General VSG experience / Alcohol

 The "drinking experience" varies a bit among types of WLS ..   I have even seen individual differences mentioned on OH  --  some claim they get intoxicated faster with their WLS, some say they sober up faster, too ..  Others have said they don't really notice that much of a difference ..    I guess one has to keep in mind that even as pre-ops, peoples' tolerance for alcohol varies a bit among individuals.   

  One important aspect is the fact that as post-ops our body weight is a lot less than it was as pre-ops, so that factor alone should make us more susceptible to getting drunk on lesser amounts of alcohol than what was required to do so in our pre-op days.  

   I did a post-op experiment some time back using one of those little portable breathalyzers (an Intoxihawk Slim), to see how my own post-op experience was in handling alcohol.    I had a full glass of wine following a full meal.   When I first tested 20 minutes afterward (the meter won't allow a check to be done any sooner than that), my BAC was already almost to legal intoxication level (.08%).   At 30 minutes out, the level began to slowly go back down, but it was almost an hour and a half out before there was no measurable alcohol left in my system.  I'm not sure how this compares to my pre-op days, in that I didn't take any such test back then.   The general rule, though, is that if you don't exceed one drink per hour your BAC should stay under the legal limit.  As to "sobering up", to me it SEEMED that 1 1/2 hours was a rather long time for the alchol to leave my system compared to in my pre-op days.  So, to sum it up, I would guess that post-op I get drunk easier (more quickly) and it takes longer to sober up.

   I would like to repeat the experiment some day, but this time for the purpose of seeing how much alcohol it takes in an hour to clearly put me above the BAC limit. 

   Since most alcohol is absorbed in the intestines (I always thought it was in the stomach, but I had a medico on OH correct me on this point earlier  ), the "re-arrangement" of the intestines in both DS and RNY patients probably accounts for a great part of the difference in pre vs. post-op alcohol assimilation.   Not sure how much of it is altered purely by the smaller stomach size (i.e. sleeve) in V.S.G. patients.  I'm not sure it makes any difference at all in band patients.           

 

I had a single bourbon and coke at 3 months, and was wrecked for the rest of the night. I used to have quite the tolerance, but the 2 alcoholic drinks I've had since RNY have done me in.