5 year surgiversary

LOL and almost 4 after months to be precise. I blew past my actual surgery date 4/15/13 and I didn't want to update until I had a full set of labs. This happens to coincide with my birthday - 60 today. I celebrated with a 20 mile bike ride. Vastly different from pre-op me where I was pretty much looking at life being housebound if one of the co-morbidities didn't get me.

First, life is good. No bad things health wise and none of the existing conditions are DS related (more later).

Down to 220 from a surgery weight of 464. Hot Damn. I was circling 230 for 2 years and I am pretty sure I have reset to around 220.

Labs. Most things are in the historical range for me. Mostly normal.

Hemoglobin and hematocrit are slightly lower than range but have been that way for years. Iron supplements just raised my iron level and didn't help those numbers. One Doc finally put it down to chronic inflammation from unknown cause and said just live with it and monitor it. Which I'm doing.

Calcium and protein up slightly still in normal range.

Vitamin D hit 66. A post-op high on 50k Biotech twice a day. I started taking it on an empty stomach in the morning.

Zinc high and copper in the normal range. Stopped taking 60mg of zinc for a week or 2 and will then restart at 30 per day. We'll see if that puts me back in normal range. Zinc was 166 on a scale of 55 to 150.

That's all the lab news. Oh yeah. HbA1c at 4.0 with no overt symptoms from lows. Take that diabetes.....

Current ailments. Hypothyroid controlled by medicine. ( Synthroid ) On a BP and water pill to keep my kidneys healthy. I was getting a lot of protein in the urine and for some medical reason this helps.

Opened up an old ulcer on my foot. Took about 6 weeks to heal. Consensus was a failure of the orthotic. So, new reminder to get orthotics every year and not wait on that.

Still love my DS. I do think the operation and surgeon saved my life, and gave me an opportunity to enjoy my life. This was the first board I ever found and while I'm a little embarrassed at some of my first posts a lot of the advice I got has seen me though the whole thing and for sure the first year when you just aren't sure if you were crazy or not. Thanks everyone.

Pete

Congrats on 5 years! Your results are impressive!

Congrats Pete!!

Happy Surgiversary and Birthday!

Good news on your labs. I'm behind waiting for Medicare to start and then full labs and hopefully iron infusions.

Thanks for staying around and helping.

Congratulations Pete!

Hi, congrats on your success! I had a question. Is the dr that did your wls at clevleand clinic downtown? I'm also in parma and looking for a sips or ds surgeon. I found on in Columbus but that's a drive I'm willing to do it but would rather have a close surgeon if possible.

Thanks

Cassie

I completely understand. You want to talk to Dr. Phillip Schauer in the bariatric program on the Cleveland Clinic main campus. ( It is really around 95th and Euclid not downtown exactly ).I'm not sure any other surgeons do the DS in the program although they might I have just never heard of anyone else. I know as of last summer he still did the DS because his office set me up to talk to a prospective DS patient. I also haven't heard anything about SIPS in the program but it's not like I'm there that often these days.

Good care from their bariatric staff when I had my surgery.

Anything I can tell you about just ask.

Pete

Happy Birthday and Surgiversary, Surgery Buddy! (4/29/13). Keep up the good work!

I'm having labs done next week, it's been over a year so I'm anxious to see....

Congrats! May I ask why you had the DS instead of RNY? I'm researching the DS more lately. Thanks.