Five months out, weight coming off nicely, and I am COLD. Constantly. Bone cold.
Details, because I know someone will ask. It's June. My office has the air conditioning on and everyone else is complaining about the heat while I've got a cardigan on and my hands are genuinely white at the fingertips by mid afternoon. I sleep under a duvet I bought for winter. I had a bath on Tuesday and got out shivering, in June, which is when I decided this had officially become a thing rather than a quirk.
What I can't work out is whether this is just the obvious "less padding, less warmth" or whether it's a signal I should be doing something about. I'm hitting my protein most days, taking my vitamins religiously, and my last bloods were fine as far as I know, though "as far as I know" is doing some heavy lifting there because nobody actually talked me through the numbers. Anyone else been through this, and did it pass?
Oh it's a thing. Two winters in and I still own more jumpers than I did at my heaviest, which nobody warns you about.
Mine was worst during the fast loss months and then eased off a lot once my weight settled. Not gone, but it stopped being the main fact of my day.
Warehouse, unheated, winter, twelve months post-op. I went from being the bloke in a t-shirt while everyone else wore coats to owning thermal socks and a body warmer, which my colleagues found hilarious for about four months.
Layers and hot drinks are most of my answer. The other bit that helped was moving more rather than sitting still and getting colder, which sounds obvious and took me embarrassingly long to work out.
Tracey, this comes up in every sleeve community I've ever been in and it barely appears in any patient leaflet, so you're neither imagining it nor alone.
The everyday explanations first, because they cover most people. You've lost a layer of insulation you'd had for years, and losing it fast means your sense of what normal room temperature feels like hasn't caught up. On top of that you're eating a fraction of what you used to, and the sheer act of digesting a substantial meal used to generate warmth several times a day. Add a smaller body losing heat more readily and it isn't mysterious that June feels like March. Donna's timeline is the usual one: it's loudest during the fast loss phase, it eases as the weight settles, and it doesn't vanish entirely for everyone.
The part I'd take seriously rather than shrug off is the "as far as I know" in your post. Feeling cold all the time is also on the list of things worth checking after bariatric surgery, because iron, B12 and thyroid all sit behind it, and post-sleeve blood monitoring exists precisely to catch that sort of thing early. Being diligent with your supplements is not the same as knowing your levels are fine, since absorption varies between people, which is the whole reason the vitamins and monitoring routine is lifelong rather than a first-year chore. So the useful move isn't to buy a better cardigan, it's to ring your team, ask when your next bloods are due, and ask them to actually walk you through the last set rather than "they were fine". You are allowed to ask for your own numbers.
I'd flag it faster than that, today rather than at the next routine appointment, if the cold arrives alongside serious tiredness, breathlessness on stairs you used to manage, or a heart that races when you stand. Those together are a different conversation and belong with your team rather than a forum.
Right, ringing them. I've been slightly tired but I'd filed that under "everyone's tired", which now that I type it out is exactly the kind of thing I'd tell someone else off for.
Will report back with actual numbers rather than vibes.
Numbers, as promised. Bloods done, and my iron was on the low side of acceptable rather than actually deficient, so the team have adjusted what I'm taking and want me retested in a few months. Not dramatic, but not nothing either, and I'd never have known if I hadn't asked.
Still cold, if I'm honest, so I suspect Donna and Alan are right that most of it is just being a smaller person in a world set to a temperature I no longer agree with. But I feel a lot better knowing it's been looked at rather than assumed.
Filing this one for later. Ten days post-op, currently living in a jumper in August, and I'd assumed that was just the after-effects of the operation. Apparently it may be the rest of my life. Off to reconsider my winter wardrobe.
