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well done and my new life starts 27/3 I hope

Haven't you come a long way!  Brilliant!!

The results of the operation mean that it's not an easy option, but boy does it work.  Enjoy the new you (and the New Man).

Two years post-op, down 126 pounds from my highest weight.  This is about the same weight as my son in this picture......  Frightening.

Off insulin for 18 months.  Was on 480 units a day at one point.  Now on Sitagliptin and Metformin plus one low dose tablet for blood pressure and another for lipids.  The only supplement I take is a multivitamin and mineral tablet once a day.  Bloods are normal.  Sleep Apnoea gone, I'm officially cured.

Stable weight for the last six months.  I wake up feeling fat, believing that the weight loss is too good to be true.  I find myself buying clothes that are slightly too big, just in case.  It's very difficult buying an XL or more usually an L when a 5XL used to be tight.  You can see the shirt and suit are too big in the picture.

I still have good restriction and have turned into a grazer rather than a trencherman.  The only vegetables I can eat are peas and sweetcorn cooked, and raw carrot.  Carbohydrates of any type are my enemy, if I eat any I need to eat more.  The only way to control the urge is to eat no carbohydrate except for Ryvitas with cheese.  Most fruit will make me vomit.  LOL 

Two downsides.  I mourne not being able to eat vast quantities of food, I used to put way too much on my plate.  Sunday lunch comes for me on a side-plate now, and sometimes that's too much!  I'm also cold almost all the time.  I'll wear two windproof fleeces and thermal underwear for three seasons of the year, occasionally wearing a sweat shirt over a t-shirt in the summer.

Would I do it again?  Before the op I had a young son, a worried wife and maybe five years to live - tops. Life expectancy is now normal. I can walk with my family and they find it hard to keep up with me, my body is a joy and not a prison. This year Alex has asked me to take him fishing, which will be easy and a great joy.  I'd do it again tomorrow, and yesterday, and today! I wish I could have had the operation twenty years ago.

 Hello everybody,

Well I've just had my 2 year anniversary and OH mailed me urging me to update - but although there's only a couple of you left who even look on the uk board, this is the only place I felt like posting.

No proper piccies I'm afraid, cos if I waited till I sorted that, then I'd never end up posting, I'll pop on a new profile pic though.  Well I still have a stone to lose, but I'm kinda really happy where I am, I wear a size 12-14 and weigh 11 1/2 stone, give or take a couple of pounds fluctuation, and I seem to maintain this without much effort. I could really do with a tummy tuck, lipo and a boob job, but its only what I expected it all to be like.  Anyhow, good underwear works wonders, I have no real inclination to get them done even if I did have money, I'm still kind of in awe at how much better I look and how much more weight I lost than I expected - and if I'm brutally honest, I have ended up with a great pair of legs, and a short(ish) skirt draws the eye away lol!  Sounds like I think a lot of myself, I really don't, I'm just impressed with the change.

My real news is that I've had a lucky brush with my health - shock horror.  At the beginning of December I started getting stomach pains whilst at work (I'm a classroom assistant)  I got myself a lift home and crawled straight into bed thinking I had picked one of the sickness bugs flying round the school.  But within 2 hours of my first cramps, things had gone so drastically downhill that I was rushed into hospital in an ambulance with severe abdominal pain.  

A&E were pretty useless, I was not in a fit state to go into big explanations, I managed to tell them where my pain was, when it started and also that I'd had a stomach bypass. Shockingly, they didn't know the difference between a bypass and a band and therefore didn't really get the implications, and more shockingly couldn't understand my x-ray, they actually had to come back and ask!!   Anyhow, it turned out, I had a twisted small bowel.  It is often caused by scar tissue growing and kind of sticking together, probably from the WLS.  It was also on a part of my unused intestines, and therefore went longer unnoticed, which, in turn, meant it had turned gangrenous and I was rotting from the inside out.  The pain was caused by this rupturing and the infection entering my system - gross I know. 

I was very lucky they caught it in time, as my condition was extremely life threatening.  They opened me up (I have a 10ins scar to show for it) and I underwent major surgery to remove the offending beast, they put me back together and I'm now fixed (sounds simple huh?).  I'm now 9 weeks out, and still finishing off my recovery, things are pretty much back to normal as far as energy goes, and my bypass is back to doing its job as before - if I give it a chance .  I am still not able to excercise and I clearly still have a lot of internal healing to do, as it still gives me discomfort and pains - not so much food and internal workings so much as muscular and healing pains.

As I have relied on excercise to keep my weight steady I have really needed to take care with food, however as a former food addict,  I have filled the time I used to excercise in, with bad eating habits, so I am now gonna have to make a huge effort to get back on track.  Luckily I had lost a lot of weight with the whole saga, so I had that to buffer the eating effect, and I am now the same weight as before it all went on - I just have to make sure I don't go beyond that!!!

Well I feel like I've rambled on enough for now.  I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas, and that the new year brings you some of what you are after ;0)

fingers cross I will get some news today but will let you know.  Can I ask a question, what vitamins do ppl taken as I have been taking a mutli vitamin for years and am wondering if that will be ok to continue with?