New Member - Waiting for Surgery Date

Your experience is very similar to mine... the way I felt, the gain the week after surgery, foods tasting chemical, missing solid foods, feeling "hungry" -- and even the fever.

You aren't alone -- and it isn't indicative of impending failure. I want you to know that, because in my heart, I was terrified that this surgery and my effort would result in yet another time when I "failed."

That head hunger is real. We rarely eat ourselves into obesity and ill health due to just being hungry - most of us are eating for a lot of other reasons. Surgery largely takes away one of the coping devices that we've relied on for a very long time to help us survive. It's normal to feel angry -- or starvation testiness, as you call it. Not only are we hungry (at least emotionally and arguably physically) but we are coping without our security blanket of food.

My advice is to get ahead of these feelings by seeking out support now.

Wishing you the very best.

Cereal killer KAt71,

thank you so much! I was feeling so different and am thankful you responded .

Did your tastes come back?

i realize my problem has to do emotional eating, why I never was able to do it on my own. The issues are still here. I think the phsych counseling session was just to clear me to the next step, 1 visit doesn't change your life.

i will look into some counseling, is there a particular type of dr to see who is better with these types of issues?

thank you!

Yes, your tastes come back. Sometimes you will desperately wish that they didn't, but yes, they do.

I came to realize that my eating had very little to do with hunger. I like to say that when I had surgery on New Year's Eve 2013, I hadn't actually been physically hungry in approximately 30 years. LOL.

People are under the mostly incorrect impression that surgery takes away their hunger forever. For a very small minority, it does. Most of us find that sometime after the first year, it returns and for some of us, it never really goes away. When this happens, they feel like something is wrong with them, or that they are going to fail. There isn't, and they aren't -- unless they choose to.

After surgery, I felt hunger. However, it wasn't physical hunger, it was "head hunger" -- I missed chewing and eating. Everything I enjoyed was tied up with food. Celebration? Let's go out to eat! Sad or depressed? Ice cream always helps that... Happy, sad, bored, excited, tired, sick, -- all my emotions were deeply connected with food.

I have BED (binge eating disorder) -- something that really became clear to me while preparing and recovering from surgery. My relationship was food was literally killing me, yet I missed it like a teenage girl mourning the loss of her first love.

It's hard. The work is hard. I had to treat food like a heroin addict treats shooting up -- and I needed help to confront that addiction and the feelings surrounding it. Once you remove your vice and coping mechanism, you are left with a lot of **** that you haven't dealt with before.

Anyhow, in my case, I found no help from "normie" counselors or therapists. If someone hasn't been obese or dealt with eating disorders, then they have no real idea how to help. I had the best luck finding an eating disorder specialist -- yes -- the same people who work with anorexics and bulimics -- because guess what? There's not much difference in how it manifests itself in our lives.

Take heart -- right now your nerves have been cut so you don't feel full even when you are -- and you aren't on any solids yet. Those nerves come back in the first 6 to 8 weeks, and you will really begin to feel restriction. That means that soon you will enter your honeymoon period where it will be the very easiest it will ever be in your life to meet your weight loss goals -- and the very best time to work on your emotional relationship with food -- because you will be celebrating successes, finding that you can do so much more physically as you lose, and have some relief to the hunger for a while.

You are not alone. There are many of us who have been right where you are right now.

Wishing you the very best life!

Cereal killer Kat71,

i hope so.

You are so right, the anger and frustration is that I can't chew or eat. I'd didn't realize that hunger would not go away. They said it would, but I did not anticipate the need to eat, I'm not saying pizza, a scrambled egg in a blender.

I'm going to look into an eating disorder specialist, are they psychologists, social workers ?

Do they help you with ways to resolve your issues? Or just coping strategies?

i am also one of 1% who had liver disease discovered at the time of surgery, they did biopsy. No one ever caught it even thru all the screening I went thru in prep for this surgery. It is to the point of not being reversible.

I also had NASH discovered via biopsy. It isn't reversible, but it is stoppable. Losing 200+ pounds has stopped all further damage to mine.

I am not cured, but I am in recovery for my BED.

Hi,

We have so mu*****ommon. Mine was diagnosed full blown, end stage cirrhosis, the day of surgery as I'm just coming to, a liver specialist visited me with the name of a transplant dr. Still reeling. I have to make appt and go from there. If I did not have this surgery the wouldn't have known until my liver started failing. Don't know how they missed this all these years.

Wow.

I guess the way to look at this is that surgery has saved your life in more than one way ... if you hadn't had it, you may never have had the biopsy, and not have found the cirrhosis.

It is incredulous that they never caught anything in your routine blood work or during physicals before this -- and I can only imagine how scary it must be to have just learned this. However, it's always better to know -- and to face things head on.

This is a lot of added stress -- and stress is a definite trigger for many of us to resort to our key coping device of food. Of course you want to eat and feel emotional upheaval!

Please find someone familiar with eating disorders and addiction to help you navigate the road ahead. You deserve a strong support base, and having someone to bounce your feelings is imperative. If the first person you find doesn't click, keep looking. It can take a while to find the right person for you.

Personally, I think you are amazing and from your posts, I think you have the strength and self-awareness to be very successful. Just don't give up. You're worth the effort.

Edited to add: since you have the added liver issue, I want to make sure that you're informing your team about your fever -- in fact, I would report any and all things to them if you feel the least bit concerned. That is their job, and more importantly, it is your life.

sThanks, this has been a huge upset. None of my drs expected the severity and deterioration found. I have many specialists, now adding a liver specialist.

no one ever discovered this and surgeon sai my liver encompassed upper rib cage to below pelvis.

you are so right, if I did not have this surgery, they would not have discovered this until it was failing. With all the ct scans, ultrasounds and MRI I have had in this area I just don't get how they missed this massive thing.

i am ever thankful for the discovery for sure and going to heed your advice regarding therapist for head hunger. U are right again the stress has been huge and thank again for your support and listening to me. You have provided a life preserver in the storm!

Welcome! I'm a 47 (almost 48) year old guy with four kids. Started on this journey in earnest when I hit a new record high weight for me, 360 lb. It's early days yet as I'm only five or so weeks postop. One habit to build is sipping water throughout the day. You have to get 48-64 oz of water down a day. Pre-op I thought that's be a cinch, and it's very doable, but I was used to being able to get a 20 ounce bottle down in a few minutes and that is very much not on the table postop, especially right after surgery. So forming the habit of carrying a bottle of water and taking a small sip every couple minutes will serve you well.