What do y'all think of my intestinal measurements?

[Soonerjoseph]

I can't say I'm happy with these measurements. I'm more pissed that my metabolism was so shot with a 6.2m small intestine that I had to starve myself with 300 calorie a day diets to lose weight. Anyway, I got my surgical report and here's my measurement.

120 common channel
200 allimentary limb
300 biliopancreatic limb

It's fine in the short term but every pubmed article that compares women and men show males have a worse bariatric surgical outcome long term. I should have damn near begged my surgeon for a 100 cm common channel. A true Hess method would put my cc at 60 cm with a 240 al. Then again, maybe it won't matter. What do y'all think?

 

[Settledownnow]

I thought I read your BMI was 30 pre-op. Do you think the surgeon was concerned you may lose too much weight at this point?

 

[robs477]

I think you may have it backwards?? Generally speaking, Men seem to do better than Women in the first several years. Again, In general. I think Women tend to start off a little slower but yet stay more steady and I think it kind of evens out long term. Just ask @Munchkin her expert opinion, shes kind of made that observation her “Mantra”. She has even tagged the phenomena the “Man factor”, regarding how much better men seem to do than Women, especially at the beginning.

When did you have your surgery? Reason I’m asking is, your post really rang my bell in particular when you talked about the amount of calories you could only eat. That sounds EXACTLY like how I was pre-op. If I went over 500-800 calories or so, I WOULD GAIN weight! I had to go under 200-300 to even think about losing anything. The worst part is/WAS, NO ONE believes you, (especially the GD Doctors), except for your closest Family members because they actually see what you don’t eat every day. I lived the last 30+yrs of my pathetic existence of a semblance resembling a life like that!!!! SO I KNOW! I/we have even “UN-scientifically” coined the term describing us as “Super Absorbers”, whom store everything and burn nothing real time. That WAS MY BIGGEST fear also with getting the DS that I would still just be as efficient and the CC didn’t matter, i.e., nothing from nothing still = nothing...and I still wouldn’t lose weight……BTW, I was ever so happy to be so wrong about something in my life.

The EXACT opposite happened with me and I actually acquired back instantly a working revved and stoked up working metabolism and could actually feel it the very day, right after surgery. Something switched on with the “switch” and I felt like I was taking those amphetamine diet pills, literally hyper and bouncing off the walls with energy and 20 yrs younger. Nine months and 1 week later, I still feel the same way and am eating 6-8 X as much food and have lost 138 lbs total, so, I’m real curious what you’re basing your fears upon???

 

[Soonerjoseph]

I thought I read your BMI was 30 pre-op. Do you think the surgeon was concerned you may lose too much weight at this point?

It had actually gained up to a 33.8 bmi by the day of surgery. Over 38 pounds in 5 weeks. But yeah, the docs really didn't want to give me the ds.

I look at the sleeve as the initial weight loss, and the bypass as the maintainance, generally speaking. I'm just looking for similar measurements from people that have been successful. I've read where it's not mainly the exact common channel and allimentary limb length but that those 2 should equal 50% of total small bowel length. Mine equals around 48.4% bypassed so....I'm probably just worrying for nothing.

 

[Soonerjoseph]

I think you may have it backwards?? Generally speaking, Men seem to do better than Women in the first several years. Again, In general. I think Women tend to start off a little slower but yet stay more steady and I think it kind of evens out long term. Just ask @Munchkin her expert opinion, shes kind of made that observation her “Mantra”. She has even tagged the phenomena the “Man factor”, regarding how much better men seem to do than Women, especially at the beginning.

When did you have your surgery? Reason I’m asking is, your post really rang my bell in particular when you talked about the amount of calories you could only eat. That sounds EXACTLY like how I was pre-op. If I went over 500-800 calories or so, I WOULD GAIN weight! I had to go under 200-300 to even think about losing anything. The worst part is/WAS, NO ONE believes you, (especially the GD Doctors), except for your closest Family members because they actually see what you don’t eat every day. I lived the last 30+yrs of my pathetic existence of a semblance resembling a life like that!!!! SO I KNOW! I/we have even “UN-scientifically” coined the term describing us as “Super Absorbers”, whom store everything and burn nothing real time. That WAS MY BIGGEST fear also with getting the DS that I would still just be as efficient and the CC didn’t matter, i.e., nothing from nothing still = nothing...and I still wouldn’t lose weight……BTW, I was ever so happy to be so wrong about something in my life.

The EXACT opposite happened with me and I actually acquired back instantly a working revved and stoked up working metabolism and could actually feel it the very day, right after surgery. Something switched on with the “switch” and I felt like I was taking those amphetamine diet pills, literally hyper and bouncing off the walls with energy and 20 yrs younger. Nine months and 1 week later, I still feel the same way and am eating 6-8 X as much food and have lost 138 lbs total, so, I’m real curious what you’re basing your fears upon???

