Hello, new here. Surg 5/12 looking for friends and basic info

Hello everyone. This is my first post. This looks like a wonderful web site. A little difficult to navigate. Esp between the MA forum and others. I am looking for some friends! I live in Middleboro. My surg is May 12 for laprascopic RNY with Dr. Robinson at BWH. I have stocked up on carnitation inst. breakfast and Nectar Medical unflavored that I add to it. My concern was the amt of sugar in it. 7g for the carnation and 12 g for the milk??? Isn't 19g a lot? That is the shake that most people seem to prefere, but I just wanted to make sure I was correct in using it. I tried all the other ones on the market and found them to be horrible. thick and chalky. I was alsoThanks for any words of wisdom you can share with me. I was also wondering, how long did everyone stay in the hospital after this procedure?? Was it painful?? What was the intensity of the pain and how long did it last?

Hello and welcome !!

First the carnation instant breakfast is SUGAR FREE right ? if so - yup it's fine. It's what i got in the hospital.

Generally I don't recommend that you stock up on anything but your tastes could change after the surgery - but don't worry to much pass that bridge if you come to it.

As far as the hospital stay - I was in 2 days and the pain was minimal compared to other things - I've had 5 children including a c-section - this surgery is far LESS painful - in all honestly I was surprised at how minimal it was. Don't get me wrong there will be some but..... i was back at work after 2 weeks - but everyone is different so be prepared for what they tell you.

We have a support group in Bridgewater - several people from Middleboro (in fact that's where I grew up) and you are welcome to come ! We are actually meeting tomorrow night - if you are intererested please let me know and I'll get you the info.

Good luck !!!

Hello9 and congrats on taking this step. For me having never had surgery it was painful but the meds given in the hospital and the take home stuff kept it in check. I would advise taking your pain meds on time in the beginning and not trying to be brave, everyone is different and if you are in an amount of pain you can't really play catch up with pain meds, need to take them when they are do so they can keep you comfortable. One thing that I found after surgery was that I had a very difficult time sleeping once home. I could not get in and out of bed or lay down comfortably at all and until I had a recliner delivered I had a miserable few days but after that all was well (slept in the recliner for a couple of weeks). Good luck and there are tons of great folks with lots of info to share on this site.

 Hi, just thought I'd add my two cents.  

I stocked up on everything also, but after the operation, they all just turned my stomach, something I'm working on.

My surgery was on April 5th 2010, so I'm pretty fresh from the whole procedure and still healing.  The pain from the surgery itself was very minimal, I found that the bruising was more painful to me then the incisions. (they came in every 4 hours and gave me a shot in the belly, a blood thinner)  I also found that my stomach (on the inside) hurt a little bit when I drank. I'm told that it may be "my new full feeling" or perhaps just an all together "new feeling"

I was in at the same time as another surgery patient, and she had no pain to speak of at all.

I was there for 4½ day's, but only because I had not passed gas, nor had a bowel movement.  Both are very important to make sure all the plumbing is working.

PS.
As for that shot every 4 hours, I also found that if you have a tummy roll, it didn't hurt at all if it was given in the upper roll, in fact, I couldn't even feel it.  LOL

Good luck with everything, you're off to a great start.

Welcome and Congrats on your WLS journey!!! 

Come to the Bridgewater meeting tomorrow night - great people there!!!

Thanks guys! Pre-op tommorrow. Hope it all goes well.

 make sure your milk is 1%!  I think whole milk is about 13g sugar, and the one time I had dumping was when I made a CIB at my BIL's house with whole milk not even thinking about it, which came out to be like 20g sugar.  And it wasn't fun!  So if you're using whole milk, change to 1%.  They advised me to stay away from skim (that's what I was used to for years prior to surgery, I don't like the texture of whole milk) but I don't remember why, maybe there's more protein in 1% or something.  Not sure.  Sorry I can't remember.  

GOOD LUCK with your surgery.  Keep us posted.  May 12 is my wedding anniversary.. good date!  :-)