Wheelchair

it turns out I had 2.5cc's put in during surgery.. and I received my first fill this past wednesday of 2cc's, to a total of 4.5 ccs in a 11cc band. I'm actually feeling a lot of restriction with the first fill. Post surgery I had to start eating slower.. but the first fill made a much bigger difference. Just now, I wanted to eat some chicken.. but after a few bites, I couldn't take anymore. But I know I have to eat something... so I'm nibbling on an apple now.

I'll be close to one-derland by the end of 2011. Hopefully I'll be in the 100s to kick off the new year. It's a double edged sword... not being able to frequently measure my current weight.... but with my pre surgery weight and giving myself 1~2 pounds of fat loss per week... i'll be able to make my goal for the year. Wish me luck and best luck to you!

sliming happens to me all the time... i guess i'm too dense to learn I'm 5 weeks post op... got my first fill this week. Fortunately I've been eating slowly so haven't had any issues... Sliming isn't fun.. but it's another method the band uses to teach us to eat better. Best of luck to yoU!!!

same here

I'm willing to say 99% of us cheat. Bold statement...i know... but i figure... if any of us were truly capable of self-discipline, we wouldn't have had to resort to surgery to lose weight. Having said this... what's YOUR favorite food to cheat on? Compared to pre-surgery, are you able to limit yourself to a few morsels? How often do you cheat? Do you feel guilty/disappointed afterwards? If so, how do you cope and get yourself back on your feet? For me... I love oreos. Regular...bite size... double stuffed...I love them. There are times I really get a sweet tooth...and no amount of fresh fruit or sugarless gum can satiate my craving. If I've been good with my workouts and diet...i'll allow myself to have 3 or 4 Cookies at one time. I don't really feel guilty, per se.... i get more of an extra boost to work out harder the day after.

In my defense... my intention of opening this thread was not to promote or encourage in anyway the indulgence of unhealthy 'junk' food. We all know the benefits of healthy diet and exercise, but frequently we find ourselves 'cheating' and regretting it afterwards. I wanted this thread to show that we DO cheat, but the key is that we get back on track with our healthy lifestyle and continue combating obesity. Joleen.... I'm so sorry for your occupation . My mother along with my brother and his wife are all registered nurses. Wow...some of the shocking stories I've heard!!

Again, pills that are scored down the middle do NOT necessarily mean that they can be crushed. Pharmacokinetically, by crushing a pill, you are exponentially increasing the surface area of the medicine. This will cause it to be dissolved much faster than you may want. Do not ask your surgeon. Surgeons may not know the pharmacokinetics or the pharmacodynamics of a certain formulation of a pill. In layman's term.. the surgeon may not know exactly how your pill will be absorbed by the body and what effects it will have on your body. Do yourselves a favor and ask your pharmacist.

Hello, welcome to the forum! Here is a link to a thread that addresses your question. "Stuck" I actually got my first fill so haven't had any episodes yet... I hear it's nasty~

oh gosh.. i think my surgeon spoiled me a little. I was only on a liquid diet one day prior to the surgery... and was taken off liquid diet after 5 days. I guess it's different for most, but my surgeon believed that my current age and health meant that I'd be more resilient than most and told me to start doing soft foods at day 6. But no matter what... you have to take it easy for the first few weeks. The last thing you want is to stress your healing stomach. Laparoscopic surgery is minimally invasive... but it is still invasive. Good luck to yoU!

My best advice is to do some hardcore research. Know EVERYTHING about the surgery before you go in for consultation. If you haven't already, I urge you to read through this forum... the goods and the bads... learn about the hardships that we all go through one way or another. Also... I'd like to say that having realistic goals are very important. Some people here lose 100+ pounds in their first year after surgery... but for most of us, this isn't realistic. For me... I would be happy with 50lbs of weight loss TOTAL. I'm figuring 1 pound a week and would like to do this in one year. Good luck to you!

