WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR JULY 2019

KJLaMore

I am here. Internet has been very patchy the past few days; tech is on his way to check things out. Hope to be able to post and not have it disappear, soon! LOve to all! Welcome newbies! KJ

SophieRosieMom

Thank you Lisa!

I'm learning a lot about the human gastrointestinal system these day and your story is very interesting.

Was your bypass an open surgery or laparoscopic?

Lanette

janetr7476

Lanette:
I could see and feel the large hernia behind my belly button, it even strangulated once and was a bright purple, I had no insurance at the time to have to repaired. Neither surgeon nor I was aware of the other two, he found them when he was actually in there doing the by-pass surgery. My surgery was done laproscopicly.

As Lisa mentioned we cannot drink for 1/2 hour after eating nor while eating, I personally do NOT use a straw due to sucking in too much air. I do not drink any carbonated beverages. I have no problem drinking plain water, as in anything, we are all different. Our pouches are roughly the size of an egg and the stoma if the size of a dime. We have to take very small bites and chew everything very carefully before swallowing. Pinching is not the word I would use, as Lisa said if we don't eat slowly and carefully we can be overly full before we realize it. It is painful and miserable. Sugar and high carbs can cause "dumping syndrome", the quick spiking of blood sugar in your system, and makes you horribly sick. Mine usually passes within 20-30 minutes. The length of time this lasts varies widely among those I have talked to. I try very hard to never do that, just not worth it. I did find I'm now lactose intolerant which I was not prior to weight loss surgery. I think all of this sounds worse then perhaps it actually is, just becomes a way of eating now. I'd have the surgery again in a heartbeat.

Janetr OKC

Anniesquats100

Grr. I hate doctors. Saw a family practice Dr for my hip today hoping for a script for physical therapy. He just sent me to another doctor instead. Whine!

SophieRosieMom

janetr7476 wrote: »

Lanette:
I could see and feel the large hernia behind my belly button, it even strangulated once and was a bright purple, I had no insurance at the time to have to repaired. Neither surgeon nor I was aware of the other two, he found them when he was actually in there doing the by-pass surgery. My surgery was done laproscopicly.

As Lisa mentioned we cannot drink for 1/2 hour after eating nor while eating, I personally do NOT use a straw due to sucking in too much air. I do not drink any carbonated beverages. I have no problem drinking plain water, as in anything, we are all different. Our pouches are roughly the size of an egg and the stoma if the size of a dime. We have to take very small bites and chew everything very carefully before swallowing. Pinching is not the word I would use, as Lisa said if we don't eat slowly and carefully we can be overly full before we realize it. It is painful and miserable. Sugar and high carbs can cause "dumping syndrome", the quick spiking of blood sugar in your system, and makes you horribly sick. Mine usually passes within 20-30 minutes. The length of time this lasts varies widely among those I have talked to. I try very hard to never do that, just not worth it. I did find I'm now lactose intolerant which I was not prior to weight loss surgery. I think all of this sounds worse then perhaps it actually is, just becomes a way of eating now. I'd have the surgery again in a heartbeat.

Janetr OKC

Janetr - Thank you so much for your input.

Lanette

klanders30

kelly hope you post some Joaquin pics and the visit is going well.

Beth so glad the diagnosis wasn't lupus

Heat wave is officially starting so we'll be staying indoors quite a bit, now that my class is over (yippee) I will get to work on some painting projects and decluttering.

NYKAREN

JRsLateInLifeMom

Janet OKC y Lanette,y Lisa AR- After my uterus y placenta explosion 💥 from JR having tubal tie lots Of reconstructive surgeries I get a pain in my left side ovaries to belly button.They see my rolled up skin doctor used to seal me shut with so wound wouldn’t open they claim theirs no scar tissue.Doctor told me it’s scar tissue that technology isn’t always going to show it. I find certain days in the month,lifting certain directions,y like you over eating I feel it. Got to live with it ,but Doctor said excersise y with time it lessens the scar tissues pull.Hoping he’s not full of beans! I’m not getting mine fixed.My luck it’s more surgery to fix my lady parts.
My friend he had the bypass he said sodas to anything carbonated was a no go 🙅‍♂️ his Doctor advised against them. He also avoided gassy foods y greasy:All I ever seen the poor man eat was a million granola bars.We used to joke about it if he showed up without a box as big as him in the car. If he was out we made sure to drop everything get him some more that minute!
He ate a piece a small dinner/lunch that he premeasured out he would pop it open at a restaurant (one restaurant actually made us pay for a buffet for him to sit with us! We payed gladly as a group but such an injustice!Wouldn't let him pay it was for the principal of the thing!) Food code at the time allowed outside food for people with extreme diets or health reasons like liquid diets /bypass which he was on at the time. Rest was granolas. He had enough supplements that he said it helped to spread them out in the day or he filled up on them! He did feel sick with a weird sharp stomach pain once I told him doctors now! He had a hole so back under the knife. He would have died if he hadn’t listened. Doesn’t hurt to get rechecked annually he had stopped going completely should have popped in every few years or so.

