After Surgery
After Gastric Sleeve surgery you will need to make changes to your
eating patterns. The diet progresses from a liquid diet, to a pureed
diet, to a soft diet, and then to a modified diet.
This progression is designed to allow your body to heal. It is very
important that you follow the diet progression to improve healing
and lesson the risk of complications.
Fluid diet
For the first few days you will be guided by the nursing staff. You
will start with chewing on ice cubes, and then slowly increase from
sips of water and clear fluids, to drinking milky drinks, smooth
soups, and tea or coffee.
Your volumes of fluid will also
gradually increase, from 30ml
every hour, up to 100ml every
hour, as you can tolerate. It is
important to keep a record of
how much you are drinking in
these first few days, to ensure
you are meeting your body’s fluid
requirements.
Puree diet
For the first three weeks after your surgery you will progress from a
fluid diet to a puree diet. A puree diet puts less strain on the staples
in your stomach, and prevents a leak from the staple line. If a leak
from the staples occurs, this is extremely serious.
Puree food does not need chewing; it falls off the spoon slowly but
will not pour off. It should be smooth, with no lumps present.
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You should only have very small amounts of pureed or mashed
food (½ cup at the most). Eating more than this may result in
vomiting, or more significant complications, before healing has
occurred.