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Hi Corrib, Welcome to the site and congratulations on having the band done and especially being done by the HSE. I am so thrilled that this is becoming available to people in Ireland safely and with all the aftercare and help that they need. You are really blazing the trail for all who go after you. Well done and I wish you nothing but success with your band and the great team you have working with you.

Hi All, Well its just two days to go for New York, I'm so excited its been three years since I was last there and I'm almost half the size I was then so there will be much more room on those airplane seats. :thumbup::wub:. Simone and Marge: The best of luck for tomorrow. Will be thinking of you both. Gerri: Don't take it for granted that ACS will contact you re their new address, if I were you I would check now and have they kept the same telephone number? Holly123: Well done you on the weight loss since the fill. Hope it continues for you. :confused::thumbup: Okay, that's me done till I get back next week. Wishing you all comfortable restriction and a shed load of weight loss.:wink2:

Hi All, Twinkle Toes: the numbers I have for ACS are Fitzwilliam 01 678 5999 and Owenstown : 01 283 2446. Hope that helps. Lil: Sorry to hear you can't get an appointment before the end of May. Ring each day and see if they've had a cancelation for the 8th, they might fit you in just to get you off the phone. You could also point out that the dr defilled instead of filling your band.:tt1: Holly123: That's an interesting piece of info on our band. I thought all of them worked the same it was just the size that differed. I would love to have stats on all the banded ACS patients to see what the average weight loss over the first year is. I also think that fills should be given on demand in order to hit the sweet spot as soon as possible. In my case it only took the first 3 fills for me to hit my sweet spot and the next two were just adjustments to keep me at the sweet spot. Don't be down on yourself, you are doing fantastically well and I'm delighted to hear that you are so pleased with this recent fill. I hope the restriction lasts. Ailbhe: Yes, its a bit of a worry that Dr Chris has joined ACS. It will be interesting to see if ACS will be promoting his surgery in Belgium for him!

Hi All, Ailbhe, Delighted to hear you are feeling better. Hope all it was, was the gardening. Interesting to see that your dr only had 5 infections in 11 years. That's some record. Should give you even more confidence in him. Show your GP the email just for her information.:cry_smile: Lil: Don't worry about getting small fills. I've been doing that since before christmas and they are better in a lot of cases. You may have to go every two weeks for the first couple but at least you won't get over filled. :confused: Allure: Popcorn and Smoothies, yeah this baby is going to be so easy to please on treat day:lol:. Lets hope that your diet gets a bit more interesting as your pregnancy continues.:tt1: I've bought a dress for my brothers wedding. I went for a fitted size 12 little black dress from Coast. Yes of course I'm going to upstage my sisters and if my eldest sister thinks her new face lift gets priority in the photos she'd better think again.:rolleyes2::laugh:

Hi Magna, Check out the Hi from Ireland thread, there are a load of us on that thread who were banded by ACS.

Hi Kathryn, Welcome, it is a difficult time when you have the op. It took me a good two weeks to feel a 100% back to normal. Although I have to say it gets better and better as each day goes by. You are over the worst now and keep your eye on the big picture, it will be worth it.:thumbs_down: Where did you have your band done. Here or abroad? Hope you're feeling better soon. Best of luck, and well done on the weight loss to date.:cursing:

Hi Ailbhe, Sorry to hear that you're not feeling the best. Usually I'm not in favour of self diagnosis, but in the case of the band, GP's know little and care less about the band, if you have some information from the Internet I would bring it to her attention and have it checked out. There is no point in taking medication that you may not need on a whim from your doctor. Infection is usually accompanied by redness around the port area, I'm no expert, but I would imagine that most of us here have more knowledge on the band than the average GP. Hope you get it sorted soon and keep us informed. :thumbs_down:

Hi Gerri, Yeah, Dr Jan is back in Ireland and has been for quite some time now. His practice is in Ireland and is called Obesity Solutions hes is charging 11K for the band with a years aftercare, dietitian, psychological support and fills. I hope things work out for him too, he did get a raw deal from ACS and he was left out of pocket considerably too. Anyway it looks like "ACS Europe" are trying their best to look after us now, well with fills anyway.:thumbs_down:

