Post Surgery update and questions

[michaelsmith110]

So I'm checking in. It's been a while. Had my plication surgery on March 27. 6'1, I weighed 365 when I decided to do the surgery and 341 on surgery day. I weighed in today at 286.4. So it's been going well. I'm actually back to pre diabetic glucose levels and hope to get my fasting glucose under 100, which is non diabetic. My A1C is below 6, so that's great.

Since that's the case I wanted to check in with a few questions.

1) how do you tell if your stomach is stretched? I'm still feeling restriction and unable to eat a lot, but I'm definitely able to eat more than I was after a few weeks on solids. Is this normal or should I be feeling the same level of restriction? I just want to make sure I'm at the right levels.

2) if a stomach does stretch or pouch or whatever is the bad one, is it possible to fix without surgery? I've heard you could do a liquid diet for a few weeks and get it to shrink back to earlier levels, but I'm not really sure if that's true.

3). I seem to be able to drink more liquids lately. I try to avoid during meals, but outside of meals I'm drinking a decent amount, I think 96 oz or more. Will the liquids stretch the stomach a lot, or is it speed of consumption (I've heard that drinking tons of water is a trick competition eaters use to stretch the stomach)

4). For those sleevers or plicationers, when you reached your goal weight how did you maintain? More for curiosity than anything else right now.

Thanks!

[canuk98828]

Congratulations on your success thus far. Sounds like you are doing awesome.

[AnaA]

Michael,

Congratulations on your success, but more importantly, have you emailed the OCC to ask your valid questions? I am about to be plicated on July 20th and I know I would definitely want to know if my stomach were possibly stretched. I have seen many posts on here where people wonder if that has occurred, and the advice/answer always seems to be this, (thank goodness!) "Contact us at the OCC, we can't help you if we don't know what is going on" Best of luck and keep us updated!

Ana

[AnaA]

Congratulations on your accomplishments! I'm getting the plication done next month -- your questions make me think... Maybe the band is better?

Hi Laura,

I've heard quite a bit of talk about band vs. plication and what I seem to be getting, definitely read it all and decide for yourself, is that people who do not want to be hassled by going in for fills do the plication and if you don't mind doing the fills, go for the band. I read somewhere that the plication is supposed to be slightly better in terms of weight loss than the band, but then again, every person is different and it could be that the person posting happened to be the one who responded best to plication. I don't mean to flip flip all over the boat deck here, but I just wanted to encapsulate the language out there while also really truly making you aware it's your decision. I know one day I read about a person who did better on the band and thought hmmm... but for me, personally, in the end I just don't want to be hassled with fills.

Keep in touch (I think i've said that to you now on 3 or 4 different posts! lol)