7 days pre-op, can I chew sugar free gum?

My surgery is set for Jan. 24th. Today is day 1 of my liquid diet. Can I chew gum?

You should be able to. You might want to call your program and ask to be sure if you're concerned, though. (Don't swallow it, obv.)

Sure, nothing solid is going down, and it's sugar free. I did. It really helped with the dry mouth from what I assumed was from ketosis.

Depends on your program. Mine said absolutely no gum during the pre-op diet, because they were concerned that we might swallow it and it'd be stuck in our stomachs. I'd check with your program, and if they say no, they might be okay if you used some kind of sugar-free mint to help with cravings.

Weird! I've chewed gum off and on for 30+ years and can't ever recall a time I accidentally swallowed it. Is this a thing?

I also thought it was pretty weird, as I hadn't ever swallowed any either! Full disclosure, I actually didn't realize the gum ban was in effect until half-way through my pre-op diet, so I had definitely been chewing gum (and hadn't swallowed it) but once I realized, I became super paranoid that the day before surgery would be the first time I ended up swallowing it. But it must have happened enough to my surgeon for them to include it as one of the requirements!

Hehe.

It seems like one of those things that if they can trust us to follow our post-op diet, they should be able to trust us not to swallow gum. ;)