Maddysgram

Thank you, Alex!
Without LBT I'm sure I would have been a struggling bandster. I know I have learned more here than any of the other classes I was forced to take.
I've made life long friendships. The support system is unmatched to any other. I know, without a doubt, LBT is the reason for my success. I quit going to my local support group because it was a mixed group of all the WLS and most were LB bashers.Not pleasant!
What I tell anyone who post their introduction here is "Welcome, you are in the right place for knowledge, support and inspiration."
We owe it all to you!
My most heart felt appreciation,
Janet aka Maddysgram, Madds, Maddawg, dawg

Do you know when to call it quits? To quit a meal, that is?


It’s 12:15 pm. Sad to say, your meal is over now.

I used to work with a recovering food addict (I'll call her Wendy) whose work station was about four feet away from mine. We both went to lunch in the company break room at noon every day.

Wendy had lost over 100 pounds in a 12-step program, but food was still of paramount importance to her. At 11:45 every morning, she would announce hopefully, "It's getting close to lunch."

At 11:55, she would announce ominously, "It's getting dangerously close to lunch."

At 12:00, she would announce triumphantly, "It's time for lunch!", spring out of her chair, and head for the break room.

At 12:15, came the final, regretful announcement, "Lunch is over."

Our coworkers found this daily ritual both amusing and annoying. Only another food addict (like me) could understand what was going on in Wendy's head as she looked forward to her noon meal and then mourned its passing.

What's the take-home message from this story?

Lunch is over. It has to be over. You must put down your fork and stop eating when your planned portion is gone or the instant you get a stop message. But what if there's still food left on your plate? What about the children in Armenia (all starving, according to my mother)? What about that leftover food?

1. Get up from the table (say, "Excuse me" if it seems indicated).
2. Put the food in a storage container, and put the container in the refrigerator, or throw the food away (down the garbage disposal, where you can't get at it, is best).
3. Take your plate to the sink and rinse or wash it.

Did I say "throw the food away"? In spite of the starving Armenian children? I sure did. I'm not going to tell the World Health Organization that you threw out the extra food. You can donate money to a food charity to help feeding starving children (you'll be able to afford a few bucks for charity because you won't be spending $50 a month on soda). God will not strike you dead for this, I promise.

Remember what Rhoda Morgenstern said to Mary Tyler Moore as she tore into a chocolate bar back in 1973 (or thereabouts)?

"I don't know why I'm eating this. I should just rub it directly on my hips."

So look at that plate of leftover food and ask yourself, "Should I roll in it, or throw it away?"

Lunch is over!

Thank you, Alex!
Without LBT I'm sure I would have been a struggling bandster. I know I have learned more here than any of the other classes I was forced to take.
I've made life long friendships. The support system is unmatched to any other. I know, without a doubt, LBT is the reason for my success. I quit going to my local support group because it was a mixed group of all the WLS and most were LB bashers.Not pleasant!
What I tell anyone who post their introduction here is "Welcome, you are in the right place for knowledge, support and inspiration."
We owe it all to you!
My most heart felt appreciation,
Janet aka Maddysgram, Madds, Maddawg, dawg

Thank you, Alex!
Without LBT I'm sure I would have been a struggling bandster. I know I have learned more here than any of the other classes I was forced to take.
I've made life long friendships. The support system is unmatched to any other. I know, without a doubt, LBT is the reason for my success. I quit going to my local support group because it was a mixed group of all the WLS and most were LB bashers.Not pleasant!
What I tell anyone who post their introduction here is "Welcome, you are in the right place for knowledge, support and inspiration."
We owe it all to you!
My most heart felt appreciation,
Janet aka Maddysgram, Madds, Maddawg, dawg

My band slipped in June 2009, when I was about 21 mos post-op. The blog post whose link I posted on this thread has nothing to do with that.
The damage from decades of reflux was diagnosed in January/February 2012, when I was 4-1/2 yrs post-op. My surgeon and gastro doc agreed that my band was aggravating the situation. My band was removed in April 2012 and I revised to VSG in August 2012. The blog post whose link I posted on this thread describes my 2012 experience.
The OH post you quoted sounds familiar but I don't remember when I posted it. Probably in the spring of 2012, at which I point I may not have had all the test results and gastro consults done and was therefore not in possession of all the facts. I'm flattered because you must have done quite a bit of digging to find it. Or you've been saving it all this time, waiting for the opportunity to quiz me about it.
Anyway, I'm sorry if I confused you. Yes, my band slipped, and yes, I had damage from 20+ years of reflux, and yes, I had general band problems related to reflux.