Hi, I'm vegetarian also (although I have started to eat fish now and again) but as far as the band is concerned you can get plenty of protein in with nuts, seeds, pulses and grains. For a while I found eating basmati rice difficult so I switched to cous cous, after a couple of months I tried rice again and I can eat it fine now. When you are making your Soups (broth) I suggest you put a handful of lentils in with your veggies. Protein drinks are terrific when you are on the liquid stage. A bowl of porridge (oats) with some animal milk on is as protein rich as a piece of quality meat. For the mushie stage I found houmus (blend a tin of chick peas, 2tbl sp sesame seed paste, clove of garlic and juice of 1/2 a lemon add olive oil as you blend) a terrfic protein rich easy to eat food. Good luck on your journey.:glare:

Hi All, Just thought I would start a thread about the Plastics as there are a few of us planning to have some done and could use some advice from those of you who have had some done. Ellen, you know of course that at the moment all questions are being directed at you:lol:. Having spoken to Ellen, I am thinking of the female Dr in Prague. First with the arms and then the boobs or maybe both at the same time. So any advice, Surgeon reccomendation, Web sites etc. Post on here so we can keep track. Thanks, looking forward to all the new info. I'll start with the link below for the Clinic in Prague. Cosmetic Surgery | Breast Enlargement, Reduction | Breast Augmentation | Tummy Tuck

Hi Ellen, Well done you, maybe you are being impatient it does take a while for swelling and fluid retention to leave you. But just in case I'm off down to Tony Quinn. Byee:biggrin:

Hi Princess, If I'm not mistaken weren't you operated on by Jan? If so, just a thought, but he is heading up a new clinic here in Dublin doing bands, bypass and sleeves. By all accounts its a great set up and providing all that was lacking in ACS. It might be worth your while to give him a call as tell him that since you were banded you have had all this trouble and ask if he would review you and xray you and basically check you out. He's not obliged in any way but it might be worth the phone call. The clinic is called Obesity Solutions I don't have the number but I'm sure you can get it if you google it. Alternatively, you could ring Kim, ask her to sort out an xray for you before the 8th of May when the Belgium nurses are here again. Either way if I were in your shoes I wouldn't leave it any longer, it won't get better on its own, you need to find out what position the port is in and if the tubing is twisted, that would explain why the fills are not going in. Kick up a bit of a fuss, you should be well on your way to serious weight loss now. Chin up and let me know how you get on.:thumbup: Princess, I've PM'ed you Jan's number. I hope it helps.

Hi Princess, How is your restriction now, if you only have 3cc in you probably won't have great restriction yet. From 4 onwards is where I felt restriction but it was when I was at 5cc that I started to lose 2lbs every week. Every Friday I stood on the scales and I would be 2lbs down it was a great feeling. Then when that slowed down I got another 1/2 and again the weight started shifting at 2lbs a week even the week I was on Holiday, I came home and was down 2lbs, my band slipped two days later since I had it redone its not been the same and while I'm still losing its not as regular as before. I now have about 4mls in and will have another 1/4ml in at the end of May to kick start the weight loss again. I want to lose at least another stone and a half so I'm hoping to do that before the end of the summer. We'll see how that goes :rolleyes2:. As for what I'm eating, well to be honest, apart from not being able to eat bread and potatoes while they go down they feel very heavy so I don't eat them too often I can eat more or less anything I want. I don't eat meat or chicken, by choice, but I am aware of some people who find it difficult if not impossible to eat meat once the achieve good restriction. I am glad to say I still have all my hair :thumbup: but I put that down to making sure I get my Protein every day and even if its days that I'm on liquids only I make sure I have a good healthy Protein Drink a couple of times a day. Its important to remember to make healthy choices when we are banded because I only eat about a quarter of the food I used to eat I have to make sure it well balanced. I don't mean to sound like I'm brilliant all of the time, I'm not, I regularly fall off the wagon,:scared2: and the chocolate monster is always sitting on my shoulder:lol: of course I feed him I have to.:tongue: So the thing is if you try to eat healthily all of the time, most of the time you will.:tongue2: Best of luck and wishing you bucket loads of weight loss.:thumbup:

