dustout

The last time I needed a fill, I was eating about 1 and 1/4 cup food, and getting hungry between meals and snacking. Right now, I'm only eating 3/4 cup food, but I lways get hungry between meals now and am snacking between meals as a result, to hold me over (trying to stick to healthy snacking, but its still adding too many calories). I was just wondering if others get hungry between meals when they need a fill, even if they aren't eating a whole lot more than half a cup. My doctor seems a bit strict on giving fills if you are eating less than a cup, but I'm hungry often. I swear it's generally not head hunger, though I have experienced that (head hunger to me feels more like a craving, actual hunger more in my stomach). The lack of hunger just doesn't seem to last long lately... perhaps a couple of hours. Also, I'm NEVER getting any kind of stuck feeling or caught in the stomach feeling. I used to get it occassionally for a second or two if I rushed things or carelessly swallowed a large chunk. I THINK I'm just stopping too early or something at the hint of satisfaction and it's the food moves through too fast. So in short, do you ever need a fill due to getting hungry too soon rather than just eating too large amounts? Is the band tricking me into stopping eating before I get enough of the 'full' sensation to keep me satisfied long enough? I'm not losing very much weight anymore either. I do need to exercise more, but at the same time, I'm still doing some and making healthy food choices... but I'm eating pretty often the past couple of weeks. It's solid foods (mostly chicken and various veggies and such) and I'm not drinking for a little bit before and for at least 30 mins after and I try to stretch that to an hour if im not too thirsty. Thanks for your advice. I just dont want to go into my doctor and be denied a fill or anything. It just seems like I should be eating larger quanties if I needed a fill. I've only had two fills that gave actual restriction, with the last one giving me the most. I'm still kind of getting used to this fill stuff. Oh, and I've lost about 22 pounds since my last fill about 9 weeks ago. More than the 2lb/wk. Most of my weight loss was in the beginning though.

Hello! I need some advice really badly. I need to find some foods that have good crunch and are healthy (especially low calorie. Protein, Fiber, etc are important too). I am doing HORRIBLE with the band lately. I've been craving crunchy foods since the pre-band liquid diet and lately I just can't stay away from them. I discovered the joy of cajun organic seseme sticks and homemade granola from the local health-food store. I am now forcing my roommate to eat the ones I bought since I'm addicted to them. I'm not much of a cook so I have a hard time making good things to eat. Add in my desire for something with a crunch, and I'm screwed. The chicken & veggie meal just doesn't cut it without some crunch. The best success I've had is tossing on a few bits of seseme sticks on my chicken. This adds some crunch and since it's only a few pieces, it doesn't add many calories, but I tend to want more. I also am trying to decide whether to get a fill now. I had been losing about 3lb/week until I gave into my crunchy desires. This last week I lost zero pounds (well, close enough neither of my scales register it). Part of that is being lazy this week. I went on Spring Break so I wasn't out and about walking to classes daily and the gym hours were restricted severely. My restriction isn't very good either right now. Put simply, I'm not making good choices since I'm munching on seseme sticks and granole. BUT, if I got a fill, I would probably have less desire for these. When I have good restriction, my cravings for these things are VERY managable. Part of me wants really badly to schedule a fill for this Tuesday (my doctor can get me in at one days notice for a fill). I think the more responsible thing to do though would be to wait it out a week and watch more closely what I'm eating, exercise properly, and see how I lose. Another question: When its time for another fill for you, do you JUST get hungry often, or JUST eat a lot more at each meal, or a combination of both? I'm sticking to around 1/2 cup but I'm getting hungry in about 2 hours. After my last fill I could go 4-5 hours Sorry for the rambling. I keep leaving this site for a long time then coming back and exploding with questions! haha! I need to stick around more consistently instead of wandering off for a while on my own. I am going to convince myself to at least wait a week so I can address my recent eating habits more and see if I need a fill yet or stick it out a bit. I know I have room for a fill but I dont know if still losing enough with my current state (when im not eating seseme sticks at least..)

Good luck with surgery! I'm sure you will love being banded! Just at least make sure to go to full liquids when they tell you to so your stomach will be relaxed and ready for surgery. Good luck and keep us updated!

Congratulations!!!!

