Questions

Most patients can go back to coffee about a month after surgery, once they are tolerating soft food comfortably. Start with one small cup a day and see how your stomach reacts.

Coffee is acidic and can irritate a healing stomach, so earlier than that is usually not worth the discomfort. Avoid drinking it with meals — fluids with food fill you up too quickly.

Usually from around three months, and in small amounts. Rice, bread and pasta swell and sit heavily in a small stomach, so many patients find them uncomfortable before then.

When you do reintroduce them, eat your protein first and treat the carbohydrate as what is left over, not the base of the meal.

No — and this is the one we are strictest about. Smoking after bariatric surgery raises the risk of ulcers and of your staple line not healing properly. Those are serious complications.

If you smoked before surgery, this is the best possible moment to stop for good. Tell us if you want help.

Yes. After sleeve or bypass surgery your body absorbs less of certain vitamins, and no diet on its own replaces that. This is lifelong.

The deficiencies that follow — especially B12 and iron — build up quietly over years and are much easier to prevent than to reverse. Your blood tests at each visit tell us whether the doses are right.