If you are a post-operative patient who has undergone bariatric or diabetic surgery, the following suggestions are important for your future return to a healthy life and the prevention of long-term complications, and we hope you will read them carefully.
1. It is important to maintain long-term contact with your primary care physician after surgery.
It is important to have at least three outpatient follow-up visits in the first year after surgery, as well as more follow-up visits by phone or other means. These visits will include blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin, insulin, C-peptide, as well as your weight, nutritional status, and mental status. After that, you are expected to visit the hospital where you had your surgery once a year for a complete checkup.
The purpose of the follow-up visit is to facilitate the doctor to grasp the control of your obesity, whether you still need diet or medication, and to monitor whether there are any complications related to obesity and whether there is any improvement after the surgery. At the same time, monitor whether there are complications of surgery, whether there is a lack of nutrients, vitamins or minerals, in order to make timely therapeutic adjustments.
2. For patients undergoing surgery, it is important to recognize that dietary guidance is a crucial part of ensuring the effectiveness of surgical treatment, avoiding long-term postoperative complications, and improving various postoperative discomforts for patients. The aim is to form new dietary habits to promote and maintain improved glucose metabolism while replenishing essential nutrients and avoiding discomfort.
The main measures are to drink adequate amounts of fluids, eat sufficient protein, and supplement essential vitamins and minerals.
The specific methods are as follows.
(1) Low-sugar, low-fat, low-calorie diet.
(2) Avoid over-eating.
(3) Eating slowly, about 20-30 minutes per meal.
(4) Chew and swallow slowly, avoiding foods that are too hard or large.
(5) Eating protein-rich foods first and avoiding high-calorie foods.
(6) Daily supplementation of essential vitamins for some depending on the type of surgery and minerals as directed.
(7) Ensure adequate daily fluid intake and avoid carbonated beverages.
(8) Avoid spicy and stimulating foods, such as chili, tea, coffee, tobacco and alcohol.
3.For some discomfort, necessary medication and psychological counseling are also required.
If you have symptoms of long-term heartburn and acid reflux, you may be given appropriate medications to inhibit stomach acid and protect the gastric mucosa, etc.
If vomiting occurs after eating, then first you should reflect on whether you eat too fast or too much, or consume some indigestible food, which can usually be relieved by changing your eating habits; but when you still have severe vomiting or progressive weight loss after changing your eating habits, then you need to return to the hospital for gastrointestinal imaging or gastroscopy, with the aim of clarifying whether For general stenosis, dilatation by gastroscopy can solve the problem without too much concern.
In addition, some patients may have more bowel movements or more exhaust after surgery, which is a normal situation after the reconstruction of the digestive tract after the gastric diversion surgery, you do not need to be too nervous, with the extension of time, some patients will slowly ease this situation, will not affect your life too much.
4. Need to pay attention to vitamin supplementation.
Due to the reconstruction of the digestive tract, the absorption of certain vitamins will be reduced. Although there are not many reports of these complications in China, we recommend that you take the necessary supplements in order to prevent the resulting adverse consequences. In the early postoperative period, you can start supplementing with SunCure tablets (the main ingredient is a multivitamin and some trace elements). This medication is already consumed by many normal people as a health supplement and is therefore generally not harmful to your health. After that, you will need to supplement with Vit
B12, iron, Vit B complex, folic acid and calcium.
If you need to have abdominal surgery in the future due to some other diseases, we strongly recommend that your surgeon contact us before the surgery.
This is because for some doctors, our communication before surgery is very important in order to avoid some unnecessary side effects.
It is important to emphasize that metabolic surgery is a double-edged sword and there is a price to be paid for the benefits you receive. But overall, the benefits of sleeve gastrectomy far outweigh the harms for obese patients, and as long as you follow the post-surgical instructions and stay in close contact with your surgeon, we are confident that you will have a satisfactory outcome.