62 pounds lost! I'm currently doing horribly at keeping myself from cheating. I'm in my senior year of college and I tend to 'reward' myself for getting through a horrible day with eating something less healthy. It's something I need to continue to work on. Interestingly as I got MORE restriction, I got more of a desire to eat less healthy things. I think maybe that since quantity of food went down, I desired more 'tasty' things? I'm doing great at eating healthy when I don't cheat though so I'm still losing decently. I just need to stick to it and work on my weakneses. My roommate is skinny and can eat anything he wants in and quantity and he is more lazy than me and he gains no weight so that makes things a little harder. He is amazed I can live on the band diet, lol.

I haven't found any foods that I can't eat. I've only 'slimed' once (and purposely did a PB in respsonse). A few days after a fill I was back on solids. I went out to eat with a friend about 15 minutes after waking up. I got some noodles. Since I had just had a fill I wanted to be safe and eat something I knew would go down easily just in case since this was my first fill with real restriction. Well, the noodles clogged up good and I slimed for the one and only time. I got a stuck feeling and it wouldnt go away. After a few minutes of feeling awful and it not going down, I went to the bathroom, leaned over the link thinking I would spit out maybe a piece of noodle I hadnt chewed good. Instead, a few bits of chewed up noodle came out and a ton of clear mucus. So gross. It was like a huge drooly blob of clear slime. Yuck. I instantly felt better though and was able to continue eating although I chewed my noodles to liquid for that meal. I'm tighter in the morning. I've gotten a couple of stuck feelings since then but only for a few seconds. My biggest problem now is that this is the point in a diet where I would normally fail and quit. The band won't let me though. I've been eating pretty unhealthily lately... I'm still losing though. The band is working well for me. I keep the Protein up, but I keep giving in to bad choices. When I follow the band rules, I lose 3 pounds a week. Eating whatever I want I lose 1 pound. I need to get back on track. I think I'm falling into my old habbit of thinking "It's been a bad/hard/long day, I will cheat tonight to lift my mood". But then it takes less and less of a bad day to get me cheating. Oops! Sorry, I got way off track!! I haven't been on here much lately...

I have not used insurance for fills yet since I'm under the grace period still.... HOWEVER, my insurance tells me that, YES they DO cover fills if they covered the surgery. We called on two separate occasions to verify this. They gave me this Insurance Reference Number to give my doctor: 0207589397001 I would suggest calling and checking to make sure they will cover it for you but it looks like it's a YES. My doctor says they won't bill insurance for fills since they usually don't cover it but when I told them that my insurance said they cover it, they said they would be happy to file it for me. woot!

They appear to have a NEW policy on the band effective January of 2008. It looks about the same as the previous one except it adds more information about what revisions of previous band/bypass surgeries are covered and what isn't... it's basically the same policy but expanded with many more details. Kind of harder to read now though.... Lapband Policy for anthem BC/BS as of January 2008: SURG.00024 Surgery for Clinically Severe Obesity Interestingly, I also found this policy on when they cover Panniculectomy and Abdominoplasty (removal of stomach sagging down from lots of excess skin)... This is good info to know for the future if you encounter problems with the stomach area: SURG.00048 Panniculectomy and Abdominoplasty Hope this helps!

Since getting banded, I burp a WHOLE lot. Before banding I pretty much never did. Now pretty much after ever meal I burp. Real big ones. Very unlike me. It feels like they are coming from deep within my stomach. It's like after the last of the food makes it through the band that a massive amount of air escapes or something. I have had zero complications with the band other than that... I'm not terribly restricted though since I'm losing weight still like this. I will be very happy to keep this as my only complication though... =) It's just... interesting. Can someone please move this post to pre-op, post-op questions? I posted this in the wrong place somehow...

So does liquid back up if you don't just sip when drinking? I can down a ton no problem... of course, I don't think I have much restriction. I'm losing weight still so my doctor won't give me more fill yet. I'm curious what it's like drinking after you have good restriction. It doesn't sound very pleasant...

I have not been thirsty a single time since surgery EXCEPT when eating or after until I drink... but I can't drink then so I have to wait. Once I drink I instantly lose my thirst. I keep forcing myself to drink. I have NO restriction against Water so I can drink plenty of it but I have no desire for it so it's kind of unpleasant to drink it... it's like my body is saying BLEH! I'm not thirsty! I've taken to filling up a bunch of water and sitting it out to remind myself to drink. I know getting enough water is an issue for many bandsters but I was curious if thirst was mostly gone in the same way for others. It's very strange... I'll just keep reminding myself to hydrate between meals to try and keep myself in a good hydration range.

