Recovering From Gastric Surgery for Binge Eating Disorder

A reader wanted to know about my recovery from gastric sleeve surgery for binge eating disorder. Here is a quick post about my recovery and the immediate diet following it. It wasn't easy, to say the least, but by following doctor's orders and taking it easy, I had a complication-free road to recovery and a great start to my new life as a sleever. Stay tuned for more of my experience with gastric sleeve surgery recovery and how it helped me with my binge eating disorder.

Going Through Gastric Surgery for Binge Eating Disorder

This part was super easy. I was totally unconscious through the entire thing. I went under
when they were taking me down the hallway to the operating room and I woke up in the recovery room some time later, with one sock on. For my actual surgery experience, I give it a solid A+ -- just like taking a nap.

Initial Recovery from Gastric Sleeve Surgery for Binge Eating Disorder

Waking up from surgery I felt really groggy and out of it. I just wanted to sleep. Unfortunately, this surgery was outpatient and I couldn't. So they took me to a room where they gave me a special liquid to drink, then checked the liquid going into my stomach. If there were any holes or tears in any part of my body, it would have shown up during the procedure. Everything went smoothly, although the last thing I wanted to do at that moment was drink anything. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

I was then released from the hospital after getting dressed. I had bandages over my stomach and it was uncomfortable to perform even a simple task like getting dressed. When I got home I went to sleep. And I slept for longer than I can even remember.

Liquids-Only Diet While Recovering From Gastric Sleeve Surgery

When your stomach is healing, you can't put any solid food in it since it might stretch or damage the stitching, staples or the combination used to secure your new stomach. So you will be drinking, and drinking only, for two weeks. Let me assure you; if you ever need to slow time down to an absolute crawl then go on a liquid-only diet.

However, this diet helps you to adjust to your new stomach and learn how to drink slowly. Not to mention that after gastric surgery, you need to stay hydrated and have a harder time doing it since your stomach can only hold about eight ounces. So starting off without solid food helps you to pay attention to how much you will need to drink in order to stay hydrated.

My Overall Recovery from Gastric Sleeve Surgery

I had a very easy recovery from gastric surgery for binge eating disorder. Although time crawled while I watched everyone else in the house eating solid food and I had nothing but tomato soup, I had no major complications or infections. That was partly due to luck as nothing went wrong during the surgery and I didn't discover too late that I was allergic to the anesthetic or anything like that.

But I also made sure to read all of the instructions that I received about recovery, I followed all doctor's orders and I managed to go the full two weeks without solid food. This helped me as I started incorporating meals back into my diet, but also now makes me incapable of enjoying tomato soup. But these are the sacrifices that sometimes must be made.

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