I was banded exactly a month ago (June 3rd) and the 1 week post-op diet consisted of zero calorie Powerade and such grade juice (mixed with water). I was absolutely fine with that until Day 5..when I started to get famished. At that time, I had some homemade chicken broth and some eggs stirred in.

PLEASE!!! Don't check with your surgeon on this. Most likely, he/she will not know. Talk to your PHARMACIST!! With this question, it would be very foolish to ask someone who is not a specialist. If you have to split or crush pills, you may need to change your dosage and your pharmacist will be the one to tell you which is preferable. Then you can have your pharmacist call your surgeon and write you a prescription. I'm not saying pharmacists are in any way 'smarter' than general surgeons... but 1 semester of pharmacology in med school cannot compare to the 4 years that PharmDs need to do. Your pharmacist should have all of the information regarding your current medications and he/she will be able to tell you which can be crushed and which shouldn't be. They can also recommend a change in the formulation so that the pill can be crushed.

I did a 4 miles hump with my GSD bella. It was a bit tough for me b/c there are a lot of ups and downs... but Bella walked by me the whole time. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to do this.... used to take me less than 30 before my accident . Anyhow...it was such a good workout for me... and I'm very glad Bella could keep me company

Let's think of the opportunity cost of NOT having the band. Would you honestly have been able to lose the 40 lbs that you have? If you hadn't gotten the surgery and spent these last 7~8 months on willpower alone... how much do you think you would have lost? It is so possible to cheat on the band. Perhaps it's easier to cheat... because many of us justify and indulge our cravings with "well...I didn't eat a lot today anyhow, a few Cookies wouldn't hurt... " You have to be honest with yourself... is your current behavior and lifestyle conducive to weight loss?

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, but I would like to give you my gratitude for your post. I am slightly lactose intolerant (my symptoms are not very severe) and I do enjoy the occasional ice cream (very rare). I'm not a big ice cream fiend so that won't be too much of a problem but I do enjoy a lot of diet coke. I haven't had any carbonated drinks since my surgery... I guess I'll have to abstain from it for a longer time. Thanks for your post and best of luck to you.

Interesting point. I wonder how boxing would help someone in a wheelchair. To the OP, can you expound on your physical condition? Being a paraplegic, I have NO SENSATION OR MOVEMENT below my sternum. Not being able to walk (or move my legs at all) is a definite setback but the big thing is that I cannot even control my core muscles... I have very tough time balancing myself if I'm not holding onto anything. I wouldn't be able to sit in a chair with out a high enough back.. or sit on the bed without having to support myself with my arms. I actually can't even sneeze because of my lack of ab control. However, I've found many ways to keep myself active physically. I used to be a huge workout buff before my motorcycle accident, but to be honest, I don't frequent the gym as much nowadays. That being said, I do many activities at home to maintain my upper body strength. One of the things I do is yardwork. It might not be a big deal to most people... but the very act of me pushing myself through the grass in my wheelchair is a lot of exercise. I've recently cut down a fairly large tree and I've been cleaning all that up myself. I cut the larger trunk into manageable pieces and use a wedge and a 6lb hammer to split the logs. Another thing I do on a daily basis is take my two dogs to the park. I try not to stay still whenever I'm out with my dogs. I'll find something to do to keep myself moving around. Pushing a wheelchair through grass is hard enough... but it's even tougher in the woods! Sorry to bore you with all my talk...but my main point is that certain physical limitations can be overcome. From reading your post, I think you're well aware of the diet aspects of weight loss... but not too much with the exercise portion. Try lifting weights... it's tough at first but gets much easier. Weightlifting trumps aerobic exercises any day. Best of luck to you!