Frustrated by a weight loss plateau? You need a combination of patience and a plan to push through it.


It happens to everyone sooner or later. Your bandwagon stalls. You’ve been going great guns, fired up with enthusiasm, working that tool, doing all the right things, and losing weight. Then one day the weight loss stops. One day, two days, twenty days go by…you’re still stuck, and you’re wondering what happened. And because you’ve spent so many years failing at dieting, and being told that obesity is always the fault of the patient, you start to wonder what you are doing wrong. You even think, “Is my band broken?”
Chances are, you’re not doing anything wrong, and neither is your band. What’s happening is that your body is adjusting itself to the many changes that have happened during your weight loss.
The human body doesn’t know what you’re going to do next, be it climb a mountain or relax on the couch, so it has to continually adjust and readjust your metabolism to make the best use of the calories you take in. It looks at the history of what you’ve been eating and how much you’ve been burning off through physical activity and comes up with a forecast of what you’ll need to stay alive for the next week or so.
THIS MONTH’S WEIGHT LOSS FORECAST IS…
At work I’ve had to prepare sales forecasts for various jobs through the years. How many widgets will we sell in the month of April? How many defective widgets will be returned by unhappy customers who want a refund? Will all this income and outgo generate enough cash (in our case, energy) to cover the payroll and the equipment maintenance and the CEO’s country club membership? I once had a boss who joked that we might as well toss a deck of cards down a flight of stairs to come up with a prediction of which new product (represented, say, by the joker card) was going to be the best-seller. That suggestion didn’t go over big with the finance guys. Like us, they were trying to follow the rules, keep everything identified, counted and categorized. And like the bean-counters, we count our calories, carbs, fats, proteins, liquids, solids, income, outgo, with faith that this accounting system will help us win the weight game.
Meanwhile, our bodies have a different agenda: survival. When we decrease our food intake and increase our physical activity, the body watches to see what will happen next. As our purposeful “starvation” continues, the body struggles to accommodate the changes we’re making. It makes some withdrawals of funds from our fat cells and fiddles with our metabolism to prevent an energy (calorie) shortage. Gradually it becomes acclimated to the new routine so that it’s making the best possible use of the few calories we’re consuming. It’s keeping us alive, but it’s also putting the brakes on weight loss. Eventually we find ourselves stalled on what seems like an endless weight loss plateau. And unless we change our routine and keep our bodies working hard to burn up the excess fat, we’re going to grow to hate the scenery on that plateau.
AND ON THE FLIP SIDE
I’ve suffered through countless weight loss plateaus but by varying my exercise, my total caloric intake, my liquid intake, my sleep, and so on, did manage to finally arrive at my goal weight. For the past few years, I’ve felt mighty smug that I finally got promoted to the Senior VP of Weight Management here at Chez Jean. Maintaining my goal weight +/- 5 pounds seemed effortless. But it didn’t last.
Turns out it was time for me to learn another lesson about my body’s fuel economy. When I had all the fill removed from my band to deal with some bad reflux, my eating didn’t go berserk. I didn’t pig out at Burger King, didn’t drown my sorrows in a nightly gallon of ice cream. I was definitely eating more because I was so much hungrier than before – perhaps 500 extra calories a day, which would amount to a weight gain of one pound a week. Imagine my dismay when I gained seven pounds in 2 weeks – the equivalent of an extra 1750 calories a day! There was a time when I could have overeaten that much without any effort at all, but as a WLS post-op, I’d have to work hard at eating that much extra food. I was flabbergasted. And frightened. Obesity was a mountain on my horizon again – far in the distance across my weight maintenance plateau - when I thought I’d left it far behind.
So at the end of a visit with my gastro-enterologist during that scary time, I asked him if my sudden and substantial weight gain was the equivalent of my body shouting, “Yahoo! We’re not starving anymore! Let’s get ready for the next starvation period by hanging on to every single calorie she takes in! Let’s store those calories in those fat cells that have been hanging around here with nothing to do! C’mon, troops, get to work!”
I’m pretty sure that’s not the way Dr. Nuako would have explained it, but he smiled, nodded, and said, “Oh, yes.”
I felt like I was facing the flip side of a weight loss plateau: I might be in a weight gain plateau. All I could do is keep on keeping on with exercise and healthy eating, enjoying some of the foods, like raw fruits and veggies, that had been harder for me to eat with a well-adjusted band.
PUZZLING OUT THE WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU
So the good news was that my wonky metabolism following that complete unfill wasn’t my fault, but the bad news was that my metabolism wasn’t in a cooperative mood. I was going to have to start playing much closer attention to the details of weight loss and maintenance again. What a pain!
But hey! I’d already had a lot of practice at that. I had the tools – a little rusty maybe, but still in usable condition. I ended up regaining 30 pounds between that unfill and my revision to VSG, but I have a suspicion that without those weight tools, it could have been 60 pounds. And that’s one of the reasons that even today, bandless for 14 months now, I don’t regret my band surgery. The band helped me lose 90 pounds and learn a host of useful (if uncomfortable) things about myself, my behavior, my body, my lifestyle.
What about you? How can you get your weight loss going again and avoid regain? So many factors can affect your weight that sorting out the reason(s) for your weight loss plateau can make you dizzy even if you’re not a natural blonde like me. To help you assess what’s going on and what might need to be changed, I created a Weight Loss Plateau Checklist. To access the checklist in Google Docs, click here: https://docs.google....emtSYjJLRnVGTFE
The checklist includes a long list of questions about you and your behavior, with answers and suggestions for each question. I can’t claim that it will give you the key to escaping that plateau, but it should give you some food for thought and perhaps some ideas to try. Use that to come up with a plan to deal with the plateau, and work that plan for at least a month to give your body a chance to get with the new program.

