Short term non-serious physical symptoms after obesity surgery

To be operated on to treat an obesity problem in Liège or Brussels brings a lot of positive changes daily:  improvement of general health, re-appropriation of their body through-out, for example, new clothes, new sitting postures made possible thanks to weight loss, etc.

Some physical discomforts can also appear. They are without danger for your health and are provisional or are easy to treat. Let’s go over some habitual symptoms after a bariatric surgery.

After the bariatric surgery: the discomforts that are sometimes disturbing

No matter what type of surgery chosen to lose weight in Liège or Brussels, the following symptoms are quite common:

Difficulty to drink mineral water

Mineral water seems difficult to swallow, to the point of having the impression of “swallowing a rock”. This feeling fades over time.

A pain on the left side the first week

The patients describe a type of side point, that fades or disappears over time.  

Tiredness generated from weight loss

The significant weight loss generated by a diet or an stomach operation like the gastric bypass, for example, is body fatigue. The body receives less food and jointly loses fat. Can no longer constitute a reserve, it acts by trying to put the body in rest mode.

You can try to fight against this fatigue in several ways:

• Take vitamins and minerals, advised by your surgeon after you have had your obesity operation

• Start-up physical activity to reinforce and conserve your muscular mass

Hair loss after general anaesthesia

The hair follicles are sensitive to different events that could happen in our life time: a birth, a surgery under general anaesthesia, as is the case for weight loss operations , an emotional shock or a lot of stress, an allopathic treatment against phlebitis, etc.  Hair loss is in general not very visible on the scalp but can be seen on the ear or on the hair brush.

This reaction is, again, temporary. Taking vitamins prescribed by your stomach surgeon during the post-operatory follow-up contribute to the disappearance of the alopecia.

The cold sensation, you my friend are losing weight!

Another physiological reaction accompanied by weight loss: the sensation of cold. The body loses progressively a thermic layer, that was constituted by a surplus of fat cells. The cold presents benefit to your body:

• Being cold burns calories to preserve a sufficient body temperature. That adds to weight loss
• Development of brown adipose tissue: the brown fat is important to maintain the body temperature. It consists of one of the mechanisms that allows you to burn calories.  This is only a small volume that is created in the depths of the thorax, especially, and that is not visible to the naked eye.

The loss of the skin’s elasticity

A large emaciation provokes the constriction of the skin until a certain limit. It is recommended to practice a physical activity to conserve the muscular mass under the derma and maintain the skin with a sufficient tension. A cutaneous reconstruction can be considered after obesity surgery to eliminate the last stigmas, depending on the volume loss generated and the quality of your skin.

Other effects following the loss of excess weight

The modifications to your body linked to the operation could be the origins of more digestive noises.

Ingesting a more diversified and qualitative diet has consequences on the digestive system: the transit can modify, and your stools could have a different odour

It could be also intriguing to discover certain body sensations:  able to feel their collarbone or the bones in your hips is novel enough when a person has lived a long time with excess weight. Some patients worry this about unknown excess, that is really is just a part of their body.  Chairs less comfortable are sometimes felt to be too hard.

Note other notorious positive changes:

• Feet less swollen, provoking a change in shoe size
• Stop snoring

• Reduction of some medical treatments (against the hypertension or the diabetes). These comorbidity symptoms reduce, even disappear after an obesity surgery.

Do you want to know more on the effects or the risks linked to a bariatric surgery? Contact Doctor Dandrifosse and Doctor Himpens!

Make an appointment in Liège or Brussels for a pre-consultation or to receive complementary information about our surgical solutions to treat obesity. Our medical team is available to answer your questions as quickly as possible.