Rori- So true.I find my issue isn’t over eating tho I HOARD food! Litterely I crumble if I don’t have food sitting there in large quantities in a freezer to cabinet so I feel I won’t starve. I won’t eat it but it has to be there. Daughter grew out of that but I still haven’t. Hubby understands so he bought a 25lb bag of jasmine rice to keeps it fully stocked.Hurts his diet tho he needs an empty house but he feels family feeling secure trumps that. I even hid nutritional chocolate bars for traveling in my pads case in the bathroom 🚽.I run out he gets more. I also stock cleaners to soap 🧼. I will still have soap in my 100’s! I clean a lot that’s also a sign of abuse.Even tho I don’t have that feeling dirty feeling that I didn’t deserve for all that time I still can’t live in a mess after what I did live in (squalor when being punished at other homes to locations even made to eat out of a trash can pull my pregnancy clothes out if one put them on). I can go without a bath now .All progress but the huge wall of foods y cleaning a lot well that will take time.I found counseling helped a lot! Especially reading my Bible finding a verse Matthew 18:5 where it says the punishment for hurting a little one. Also in Luke.Better they have a milestone around their neck than what’s coming for them!It gave me comfort. Also to get through the court stuff y escaping the verse “The Truth shall set you Free”.So I Only Told the Truth it set decades of Women free.Its empowering to know I held enough power to crumble an empire of over 40+ men with my words.

cityjaneLondon

Amber - So sorry you went through all that. What love you have shown to your daughter! A testimony to the power of love.

Heather UK xxxxxxx

JRsLateInLifeMom

Heather UK - Thanks . Not a surprise my Daughter does not want kids if her own tho. career Woman who will marry later on maybe she said maybe adopt a male teenager as her son. I say great plan I fought for her to have a life of her choosing now she can choose. My truck with HR is I let him destroy the house then clean up 30min-1 hour before bed lol looks like a show room until he wakes up then wheeeeeee he runs in to throw pillows in the air crumble his treats in his hand to pick out the blueberry from the morning muffins lol. Sure folks visiting think I never clean after up him lol unless they come early enough.
Real Life never mirrors Hollywood’s fake versions.They have good ,bad,y the ugly all mixed in. Learning to be happy 😊 after all is said y done that makes the life worth wile. I find happiness in small things that helps me.I don’t need big things just small things like dew drops on a rose pedal my days set to be chipper. Plus having an unbreakable smile y happiness pissed the tar out of the abusers lol.

Amber Tx

Workoutahloic50

Amber-❤️❤️❤️,to be as strong as you...
Debby In Va

janetr7476

Amber TX, Thankfully things have come a long way. I don't eat carbs intentionally such as bread, pasta, rice, quinoa etc. Of course most vegetables and other foods contain carbs. I do eat poultry, fish, beef, pork, legumes all protein. I eat very well and don't feel deprived. When eating out all restaurants offer something suitable to follow my diet.

Janetr OKC

SophieRosieMom

Amber - thank you for sharing your story! I agree with Heather, it is a testimony to the power of love!

Regarding the scar tissue from surgery, I actually had some type of "deep tissue" massage on my abdomen once which I think kind of released part of it and made it better for a while. I agree, it's quite painful and limiting. So that's kind of like what your doc said about exercise I reckon. Hope it gets better with time.

One of the "600 pound life" episodes I watched told of a gal who had her stomach stapled when she was in her teens, she must have eaten too much or there was leakage for some reason - like your friend, not good and she had to have an operation to seal the hole.

I think I tend to hoard food as well.... was raised by parents who went through the Great Depression so having the freezer and pantry super full was normal. I aim to remember to go thru the pantry and donate extra food not past the pull date to the food bank.

Lanette
SW WA State

LisaInAR

Lanette - my GBS was laparascopic, as was the gall bladder removal a year and a half later (very typical - a lot of doctors take the gall bladder automatically when they do the gastric bypass now). About nine years later, I had what's becoming recognized as a late complication, a Petersen's hernia.
Warning, TMI, and long:

With a Petersen's hernia, effectively, part (or in my case, all) of the small intestine ooches (technical term! ) through a hole the docs leave behind after the surgery in a tissue wall that sections off part of the internal stomach cavity. After a length of small intestine goes through that hole, it twists and then, if left too long and the intestine can't resolve itself back out of the hole, that section of intestine will die. You used to hear them called internal strangulated hernias.

The symptoms began within a couple years of the gastric bypass, and I (and the ER staff who saw me three separate times prior in Texas), thought they were simply adhesion-caused bowel obstructions that resolved with enemas and time. What was actually happening (they figured out later) was that part of the intestine was going through that hole, and then would eventually come back out again. The symptoms were pain that was bad enough that I was bent over double, screaming, sweating bullets, rocking, and as near out of my mind as I've ever been before or since. The final time, in Oregon, was even worse. The nurse thought I was in drug withdrawals or DTs, and was just there at the ER faking pain to get some drugs. After the third massive shot made me pass out for 30 seconds and then I woke back up screaming and sweating, they finally called the surgeon who was on call.

That surgeon happened to have assisted on a similar situation a few years earlier, and the presiding doc waited 24 hours, did open surgery, and ended up removing part of the lady's intestine, because they waited too long. Even though the CT scan showed nothing, due to my pain levels, he asked to go in with an open surgery. Did, and saved me from, at best, a colostomy bag for the rest of my life, or at worst, dying outright. He said he pulled 30 feet of intestine back through that hole.

And, as Janet said, even if I knew that was coming, I would STILL do it over. I am, at present, still 125 pounds lighter than I once was, an entire person lighter. It changed my life, changed me completely. Gave me the life I was supposed to have.

For the TL;DR, I had late complications, and still would do it again, as well. It was a great decision for me.

Love y'all,
Lisa in AR

SophieRosieMom

Lisa - fascinating! So this was a complication from the gall bladder surgery? Or the GBS or both?

I recently read about a new "organ" medical researchers added - the mesentery... a membrane that holds up the intestines and keeps them in place. Is that the tissue you were talking about that had the hole?

I had 2 laparoscopic surgeries within 6 months, the belly button got pierced (and I don't mean with rings and jewels) both times.

Thinking about it is giving me the creeps, lol.

Glad there was a sharp surgeon there to get you fixed up. You and Janetr both rock! Big step but it has made your life so much better in many ways.

Lanette

fanncy0626

Three of my relatives just had GBS. My 5‘1“ sister was 310 pounds. Within a year she is now down to 115 pounds almost 200 pounds loss. Amazingly she does not have any loose skin!! Her daughter also had it this year. She lost weight prior to the surgery and followed all orders on changing her eating habits and is doing quite well. My nephews wife however never changed her eating habits and lost very little weight and now the doctor calls it a failure!

pipcd34

Ll

pipcd34

Finally over the 1k mark. 450 to go and I’ll make my goal

Machka9

Workoutahloic50 wrote: »

Gorgeous weather!

LisaInAR

Mary - sorry about your niece, and pleased for your sister and daughter. There's so much determination needed to actually make it work, and as JanetR and I can both testify, it doesn't keep you from gaining weight back in the years to come - it just gives you the opportunity and the tools. You still have to do the work. Janet is doing better than I did, and my journey has been fairly typical - lost 85% of the excess weight, gained about 30% back and stabilized.

Lanette - the intestinal thing was a complication of the gastric bypass (not the gallbladder removal), and specifically the laparascopic bypass, as the hole they leave behind in the mesentery (you were correct) is created in order to get one of the four-to-five tools they use to they need it to perform the surgery.

The biggest myth I've had to deal with is that gastric bypass is "the easy way to lose weight." I was ready to go nuclear on the next person who said that, but most people realize now it's not a magic bullet--you still have to do the work. 14 years later, I'm still doing the work. My own viewpoint was that I risked my life to save my life, and I've tried to respect that, while dealing with my own demons one day at a time.

For those who wonder, when I was 45, I weighed 303 pounds. I had the surgery in September of 2005, lost 166 pounds over the next two years, getting down to 137 (and a size six for about five minutes, if memory serves. ). Left my now ex-husband a year after that, remarried a year after that, got happy, slowly regained up as high as 217 pounds (that was Christmas a year and a half ago). Now stabilized between 177 and 187, which I'm at the high end of right now, and just trying to get it back down. My goal is still between 145 and 150, but I'm content to reach it slowly. Which is a good thing.

Love,
Lisa in AR

GodMomKim