Hungry and full at the same time?

My pureed stage allows for ground meat, which I've had twice now. Both times have been the only times I've felt "stop eating now because it has nowhere to go" restriction. The thing is, I feel this in my lower esophagus, but my stomach itself still feels hungry. My remnant stomach growls when this happens (my pouch growls sometimes too, but I can tell them apart because the remnant is farther down and lower pitched...it's like a symphony in there). Has anyone else ever felt hungry and full at the same time?

The hunger is getting pretty miserable. I went back to work today and found myself having trouble concentrating because I was so hungry still after lunch. How do you tell the difference between hunger and head hunger? And more importantly, what can you do about it? I didn't think I had head hunger before surgery -- I regularly ate when I didn't need to, but I didn't actually feel hungry at those times. I certainly feel this in my stomach now, and it feels exactly like hunger before surgery, particularly when I'd have a protein shake for breakfast and be starving by lunch. I feel like my remnant stomach wakes up every time I eat and gets very angry that it's not getting any food!

Ground meat was difficult for me at first. It may be ground, but it's usually tougher cuts to begin with. Thinly sliced deli meat went down a lot easier.

If you can tell exactly where different parts of your digestive tract are making noises, you'd be the first.

That's a good point...I guess I really have no way to know if it's even my stomach or intestines making the noise. I get to start deli meat next week (an odd progression, I know), so I hope that'll help the hunger some. I'm wondering too if anxiety can mimic hunger...this only got really bad the day before I went back to work (which I was dreading for no reason other than I liked being off work). I noticed last night that I didn't feel hungry until I paid attention to trying to tell if I was hungry or not, which certainly sounds more like head hunger.

I'm just a couple of weeks ahead of you and what I first thought was hunger was actually thirst. I started drinking before I grabbed something to eat and found that that usually took care of the hunger. I have GERD, which has gotten better with the surgery, but I still feel things in my lower esophagus too, especially if I've eaten too much or too fast. Also when I focused on making sure my protein was up in the 60+ range my hunger went away and my concentration at work got better. Make sure you're getting your water & protein that might solve the hunger.

Thanks. You might be onto something with the water. Yesterday was the first day I tracked fluids and found out I'm getting about 40-48 oz, which isn't nearly enough. I'm trying to up that, but liquids are harder for me than solid food -- I get burpy and have to do "half swallows" of each sip, which makes me swallow more air. Protein is good though, usually 70-100g with a goal of 65 from my NUT.

For me... I have never once felt my "remnant" (love the word... think I'll name mine Remy from now on).  Can't feel it at all, which I have thought is strange.  Oh well, I don't need it, hope it just keeps quiet in there!

I can't say I've ever really felt stomach hunger, but I've felt "empty" a lot.  My body does have ways of telling me it's time to fuel up, but not in the form of the old 'hunger' feelings I used to get.  It's more of a week feeling, like I'm winding down and running out of energy.  And I used to be able to eat a lot more in the beginning... I found that at the 4 week point, everything I'd learned so far had to be re-learned.  There were so many changes after the first month.  The doc said this was due to shrinkage from the healing process.  Suddenly fluids became a lot harder to get down as it seemed they were taking much longer to digest and move along.  You might experience this after 4 weeks, too.

Since my pouch has healed, I do feel that fullness of my lower esophagus when I eat dense foods.  Sorta feel like it's stuck way down in my throat.  But maybe that's just my pouch and I'm not used to it yet.  

Everything is still weird for me.  I guess we can expect that for awhile, eh?

Thanks, that interesting that things changed at 4 weeks for you. I'm coming up on 4 weeks fast. Was that possibly also because you started adding denser foods at that point? I have noticed fluids have become more difficult recently when I had no problem with them at all right after surgery.