Janie- About the pain meds, I ended up switching from the liquid vicodin (up to 30 ml every 4 hours) to the pill form and found the pill form helped me more. (This is with the first surgery.) The liquid kicks in really quickly, which is great, but it also wore off really quickly for me. I was only making it 2-3 hours at first. The pills last much longer, but take about 30 minutes to kick in. Just a thought. I hope you are turning a corner. Unless you have obviously muscle distention, my PS will not tighten the abdominal muscles. He said that the muscle tightening causes 95% of the pain, but only give normal patients a small increase in flatness of the abdomin, again, unless your muscle were distended. He just said that he does not do it. Period. It will be interesting to see your results though. I bet you will be super flat when the swelling goes down. I think it will be good for those on this site thinking about abdominal surgeries to be able to compare. I had the LBL with no abdomincal tightening, and you had the TT with tightening and verticle incision. I think there will be a noticable difference in our results. I think you will be tighter and flatter. It will be interesting to compare. Also, you don't have drains, right? I am sure that is why you are holding so much fluid. It is amazing how differently 2 similar surgeries can go?! Good luck on weaning off some of the meds and getting the fluids moving out of your system.

Belle - do you know why they didn't tighten your abdominal muscles? Just curious. I am in so much pain here, ugh this sucks!!!!

Marta, so glad you are home. I sure am glad they took my gall bladder when they did my RNY. Hopefully you will feel much better soon. Take care and get plenty of rest!! Anna

Hi Janie - I was on percocet, but they were giving me such a migrane, I thought my head was gonna blow. The Dr. switched me to Vicadon (sp?) and they are working better. the gas is finally diminishing and my body functions are starting to work again. ( thank god - I was starting to get nervous) I weighed myself this morning and I was down to 161, so it is slowly moving down. I'm sure you will lose your extra "air" soon too, at least once your swelling goes down you will have a nice flat stomach, mine looks more like one of those wrinkley dogs ( the ones with the loose skin).

Holly - I had help last week, Dave's stepmom stayed with the kids at our house and Dave was with me @ the hospital for two days. It was only supposed to be one, but we couldn't get the pain under control. They are in preschool now, so it's not that bad. But I wish I had more help, I can't even cook and I am so tired all of the time. It's doable though. It'll be woth it in the long run I know. Oh, the driving is a pain in the a$$ though. I can't wait until the pain stops. But see Belle is up and around so I guess it depends on what you get. I had the anchor and TT and my adominal muscles tightened. Are you thinking PS?