, how are you?"  He then proceeded to ask all the typical doctor questions one would expect such as, "How much are you drinking?" and, "What are you eating?" "Uh, NOTHING?  I'm not SUPPOSED to be eating yet." was my response to THAT one.  He wanted to know if I had been experiencing pain.  "Not much." was my reply.  "Have you been vomiting?"  He asked.  "Not in the least.  Not once.  Not even TEMPTED!" I said.  He then took a look at the incisions.  He told me that they looked to be healing well and that it was time to remove the stitches.  He took out his special little stitch cutting tool and proceeded to pull the stitches on all 5 incisions.  It is such a great relief to get those damned things OUT!  I can now wear a shirt without it rubbing against the ends of the stitches and having them POKE me all the time!  That was QUITE irritating!  I couldn't wear bandages over the stitches and make them lie flat because the heat of the Valley was causing me to sweat.  The sweat was captured UNDER the bandages and it was causing a FUNGAL infection in the incisions.  I needed to keep the incisions CLEAN and UNCOVERED under a shirt in order to keep them from getting infected!  After removing the stitches, the doctor told me that it was time to change my diet and that I could start eating soups with small pieces of vegetables.  He then started asking me questions about rescheduling a follow up appointment.  I told him to speak to my wife about those matters as MY schedule didn't matter, but HERS did.  He then wandered off to the waiting room to find my wife and I proceeded to redress myself.  When I finished, I went to the waiting room expecting to find my wife.  Instead, I found my sons being entertained by one of the sons of the doctor.  As I stood there looking slightly confused, the doctor's wife came out from behind the scheduling desk and ushered me to his office.  The office had been redecorated since my last visit and while there had been 2 chairs for guests before, there was only one now.  There was, however, a nice plush love seat with more than enough plush pillows on it to take up one whole place when they were moved to make room to sit.  I was offered the love seat.  I made room.  I sat.  There was only enough room on the love seat for me and the pillows.  How ANYONE is expected to make LOVE under THOSE conditions I will NEVER know!  ;-)  The doctor and my wife talked scheduling and I really didn't pay much attention.  I know that we are expected back on a Friday afternoon.  I think it is in 2 weeks.  Maybe it is in ONE.  I doubt it.  The doctor then talked to me about my new stomach and the need to treat it gently.  He told me that he was impressed with my recovery so far and that the great reduction in calories seems to have made a great improvement in my energy levels.  He said that I was brighter and that I seemed overall much more healthy now just ONE WEEK after the surgery and that he though I would be pleased with my new lifestyle.  He asked if I had been feeling hunger.  I told him that I had a SMALL amount of hunger but NOWHERE NEAR the amount that I had had before!  This was after having had NO SOLID FOOD FOR A WEEK!  I had been on a liquid diet before with my former intestinal tract intact and I can attest that it was NOT a pleasant experience!  Even being allowed semi-solids like jello, I was ready to tear flesh off my ARM almost every minute of every day that I was on that diet!  I could quiet the hunger pangs BRIEFLY with a Popsicle or jello but it was for no more than 5 or 10 minutes!  NOW, I could go for a week on a liquid diet for the whole time and although I felt some small hunger, it was at the level where, if someone said, "I am going to Taco Bell, do you want something?"  I would say, "Yea, get me a bean burrito or something while you are out."  but I wouldn't be the guy to make the suggestion.  I said if there was ONE thing I was glad for, it was THAT.  I was SO glad to be RID of the overwhelming NEED to eat.  There were times when I would be wakened in the middle of the night, at 3 or 4 in the morning so overwhelmed with the need for food that I couldn't sleep or do anything else until I had eaten a FULL meal.  I could THEN go back to sleep.  I would then wake up in the morning and be hungry enough to eat a full BREAKFAST.  Like everything ELSE in my body, there was something wrong with either a gland in my stomach or in my head that would over produce SOMETHING that would cause me to NEED to get something to eat and cause me to do it more often.  Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to get a pass on my responsibility for binge eating of which I am somewhat responsible for, I admit.  There is a certain amount of Psychology involved as well as PHYSIOLOGY.  I do think that the PHYSIOLOGY was the MAIN driving factor in my weight gain!  A stomach that was WAY too large due to abuse of CARBONATED beverages over the years and a metabolism that was out of whack for reasons unknown.  Our Exit from Mexico was fairly well unadventurous.  About the only thing that can be said was that it took over an hour to cross the border at the crossing where the line is SHORTEST!  Crossing out of Mexico on the weekend is a pain.  Getting out on a Holiday is worse.  I HATE spring break!   6:15 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Tuesday, March 04, 2008 I left my stomach in Matamoros (sung to the tune of I Left My Heart in San Franciso). Current mood: groggy Category: Life   OK: For those who don't already know, I underwent a Sleeve Gastrectomy on Saturday. Basically, this is a laproscopic surgery where they remove about 85% of the stomach and leave basically a banana shaped pouch behind. One of the benefits of this surgery when compared to the other types of surgery is that they also remove the part of the stomach that triggers HUNGER. I am going to be EVER so grateful to be relieved of THAT monster! I've been sleeping quite a bit lately and that is partly due to the need to recover from the surgery and partly as a way to escape from the noise of the kids! Barb has been great and has been staying home to care for me these past few days post op. I feel bad for not contacting people before this but I haven't really been lucid for long enough to write and my sinuses still hurt from the surgery. They must have shoved something like a tube through my nose because my sinuses have been swollen to about the size of grapes and have been hanging down at the back of my throat. It makes talking hurt. The sinuses are recovering, but not as fast as I would like. My right arm is also still numb from where they put the IV drip. The numbness is improving there too but it is taking time. Yesterday, the inside of my forearm and my thumb, index and ring finger were numb. Today it is mostly just my thumb and the tip of my index finger. The actual pain from the surgery has been surprisingly slight it hurts to move, of course, but outside of a few pangs that feel like the cramps I used to have from my spastic colon when I couldn't get to the bathroom fast enough, I haven't had much. The first night I couldn't sleep on my left side. The second night I could if I moved GENTLY over to my side. It is the MOVING that hurts most. I have 5 small incisions in my abdomen. They are pretty much centered on my abdomen with the exception of one that is off to the left. The incisions make the outline of a sort of lopsided "C" starting just above my belly button and ending just under my chest. I have been living on fruit juices, Gatorade and popsicles for the past few days. Today, I have been "upgraded" to soy protein shakes. In a few days I should be able to eat soft foods. Cream of Wheat and mashed potatoes are going to be my fare for the next few weeks. I have been passing quite a bit of gas the past few days. I am told that this is due to the air that the doctors had to pump into my abdomen to perform the laproscopic surgery. I was told that it could cause pain in my shoulders which it didn't seem to do for me and that it would take time to "bleed" out of my system. It appears to be diffusing through my intestinal walls and out at a leisurely pace. I am pretty sure that the gas isn't coming from my food. ;-)   I want to thank all who prayed for me during my surgery and ask them to keep doing so. I need all the help I can get. For those of my friends who do not pray but kept me in mind, thanks, also. Please continue to do so. For those who didn't know about my surgery, now you do. Please pray for me or keep me in mind as you see fit. Anyone with questions can just email me. I will answer them as I can. My love to all of my friends and family that read this and thanks. Hugh   2:08 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove