So many changes coming up.... NO smoking? NO CAFFEINE?!
clcesari
Posts: 56
So excited to have my surgery on 7/23. I am not as scared of the two week pre-op diet as I am giving up caffeine, cigarettes, and my favorite....diet coke. I have given them all up before on separate occasions. But other than pregnancy, I have never had the willpower to give them up all at once. Has anyone used an e-cigarette instead for pre-op? Of course it would be in my favor to quit altogether. I just think the ecig would help the transition of giving up so much so quickly..... I am going to ask at my pre op appointment which is exactly two weeks before the surgery. Any input would be great!
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Diet coke is really bad for you once you've had WLS. Not only is it highly carbonated ( a big no no), and full of caffeine, it is also highly acidic. All of these characteristics mean you have to give it up. Post op, you are going to probably be on a proton pump inhibitor to decrease stomach acid. That's to help heal your stomach. So...
I don't know anything about smoking or ecigarettes, but you should probably just give them up now instead of waiting. Addiction is a tricky thing, whether it is food or nicotine. It is just not safe to have WLS without committedly working to resolve your addiction issues.0 -
I am a coffee addict, but because caffine irritates the stomach lining I went decaff before surgery. In order to avoid the withdrawl headaches, I transitioned to decaff by adding a little more to each pot until it was all decaff. Since you are also giving up diet coke which is also caffinated, I would highly recommend doing what I did with the coffee. katematt is right about the diet coke. Any carbonation during the healing process is dangerous because it expands as a gas in the tummy. I am 3 years out and still don't drink anything carbonated because it makes me very uncomfortable. I am back to regular coffee, but only in limited amounts and my doctor would have preferred me to stay on decaff. I also can no longer drink it black because it give me a tummy ache (probably the irritation from the caffine) so part of my daily calories is devoted to my sugar free creamer.
As for the E-cigaretts, I've heard both good and bad. The family and friends I've known who quit smoking long term used a combination of medication and the patch. Sorry. This is one addiction that is really hard to break.
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I actually am glad that it is going to force me to quit the diet coke for good. I hope it is uncomfortable! lol. It is my first weakness, and it is so bad for me. I've given up diet coke before but I always had my cigarettes to help the transition. I've already started cutting back on the cigarettes....Diet coke is up next!0
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Like you I haven't had my surgery yet but mine is in a few months. I gave up all canned & bottled carbonated beverages (mainly diet pepsi) in March when I started this journey after my first appointment with the Bariatric Team. I also thought I had to give up canned Nestea Zero which I used to have a lot. I recently found out that I can have Nestea Zero so I will start picking it up again and having one when I really have that craving for something other than water, flavored water, coffee or tea. I am not on the protein shakes yet.
I too love my caffeine. Gotta start my day with a few cups on home brewed coffee made with Tim Horton's coffee (that is a whole other addiction in itself). When I grocery shop this week, I'm gonna pick up a can of decaf along with my caffinated regular coffee grinds. For the first week or two I'm going to mix 1/4 decaf grinds and with 3/4 regular grinds. I'll see how that goes and when I've adjusted, I'll start mixing the caffinated and decaf coffee grinds to a ratio of half and half. Again, giving my body a few weeks to adjust to that. The 3rd step will be to mix the grinds 1/4 regular caffinated grinds with 3/4 decaf. I plan to stay at each stage for a few weeks until my body has adjusted. I realize that there will be some caffeine withdrawal headaches but hopefully they will be milder than an instant withdrawal from regular caffinated coffee.
If you look at the threads from a few weeks back, I started one called "Ideas For Alternatives To Pop." The supportive and encouraging members on this site listed many ideas to beverage alternatives since we are staying off of pop. I encourage you to go back to page 6 or 7 of the posts and find that thread and read it.
I can't comment on the e-cigarettes as I am not a smoker. I do hear some smokers talk about it being a healthier alternative but not being a smoker I don't have any experience with smoking.
I hope you find some of these suggestions I am learning on my journey helpful.
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I miss Diet Coke. My friend drinks it a lunch a lot, and when she pours it into a cup of ice- and I hear it fizzing and pop and I can smell it....I can't pay attention to anyting she's talking about.....but, I haven't had a drop since March 10, 2014 0
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Giving up the things we love is hard but it is SOO worth it. My biggest sacrifice was giving up Dr Pepper. I miss it still - but if I have to make a choice between Dr Pepper and the 47 lbs I've lost... I stopped drinking Dr Pepper 2 months before my surgery just to make sure I could! It was hard but I'm glad I did.
Going to decaf coffee has been a challenge too, but a sacrifice I've been willing to make for the bigger reward. Drinking regular coffee dehydrates you and it takes approximately 32 oz (3 glasses) of water to rehydrate you for every cup of coffee you have. Dehydration after surgery can be a problem so I'm not willing to take that chance too often.
Good luck and congratulations on your upcoming date!0 -
I quit soda last year, wasn't difficult for me, I like water and I like iced tea. I quit smoking cold turkey about 17 years ago, also not too hard.
My wife switched to the e-cigs last september and hasn't had a regular cigarette since. She did go through several brands before she found one that worked well for her. She didn't want to have to worry about the liquid drops, preferring a cartridge instead and wanted to find one that would give her the good "hit" at the back of the throat. Smoker's understand the feeling, non smoker's don't. Too many of the e-cigs were like drawing on a cigarette that had a hole in it. She settled on the White Cloud brand.0 -
I honestly thought giving up Soda was going to be a huge deal for me. I quit smoking a little over 4 years ago so I had already conquered that battle. I wasn't a coffee or tea drinker either so I didn't worry about that. My husband even said before my surgery that he thought I would lose it over not being able to have soda. Guess what? I don't even think about it. I stopped it the week before my surgery when I started my preop diet and haven't thought of it since. And my husband who has always told me that he was not addicted to soda's started out (he didn't have surgery) saying only buy him juice. LOL he is the one having the pepsi, coke and any other soda you can think of cravings and has given in and went back to drinking them. I was 17 weeks out from surgery yesterday and I can tell you I don't miss soda in the least bit.
As far as cigarettes go I used Champix to stop smoking. My husband, my mother and myself all stopped at the same time. My Mother is in the States so she used Chantix (same drug different name) all 3 of us stopped taking the medication 2 weeks after stopping the cigarettes and none of us have ever looked back. So if that is an option for you I would suggest talking to your dr about it.
Since surgery I am always cold, live in Newfoundland Canada and the winter was wicked cold with a lot of snow and ice. We are just now finally getting some warm days. So now I find I am drinking decaf coffee way to much. I have had a couple cups of caffeinated coffee but I have such bad reflux that it aggravates it so I just stick to the decaf and my nutritionist told me the decaf is fine.
Best wishes!!
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As far as smoking, ecigs, and the patch, it is the nicotine in any product that is the issue. Any nicotine in your system interferes with healing. There are many surgeons that will not operate if there is nicotine in your system, period. They'll do a blood test and shut you down.
I'm not saying this is what your surgeon will do, but this is really for your own good. No nicotine.0 -
I gave up smoking in college. I don't envy you that task, but you need to make it a priority. As for caffeine and diet coke... Diet coke and for a while PepsiMax was my "water" before surgery. It took me a full 6 months to wean off the caffeine, (funny, I quit smoking cold turkey). Today, at 9 months out. I don't drink soda of any kind. I tried a sip once or twice and it's just ick in my pouch. I do drink 1 Kcup of regular coffee with protein powder in it pretty much every morning, but that's it for caffeine for the day. I don't even do iced tea unless it's decaf as I don't ever want to be "hooked" like that again. Caffeine leeches the calcium for our systems and we already have to take extra supplements as there is still a malabsorption component when you lose 85% of your stomach. I need to keep all I can in my system now. Plus, that crap is expensive! It's nice to not have it on my grocery list!0
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I think you would be better off quitting smoking altogether. While e-cigs are arguably better for you over time than regular cigarettes because they don't contain "smoke," they are really only better for your lungs. They still contain nicotine, which impairs your healing and increases your tendency to develop serious post-op complications like pulmonary emboli and venous thrombosis. You really need to quit all nicotine prior to surgery.
Why not ditch all the old habits connected to your old lifestyle and embrace healthy change and the opportunity to create a new, better way of living post-op?0 -
Why not ditch all the old habits connected to your old lifestyle and embrace healthy change and the opportunity to create a new, better way of living post-op?
This, because this is really what it comes down to. The surgery is a tool but we still have to work to make changes that will last a lifetime.0 -
I am so hoping my stomach doesn't agree with the diet coke after this. Like I have said, I have quit all of them before, I can do it again. But quitting food at the same time is going to be the third fun addition! At my psych evaluation he wanted me to come back every week as I transitioned through giving up 3 addictions at once....
As far as the smoking, I really just wanted to use the ecig for 3-5 days and quit cold turkey off that. It worked the last time I did that. I have been a smoker for about 8 years and I couldn't think of a more perfect 2nd chance than this!0