I noticed and that's what I love about you!
I'm a true believer in laughter being the best medicine, whether physically or mentally.

I noticed and that's what I love about you!
I'm a true believer in laughter being the best medicine, whether physically or mentally.

You're very welcome. You've probably noticed by now that humor makes my world go 'round!

Thanks for the reminder,Jean. Love your words of wisdom, mixed with a little humor.
We hear it over and over again " I'm not losing and I'm doing everything I'm suppose to", are you measuring and logging? "well, no". Just do it!
Thanks again for the time you take, to keep us all in line.

Yes ma'am.
Jk
I do it and I'm successful for all the reasons you stated and one more.... I do it to prove to myself that I'm stepping out of my own way ( that has lead me to morbid obesity) and let my band do it's job.

Thanks for the reminder,Jean. Love your words of wisdom, mixed with a little humor.
We hear it over and over again " I'm not losing and I'm doing everything I'm suppose to", are you measuring and logging? "well, no". Just do it!
Thanks again for the time you take, to keep us all in line.

Nice article Jean. This is my downfall. I am not consistent with it and I need to fix that!

I wish there was a "love" button for this. Another GREAT article, Jean!!!!

You weigh and measure yourself, don’t you? It can be such a gratifying way to see your progress towards your weight goal. But do you weigh and measure your food as well? No? Despite the potential for that practice to help you lose weight?


