Hunger Poll

Are we or are we not supposed to feel hunger, is it all in our heads?  I do feel hunger (I think)LOL  So the question is do you actually feel hunger? 

You know I still don't think I feel hunger.  I don't any rumblings down there other than gas.  I eat at my scheduled times, I don't snack and I'm pretty indifferent about the schedule of eating.  I think a lot of it comes from the head hunger.  That's when I just go get something to drink LOL

On rare occasions yes :  but I deal with a lot of the dreaded HEAD HUNGER MONSTER

Like at movie theaters :  last weekend I took my mother and her friend to a movie:
we had lunch first so I know I was not hungry :  but I wanted popcorn so bad-  it had to
be headhunger -  and NO I DIDN'T GIVE INTO the  HEADHUNGER

Steph,

I do feel both REAL hunger and head hunger.   I try to keep tabs on when I have eaten because that is when I will get in to trouble with the real hunger.   If I allow myself to get too hungry I tend to eat too fast and not pace my food so I end up consuming too much and then my pouch rebels and sends it back.

The head hunger I am working on battling now .. that is what causes me to nibble and snack out of boredom or the 'need' to grab something from the candy dish down the aisle every time I pass by.

Hugs, Mo

I no longer feel physical hunger the way I used to pre-WLS. However, I have noticed that when I go for a long time with no fluids or food, i.e. overnight or several hours (4 or so), I get sort of a mild burning sensation in m pouch. It is not as severe as the olden days when I used to suffer from refulx. I mentioned it during my last MD visit and was advised to just use Tums or something like that.

You know Debbie, I have been taking a pepcid a day since my surgery.....there was a period of about a month where I didn't take it and I got that sick burning sensation way down.....I'm assuming that it was where my old stomach was still emptying gastric juices into my intestines.  I went back on the pepcid and haven't had a problem since.  However I do make sure to take all my vitamins and supplements prior to taking the pepcid so they have a chance at being absorbed and properly digested.

Real hunger?  Nope.  Never.  Not since surgery.  The caveat being that as long as I get in my protein and my fluids, I'm NEVER hungry.

Head hunger?  O M G!!!!  Where do I start???????

Tia

I too was hoping I'd be like the many people I'd heard from on OH that never got hungry after WLS.  I wasn't one of the lucky when it came to that.

Right after surgery i would get hunger pains/pangs and it would wake me up at night and nausea would follow.  I was shocked and disappointed to feel hunger.  I told my surgeon and he prescribed me Prevacid/prilosec to control acid.  That helped a lot. Now I only get hungry when I forget to eat and go too long due to NOT being hungry, if that makes sense.  LOL I do still get hungry but it is satiated with a small portion now rather than before surgery when I would feel compelled to gorge myself until it went away. 

Of course sometimes I still crave certain comfort foods when not hungry, especially if they are right in my view.  I confess I ate a few slices of my Mom's moist and delicious pumpkin bread all full of sugar and flour, while i was visiting for Christmas.  Thankfully I still lost weight that week.  WLS is great! 

Jen -

I confess to being ignorant of your wls procedure!!!  I'm not at all familiar with DS, so would you enlighten me?

Will your weight loss slow down and then gradually stop as with rny?  With rny, your "wls window" GENERALLY closes at around 18 months out - you can still lose weight, it's just much harder.  Up until that point, you can ALMOST eat anything and still lose, due to the malabsorption factor.

I also know that with the band, you get a renewed "window" with each fill, thereby allowing you to continue your weight loss as you get fills.

But what about the DS?  If, of course, you don't mind sharing!!!

Thanks,

Tia

Of course I don't mind sharing, silly!  Just don't ask me about my sex life, LOL.  Well maybe you can ask about that but not here.LOL   I didn't know anything about the DS either, until I came to OH.  I wasn't even told about it by DVR since he wasn't performing it.  The technique required involves much more difficulty than other surgeries, and some surgeons choose not to specialize in performing it.  But I'm really glad I did learn about DS, because for me, it is a wonderful fit. I'm lucky Dr. Schweitzer performs all the surgeries and I had the opportunity to compare/contrast before deciding. 

About the window...No, well kind of.  People with DS don't have a window period measured by months like the RNY patients may have.  The more extensive malabsorptive properties of the DS provide longer term weight loss possibilites and research says people with DS lose more and keep off more of their excess weight and diabetes is put into remission at a higher percent than other surgeries, in most cases studied.  There are always exceptions.  DS allows people to lose excess weight to the point of getting rid of all excess weight in several people on OH, but eventually the weight stabilizes and/or the people have to eat carbs to keep weight on.  Such torture, LOL.  

  I know the surgeons say this is true about RNY with the window, and that the body adjusts, but I'm confused at the idea that anyone whose intestines have been re-routed whether a little or a lot, would stop having that malabsorption as a means to help maintain weight loss over time.  Where does the malabsorption go?  The intestines are still rearranged.  Confusing .  Maybe because the restriction is lessened the weight loss slows, as the stomach grows.  LOL that rhymes.  

Some people with RNY go back to the surgeon and get more restriction again, by getting a fobi pouch ,a permanent clamping device placed on the pouch that doesn't stretch, or the new stomaphyx where the surgeon stiches darts in the pouch to counteract the stretching that occurred. I think the stomaphyx is great because they go in through the esophagus and the surgery is outpatient. Some who have significant regain or no rimprovement in diabetes get revision surgery to DS.

  There is one woman in particular, Jillian, on the DS forum who, after several years had gotten off track and regained some, so she has returned to basics and has a new goal to lose 45 lbs.  She is doing great by following high protein low carb food plan again. 
Here is a nice article about DS by OH click here and one by OH staff Nikki Johnson:  click here

I have several links saved in my profile, click  here, here, here and here  if you or anyone you want to help research WLS would like to read about comparing surgery types and outcomes of weight lost, kept off, and comorbidities resolved. I know this is a long post but I am the type of person who likes to know all the facst before making a big decision, so i saved a lot of info as I went along.