Health Tips

Weeks 2 and 3 After the Operation – The “Transition” Phase

December 23, 2009
By Darlene Doyle

After the first week we begin the transition from liquid foods through to solid foods. We want to do this slowly because we want to avoid in vomiting that could occur if you tried to progress more rapidly. Initially the liquid-type foods can be gently thickened up. The soups become thicker, the fruit and vegetables less pureed or vitamized, and you can start taking some of the softer foods such as eggs, and the yellow vegetables. One Weetbix or equivalent might be seen as a typical breakfast. If you add a lot of skinny milk to this it is nearly liquid and is appropriate at the start of this period. By the end of two weeks you should be adding less milk and it is much more like a solid meal.

FROM WEEK 3 ONWARDS-THE “SOLIDS” PHASE

After week 3 you should be on solid foods and normally you will stay on solid foods from then on. Some foods are more difficult to cope with than others. The foods that tend to be most difficult are bread, red meat, and sometimes rice. White meats, particularly fish, are usually well tolerated, but initially it might be appropriate to make it with a sauce and later on delete the sauce as you move to completely solid foods. By the end of the third week you should be on solid foods and the liquids-only of the past will now remain in the past. There is one exception to this. If, due to illness or inadvertent error, you begin vomiting and have some difficulties with solid foods, it is important then to go back initially to clear liquids and come forward again through soft foods to solid foods. If this happens, you should contact the clinic and check if you need to be seen by one of the physicians.

Once you have established a diet based on solid foods you will stay on this permanently. From then on you need to avoid taking any liquids that are calorie-containing. This will then limit your liquid intake to water, mineral water, tea, coffee and low-calorie soft drinks, and maybe a glass of wine. Be careful initially with the carbonated drinks. The gas can build up as you cannot burp as readily after band placement as before and it can be quite uncomfortable. See how you go, letting the drink go fairly flat, and drink it if you do not have trouble.

There are two final important messages:

If at any time during the first few weeks, or indeed at any time in the years afterwards, you feel that there is something wrong, it is essential that you get a message to your surgeon that you are worried. A number of bad things have happened to people after the LAP-BAND procedure because they have consulted with someone who is not familiar with the band and who then makes a mistake of diagnosis, or treatment, or both. We do want to know if you may be in trouble. We would be very disappointed if you did not contact us and subsequently something serious happened that we may have been able to help you avoid.
During the first week it is usual not to feel at all hungry, to be quite uninterested in food. Please remember that feeling. That is what we want to achieve in the long term by adjusting the band. The feeling will fade over the 4 weeks so that by week 4 you may be getting hungry, the weight loss will have stopped and the amount of food you are eating will have increased. That is normal. We then start to add the saline to the system at that time and seek to move you back to the state of satiety of the first week.

Darlene Doyle is a freelance medical writer. For information on weight loss surgery procedures, check out http://www.trueresults.com/.

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