Tell me why you don’t weigh and measure you food before putting it on your plate. Is it painful? Surely not. Is it impossibly difficult? No, I can’t believe that either. Or do your cups, spoons, and scale gather dust simply because they remind you too much of…gasp!!...dieting?
Dieting…one of the most hated words in the vocabulary of every obese person who hated dieting, and failed at it so often, that she or he finally got fat enough to qualify for weight loss surgery. I completely understand. I’ve been there, done that, and got the size 3X tee-shirt. Yet still I’m going to insist that you give the practice of weighing and measuring food a try, because it’s one of the things that has made me a WLS success and because I can think of 9 (count 'em - NINE) excellent reasons for you to do it too.
1. It will prevent you from consuming more calories than you can burn each day, thereby helping you lose weight. Me, I’m terrible at eye-balling food amounts, even after years of practice. I cut myself a piece of chicken that I think weighs 2 ounces, and find to my surprise that it weighs 4 ounces. I spoon myself a modest mound of veggies that I think measures ¼ cup, and discover that it actually measures ½ cup.
2. It will make the data you enter in your food log more accurate so you’ll know how much you’re really consuming and whether you’re eating appropriate amounts of proteins, carbs, and fats each day, not just for weight loss but for good nutrition. You do keep a food log, don’t you? Did you know that scientific studies have shown that people who keep a food log lose more weight than people who don’t?
3. It will help give you a sense of control and mastery over food and eating, which will be very welcome and empowering after years of feeling that food and eating controlled you.
4. Weighing, measuring, or counting out 10 potato chips or 14 M&M’s will give you a chance to think one last time about whether that stuff will meet your nutritional and health goals as well as temporarily scratching the itch of a food craving.
5. It will slow your progress from stove to table, thereby reducing your risk of inhaling your food without even tasting it. You do sit at the table to eat, don’t you? It’s not true that calories eaten while standing up at the counter (or in your car or at your desk) don’t count!
6. The ceremony of weighing and measuring will help you appreciate the sensual delight of food, and that will increase your satiety (the sensation of having eaten enough food, which by the way is quite different from feeling “full”).
7. Until you learn what your satiety or “stop eating” signals are, you’ll have no way of knowing if you’ve eaten too much until it’s too late. And stopping eating too late can translate not only into disappointing weight loss but into unpleasant side effects like PB’s (regurgitation), sliming, foaming, and stuck episodes.
8. It will prevent you from consistently overeating, thereby preventing you from experiencing not just the side effects mentioned above but also some unwanted and potentially irreversible medical complications, like a band slip, a dilated esophagus, and/or a dilated stomach pouch.
9. If you give it an honest try for at least one week – just 7 days – and it doesn’t help, you’ll have the pleasure of saying that you proved me wrong. That’s highly unlikely, but hey, give it a shot!
Oh, one last thing (for now). I know some highly successful bandsters who never weighed and measured a single morsel of food. They ate small amounts of foods they liked, lost weight, and maintained that weight loss. But they’re in the minority. And I, the World’s Greatest Living Expert on Everything, who slacked off on food vigilance after I reached my goal weight, have found that one of the quickest and easiest ways to get my eating back on track and nip weight regain in the bud is to go back to weighing and measuring. At the same time, I’m able to eat small amounts of foods that I like – just like the ones who don’t weigh and measure. The fact that my food has been weighed and measured doesn't make it any less delicious!
If it makes the practice easier for you to bend your stubborn mind around, tell yourself you’ll just do it just for this one week, or one day, or one meal. Sometimes the WLS journey has to be taken one tiny baby step at a time. And that’s perfectly okay, because hundreds of baby steps can add up to hundreds of pounds and inches lost, and a lifetime of weight maintenance. Isn’t that what you want, in the end? Yeah, me too.

Great article Jean! Thanks as always for your great contribution.

Are you afraid of an unhappy outcome of your weight loss surgery? You're not alone. Use your fear to conquer obstacles rather than letting it conquer you