I found out the hard way that peanutbutter dissolves gum. I was chewing some in highschool (not allowed) then a friend gave me some peanut m&m's.... well. I just popped them in and chewed it all together. the next thing I know, I've got a mouth full of glue. It dissolved the gum into a sticky goo. I spent all lunch break trying to get it out since it was so gooey and gross.... I swallowed maybe half of it and the rest I used paper towels to try and wipe out lol. It was awful... It happened fast too. Very strange.

I went in to get my third fill recently. I was at 6.0cc in a 10cc AP Lapband and eating 1 cup of food or just a hair more than that at each meal plus Snacks in between. However, I was still losing 2.3 pounds per week average according to them although I could SWEAR they have my previous weight down wrong. I was denied a fill since I was still losing, although that's due to me exercising myself crazy so I will keep losing. While I agree that that's a better way to lose than restricting eating, I'm burning out hardcore and cannot sustain this level of activity. It needs to go down a notch. I just hate to stop losing before I get the fill. I'm now eating about a cup and 1/3 at every meal plus snacks. Right after my second fill I was down to half a cup. This now seems like SO much food. It also makes it very difficult to keep my calorie intake low since the food quantity isn't terribly small. Any slip-ups and I'm done for. I know the band is a tool and all but it sure seems like I'm not getting to use my tool terribly well right now. At the beginning of talking to my doctor, I told them I wasn't getting hungry between meals but that was wrong. I mis-spoke since I was thinking of my in-between snacks as meals. When I pointed that out to my doctor she said "Oh now you're changing your story. why do you want a fill so much?" and she got very mean like I was lying to her. I just mis-spoke. I eat three meals a day plus 2 to 3 snacks. I tried to explain it to her and that I just felt that a small fill would help it from being so on edge with being too much. She said that even a small fill would make me have malnutrition. Does a small fill when you're eating a cup to a hair over a cup really make you go below half a cup? I remember having restriction after my second fill and I was doing great. That's gone now though but my doctor doesn't seem to believe me. I'm very frustrated that my doctor thinks I'm a liar and was very rude to me. She isn't my surgeon. I think she is his assistant or something. I will probably try to wait a couple of weeks and call in to get a fill appointment and hopefully I can get one then. My weight loss is slowing down quickly. I do still have restriction but it's so so so much less than it used to be. So back to the topic title. I'm curious how much food you guys eat when at your sweet spot. My doctor says 1/2 cup to a cup is the sweet spot. I was under the impression that it was closer to 1/2 cup. I just really feel from the way she got hateful and rude that she thinks I'm mis-representing my food intake to get tighter. I dread going back now and I'm really unhappy that I have to feel dread going to get fills like I'm being interrogated and like they are looking for me to slip up in what I say. I'd love to hear from you guy's experience. I'm new to the band and have only had good restriction for a couple of weeks so far. I need some more fill or I'm gonna poop out on exercising. I'm doing far more than my doctor even suggests. Just a little fill is all I want! I want to use my tool combined with exercise like it's intended to be... or so I thought. Thank you guys for any input. It's great here! :eek:

I had it occassionaly pre-surgery. Absolutely none after surgery. I love my band!

I have _PERFECT_ restriction! 4 ounces makes me feel perfectly satisfied to stop eating, and I'm staying full long enough. Yesterday I actually had to remember to eat because I hadn't had enough to eat in the day due to not getting hungry. I'm so happy!

I got my second fill yesterday, one week after the first since the first didn't do anything. My doctor allows a bit of tweaking one week after a fill of the first one didn't do anything. I'm not at 6.0cc in my 10.0cc AP band. They said most people there are between 6.0cc and 8.0cc in this band. I'm on mushy until tomorrow afternoon so it's hard to tell if I have much restriction yet. I just ate one very very muchy scrambled egg though and it seems to have been more filling than I would expect so I'm hopeful! Even without restriction I've still been losing though so I'm fairly happy. I just look forward to being less hungry when sticking to the band diet. Has anyone else had a second fill or up to around 6.0cc's yet? Also I'd be curious to know how many calories a day you are consuming. I'm keeping my intake at or slightly below 1000 calories.

The support groups can definitely be useful! It's really good to hear from others going through similar things and understand how things are for you. A lot of people just don't understand it all. Support is good.

Remember that liquids will go down easily so you will intake too many calories to get full. If you're sliming or filling 'stopped up' TOO much you may be too tight. By being too tight it sounds like you're eating too soft of foods to try and avoid the problems but this causes you to not loose weight. Talk to your doctor and see about getting a little fill removed. You should certainly be able to eat SOLID food! That is very important for the band!

