9 Days Out

Hi, everybody, 

I was hoping to get some perspective.  I'm about 9 days post surgery, and I feel perfectly fine. I got home from Tijuana late Saturday afternoon, rested all day Sunday, and went in for a half day's work on Monday. I worked a bit longer on Tuesday. Both of those days, I had some incision pain and some internal pain on my right side. Until Sunday, I had stomach cramps any time I tried to swallow fluids, but that's almost completely gone.

I feel like I'm recovering faster than normal. I'm 28, 5'5", and weighted about 280lbs at the time of the surgery. Other than being really obese, I was in good health. 

So, here's my question. The post-op diets seem really restrictive, given how well I'm doing. I switched to pureed foods on Monday, which I've tolerated completely fine. No soreness, no cramping, no nausea, no vomitting. It's Thursday now, and this morning I ate about a 1/4 of a banana (I chewed it very finely), and haven't had any problems from that either. I'm also able to swallow pretty large swallows of water at a time, now.

Do you think I could move to softer foods a little earlier? I feel like it's hard to get all of the protein I need on this diet. I'd love to have tuna or chicken salad, or even scrambled or hard-boiled eggs. I just can't stand protein shakes, and adding protein isolate to soups makes the soups so thick, anyway. The one thing that did make me feel terrible was a Ensure clear protein drink that I drank half of - I think there was some mild carbonation in it, because it caused a lot of gas pain.

I definitely don't want to over-do it, but I feel like I could experiment with some thicker/more normal consistency foods. What are people's thoughts?

Docs have very different protocols for after-care.  Mine, for instance, released me to eat whatever sounded good from the day I got home from the hospital, erring on tender foods at first, so I was eating stewed beef the first week. 

That being said, though, you may want to run it past your surgeon first, and do be cautious about it. 

9 days out and you already want to break the rules? Your surgeon has those guidelines in place for a reason. If you trusted them enough to let them do surgery on you then why would you not follow their post surgical advice? Slow down and enjoy the ride

Here's the thing. I went to Tijuana to get my surgery done. The diet plan that was given to me was a) not very professional, and b) the exact same diet plan every single patient who sees the surgeons that work with Mexico Bariatric Center receive.  The surgeon didn't write up a diet plan just for me. I spoke to the surgeon for about 5 minutes... total. Including pre-op and post-op care.

I'm not trying to go out and eat hamburgers and fries at 9 days, I'm just trying to find a diet plan that works better for me than the generic one that was given to me. I think I'm ready to get health protein from softer sources  rather than a protein shake.

Go slow is all I can say. Remember your stomach can only hold about 3 ounces right now. You don't want to stretch it out. 

just because you feel fine doesn't mean your healing sleeve is ready for a lot of heavier food. 

considering you had surgery in MX,I would be extra sure to follow the guidelines,such as they are,cause you sure don't want to cause yourself any problems.

I had surgery 11/10/14 and felt relatively good went I came home 2 days later. I started on mashed potatoes and chicken soup about 4 days post op and it was ok for me. The one thing I realized early was I know a lot more than any medical provider about what my body will tolerate. My doctor generally shares that view and as long as you test things out, you should be fine. You will learn you not as fine as you think for all foods, but your body will give immediate feedback if you pu**** to much, and you'll be able to tell as you start to get yourself in trouble. I started eating filet mignon (about 4 oz servings) maybe 5 weeks out and it was great for me. Chicken wings or legs will make me toss my cookies in anything more than very small quantities. It all depends on how your body responds, and no one can tell that except you.

Besides my surgeons handout, which was OK, but like yours was IMHO too generic, I used http://www.dssurgery.com/program/downloads/duodenal-switch-p atient-workbook.pdf as my main source for post surgery eating.  I figured as long as I obeyed a respected surgeon, it didn't have to mine.  It has lots of good details although I think they lean a little too much towards thinking about losing weight.  Health first, especially as you recover from the surgery, then diet. 

I remember thinking that I would listen to my body and if it wanted something, I would give it that.  Except, after you lose the craving generating part of your stomach, some things that sound like a good idea at the time (I.e. veggies ) cause really painful cramps later.  And if you throw in the weird and generally incorrect nutrition advice floating all around us, you are in for a rough ride.   Actually, I think everybody is in for a rough ride after surgery.  It's part of recovery and learning how to keep your new body healthy. 

I guess there are three things I've learned over the last six months. 

1) It makes no sense.  What works today won't work tomorrow.  What works for me won't always work for you.  The only thing I can somewhat count on is that rolling back to a very safe soft foods diet for a day will generally reset any issues. 

2) Be especially kind to your body.  It needs to be guarded from itself.  If veggies or low carb ice cream is sounding amazingly 'must have' awesome, then just have a tiny bit.  I allow a half cup at most for a new food.  And then I sleep on it.  And if it agreed with me, and if it still sounds awesome, then I can have more, but it is surprising how often these kinds of foods don't make it past two tries. 

I also tried to tough out the vitamins, especially the calcium, requirements too early and caused myself no end of pain.  Take those as slow as you need to.  I ended up having to up my calcium by only 200 mg a week in order avoid becoming so constipated that I had to quit all calcium for a while. 

3) Be proactive.  I remember once, fairly early, when a McDonald's hamburger was an absolute must have no matter what.  Of course not the bread, but it ended up that what I really wanted was the catsup, mustard and pickle.  After thinking about it, I realized that I had not been taking in enough calories or carbs to be healthy.  So, after that I made sure I got more carbs and generally the weird crazy cravings for foods I knew I wasn't ready for went away.   So, water first, protein second but all the other things that your body needs to be healthy still count.  

If you are craving protein, then I would gently experiment with it.   In the early days I found steak, about half a cup, cut into pea sized bits, was awesome.  But hamburger or chicken, ick. 

Just remember you can still hurt your incision and irritate your stomach through constant non-compliance so think twice when you break rules. 

And remember --- this stage sucks, but things will be a lot better by month three.   

PO diets vary immensly by surgeons, some like me go home with eating whatever protein you can(use common sense here) while other were on ridiculous liquid diets for 3 weeks.   I went how and was eating whatever I could tolerate.  be careful with chix salad, tuna salad with lots of mayo may be better.  how about chobani?  slice cheese?  eggs i was eating on 3 days post op-scrambled and I never had a protein shake.  how about if you get some chix soup and puree it all, this way it is moist and you get your protein