I'm Having Second Thoughts......

[Katie T.]

So…..I’m having second thoughts. I’m turning to this group to give me some guidance. Up until today I’ve been excited for my surgery that’s supposed to happen on the 18th of this month. I just woke up this morning asking myself “what am I doing”…..I don’t know if it’s nerves or what but now I’m thinking about not going through with it.

I’m not scared of the actual surgery. I’ve had plenty in my life already with various surgeries so It’s not that…..I think I’m more worried about having to take vitamins for the rest of my life….and not just some vitamins but A LOT of vitamins….at different times…you can’t take this with that….you have to wait before taking this one…ect. ect.

I’m ok with the cost….that’s not really the issue…..I’m worried about not being able to figure out my labs afterwards (my levels plummeting)..... I know how to read the reports and I’ve always been my own health advocate….I actually have a doctor that is awesome to work with and understands the various WLS….I’m just feeling overwhelmed with the vitamin regimen….Is there anyone out there that wishes they didn’t go through with this?

 

[southernlady]

So…..I’m having second thoughts. I’m turning to this group to give me some guidance. Up until today I’ve been excited for my surgery that’s supposed to happen on the 18th of this month. I just woke up this morning asking myself “what am I doing”…..I don’t know if it’s nerves or what but now I’m thinking about not going through with it.

I’m not scared of the actual surgery. I’ve had plenty in my life already with various surgeries so It’s not that…..I think I’m more worried about having to take vitamins for the rest of my life….and not just some vitamins but A LOT of vitamins….at different times…you can’t take this with that….you have to wait before taking this one…ect. ect.

I’m ok with the cost….that’s not really the issue…..I’m worried about not being able to figure out my labs afterwards (my levels plummeting)..... I know how to read the reports and I’ve always been my own health advocate….I actually have a doctor that is awesome to work with and understands the various WLS….I’m just feeling overwhelmed with the vitamin regimen….Is there anyone out there that wishes they didn’t go through with this?

Actually sounds normal. Many have second thoughts, mostly thinking “I’ll try dieting one more time”. Hell, if dieting worked for the morbidly obese, there would not be a 95% failure rate of dieting.

Personally, mine couldn’t happen soon enough. I practically ran into pre-op! I wanted it done and over with to get onto the rest of my life.

 

[Clematis]

You are NORMAL.

My inner Jiminy Cricket kept criticizing me with "If you just shut your damn mouth and stopped stuffing your face you wouldn't need this surgery!" I squashed that bug and am glad I did.

I take vitamins in the morning with breakfast and at night at dinner. That's it. I pay no attention to the take-this-with-that beliefs. I got a little spooked with iron supposedly not to be taken with calcium and switched to heme iron so I didn't have to worry about that -- and I don't. (It's pricey, though.) My iron levels are fine. (YMMV)

Labs are easy as long as you have a PCP who gives you the actual results and doesn't just say "labs are ok." The lab prints out the normal range and flags anything out of range - you don't have to have a medical degree to understand. If you're not in range, adjust vitamin dosage. If you see levels going down but still in range, increase dosage. We'll help. It will be second nature to you after the second lab draw.

 

[Larra]

Honestly, the vitamins aren't that difficult. Important, but not difficult. You get into a routine and stick with it, and adjust if your labs tell you that you need to adjust. The only one you may need to take multiple times/day is calcium, but just always have some in your purse, or desk drawer, wherever, so they are handy.
I've been doing this for over 11 years now, and it really is very doable. Actually, I think it's a good thing that you already recognize how important the vitamins are and are concerned about making sure you take what you need. That's a good attitude. Over the years, on other websites, I've seen folks who figure they are the special ones who don't need to worry about those silly vitamins, and that's the people who get into trouble. You'll do just fine.

 

[KathrynK]

If you were smart enough to choose the DS out of the other options, you will be more than smart enough to figure out the vitamins, etc. If you have an awesome doc who is willing to work with you on labs, you are luckier than most. Taking pills easily becomes part of your daily routine. If you can manage to brush your teeth twice a day, you can manage to pop a few vitamins in at the same time.

Think of it this way: for a few daily vitamins (and it really is just a few, not a mountain of pills), you are reducing the health consequences of morbid obesity. Much easier than insulin injections for diabetes.

 

[CaitlynR]

One thing that I did to help with that is get a month capacity pill organizer. Worry about it once a month and the rest of the time it's easy. I like to do projects and then automate as much of the other stuff in my life so monthly organizers are the way to go.

I'm still early out but the one mistake so far vitamin wise is getting calcium pills. Yikes those things are huge, I have no problem with pills but these things are the largest pills I've ever seen. So I'll get some of the chews, which are a bit more expensive (as we need the citrate version), at least until I'm farther out. The iron pills don't play well with my synthroid or calcium. That is the only conflict I don't like. I am getting infusions, but the hematologist still wants me to take oral iron, but I'm not too worried about getting them in anymore due to the infusions. The rest of the vitamin stuff is super easy once you set yourself up and get a good supply.