Where did you go to pharmacy school? I'm actually a P3 student at Mercer. I would hesitate to say NEVER break or crush pills... it really depends on the formulation. I do agree that you should NEVER break controlled release, sustained release, enteric coated, etc but many pills for cardiovascular diseases have such a high first-pass metabolism anyhow so that breaking them and thereby increasing its surface area and increasing the dissolution will not have that great of an effect. It all depends on how your pill is formulated. Your surgeon will not have near as much knowledge as your local pharmacist in this aspect... so don't take any of our word and go talk to your pharmacist. However...when I spoke to my surgeon about this... he told me that swallowing pills shouldn't be a problem even when I do have plenty restriction. In case of polypharmacy, take your pills one at a time.

OP.. can you provide literature for this? I'd like to see how they set up the study. Thanks!

I've been taking my little dachshund/beagle mix to training for the past couple weeks. What I have learned from there, I'm applying it to my GSD. Guess what... My GSD picks it up like 534635436854 times faster than my beagle. They really are super smart. Then, I wonder... how fast would border collies pick stuff up?

Welcome to the site! I know I'm not a mod... but I would like to ask you to use the SEARCH function in the forum. Being 'stuck' and having slime / PB episodes have been thoroughly discussed in the forum. This way, I think, we'll have all the information streamlined...and not scattered everywhere. P.S. I think this is one of the things you should have learned BEFORE having your surgery.

AHHH! NO NO NO! The post was intended to be a sarcastic joke. You shouldn't do weight lifting for a couple weeks until you're fully healed. I, myself, am an exception because my core muscles are paralyzed so my upper body workouts won't have any effect on my surgical areas. Unless you're a mid-level paraplegic like I am... I think you should just do fast paced walks (no running...or bouncing of any kind)

4 days after surgery I was doing lots of yard work and doing upper body weight lifting. I try to do a day of chest where I get on various presses... so some cable flies and get on the butterfly machine. The next workout day I'll do back... mostly lateral pulldowns... I used to be able to do squats...but can't anymore. The following workout day will be for shoulders... again I'll do some military presses and cable work. My last gym day for the week will be for my biceps and triceps. Curls...pulldowns...close-grip presses...this sort of work.

OP... I don't think you should be apologizing for your viewpoints. If you're original intent was to vent about some people whining about no weight loss...without looking at their own bad habits... I think you did it well. I am in total agreement with you on your original post. I'm not very big into sugar coating things or giving false hopes or promises. Everyone has made it a point to say that this is a support group. But I think many take that as an opportunity to act like whining children. I can't judge this... but I will say that it sometimes deters other hopefuls from getting banded. To me, whining and complaining should only happen AFTER the fact. This means a couple months of good diet tracking, exercise, and over-all behavior modifications. Then if you are still not averaging 1-2 lbs per week... it's time to ask questions. What also gets me is that some people blame their surgeons about their lack of knowledge or pre-surgery information. This, to me, is unacceptable. Now I'm not on the side of the surgeon. I know for a FACT that there are less competent surgeons out there and those that are just motivated by cash. But this does not make an excuse for anyone to blame their surgeon about their lack of weight loss. Being on the forum, I'm thinking it's not a stretch to assume that these people have access to the internet. How about doing some research? Researching all the pros and cons... all the possible side effects, ADEs, and/or failures, etc. Most people want and demand informed consent on their part...but expect the physician and their surgical team to provide all of it. "Is that really too much to ask from your doctor?", you may ask. It's actually not. You would expect your surgeon to be able to tell you EVERYTHING about the process. But apparently there are surgeons who do not (or cannot). But either case... YOU should have researched about that surgical team beforehand... so for me..the fault lies in you (the misinformed patient). Harsh? I know. But this isn't a blackjack table at the MGM. This is your life..your health. Why gamble? Do your research. Educate yourself. Then make an informed decision.

On my 'off' days when I find myself indulging myself.... I might take a bite or two more than I really should...and usually I begin to hiccup very badly. The hiccup sometimes hurts my chest so it makes me stop eating right away.

be able to get myself off the floor without my heart rate flying and gasping for air...