Helping Your Loved One Eat Properly After Bariatric Surgery

Health & Medical Blog

When it comes to helping your loved one recover from bariatric surgery, it's important that you focus on their diet. Making sure your loved one eats correctly after surgery will ensure their stomach heals properly and more importantly, helps them continue the process of losing weight. The surgeon will provide you with helpful information about caring for your loved one, but it's best to have some knowledge beforehand. This way you can ensure you are already prepared once your loved arrives from the hospital.

Diet Concerns

Typically, a bariatric surgery recovery diet should begin with liquids. Broths, skim-milk and unsweetened juice are a good place to begin. These selections will provide the necessary nutrients while slowly preparing their stomach to eat again.

Eventually, you can start offering pureed foods, such as lean meats or pre-cooked vegetables. Once you start offering these selections, it's best to start off slow. The digestive system changes after this procedure. Foods that an individual could once consume easily, might become more challenging because of sensitivity issues.

Prepare a number of different food combinations that you can puree and freeze. Should your loved one be unable to tolerate a certain food, you can easily pull something else out the freezer and heat it up. In addition to a proper recovery, following a proper diet also makes the waste elimination process more comfortable. Eating incorrectly can cause constipation issues that could cause your loved one to strain during the elimination process, so keep this in mind.

Get a Bariatric Commode

As always, what your loved one eats will have to come out. Immediately after surgery it will likely be very difficult for them to move around easily. Having a bariatric hospital commode on hand for your loved one to use will help ensure that they are comfortable while using the commode. This is true for a number of reasons. First, many of these units come with padded seats and they also generally sit higher than traditional commodes do.

Each of these characteristics make it easier for your loved one to sit down without the risk of straining their incisions. Bariatric commodes are also portable since they come with a toilet chamber that can easily be removed and emptied. You can place the commode next to their bed or inside the shower, whatever is the most convenient.

Proper care after this procedure is a critical component of just how successful the surgery is. Make certain you are keeping your loved one's diet and commode needs at the forefront of your mind.

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3 April 2015