9 Months Post Surgery Update

Today's blog is not too eventful. I had a check up today at the doctor's office and I have only lost 5 lbs since my 6 month follow up. If I am surprised, it is due to that I lost any weight at all. I actually expected that I had gained weight. But thankfully this was not the case, even though I have treated my body horribly by eating out nearly every day.

Here is my Tanita print out:

Today will mostly focus on the issues I have been having since my last update. Around mid November,  I got an upper respiratory infection which knocked me down for about 2 weeks. Up until then I had been going to the gym pretty regularly and trying to do the circuit workouts my friend gave me. After that illness I just could not shake the fatigue I had been feeling. I ran out of my vitamin D prescription of 10,000 units a week around that time as well. But even with the prescription I was still feeling tired a lot. I didn't even want to get out of bed most days. I spoke with my primary care physician today about increasing my strength for prescription of vitamin D.

It turns out that he had already increased my prescription strength to 50,000 units once a week at my last visit 3 months ago. I guess the pharmacy only saw the old prescription,  because my last prescription was filled at 10,000 units. So, in addition to me not having my medicine for about 1.5 months the prescription for the month or two before that was wrong. It's no small wonder that I could barely drag myself out of bed on some days.

If you don't know much about vitamin D, it is necessary for metabolic function. My personal symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency have been loss of hair, fatigue, depression,  and general weakness. In fact about 3 or 4 years ago, rapid hair loss is how I finally found out I had a vitamin D deficiency.  I am coming to believe that this runs on my maternal grandmother's side of the family. Both my mother and I have a diagnosed Vitamin D deficiency and my uncle, who is biologically my mother's half brother, also has known issues with this. My uncle has this despite all the time he spends fishing outdoors. There are many other things that run in our family which have also been linked to Vitamin D deficiency in different articles I have read: Asthma, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome, and problems with weight.


Anyway, I had all kinds of labs drawn today and I hope to get the results soon. Most of the labs were routine, like for cholesterol and complete blood count and cmp; but he also added labs for iron, zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, and vitamins: B12, A, D, E, K. They took about 8 to 10 vials of blood. We will see what the lab results say as to whether I need to change any of my current vitamins, but as of today I am supposed to be taking the following:

Calcium, a multivitamin,  Biotin (5,000 mcg), B1(Thiamine)(100 mg), and Vitamin D 50,000 units.

My nurse practitioner at the surgeon office also wants me to start keeping a food journal, drink 64 oz of water a day, and go to some of the support meetings for people who have had the surgery. These are goals I will be working on as well as getting back in the gym. 

That's all for now. I will try to update everyone when my labs come back. I didn't take any pictures because I really look the same in appearance as my last blog.