Stomach Stretching

[loren2]

Is it possible to stretch your stomach with liquids? Sometime I'm guzzling my water to get to 64 oz. and I feel that too full pain that I think means I'm stretching my stomach. It passes fairly quickly but I'm concerned. I don't want to do anything to permanently stretch my new little stomach. :-)

[cpttrsn]

I have the same question. I can drink way more than I can eat. Trying to go slow because I do not want to stretch my sleeve.

[sraebaer]

NO. Liquids will not stretch your stomach. Liquids go right through your stomach. (I asked my doctor this question.)

[cpttrsn]

Good to know! Thanks.

[Stacey03]

I asked my doctor too and he said that nothing actually stretches your stomach!! I dunno! The jury seems out on that one. But liquids... nope :-)

[mellowjoy]

On my last support group meeting we discussed the 'stretching' of the stomach. We were told you can't stretch the stomach but you can change the sensation of how it feels to be full if you continue to over eat. Liquids also won't stretch the stomach but again the sensation of how it fills to be full will change as you increase how much you drink. Over time we become more toleant of feeling full and can push it a little further and further until we're eating more than is required for weight maintenance. I'm one of those food scale people because I know over eating is what got me into the shape I was in. I still limit my portions to between 4 to 6 ounces per meal. I'm headed into my 4th year and the fear of over eating is still with me.

[Ann2]

On my last support group meeting we discussed the 'stretching' of the stomach. We were told you can't stretch the stomach but you can change the sensation of how it feels to be full if you continue to over eat. Liquids also won't stretch the stomach but again the sensation of how it fills to be full will change as you increase how much you drink. Over time we become more toleant of feeling full and can push it a little further and further until we're eating more than is required for weight maintenance. I'm one of those food scale people because I know over eating is what got me into the shape I was in. I still limit my portions to between 4 to 6 ounces per meal. I'm headed into my 4th year and the fear of over eating is still with me.

This rings very true for me. I'm 3 years and 7 months post-op and maintaining like a champ (after losing more than 100 pounds). Although I do eat more than 4-6 ounces per meal. Am eating one right now that's probably 9 ounces. But slowly. And it fills me up.

One thing I think the newly sleeved don't realize is that the very limited amounts they can eat for the first 2-4 or so months is so extremely little BECAUSE their sleeve is still swollen and healing after having been (cough!) butchered. There's a lot of healing that has to happen to the sleeve after surgery.

Also, the newly sleeved will eventually learn what those of us further out have learned -- that the less you eat, the less you CAN eat. Even now, when I want or need to lose a few pounds and eat less than my normal maintenance menus, I really get used to eating less. That's the magic of the sleeve -- maybe even of stomachs in general: I think all our stomachs get used to holding more or less over a period of time, depending on how much and WHAT you put into it.

[Gege1061]

Hi!
I was just at the doctor and he told me that in all of his years of doing this surgery he has only seen someone "eating through the sleeve" once and it was an EXTREME situation of psychological eating. That's comforting to me. He said you'd really have to be making an effort to overeat constantly. I hope that that helps. We worry about so many things post surgery! I feel that sometimes I've replaced all my old weight worries with a whole new set of worries about my sleeve. Even still, I'd take this kind of worrying ANYDAY over what used to be.
Gege

[loren2]

Thanks for the reply. Good to know you asked the doctor because it sure feels like that same full feeling I get from food it just doesn't last very long.

[DHB]

I know there are people in this group who have been “re-sleeved.” Would love to know why & if it helped.

[loren2]

I know there are people in this group who have been “re-sleeved.” Would love to know why & if it helped.

That's interesting DHB. That would lead me to believe that the stomach can and does stretch.

[Ann2]

Everybody should remember that all stomachs and all sleeves are not identical in size and other ways. Some stomachs and resulting sleeves are loooong. Some are short. I’ve read about a few that pooched out in places and needed to be trimmed up.

Most of our sleeves turn out just fine. But if your sleeve does not seem like it’s acting right, first eliminate the most obvious abuses — like grazing, eating crap food, eating just too much either at once or over longer periods of time, no exercise, etc. And then get a bariatric opinion that will likely involve an endoscopy to see what’s going on down there.

Nonetheless, all the long-term research I’ve seen finds that half of all WLS patients regain between half and all of the weight they lost. There are many ways to do this, but the most common 'misbehaviors' include 1) grazing between meals, 2) eating over long periods of time, 3) eating highly processed slider foods (which never challenge the sleeve), 4) eating high-calorie, low-density foods, 5) drinking their calories (which also don't challenge the sleeve) and include things like sweet tea, sugar sodas, high-calorie coffee drinks, lots of alcohol, milkshakes, etc. Yup, some people eat like that post-op. And obviously, not being active lowers one's caloric needs, so any extra calories eaten turn into regain.

[Christie13]

Here is what I have read about stretching the sleeve. This site has a lot of useful info.

https://www.obesitycoverage.com/weig...tomach-stretch