Hi Everyone

Hi! I know I've been MIA for a little bit. Well, I wasn't able to get to everyone's posts, but hope everyone is doing well or better today. I've been in a rotten slump myself. Gained weight and felt absolutely miserable and achy and just feeling rotten overall!!!!  I lost 4 pounds of it though! and already I feel better. I''m really trying to be careful. Today I had eggs and bacon. (1 egg 2 bacon) and then for lunch I had soup and then my snacks will be 1 apple and 1 banana. Can't go wrong there. Trying desperately to stay away from carbs and sugar! Dinner will be VERY light eating. Like soup. I need to get this weight off. I just feel terrible and swore to myself that I wouldn't gain. I'm the heaviest I've been in a long time and it feels rotten. Emotionally and physically...especially physically! Just cant have that anymore. Gotta get it off. Well! hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving! Christmas is right around the corner! Hard to believe it!

 

((hugs!)) 

Hi Elizabeth, I really hear your anguish and sense a sort of desperation setting in; this is what is driving post-ops toward finding the "revision solution" and while I don't believe one exists without a major overhaul to the original surgery (such as the gastric sleeve), you should definitiely have your system looked at via endoscope. You need to know what's going on in there - what is the size of your pouch and is it within normal range at this stage post-operatively? Also, what is the circumferance of your stoma; if it is very dialated, the food you are eating is bypassing the pouch and going directly into the altered intestinal system, which is causing two very significant results: (1) you are almost always hungry, an insatiable hunger that makes you want to eat all of the time; (2) you are being almost completely deprived of the nutrients in the food you are eating (doesn't stay in your pouch long enough to be absorbed) BUT you ARE absorbing the calories from whatever you eat. If you have medical insurance, get yourself an appointment with your doctor, tell him/her what's going on and include any other reason for an endoscopy view procedure - pain in the pouch is a good reason for insurance to pick this up! Find out what's going on PHYSICALLY so that you can stop beating yourself up EMOTIONALLY and PSYCHOLOGICALLY. That's your first step. You need to do this. In terms of friendship and support (which you have in spades from me, darlin') - for what it's worth I know the pain you're in. I gained 5 lbs. in Florida - in 4 days. I am the heaviest I've been since I lost the weight. I am so scared that I can't get my eating under control. Terrified. I'm with you - if there's anything I can do, I'm here for you. Take care, sweetie. Maureen

O Please listen to me and do not totally give up carbs. include alittle somethign in each meal. i'm suffering becasue of totally giving them up. this low blood sugar is not nice i feel misrable most of the time.
i will say it wans' ttotally due to deleting carbs but it was another part of it.
all because i was depressed about gaining and not being able to lose. now i'm maintaining my weight at 176. lowest was 157 the highest i got to was 183 since the low blood sugar thing kicked in. i've had to up my carbs so much that i gained even more. but the important thing at that point was to eat and get this under control.
fortunately i am finally starting to have longer good days. i went 2 whole days witout an episode that was very nhice. i felt like maybe i'd kicked it but of course its going to take a few more weeks if forever to be gone.
i'm plugging away. enjoyinhg the good days and when the bad days are here i pray and continue to plug away.

See, this where each person differs. For me, carbs make me feel terrible. (i mean breads, pasta and the like) not fruit. Breads and pasta make me hungry as aaallll get out and always make me feel sluggish and just genrally icky. Whenever I cut them out I usually feel better. As long as I get in my protein and my fruit. unfortunately fruit sometimes makes me hungry too. I guess its that bit of sugar in them? ack who knows. But its better than the breads and pasta. I think each person is sooo different. For some reason...also...and this is a bit weird.... sometimes when i eat breads and pasta it hurts my tummy hurts (not my pouch as in it stretches it) i mean it upsets my tummy. which i think is strange. someone mentioned to me once about being sensitive to yeasts and the like in breads and pasta.  possibly? Never really gave it too much thought.
Oh Maureen...you are right on the money there...In fact, I just got an email from a surgeon in New Jersey who specializes in revisions and the pouch suturing and the like. He sounds like a nice guy and has support groups for everyone that has had every type of surgery. Thats what this was...a support group meeting to meet with other people who've had the stomaphyx procedure and the rouxny and all the others. I don't want to go that route, but I swear I was just sitting here thinking...why am I still HUGE? i mean i know I'm eating messed up but WHY? I really DO have to get in to see the surgeon. I have to wait till after January since i have no time left to get off work... but I mean, WHY can I eat SO MUCH FOOD. and honestly...I think thats EXACTLY whats happening...its totally bypassing my stomach and going straight to my guts. I can literally FEEL it going right through. it hits my guts after i've eaten and i'm like MAN. IN FACT...and i KNOW this is gross...but have to share... once... i ate some pasta dish my mom made and, I don't know it didn't sit well with me and i got SOOOOOOOOOO nauseous that RIGHT AFTER i ate the darn thing i ran to the bathroom to throw up and NOTHING was in my pouch. and i wretched and wretched. I mean nothing was there. it went straight through!!! I mean it was RIGHT AFTER! At least SOMETHING should have been there. shoot. that happened before too. i dont know...i also, still to this day, think she made my pouch bigger than normal. I had that feeling from the get go. Something in her eyes after the surgery. Also a friend of mine that had the surgery the same year/month is having the same trouble as me. She also feels like her pouch is bigger. I don't know. You're totally right though, I should get it checked out... but here's my thing... im thinking of going to the guy in new jersey to have it looked at, because if i go to my surgeon who KNOWS she made it bigger, she may just shrug and just tell me im fine. Even if my stoma is bigger. I dont know if I can trust her 100%. i know last time i went to her and asked her about it...she told me just to get the plastic surgery, i was like...but im so so far from my goal weight! i want to be about 20 pounds above my goal weight before i even consider plastic surgery. it was a strange request. ok...ive rambled but you brought it out of me   its definitely frustrating and im tired of feeling like such a loser regarding loosing all my weight.

