Myturn12

I had surgery on Dec 15, and the first week was ok, but the second week, I was in excruciating pain. I saw my doctor, who prodded a few times and said, "surgery, now." He removed it during surgery. I'm self-pay, and he said we could try again in a couple of months. Has anyone had any experience with this?

elcee, I don't believe for a second that my doctor did ANYTHING wrong. To automatically assume he did is unreasonable. Five days after surgery, I had a CT done, and it was reviewed by a radiologist and an urgent care surgeon. Both of them said the lap band looked great. I didn't have serious problems until 10 days after surgery. Yesterday, the lap band was still intact, but the abdomen was inflamed. Blaming my doctor for an infection that started 10 days after surgery doesn't seem reasonable to me. The gall stones were tiny and NOT infected 5 days after surgery. I'm starting to regret saying anything. I was just hoping to find out if someone else had it removed and then replaced a few months later. The fact is, we don't know if it was a rejection, or something else that cause the infection, which is why he is suggesting we try again in a couple of months. I guess not.

My doctor said that in .5% of cases, the body simply rejects the foreign object. Right after the initial surgery, I was having a little bit of difficulty taking large breaths and holding my breath. They did a CT scan, and the lap band was fine. I had no pain at that time. They did, however, find that I had some "small" gallstones, but I was not in pain at that time, so they said not to worry about it. 10 days after surgery, Christmas Eve, I started having tremendous pain in my left shoulder, and every time I tried to take a deep breath, it got worse. Then, Thursday night, I started having abdominal pains. I called the doc yesterday morning, and per his instructions, I went in at 10 a.m. He poked a couple of places, I screamed in pain, and he said, "We need to do surgery now to see what's going on." I came out of surgery and he said he had to take the band out, as well as my gall bladder. He said the abdomen was "inflamed", possibly infected, which compromises the lap band. He also said he did not believe the gall bladder was the cause of the problem. He believes my body may have rejected the foreign object, which happens in .5% of the cases. My doctor is a well-known and well-respected surgeon who specializes in ONLY lap bands, so I trust him. He said we could try again in a couple of months. That's all I really know at this point, though. I can say I'm glad it's out because the pain is over...