Sandy

I just ate some mashed sweet potatoe (I'm two weeks post of) It was a little thicker than a thick milkshake. I ate about 1-2 tablespoons and now feel awful. What do I do?

Sandy, sorry you weren't feeling well. By now your sweet potatoes have probably gone through? This early post-op I wouldn't try to thin it out with sips of water for fear of inducing vomiting. You don't want to damage any of your surgeon's good work in there. If it happens again, I'd just let it slowly go through and then for the next day stick to much thinner foods in case it got irritated and swollen in there. When you are much, much further out you can use small sips of water to help overfill the pouch and induce vomiting which will manually empty it and you will be more comfortable. (this is 6 years of life with a VBG talking, unfortunately) I think most surgeons say not to vomit at all and not to eat too rapidly or too much so that you can avoid it. It just isn't good for your pouch. Be sure to discuss this incident with your surgeon at your first post-op appointment and get his or her opinion on how to handle it if it ever happens again. You always have to do what YOUR doctor wants. Molly

Thank you for your help. I was so scared! But you are right. They went through and by the middle of the night I felt better. I sure am back on the protein shakes. No more experiments with better tasting stuff. There is so much to know and unfortunately my surgeon, although such a great one, doesn't have the time to explain, or I don't have the brain to understand, all that is involved in this process. I bet you have some more information I could read up on. Could you tell me were? Thanks SAndy

Sandy, did your nut. give you a copy of 'Pouch Rules for Dummies'? It is an essay written by a weight loss surgeon some years ago that is chock full of good info. Most of it doesn't really apply to brand-new post-ops but it is really good stuff to know. You can find it free all over the internet on any search engine, just look for the title. My nut. also recommended 'Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies' as a good book, I haven't read it yet because I bought two other books and was being cheap. The ones I got (and love) are 'Before and After' by Susan Maria Leach and 'Eating Well After Weight Loss Surgery' by Patt Levine and Michele Bontempo-Saray. Both have good recipes that you can feed your family and yourself and the Leach book also is an autobiographical account of her surgery journey. Very good books. Plus, Susan Maria Leach has a great website of her own with message boards and a lot of recipe archives that are very helpful to new postops. One that I bookmarked and post here often is the puree list: http://www.beforeandafterchat.com/index.php?showtopic=6056 Molly