For most of us starting a WLS journey, bariatric surgery is vast, uncharted territory, full of unknowns. We long for a happy outcome – maximum weight loss with minimum problems. We listen to stories told by other patients with a combination of hope (to be as successful as they’ve been) and fear (that we won’t experience the side effects or complications they talk about).
No one wants to be haunted by the specter of anxiety and dread, but I think a little bit of fear is a good thing. I don’t want fear to dominate my life, but without it, I’m likely to become complacent about my weight loss success and/or revert to the old, all-too-comfortable ways that made me obese in the first place. In small doses, fear keeps me on my toes.
Like pain tolerance, fear tolerance varies from one person to the next. Perhaps I’m able to tolerate and use fear because my childhood and adolescence were so full of fear-provoking experiences. By the time I was in my late 20’s, I actually got a little thrill out of fear, possibly because it stimulates adrenalin production. There’s nothing quite like a knife coming at you to activate your fight-or-flight system, causing a perverse fear “rush”.
At the same time, prolonged exposure to fear has also taught me to respect it. I don’t play with fear the way daredevils like Evel Knievel did, risking life and limb for the brief thrill of jumping 14 buses at a time with his motorcycle. But I do like the way fear can clear my mental field, forcing me to draw a line between important and unimportant. When the choice is survival or surrender, I’d rather choose survival. I’m not a quitter. When challenged, I’m going to fight back, especially if something precious like my health is at stake.
If fear tends to paralyze rather than mobilize you, you may have to use your own compass to navigate a problem, or play follow-the-leader (provided you have a trustworthy leader) instead. Whatever you do, don’t give in. Giving in turns you into a victim (click here to read an article about victim mentality: http://www.lapbandta...-of-obesity-r79), which is not a position of strength in any battle worth fighting. And your health is worth fighting for, isn’t it?
So, how can you make fear a working partner in your WLS journey? Let’s take a closer look at two of the more common faces of fear.
FEAR OF FAILURE
Somewhere between my first, mandatory pre-op educational seminar and my pre-op liver shrink diet, I became uncomfortably aware of a shadow that followed me everywhere. It was dark and scary, and even bigger than I was. It was my fear of failure. After decades of struggle – diets, weight loss, weight gain – I felt that WLS was my absolute last chance to be healthy. And after slogging through all those pre-op tests, evaluations, consults and procedures, I danged well was not going to fail this time.
Since I had to admit that my weight management skills were sadly lacking back then (as amply proven by the number on the scale and the numbers in my medical files), the only option available to me was to become the most compliant patient my surgeon ever had (click here to read an article about patient compliance: http://www.lapbandta...g-deal-abo-r112). I had to believe that he and his staff knew what they were doing and would guide me well. I’m a very curious and often mouthy person, so I asked a lot of questions and did my best to understand what was going on in me and around me, but I spent very little time trying to second-guess the instructions I was given. That approach freed up a lot of time and energy that I was then able to devote to changing my eating and other behaviors in ways that helped my weight loss.
FEAR OF COMPLICATIONS
Compliance served me well I this area also. I can’t claim that I was never tempted to cheat on my pre or post-op diets or to test my band’s limits. I can’t claim that I believed I’d be forever exempt from the side effects and complications I heard about from other WLS patients. But when my dietitian told me (for example) that I’d be mighty sorry if I accidentally swallowed a wad of chewing gum and had to have it scraped out of my stoma, I quickly lost my interest in chewing gum. When I observed that many bandsters experienced certain types of side effects and complications after engaging in certain types of risky behaviors, I resolved not to follow them down the road of no return.
Eventually I discovered that life after WLS can deliver some unpleasant surprises, just as in every other aspect of life. I had to learn some things the hard way, like: If you swallow a large antibiotic capsule that can’t pass through your stoma and slowly dissolves into a corrosive mess, you will end up in the ER thinking you’re having a heart attack (and end up with a big unfill). And no, liquid antibiotics don’t taste good, but they taste a lot better than the weight I regained after that unfill.
Most of the mistakes I made were the result of impatience or carelessness, but I did my best to learn from those mistakes and keep moving on. A handful of mistakes was about all it took for me to decide not to challenge the validity of my surgeon’s and dietitian’s instructions, and that kept me trudging along the bandwagon trail, getting ever closer to my weight goal. And once I reached that wonderful place, I was determined to stay there!

This is one of the things I ponder. I always thought that if someone reach their goal and stayed there for years and have developed new habits. I would have thought that eventually one could have their band removed and continue to eat the way they trained themselves to eat and not gain weight back.
Now I understand. Thanks again for enlightening me, once again.

You're very welcome. I think that the eating skills we learn as a result of WLS can become ingrained in us to help us manage our weight for the rest of our lives. But I know from my own experience of having 2 complete unfills and then losing my band that I had been taking for granted all that my band had been doing for me.

This is one of the things I ponder. I always thought that if someone reach their goal and stayed there for years and have developed new habits. I would have thought that eventually one could have their band removed and continue to eat the way they trained themselves to eat and not gain weight back.
Now I understand. Thanks again for enlightening me, once again.

This is one of the things I ponder. I always thought that if someone reach their goal and stayed there for years and have developed new habits. I would have thought that eventually one could have their band removed and continue to eat the way they trained themselves to eat and not gain weight back.
Now I understand. Thanks again for enlightening me, once again.

my fave part jeannie:
All you need to do is do your best, day by day, to work with your strengths and work around your weaknesses

If you’re once a fatty, are you always a fatty?