Elizabeth, have you been to the Revision Board?

http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/revision/a,messageboard/bo ard_id,5360/

I believe the doctor in NJ that you are referring to posts there frequently - or has his 'front office help' post on his behalf; he goes by the handle, "Little Guy" - I've said it before, and I will repeat it now with the utmost conviction: endoscopic revisions DO NOT WORK.  But these surgeons are making a fortune off of people just like us, desperate to find the help we need to stop regaining, or to lose what we thought we'd lose in the first place. There are other options and you will find some good information at this site. Take care, sweetie. M.

Hi again - I just found this post on the Revision Board - at the very least, there are people there who need friendship and support in trying to understand what's happening:

Post Date: 11/20/08 11:50 am
I gained weight, and cant feel full, i constantly want to eat..

BUT i still dont eat large portions of course..

i went from a size 28 to a size 12 to a 18 now..

Im terrified, because nothing is working.. and if i dont eat i get really shakey and im forced to eat something sweet to stop the feeling...

I feel like i failed myself.. Im so depressed which doesnt help..

I know i need to excerises but because of the weight gain i am just mortified...


did i fail my surgery???

food just feels like it goes right through me.. something just isnt right.. :(

 278 PreOp

Yeah I've been there. I've had mixed reviews over the stomaphyx some it worked for and helped them get like 50-60 lbs off (which is what i need!)  ... others it didn't help them loose any more than like 10-20 pounds. I dont know. If I have an enlarged stoma then what? I thought tthats what the stomaphyx does is tightens the stoma???  I think I'm getting confused here. if they dont work then why bother to get it checked and go through that nasty procedure of that endoscopy if they're just gonna tell me my stoma is enlarged but the stoma fixes dont work? Then its just enlarged and thats it? I mean thats what it seems like. eh. I dont know.  My options as far as surgeries go are just plain limited. I would do the stomaphyx if it would help me drop 50 lbs. Then i would do the plastics and be done with it. But i dont know if i'm gonna do anything more to my tummy. I think im about out of surgery options at this point. I still have a smaller pouch...its getting it back to its normal "small" size. Kicking sugar and carbs is the key for me. Thats the only option I see myself having to be real honest. I constantly want to eat too...when I have had alot of sugar in my system. But lately i've been pretty good. Havent had any candy or pastries or anything bad in 5 days now. I can tell a difference. I'm still hungry but not ravenous and needing to eat 24-7. and i know im still hungry because i have those dumb carbs in me. I'm weaning myself off them slowly though. today I had an egg 3 bacon and soup it was tuscan beef. No pasta in it which is good. No crackers or any bread! and for snacks I had a banana and an apple like I did yesterday. Dinner... not sure yet. probably refried beans. and maybe some more soup. ill get there. hopefully. just keep routing for me and prayin for me.

Your right everyone is different. it sounds like your on the right track. the hard part is sticking with it its always been that way for me too. i think we all know how to diet. its making it work.
i remember the first coupl eof years after i had the surgery. i never felt like eating. i swore they did brain surgery a nd not stomach cause i just didn't thnk about food. then it was like a switch got turned on and all i could think about was food. my stomach growled too it hadn't done that in ages!
ahhhh to go back to eating 1/2 and egg and feeling like i'd just had thanksgiving dinner!

pammie-you were one of the lucky ones who didn't want to eat early out--i did-all of the time- and i think ot's a mouth fixation thing!

boredom, stress, the whole shebang!

Oh, boy - am I ever with you on this one! That first 6-8 months, hunger was a thing of the past! It was a bonafide miracle!!! Now, it's my shadow, my nemesis, my nightmare, it never, ever goes away. I am a living, breathing, walking, aching, hunger pang. It's unbearable sometimes. I feel like I'm going out of my mind with it.