If I you have questions about labs then bring them here, that seems a common topic with lots of informed people here.

 

[Katie T.]

Thanks guys.....it actually started when I ordered all my vits on amazon and saw how much stuff I have to take.....which I don't know why I'm freaking out now....it's not like I didn't know about this...I guess it just became real. I already take a multi everyday with Vit D and B-12 sublingual. What's a few more hahaha. Maybe I'm just getting scared of the actual surgery....my VSG was a breeze for me....so I'll cross my fingers that this one will be too! Thank you thank you thank you for the responses.....

 

[Spiky Bugger]

Watch me get even MORE unpopular...and sorry for the epic length here.

You are a year younger than my daughter. I don't exactly want her to have the DS, even though she could benefit from it. I wouldn't OBJECT, but I don't push it.

Why?

You two are DECADES away from the end of life. Whatever it is that we don't currently know about the effects of very long-term malabsorption kind of scares me. In other words, I SWEAR that nobody mentioned testing copper, for example, when I first read about the DS about sixteen years ago. (And almost NOBODY mentioned testing RnY people for B Vitamin issues, and some of them lost their teeth and got certifiably crazy...to the point that electroshock therapy was planned for what turned out to be Bariatric Beriberi.)

So, while MANAGING vitamins shouldn't give you pause--it isn't that complicated--realizing that there COULD BE problems we are not aware of and that you may have to deal with those later on is important.

NOW, ON THE OTHER HAND, because I didn't do this in my forties...I essentially had no life from, say, age 45 to my late 50s. I kept getting fatter and sicker. It became soooo difficult to do anything. I discovered that if I dropped an egg while cooking, I could not bend over and pick it up...never mind cleaning the floor. I ended up retiring on disability because of all my weight-related problems...COPD, Congestive Heart Failure, disabling edema, body fluids seeping out through my legs. I didn't have to finish paying off my student loans (for classes I took in my 40s) because my doctor signed the form saying I was getting pretty close to dead and could never again work or even go to school. That was sad. My job required SOME mobility and I had lost it. And because I was so old when I took this step, there are a number of Bucket List things that will never get done because now I am too old and have other unrelated issues to deal with.

So...I was so sick at 59, when I had the DS, that I was choosing between dying within the next few years or taking my chances with this "scary" procedure.

You...and my kid...COULD keep getting fatter and sicker. But she and...I assume...you have 40-50 years ahead of you...if you lose weight. During that time, you WILL have to deal with supplements and discoveries. I mean, what if it is discovered that the gut microbiome is the control center and simple changes there solve the morbid obesity problem? What if it turns out, fifteen years from now, that all any of us ever needed was a high-rent-district enema-type-thing? But, if you don't lose weight, you will have more time than I did...but you will use it getting sicker and sicker...even if you aren't sick now.

Don't panic that you are starting to panic. That is normal. There is a lot to think about. There are good reasons to have and not have bariatric surgery. (And going for the band, like I did, or the sleeve like my sister did, and then regaining is just a waste of time and money.) (Probably not for EVERYONE...but for many.) (You know.)

If you have seriously considered what you are getting into, and if you have decided that you need bariatric surgery, then this is just pre-wedding butterflies...because you will get the hang of the labs and vitamins.

There. Did I give you a headache?

 

[Katie T.]

I love it.....thank you! You said everything that I'm thinking about long term. I worry about the future and what it may or may not hold for me. It's just so scary. I was so excited up until now so I think it just the pre wedding jitters like you said. I'm going to make the jump and do the surgery and PRAY TO GOD that I'll be ok

 

[Spiky Bugger]

I love it.....thank you! You said everything that I'm thinking about long term. I worry about the future and what it may or may not hold for me. It's just so scary. I was so excited up until now so I think it just the pre wedding jitters like you said. I'm going to make the jump and do the surgery and PRAY TO GOD that I'll be ok

That's probably why I married a guy I knew for 15 days...some stuff ya just gotta DO!

 

[Munchkin]

This just makes you normal.

Let me guess. You have been reading all about this on FB. And there is a cohort of people there I think of as Vitamin Nazis. It's their life work to make this incredibly difficult and time consuming. And they think you need full labs every time you get a hangnail. We require a life of constant medical intervention.

Baloney! Now to be completely honest, there are a few, maybe 1% who need to do all this crap. Everyone else just needs to take the pills. Don't waste your time worrying about what goes with what. JUST TAKE THE PILLS. I am only talking about supplements. Some prescription meds do need to be handled differently.

If all the what goes with what crap was necessary most of us would be dead or debilitated by now. Me included. All I do is take half in the morning and the other half at bedtime. I use 2 7day organizers I got at the dollar store. Nothing difficult about that. I usually buy in bulk and I have a vitamin cabinet in my kitchen. If I run out of something I just pick some up the next time I go out. Have I ever missed a dose? Yes. And it's no big deal. What I do today is no big deal. It's what I do over time that matters. And over time I have been pretty darn good about taking everything I need.

