Awesome Support Group Last Night

Everyone
Last night's support group was awesome!  The director of the Center of Excellence spoke openly and candidly on what it takes to be successful in the long term.  He included a great discussion on the honeymoon period and the lifestyle changes that we all need to make during that time.  Some of the points that resonated with me were to banish pretzels (carbs that you can graze on), good support (home, support group, online etc), and the importance of long-term follow-up including labs.

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How nice it is for those of you who have a good support group, both for you and the others who don't have support elsewhere (like here). 

Price
At our support group, there are always a good number of folks who had their surgery elsewhere.  This shows the quality of the information that is passed on to us.

However, I think that the medical care provided by this group is excellent, so I'm glad that I had them perform my surgery and ongoing follow-up care.  I was self-pay, and it was worth the added investment to have the surgery done locally.

That's wonderful to have a support group you can attend.  I wish there was one closer to me.  I don't know what I would do without the support here.

How long did he say the honeymoon period lasts?  Did he mention when malabsortion stops for food?

Linda

He indicated the honeymoon period is different for different surgeries - longer for DS than RNY.   If I recall correctly, it was close to a year for DS, and 3/4 of a year for RNY. Sometime after this, the intestines have changed to absorb more.  That would make sense, as that's when the weight loss slows down.
 

My surgeon gave a similar response.  He felt that by one year, almost all malabsorption of calories was gone, but that many people were still in the honeymoon phase of behaving themselves (all vitamins, protein forward, minimal junk food, lots of movement). 

His take was that by 2 years, people start backsliding and that's when most regain occurs.  Their practice begs patients who've put on over 8 pounds at ANY point in the process to come in for check ups and check outs to help them get back on track.

I asked the PA that when I went in for my 18month.  She said the original malabsorption is around 50% and it decreases to 20% over time.  She said the amounts differ with each person but she felt that since my labs were so good, I was probably not doing a lot of malabsorbing anymore.  She was talking calories and vit/mins.  But who knows where her info comes from.