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Hi, my name is Michelle. I live in Salem, Oregon. I had my surgery on May 25, 2006. As of June 30, 2006 I have lost 22 pounds. My question is this, does the eating ever get better? My surgeon found on Friday, June 30th that I had a stricture and dilated my stoma(?). Before he did this, eating was a nightmare for me. I always felt over full. As the days went by, I started to feel nausea all the time with eating and began vomitting. Now that he has dilated it, I still feel kind of weird after I eat. It's not the same as before, but I do feel "full" for a long time afterwards. And, I don't seem to have an imagination for meals anymore. It's like eating has become such a chore anymore that I just would almost rather not do it. I know I have to so I do, but does anyone else ever feel like this? Do you have any suggestions for good "soft diet" meals? I would like to be able to prepare meals for my family and me--I don't want to have to always be on a different diet. Anyways, any thoughts or words of encouragement would be great! :-S

Hi Michelle! I also live in Salem and I had my RNY on May 9th. I know exactly how you feel! I haven't been checked for a stricture yet but my fear is that I may have one. I've been having a really difficult time the past week getting my food to stay down. Things that had gone down easily before are no longer sitting well and a lot of times come back up. I know how you feel about no longer wanting to eat and that not eating is easier than eating! Sometimes it would be simpler if I just didn't have to eat! I never in a million years thought I'd want to NOT eat! Ha, ha! Anyway, I try and cook things for my family that I can eat part of too. One thing I really like is to take chicken breast tenders and put them in a baking dish and top it with a can of Cream of Mushroom soup (undiluted) and bake it for 30 minutes. Yummy, and it's soft to eat. Another idea is to take some aluminum foil and place a chicken breast on it and top with some BBQ sauce. Rub the chicken breast around to coat with the sauce. Fold up the foil to make a pouch and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. That turned out really soft and went down okay and it tasted good too! I also make a ground turkey meatloaf .... I used a 1.25 pound package of ground turkey, 2 eggs, half a tube of saltine crackers crushed up, 1/4 cup of Kraft parmesan cheese, a couple squirts of ketchup, and some minced onion. Mix it all together and form into a meatloaf and bake covered for 45-60minutes. Hope that gives you some ideas! Deanna

Hey Michelle--sorry to hear about your troubles eating. I am still pre-op but from what I've read it does get better, but it does take time. They say that a year or so down the road you should pretty much be able to eat most things--of course everyone is a little different, but I'm sure it will get better. I recommend keeping in touch with your Nut. and Doctor just in case something else is wrong. Congrats on you WSL and I hope your WLS journey gets better. Keep your chin up and Good luck!