Think logically and reasonably. Take everything on the net with a big grain of salt. When I first read all this crap it freaked me out until I put it in perspective by thinking about the normie world. Before surgery I never stopped to think about all the dire repercussions of eating X with Y because it meant I wouldn't absorb Z. If that were true...we would all be dead by now. But in reality we are always not absorbing SOMETHING. Today it's something and tomorrow it's something else. Because we already know what I do today doesn't matter. It's what I do over time.

I think this group does our community a disservice. They make people worry so much about what goes with what that they take...nothing. Don't make postop life harder than it has to be. Just take the pills.

 

[Eztli]

I will chime in here, because I am on the younger side to be getting the D.S, in my early 30's and I assume you are as well, judging from what spiky bugger said. I have to agree with her. I fought against this surgery for so long because while there is 20 years of data on this surgery, I was kind of planning to live longer than that. And the fact that there is not really long term data on this frightens me. And so I decided that I was just going to be fat. Because I already have the sleeve and that clearly hasn't worked long term.

But then I was in Peru, and I couldn't do anything. The elevation combined with my weight was too much. I could not do a damn thing except revel in the complete and utter humiliation that comes with watching people twice your age scamper up a mountain while you literally cannot breath. And I decided then that I was going to have the surgery, and I haven't flip flopped since. I have been so lucky to see so much the world, and do so many amazing things, and I can no longer what I was able to do in the very brief couple years of time that I was thin. So even if there are effects in my 50's, and I have to get the surgery reversed, I want my life back now. Sure you get so much more when you're thin, you get to be treated like a person, you get treated better at work, the opposite sex stops treating you like you're invisible, etc. Its all delightful. But none of that means as much to me as hopefully being able to climb Machu Picchu one day.

I will be nothing short of obsessive with my vitamins post surgery but I know I'm still taking a risk here. And its worth it to me if I get to actually live my life the way I want to now. I think it will be worth it for you as well.

 

[CaitlynR]

Spiky, I think that was a great summary of some of the long term concerns. I'm a couple years younger than the OP and your daughter (36) and have thought many of the same things. I don't know if I would have gotten heavier, but I do know that I would stay obese, even if I lost and kept off significant weight. I also know that most likely I would be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, probably within the next couple of years, based on my blood sugar trends. I suspect, looking at the disease progression in my grandfather, father, and brother, that by the time I would have been 45 I would start to develop diabetic neuropathy no matter how well controlled my sugars are, and by 60 the neuropathy at best would include significant pain (my father, who is very active, eats low carb) or limb loss (my grandfather, who was sendentary and alcoholic). I was on 3 blood pressure medications, so I also have a good chance of suffering slow organ damage, and more recently my lipids are going up, making heart problems and strokes a possibility.

So, I could have waited, as I am still pretty healthy. But in 10 years? In 20? I had assumed a shorter life span. Duodenal switch offered me the possibility of a more normal one, or at least a higher quality of life. I could wait until I started to get sick and then have the surgery, but prevention of disease progression makes more sense than trying to treat it later.

I have thought about the real possibility that within my life span we will have much better options. I sure as hell hope so, for the DS certainly isn't a good response to the obesity epidemic. I do believe, though, something as effective as the DS will take a while to be offered, and new treatments are risky. Even if I knew in 15 years a super probiotic as effective as the DS would be available, the decision would be much harder. However, thinking like this is such a gamble. You could have thought the same thing in 1990. The only new options are the sleeve and some meds, and we know how ineffective these can be compared to the DS.

Maybe the DS will have deleterious effects long term. I think it has been around long enough that at least most of the time the negative effects aren't as bad as the effects of morbid obesity. At worse there is always surgical revision (*shudder*) and/or enzymes to increase absorption.

 

[Settledownnow]

@Munchkin has great advice -- don't worry separating out this and that just take the supplements. I find taking supplements with my breakfast, lunch, and at bedtime is a routine that works for me. I also find it helpful NOT to count how many supplements I am taking each day. That way I completely avoid throwing myself a little pity party based on the number of supplements I need daily. Don't count, just take them. It will take a little time to get a routine down, but you can do it. Don't make a big deal out of it, and it won't be a big deal but just another part of your daily routine.

 

[Munchkin]

@Munchkin has great advice -- don't worry separating out this and that just take the supplements. I find taking supplements with my breakfast, lunch, and at bedtime is a routine that works for me. I also find it helpful NOT to count how many supplements I am taking each day. That way I completely avoid throwing myself a little pity party based on the number of supplements I need daily. Don't count, just take them. It will take a little time to get a routine down, but you can do it. Don't make a big deal out of it, and it won't be a big deal but just another part of your daily routine.

OMG! LOOK AT YOU! 3lbs to goal!