Hi All, I phoned ACS for an appointment today and I told them the last fill I'd had was in Feb with Lu. They offered me the 8th of May but as I'll be away then I asked for a later appointment and I got the 29th May at 10.00am, so its all good.:rolleyes2:

Hi Ellen, How you doing, any sign of those last 7lbs leaving you?:rolleyes2::biggrin: I just spoke to my sister and she said it was 16K not 25k as I wrote before, she didn't have the brow lift or some other cheek thing done. She says she won't be ready for the outside world for at least another week. She's not in any pain and says that she couldn't have been treated any better than she was. So I'm thinking of going up and having a free consultation with them so that I can compare it with the other clinics abroad. Talk soon.:scared2:

Hi Everyone, I've not been on the site for a week or so because I've been caught up with other stuff. Anyway, great to hear that so many of you are feeling positive and happy with the fills. I think I will ring ACS on Monday to make an appointment for another fill myself. I'm going to New York on May 7th for a week so I don't really want the appointment before then, I've heard that long flights can restrict you further and I don't want any problems for the week I'm there. I do hope that ACS have finally sorted out their fill dr's/nurses and that this aftercare facility will be available on a regular basis. Still concerned about the overfill situation but until it happens we won't know for sure how ACS will handle it. Thats all for now talk soon. :thumbup:

Hey Allure,:smile: Just adding my congratulations although I've spoken to you about your fab news already. I've been dying for you to announce it here and I hope you get some great advice from other banded mothers.:crying::thumbup: You will have to start a dedicated thread on here just so we can all keep up with your news over the next months. Call it your banded pregnancy diary.:crying: Talks soon.

Hi Ellen, Yes he has a good reputation, I think he will be on that Make Over show, Inside and Out, next week on TV3 Tuesday at 8.00pm I think, but check the guide to be sure. Fillers and fat reduction without the knife is his thing as far as I know but I wouldn't be worried about him. His clinic is the Ailsbury Clinic (think thats how its spelt.) and you can get it on the web. I'm going for a consultation with Derma Laser in Blackrock next week to see what they reccommend for my poor sagging face.:crying: I don't want to go down the surgery route for my face just yet. My sister had a full face lift with cosmetico last week at a cost of 25K I've not seen her yet but she better look ten years younger than me at that price. She is in fact 10 years older than me.:crying: I phoned her 3 days afterwards and she couldn't talk to me she was so sore,:eek: I will phone her tomorrow and see how she's doing. :smile:

Hi Girls Here's another link I found on this site which explains what to expect after the first year of banding, I think its worth reading. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f220/first-year-after-lap-band-surgery-58249/

Hi Girls, Great to hear so many of you can have a fill next week. Just a word of warning, is there anyone available to do a de fill if necessary, a fill can take a couple of days to kick in, if you've been overfilled you need to be seen within 24hrs to ease the discomfort and avoid dehydration. As for a meet up, if anyone is interested in meeting before the fill appointment I would love to have a catch up.

Hi Alesha, Welcome back to band world :sigh::glare:. What great news on the taking in of the wedding dress, how good are you, and that was with the broken toe. How did you do it.:lol:. Allure sends her best, she has been without her lap top for a while now but will hopefully be back posting very soon. Best of luck with the wedding and keep posting.

Hi Wella, Good to see you posting again. I take it this new place is nothing to do with where you had your band done! :sigh:. Its great to see new places opening up to do WLS and its particularly good that this new group are doing all the different types of WLS that way you know you are getting the right advice and choosing the correct operation for you. Its all good.:biggrin2:

Hi Skinny, Congratulations, well done you. :party::thumbs_up:. ************************************************************************

Hi Roe, Welcome back, sorry you're feeling so down. I totally understand where your coming from its a real pi**er when you have a plan and it doesn't go they way you expect. Don't give up, ACS are offering fills right now in Dublin with some Belgium Band Nurses, give them a call and get what you paid for. Keep in touch and don't be afraid to post however you're feeling, thats why its called Support. Good luck and let us know how you get on.:thumbs_up:

Hi Gerri, Hope you're feeling better now. Nothing worse than an unexpected root canal.:ohmy: