Weight after operation

Question

Dear expert team,
the question about gaining weight after lung transplantation, I find it very interesting. Could it also be that after the operation the energy turnover increased? I have a similar problem. I had an operation of the abdomen (appendix), a bit more complicated, the operation took several hours. Since then I lost weight, nearly 1 kg every week. From yesterday to today I again lost 500g in spite of the fact that I eat all the time and take creon in high dosage. Here is my food from yesterday:
500 g white cheese
500 g youghurt 3.7% fat
much fruit (apples, pears, mango, bananas)
6 pieces of cake (2x cream cake, 2 x nougat cake, 2 x cake with pudding)
salad with 400g meat and dressing
3 eggs as stirred egg and fat to fry
300g cheese, 400g peas
and a bottle of juice and half a bottle of milk.

Many thanks for your answer

Answer

Dear questioner,
many thanks for your question, which I will like to try to answer. However I have to admit at first, that this question is not easy to answer from afar. Admitted that your digestion functions so far normally, you have no diarrhae and have no fatty stools, solely from the amount of calories, that seems to cover your needs. I assume, of course, that you are of normal height and do not perform exessive sports. It arises the question, if you really assimilate all those calories that you take in and if you have not an increased need of calories for any other reason. I rather do not see a direct connection with the operation, it could however be like this, that you have in sipte of this not enough energy due to an infection or due to another reason for an increased loss of energy e.g. due to a worse lung function. Your question can therefore from afar not be answered easily, but you have to analyse this problem directly with your doctors in charge.
Yours sincerely,
Dr.med. Markus Hofer
Lungentransplantation program und adult CF-clinic
Univerisity hospital of Zurich, Switzerland

18.04.2011