I had my surgery like 4 days ago lol. I guess I just DO NOT want to go back to 350 pounds ever again. It scares the hell out of me.

 

[robs477]

I had my surgery like 4 days ago lol. I guess I just DO NOT want to go back to 350 pounds ever again. It scares the hell out of me.

Yeah, I just went back and looked at your profile and saw that. WOW, four days!! Reading my post should give you plenty of hope then. There is NO FLIPPIN way you can ever gain back that weight. I thought the same thing and it literally took me SIX moths before I could start donating my "Fat Clothes" away.

Your biggest problem, WILL BE getting used to eating again. It seems like that's ALL I do. If I'm not buying food or cooking food or doing dishes or getting rid of food, etc, etc. My Wife has had to remind me several times, she says. "This is normal Rob, this is what NORMAL people do" I just still cant get used to it, Ive been in that state of deprivation longer than you are old, so hopefully, you can get used to it quicker than me...LOL

You will do fine though, if anything, you do have to be VERY aware of losing too much, especially with starting off as a "lightweight". My best wishes to you for your success.

 

[Soonerjoseph]

Thanks for the inspiration Rob. I leave to go home in about 40 minutes. Once I'm home I'll find those pubmed articles I talked about though. Men do awesome at first but for whatever reason (and maybe just with other bariatric surgeries), men don't do as well long term.

 

[Larra]

Back in the old days of the BPD, before the DS (aka BPD-DS) was developed, they did those really short common channels, and people had big problems with diarrhea and vitamin deficiencies. That's why the modern day DS was developed, and it's rare nowadays to hear of a common channel shorter than 75 cm, and most surgeons won't do one less than 100 cm. The other big change was doing the sleeve instead of removing the lower half or the stomach.
So it probably would have been a very bad thing if your surgeon had done a 60 cm cc. I bet you will do just fine with these measurements. Actually, the folks we've seen losing too much weight and struggling to stop losing have almost all been men. Calm down, focus on your recovery. The weight is going to come off.

 

[DSRIGGS]

First off, the Hess Method is an approximate guideline and like Larra said it is rare (and I will add, probably negligent in most cases) to have a CC shorter than 100 CM. Dr K tells me it is common practice to round up to the next 50 cm mark so with Hess method 100 CM would have been the ideal CC number.

The second part is that with the Hess method it is typcial that the BPL = 50% of SBL and the CC + AL = 50% of SBL.

I would think you should do just fine assuming there are no underlying issues.

 

[Munchkin]

My prediction is that you will be just fine. What's done is done and you just do the best you can with what you have. Your starting BMI is pretty low. What you got will probably work great.

 

[Soonerjoseph]

After more coherent thinking about the 120 cm, I'm sure that was the best amount for me. I just got scared it was 1 more thing to make me keeping the weight off long term not possible. Thanks for all helping to nudge (or shove) me into the coherent thinking direction. LOL

 

[DSRIGGS]

After more coherent thinking about the 120 cm, I'm sure that was the best amount for me. I just got scared it was 1 more thing to make me keeping the weight off long term not possible. Thanks for all helping to nudge (or shove) me into the coherent thinking direction. LOL

Hello Joseph

Having this surgery from a physical standpoint is tough and mentally there is handling the changes that are and will be coming your way. It is perfectly natural to question things and to even think, oh man what the hell did I do to myself. We all went through that.

Now I am going to be brutally honest and have to tell you that you are going to have to make better decisions. Driving 20 hours, by yourself, after having major surgery (this is a very major surgery) was an extremely stupid decision and frankly one that could have had very bad consequences. I hope you made it home and are doing okay but you need to slow down and heal. I appreciate your desire to get on with life and harness the power of your new tool, but please slow down and take care of yourself. A few weeks of rest now will get you down that road much faster than if you push too hard and have setbacks.

And on the channel length, you are good. Look at it this way. You had, I believe , 600 cm of absorbing small intestine. Now you have half of that. You are going to lose plenty of weight.

 

[robs477]

After more coherent thinking about the 120 cm, I'm sure that was the best amount for me. I just got scared it was 1 more thing to make me keeping the weight off long term not possible. Thanks for all helping to nudge (or shove) me into the coherent thinking direction. LOL

That's what we're here for! We're ALL in this together and need each others help and expertise and learned experiences because you GD sure cant count on the "medical Community" for anything other than the surgery itself. You will do fine on 120, mine was 110 and I cant imagine if it was any shorter. It wouldn't have been good.

I agree with @DSRIGGS also....SLOW DOWN Cowboy...lol....I CAN'T even imagine having to make that drive and I'm really concerned for you. I know you OBVIOUSLY didn't have a choice, but holy crap, that's not good. PLEASE take care.