Hi all!  I'm a 41F married, with two kids, 6 and 7.  Had lap band in 2007.  Have had many problems with it and am now back to what I weighed pre-op, sigh, and then some!!  Going in Monday for an EGD to make sure I dont have a stricture and then hopefully revising to VSG in December. I live in the Auburn area.  Glad this site is here!

 

I agree with the other two responses.  My personal experience at about 4-5 months I also had depression, easy to anger, not feeling satisfied in much of anything in my life.  I started talking to a weight loss therapist and she asked me to consider that I was in morning.  Morning of a very old friend (food) who comforted me whenever I needed it.  I know it sounds out there but once I started to consider it and understand where my depression was coming from...  It took several months but I was able to find other things to comfort me. I looked for other things that relieved the stress and pressures in my life.  I turned to exercise, art, gardening and watching movies.  Find those things that make you happy and learn to enjoy them again.  The people who say this is easy do not know what they are talking about.  Congrats on your weight loss thus far. Believe you will succeed in your goals :o)

I really need to go to a support group. I live in Longview but I am willing to drive to Vancouver. Hope someone can help.

I suggest you do a shout out to Michelle (vitalady.com). She sells vitamins to post-bariatric folks like us, but gives info here on OH, and doesn't push vitamins ( she doesn't even mention she sells them).

She is in Puyallup, but ships anywhere, and has things we can't get anywhere else formulated for our needs, like dry forms of fat soluble vites, and the high potency dry D.

Unfortunately, I have yet to meet a Dr, (not even my bariatric surgeon) or Nut. that had a good enough grasp of long term post ops to give adequate advice. I have grown to trust Michelles advice over all else.

If you haven't already, get comprehensive labs (usually takes like over 20 vials of blood, so if they only drew a few, you know you'll need more) and get a copy for yourself (Michelle also has the list of labs we should have drawn).

Doctors usually only mention things that have been flagged by the lab, as too high or low, and gone out of range. You need to be aware when things are close to going out of range, so you can be proactive. Like for vitamin D, the range is 30 to 100, and if it goes from 80 to 35 over several blood draws, they won't mention it because it's in range, but the fact that it's plummeting is not good, so you have to catch those things yourself. I use a spreadsheet to track all of my labs, and if you want a copy, l can try and email it to you. You'll have to delete my info, but it already lists all the tests, and the ranges.

Wendy you might contact Roberta Christian (206) 353-8146, She hosts a Support Group at the Auburn Hospital . It is the 3rd Thursday of each month at 7pm.

Merrilou