THINK THIN, BE THIN
I think I’m well qualified to speak on this subject, since once upon a time my schoolmates chanted, “Fatty, Fatty, two by four, can’t fit through the kitchen door!” when I walked into the gymnasium for a physical education class with a teacher who, after weighing and measuring each kid, announced to her captive audience that Jean was the shortest and heaviest girl in the class. After which I was the last kid (once again) to be chosen for a volleyball team.
I believe that in order to become a thin person, we must learn to think like one. It’s a tall order, I know. You might as well ask my dogs to learn to think like cats (I’m pretty sure my cats can think like dogs, but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around, to the everlasting detriment of the dogs).
At the same time, I believe that we must never forget our inner fat person. If we do forget, the fat folks may burst out of us and take over again. I know mine did last year, for six months and 30 pounds of regain. She was aided and abetted by the loss of my beloved Lap-Band®, but once she was out of her cage, she took charge so fast it made my dizzy blonde head spin. That’s not a pretty sight when that head is busy gobbling all the food in the western hemisphere and the body attached to it is rejoicing, “Starvation has ended at last! It’s party time!” (which is what my gastroenterologist said my metabolism was doing, although not in those exact words).
I lost the weight I had regained, plus another 10 pounds. I know (or I hope) I don’t look like a fatty any more, but a fatty still lurks inside me somewhere. My fat demon is hidden from view, but she’s still my demon. Exactly what every girl needs, along with a good bra and a good hairdresser. Seriously, though, my fat potential lives on, mainly because obesity is an incurable, chronic disease that no surgery today can cure. As long as my inner fatty threatens to take over, it’s hard for me to think and act like a thin person. But I refuse to give up the quest for Thin Jean, and I strive every day to emulate her. I believe that practicing thin behavior will eventually teach me thin thinking, and I believe that practicing thin thinking will keep my body thin.
FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT
We have now arrived at the bad-tasting course in this home-cooked meal of advice. In order to practice thin thinking, we need to do things that we’ve done over and over again in the past without long lasting results, like making good food choices, practicing portion control, and exercising. I know that this concept frustrates many of us and infuriates some of us. Some people scorn the practicing part of the WLS journey. They say, “It’s just another diet.” A friend of mine declared a week before her band surgery, “I refuse to diet.” Perhaps it’s a matter of semantics or personal preference, but I persist in believing in the importance of practice because thin thinking and thin acting don’t come naturally to me. I wasn’t born with piano-playing skills. I had to take lessons and practice every day just to be able to play “Chopsticks”. Even famous concert pianists must practice every day. The same is true of being thin.
This reminds me of the “fake it until you make it” slogan repeated in 12-step groups. The 12-step tradition recognizes that sobriety or abstinence doesn’t come naturally to people with addictive tendencies. It doesn’t expect its members to leap from the first to the 12th step in one week, one month, or even one year. All it asks is that we practice desirable behaviors every day, day after day, while the struggle to do that gradually lessens and we gain some control over the undesirable behaviors. Eventually we discover that we don’t have to “white knuckle” it anymore because the desirable behaviors have become habits.
Assuming that you had WLS because you don’t want to be a fatty any more, I’d like to suggest that you begin by not eating like a fatty any more. You don’t have to do it perfectly, because you’re just practicing, right? As far as I’m concerned, you can leave the perfection stuff to God. All you need to do is do your best, day by day, to work with your strengths and work around your weaknesses. Even if practice doesn’t always make perfect, it’s got to help you with the fake it part until you get to the make it part. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but you can do it!

No need to pop any tablets, you can eat them.


Ouch!!!! Food blockages are the biggest pain of a lap banders life. We must prevent this situation occurring daily, as this is crucial to help avoid a pouch forming. A pouch results in a dysfunctional lap band and weight gain is common.Ouch!!!! Food blockages are the biggest pain of a lap banders life. We must prevent this situation occurring daily, as this is crucial to help avoid a pouch forming. A pouch results in a dysfunctional lap band and weight gain is common.


Therefore, our primary focus is to avoid food blockages and secondly learn how to manage them. To understand the top three key points that will help you avoid food blockages, get your free ebook at www.weightlosssurgerydiet.com.au with all the answers.
In this article, let’s discuss how to manage your predicament once the food has been dislodged and unfortunately you will likely feel a little raw and uncomfortable internally. But why? Improvise with me. If you were to walk slowly through a rose bush forcing your way through, I am 100% confident you will come out worse for wear. Your skin will feel raw, sore, grazed and irritated.
Guess what! A similar situation could occur internally, as the food tries to squeeze through the lap band also. The area may get a little swollen and the lap band may physically feel a little tighter and more restrictive. Foods which you would customarily tolerate well may become a little challenging.
You must avoid further irritation, by following the next 3 steps:
Step 1. Relax the diets texture to soft, wet and easy for the remaining part of the day. Suggestions include soup, casserole, cottage pie etc
Step 2. Take your internal anti-inflammatory. This will include icy cold water or ice cubes. Yes this is correct. No need to pop any tablets, just help ice the area and reduce the swelling ASAP.
Step 3. Uncover what caused the food blockage and try to prevent this in the future.
Wishing you luck
Helen Bauzon
Dietitian
www.weightlosssurgerydiet.com.au