Husband will have VSG a week after my RNY

My husband is scheduled for his VSG the week after I'm scheduled for RNY (my mom is staying with us for 2 weeks to help out while we recover). What differences can we expect in our recoveries from the two different procedures? Our surgeon's eating plan is identical for VSG and RNY patients, but obviously the procedures are technically very different, so I imagine we will have different experiences from that (on top of us just being two different people). Anyone have any words of wisdom? (I'm cross-posting this too to get opinions from both groups.) Thanks!

Congratulations on both of you for making the decision for better health. Recovery varies from person to person, even with the same surgery. It depends on your age, health, co-morbities, BMI, etc before surgery. It is great that your mom will be there to help out. I was 54 and had a BMI of 50 when I had my rny and my hubby, who was unemployed at the time, was a great help. It took me about 6 weeks to feel like myself (others felt better after 3 weeks). I was lucky, as I didn't have any complications, except needing my gall bladder removed when I was 10 months out. The rny/sleeve diet is the same at Duke.  The first 3 weeks is a liquid diet to allow healing to the insides (but every surgeon has different eating plans) A co-worker, who had the sleeve with the same surgeon was hungry at 10 days! She called the surgeon and he allowed her to advance to puree/very soft foods at 2 weeks post-op.   

Hard as it may be, try not to be in competition with your hubby with weight loss.  Men lose weight faster than women due to their muscle to fat body ratio. If you weigh yourself soon after surgery, you may gain weight due to the IV fluids. My suggestion has always been to weight yourself once (twice at the most) a week. Weight on the same day, after you wake up and pee, but before you eat/drink (dry weight).

Good luck with your surgeries, I hope you get lots of comments. Please post with questions, we're here to help.

Donna

Thank you! I'll try not to make it a competition, although I'm very competitive by nature, hahaha. He's starting with a BMI over 50, and mine will hopefully be pretty close to 35 by surgery time, so I fully expect him to lose much more quickly than I do. I'm also already in the habit of weighing myself once a week, always on Saturday morning, so I hope to stick to that. I've found that the less often you weigh yourself, the smoother the bumps get. Even pre-op though, I still have some weeks where I lose 3.5 lbs and some where I gain a pound not doing anything differently.

I was two days before my 56th birthday when I had RNY with a 54 BMI. Within one week I really felt very good physically. I still had to take afternoon naps for weeks... and the head/food part was harder... figuring it all out. I found after 3 months that got a little easier.... Good Luck!

Both surgeries have some differences, but both are very serious. Hope you both have lots of help afterwards, because you will both be tired and trying to heal from a major surgery event. Yes each person is different and the preparation is key to success. Not sure if you have kids, but let them help too. Best wishes for a smooth sailing surgery for both of you.