After surgery questions

I had surgery last monday so am still on the two-week after surgery liquid diet. Can I have metamucil? I am in need of it.

I'm not sure I'm getting enough protein - It's been hard to get the right amount down, just sipping it - I just always felt so full & bloated. Now I seem to be able to take in more so I'll probably be all right about that.

But I'm just feeling so so tired & draggy, just really worn out - not sleeping at all well at night, although that's not a new thing. My partner thinks I'm so dragged out & tired because I was in surgery a long time: 2.5 hours - because the surgeon found a hernia & had to fix that too.

Any thoughts?

Zoe

Hey Zoe - I'd call the doc about the Metamucil -- those little fiber grains might not be great for your pouch.  You can probably take stool softeners, like Colace -- actually, I think they gave me those in the hospital.  It's going to take a couple of weeks to get the anesthesia out of your system.  Drink as much water as you can and walk -- even if you just go around the block.  

Thanks Linda, just sent the my doc's nutritionist an email about this.

I'm taking tiny sips very slowly - waiting 30 minutes between food & water. I always feel full, sometimes bloated - is this normal?

And how do you get that little thingie on your signature that shows how you're doing on weight loss?

Zoe

Argh - just totally lost my post.  I'll start again!

You will feel very full and bloated for a while, you have to remember that you basically just had your gust re-arranged and you have a lot of inflammation going on in there.  If, however, you get so you can't keep things down or you get really bad pains, make sure you call your doctor immediately.  It takes a while for everything to settle down and heal.  Remember that retriction is the name of the game -- your pouch will eventually stretch a bit, and it will be a little easier to drink and even eat, but you don't want to lose too much restriction.  My pouch got a bit over-stretched at about six months.  I never lost all I wanted to lose, and I've gained back a little.  Still, all in all, I'm a lot smaller than I used to be, and feel a lot better.  I'm working at getting some more weight off now because I have an abdominal hernia - I had to have surgery through my abdomen after my RNY to fix my spine - and being smaller will help me hold my guts in!!

To make a weightloss ticker, go to http://www.tickerfactory.com  You can personalize is with the kind of bar and then the kind of marker you want, put your limits in, etc.  Then go into the My Account settings in the upper right of this page and find your signature settings.  You paste the code they give you in there.  Let me know if you need help.

All the best!

Linda

Thanks for all the info, Linda - sorry about losing your post, stupid computers!

I just put a ticker thingie on my account, so let's see if it happens. I saved it & every time I'd try to leave the page, it would say I hadn't saved it - so eventually I just saved & left the page anyway. Weird. Stupid computers.

And thanks for your info about the surgery effects - I'm not having any trouble keeping things down & have actually had very little pain with this whole thing, so I'm okay there. I can just ingest so little that I don't know if I'm getting enough protein or drinking enough water - in fact I'm probably not. But I'm just keeping on keeping on - drinking my little sips.

Too bad about the additional surgery - when I was having this surgery last week my surgeon found I had a large hernia & she fixed it while she was in there. When did you have the hernia surgery, was it right after your RNY? Are you still trying to lose weight? I'm not sure when your surgery was, but it must have been a while ago.

Take care, Zoe

Good ticker!  I'll bet you feel like your food is trying to find its way through a snake.  

i actually had quite a chain of events.  I fell over backwards (I tripped on the weedwhacker cord) and landed with my tailbone on the corner of my lawnmower engine about three months before I had my RNY -- fell at the end of May, right before Memorial Day, and then had my RNY on July 24, 2007.  I ruptured 3 disks in my back when I fell, but I was getting by with physical therapy, etc., till I had my surgery.  Then, when I had the gastric bypass, they put me in some weird bed that was actually intended for coma patients, and it kept trying to turn me over.  The back pain was awful.  I had the RNY laprascopically, but I finally needed to have my spine fused in November 2008, and, when they couldn't get my discs out through my back incisions, they just put the hardware in and three days later, they went in through my abdomen and got the damaged discs out that way.  They put in some bone and some spackle, and stitched me back up.  

I'd been having some bad pains lately, sometimes up by my ribcage, sometimes down near my belly button.  Turns out I have a hernia.  I'm just wearing a binding to keep it from tearing more.  I'm not sure if I'll need surgery on it or not.