For The Vets: What's Your Thing? Tell What You Know.

I don't know what I know best about the DS... I'm days away from my surgiversary and... what have I learned? Hmmmm.

I had an RNY, a revision to my RNY and still ended up gaining weight. LIke Kerry, I know the RNY sucks...

Dana

I know about weight regain and getting it off once and for all! I also understand anemia issues and the importance of attacking them sooner rather than later. My profile provides more details on both!

I will be 9 years out this December and going strong!

Jillian

When I looked into having weightloss surgery one of the main things that I wanted was to be able to enjoy a normal life!  That being said, my surgeon recommended to me upon our first office visit the DS.  He explained to me that it would give me not only the most long term weightloss but I WOULD be able to have the things that were and are more normal to my eating habits.  I wasnt a junk food junkie from the beginning.  Though my love for food I am sure aided in my need for WLS.  I love to cook and work 2 jobs.  I am a Child care provider for special needs children as well as a dietary assistant at the same facility.  I have learned what to substitute for the most with having cared for a child with gluten allergies, thus most of my daily cooking includes gluten free items.  Though the mexican foods are my all time fave. 

Sia, your ideas rock!! This is an awesome post...bookmarked!!!!

THROW AWAY THE SCALE and quit judging your sense of success or failure at this based on numbers that mean NOTHING.

I am a postmenopausal female, moderately active. I NEVER see any swelling in my feet or hands any more. But while at my sister's house, I decided to test my theory about the stupidity of the scale and got on multiple times a day, every day, for a week. Sometimes that damned thing (and it's a supposedly high quality home scale) varied by four pounds in two hours, and I hadn't so much as taken a crap or drunk a glass of water.

WHY OH WHY OH WHY would someone want to run their lives by such a hopelessly inaccurate piece of machinery?

Measure yourself and keep track of inches lost. Keep out a set of clothes to try on once a month and see how much bigger they get. Keep a record of things you can do at all or do more easily now than before you had surgery. Enjoy the WOW moments. And get a divorce from the freaking scale!

If you're in maintenance and want to monitor your status, well, keep track of how you FEEL. A little over a week into my vacation, which was actually almost four weeks into a much higher activity level, I bumped my hand on my hipbone when I rolled over in bed and it hurt. I went wait a minute, that doesn't feel right.....poked around at various bones and said, Hmmm, these guys are sticking out more than usual. Hopped on the scale, if the damned thing can be believed, and by golly it said I'd lost ten pounds. WTF? Now, I don't know if I really lost that much, but I could tell by how I looked and felt that I'd lost some more. THAT was what got my attention. So I called the doc, who said take more Creon. Okey dokey, I'm doing that, and lo and behold, my rings fit better already. They were getting loose too.

The scale lies and enslaves you. That's what I know.

Probiotics.  I wouldn't go a day without em!  They really help with gas.    I  take the probiotic in pill form (mostly, plus some yogurt.)    But you have to follow the rules faithfully.  In my opinion, buy the kind that are refrigerated and high in bifido.   Take them 2-3 times a day (some people say on an empty stomach, I do it both ways)  Probiotics need some prebiotics to feed on (apples or oatmeal- soluable fiber)   Hang in there if the don't work right away, some times you need to flush out the bad stuff first.  I started as a pre-op.

Sia,

Great thread idea and I'd love to include the wisdom here on DS Facts... Do you mind if I pull something together OR do you want to compile and condense and write it and I'll post it and give you credit? =) Either way works for me! Let me know what you think.

Bev

My thing is diplomacy.  I hang with everyone and try not to disrespect anyone.  That's all I got

Oh, and a keen fashion sense.

Realize the DS is a very individual thing.  Don't compare your results to everyone else.  Just do the best you can with what you have.

How do I know this?  It took me longer than anyone else here to lose the weight.  But after much gnashing of teeth and self loathing, I made it.

As a pre op, I am very good at Bookmarking, copying and pasting!!