Fluids, Fluids, Fluids!
This is the most important thing at this phase. If I’m not diligent about constantly sipping it is easy to fall behind. Then dehydration symptoms kick in. I had a pretty bad headache yesterday and this morning, but as I have increased my fluid intake (diligently) it has faded. I’m always carrying my time measured water bottle with me now so I don’t forget.
Protein
The next priority after hydration is protein. I mixed some collagen peptide protein powder in with some decaffeinated coffee and 1% milk this morning and managed to get about 80% of it down. Warm liquids seem to be easier than cold, so this type of protein is nice because you can add it into hot beverages.
Pain
I know some people don’t experience much pain with ESG, but unfortunately I do have some still. Everyone seems to recover a little differently from this procedure (or surgeries in general). It has been getting better, though. At first I wasn’t able to lay on my left side at all, but now I’m able to in spurts before the cramping kicks in. I think the pain I’m having is from the gas they inflate your stomach with in order to have room to perform the procedure in the stomach. It tends to just take longer for this to leave my body than average (based on my other surgeries I have had in the past). I think last time I turned the corner at day 5, so I’m expecting to have a couple more days of this. In the meantime, I’m doing as much walking as I can to get the air to move around.
Follow Up Care
My follow up care at True You Weight Loss has been excellent! Dr. McGowan has actually texted me a couple of times himself to check in and to make sure I’m taking in enough fluid. What a difference compared to the clinic I first went to! I have a virtual follow up appointment with him later this week, as well. This might not sound like much, but my first clinic didn’t even have a direct phone line for me to contact someone for help. My only option was to call the front desk during business hours and hope my message was given to the physician’s assistant. I couldn’t even leave a personal voicemail. A lot of times I just never got a call back, or I would get a reply to my email a week or so later. It was frustrating.
Post Procedure Findings
Some may not be interested in seeing their own procedure being performed, but I was actually really interested in this. Dr. McGowan gave me the full length unedited video recording of my procedure. So I actually got to see what was left behind from the previous ESG, what was done to my hernia (that my previous doctor claimed to fix), the removal of the old anchors & sutures, and the new sutures being placed.
Two sutures were gone (in fact there wasn’t visible evidence they had ever been placed), and the other sutures were completely loose or broken. This means I did not have any restriction at all. The hernia that was “fixed” had a stitch in it, but it didn’t hold. I ran this past a couple of doctors (one of whom fixes hernias), and the consensus is you cannot fix a hiatal hernia this way. You must go in through the abdominal wall to fix it. Thankfully there was no noticeable damage done in there by placing that stitch there, and apparently the hernia is really small and not one that should give me trouble. I’ll always kind of wonder what that first doctor was thinking by trying to fix it that way.
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