Surgery regrets?

You mean routine like Tummy Tucks?

Like Tonsils? Tonsils have been 'routine' since my parents were kids.

As I said in my original post: I was Super Morbidly Obese. I was more than a 1/4 ton overweight. If I didn't have surgery, I was disabled or dead in a very few short years anyway. So the math, in my opinion, was easy.

Perhaps because of my ridiculously close calls I am more... viscerally aware... of the possibility.

I'm not saying not to have surgery. Quite the opposite. As I said above I would have RNY every year if that was necessary to not be 1/4 ton overweight.

I am saying consider what could happen. This is not crazy or uncalled for. Really, I don't get the argument.

Tek

not arguing - just noting that you got your RNY in 2003, and techniques have improved since then, plus surgeons are doing a lot more of them these days, so that might explain why mortality rates are lower now.

I was also 200+ lbs overweight, so we were in pretty much the same boat. And I (like you) also decided that the having the surgery was less of a risk for me than staying at almost 400 lbs.

I'm not understanding the contest here. Sure, 200+ is just like 500+.

You win. Don't worry about serious complications or death. We shouldn't consider those people that had surgery taken down because of huge complications and still live with issues that they shouldn't have worried about it.

Sometimes I wonder.

Tek

sorry - didn't register earlier that you'd lost 500 lbs. Too many things on my mind this morning.

not sure what the issue is here. I didn't say no one has ever died or had serious complications. Just that it's fairly rare.

It's OK, I'm not all here either.

Severe complications are rare.

My work is about contemplating and preventing 'rare'. In my work, if something bad happens 1 in a million times, it happens several times a day.

With my work and my personal experiences with 'rare', I may be... sensitive.

I sense we are mostly in violent agreement.

Tek

There are always some risk involved. Short term complication or side effects and long term complications.

I had them both, short and long term. But what was done is done. Now I try to figure out ow to deal with a long term post op RNY life.

BTW: You can check my posts history to see some of my post op side effect.

Life post op is not "easy walk in the park". i have o be diligent what I eat, how much, and what I need to avoid completely.

I have to be my own monitor for my blood work. As a lot of us post op WLS discovered "normal results" are no longer good enough for me to feel good. I had to educate myself what the new normal for me numbers on the blood work need to be.

I had to find doctors who are willing to work with me and help me to get where I need to be. I.e. I need weekly B12 shots, while most people do just fine with sublingual B12, or even just once a month shot. Every few years I need iron infusions because my body no longer absorb enough of it to maintain a good, healthy level.

Some people, who never changed what they eat, what they do, often regained all and then some the weight they lost. Some, who used food as a coping mechanism, found alcohol, or drugs. That we call "Transfer Addiction". I myself, before the RNY never had problem with alcohol. Its no longer the case. I became a borderline alcoholic. I no longer can drink it and not over do it. I didn't use alcohol to just feel good I found out that when I had a hernia and twisted intestines, alcohol would help with the pin and digestion. When my gut hurts inside, sipping slowly on a good shot of brandy helped relaxed the internal spasms and often took care of the pain. I starting using more and more alcohol for pain, for IBS, or even for body pains. Of course that eventually lead to me drinking too much. Alcohol affect me very strongly now, post op RNY. It gets absorbed much much faster, and gives me a buzz and helps with pain, spasms or stress.

Unfortunately that "nice buzz" doesn't last. As fast as it comes, it goes away quickly. And that is the point when my mind is falling me and telling me that I needed more.

Before RNY - I never had issues with alcohol. I never thought it would be me. And there are people like me. until WLS alcohol was not important to them, post op - they turn to it.

I never became a "full alcoholic" because I knew it could be possible (from open and honest long term post op WLS people). Abd I hate to be "a slave" to anything. when I noticed that one drink turned into 2 or 3 more than 2-3 times a week, and that I was looking forward to come home and get a drink, and then another... I knew I had to stop. I had too stop completely. It ****** me off, because in the past I would enjoy just a glass of wine once in a while when socializing. I know I can't have "just one drink" and be OK with it. Because if I have one, I want more, and then the next day...

*Edited to correct spelling

I HAVE NEVER HAD ANY REGRETS... Frustrations, yes, but Regrets, NO

Frustrations just come with the learning process. I am 12 years out now and still am learning things. But, WLS has given me so much back and I am really at a happy place knowing I am healthy.

No regrets on having my surgery. Wish I had done it sooner.

I have never regretted having the surgery even for an instant. It was the best thing I ever did for myself and ultimately for my family.

I have had a few uncomfortable moments due to the surgery but they are not common and not overwhelming. The only wish I have is that my metabolism and inability to eat more than a fairly small amount didn't stay the same as the were in the first post-op year. But my VSG still functions as the tool my surgeon told me it would be.

I'm one of those people who had serious complications due my RNY (09/12/2009) that included stich breaking, fungal infection in the lungs, and severe pancreatitis. Spent 4 months in ICU bedridden with a trach in my throat, a month in a hospital that dealt with breathing issues because of the ttach, and was sent to nursing home where I was told that I would need long term nursing care and have the trach in my throat for the rest of my life. Thank God the nursing home had a pulmonologist and physical therapists who knew what they were doing. My son tells me that I was a *****asauris rex and that helped.

Mid March, 2010, I was bedridden with a trach in my throat. Twenty two months later, 12/2011, I did a 5K. I came in last. Considering where I was 22 months prior, I consider it equivalent running a marathon or an Olympic sport.

Would I do it again? IN A HEARTBEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't take anything for granted anymore. I can do things that I could only dream of before surgery. I have minor problems occasionally that are common: eating to fast, to much of a wrong item such as sugar, etc.. But I attribute that of me not thinking right at the moment.

I love the life I have now and wouldn't change it for anything.