I was banded October 15, 07 and felt the same way. I was up and around the day after surgery and could swallow just fine. I got my first fill last week but it didn't do anything so they put more in yesterday. I just finished eating a really runny muchy scrambled egg an I'm full. My only real symptom of having the band before now was burping much much more than I used to. Just hang in there! I felt like they didn't give me a band and I can definitely tell it's there now. That was a tiny egg! I could eat anything before the fills! Sandwich with soft untoasted bread? No problem! I think that's changing though. Good luck to you all!

I got my second fill yesterday, one week after the first since the first didn't do anything. My doctor allows a bit of tweaking one week after a fill of the first one didn't do anything. I'm not at 6.0cc in my 10.0cc AP band. They said most people there are between 6.0cc and 8.0cc in this band. I'm on mushy until tomorrow afternoon so it's hard to tell if I have much restriction yet. I just ate one very very muchy scrambled egg though and it seems to have been more filling than I would expect so I'm hopeful! Even without restriction I've still been losing though so I'm fairly happy. I just look forward to being less hungry when sticking to the band diet. Has anyone else had a second fill or up to around 6.0cc's yet? Also I'd be curious to know how many calories a day you are consuming. I'm keeping my intake at or slightly below 1000 calories.

Are these places ones that do a lot of these surgeries or do they do other stuff to? Support group is included for life at my doctor for free but then again this is mostly all they do. The support group has about 50 people that go. It's amazing. My doctor does a TON of lap band surgeries and people come from all over to have him do it. The difference might be that the 'bigger' places that do more of these surgeries and more easily afford to not charge a fee since it is so core to their business. I must say that my doctor's place was definitely the most professional and impressive place I've been. Tons of friendly people that remember your name, hardly any fees, and tons of free classes and access to nutritionists and tons of reading material. I would definitely recommend them to anyone. It does make me wonder though how many doctors focus their entire business on lap band type procedures rather than doing a mix of things.

My doctor doesn't have any program fees... It's all free. It makes me feel a lot better about them too that they don't try to charge fees all over the place. They submit insurance properly and handle an appeal for free which makes sense since if you don't get accepted, they don't get paid. Why should the customer have to pay the doctor to try to get the doctor paid? Oh well. There's not really anything you can do about it if they charge that. $2800 seems awfully high! Is this refundable if you get denied? Does this include everything you need or something? Out of pocket I paid: A few $10 copays for the first office visits, $35 after insurance paid for psych eval, $75 for dietician, and lots of money on Vitamins and Protein supplements but I kind of don't count those since it replaces a lot of food too.

The liquid diet is SO hard! I have to agree with you on that. It sounds like mine was easier than yours though. 10 days before surgery I started mostly liquids with one small meal of solids a day. Then 3 days pre-op I went full liquids. By the time I started more solid foods 2 weeks post-op I was dying for crunchy food or anything that wasn't sweet. Just hold out until mushy foods! If you like eggs at all you will LOVE them then! You can do a lot with mushy scrambled eggs for variety. It seemed like forever I was on mostly/only Protein drinks. I got so sick of Soups and stuff too. Bleh! I still stay away from anything mushy or soup-like if I can. I think it will be a while until I can like those things again... but I guess that's good for the band anyways. It may not be the best thing to do for avoiding those cravings for solid food but I spent a lot of time researching recipes for stuff I could cook once I could get solids again and learning better cooking techniques. I want the little food I can eat to taste good. I'm an awful cook still though. How long do you have to stay on liquids after surgery? Have you found any good Protein Drinks? My doctor requires we use 'New Direction' Meal Replacements during the diet. They have I think 28 grams of protein. It's a powder you mix with 9.5 ounces of Water. The chocolate flavors are the only ones I can stand though. They remind me of hot cocoa with powdered milk mixed in or something.... it's better than it sounds. Sorry for the rambling! I'm just so excited to hear about others getting this surgery too. It really does amazing things for people! Well, I better go.

Congratulation Ellisa!! I'm so happy for you! do you have a surgery date yet now that you've started Protein stuff? I got my first fill last Wednesday but it didn't seem to do much so they gave me another one yesterdat. I'm on liquids until this evening. I can't wait to have more restriction BUT I've lost about 33 pounds now since I started my pre-op diet!! You will love this thing! It's a wonderful tool. Keep us posted as you go and best of luck with all of it!

I hope all went well for you and that your port is healing quickly! Good luck with your journey and keep us updated! The band will get better once you're all healed up and filled so hang on!