Cocoabean

Walk, walk, walk. Gas-x strips can also help, even with the gas that was put into your abdominal cavity for the surgery. For me, the heating pad was my best friend. Feel better soon!

I had 0.5 removed yesterday. He said just go easy and see you in a month.

A 23 lb loss in 2 weeks is a lot for your body to adjust to. Add recovering from surgery to it, and it's no wonder you are not 100%! Your body has been through a bunch of trauma. Give it time, eat the foods you are prescribed, and heal up!

My surgeon is not against me having a little bit of liquid with my meal. What I found is that as I got to a tighter level of restriction is that if I take a drink of something while eating it will cause me to get stuck. Early on it made no difference in how soon i would get hungry again. But not...it upsets the delicate balance of what is going on between my pouch, band, and lower stomach. it just isn't worth the risk of getting stuck.

At 6 months out I was just STARTING to lose weight. It took me 2 years to lose 70 lbs. This is NOT a quick weight loss procedure. This is a marathon, not a sprint. You are down 36 lbs, that is awesome! 1-2 lbs per week is the average we can expect. I, personally, averaged 0.75 lbs per week when I was actively losing. But I lost it. That is all that mattered to me. Concentrate on your eating and exercise habits, the rest will follow.

You need to call your surgeon. You need to keep water down.

For me a PB (productive burp) is far different from being stuck and sliming. But many people use the terms interchangeably. A productive burp is just that, a burp where unexpectedly I produce something in my mouth. It is a total surprise. I burp and ... oh, here comes a little bit of something! I can spit it into a napkin with none the wiser, unless someone is watching me very closely. But I do NOT have time to make it to the bathroom as there is zero warning. This doesn't have anything to do with failure to chew for me. Stuck/sliming is a completely different experience. Sometimes caused by failure to chew, sometimes by doughy foods, sometimes by very dry foods, sometimes by taking a swig of liquid while eating, sometimes by I have no idea what. I start with pain just below my sternum. If I stop eating at the first sign of pain, I am often OK. If I press on, I am doomed. Then the slime begins. Since it cannot go down, it must come up. As posted, the slime is mucous made by the body in an attempt to help the food go down. Eventually the food will either go down on its own, or come up (what many refer to as a PB). To me, that is not a PB. When the food comes back up, there is no burping, it is more working my stomach muscles or coughing it up. YMMV.

From what I understand, hiatal hernia recovery is a bit more painful that just a lap band recovery. I never had the problem of not eating enough after my surgery. I swear I woke up hungry! Here's wishing you a speedy recovery.

So, your surgery is over, how are you feeling??

Yay!!! Just keep taking your medication. We are waiting for you on the losers' bench!

If you had radio-iodine treatment, just the TSH isn't the best way to tell if you are normal or not. Can you get a full panel run?

Hang in there! Sip on Protein shakes to get as much protein in as you can. Walk, walk, walk. I did laps up and down my hallway, it helps with the gas. Stay on top of the pain with the pain meds, take them when your pain is level 3. Don't wait. The heating pad was my best friend. Feel better soon!!

I have beer pretty often. Sometimes it gives me the hiccups. Otherwise I take the calories into account. My surgeon is not against carbonation. He says the digestive tract is an open system, so in his opinion the carbonation won't harm the pouch, it just might cause discomfort before it escapes.

Respond "I don't know, I only weigh in at my doctor's office. My focus is on getting healthy not on a number on the scale. I put my bathroom scale away. I walked three times last week!!" Or be rude and ask how many times they had sex last week. Or say my blood pressure is dropping! I am so very pleased! Mostly people are attempting to be supportive, in my opinion. They just don't get how tired of it we end up. Especially because we lose so slowly with a band, and people don't understand that. They expect us to melt away like gastric bypass patients. So after another month they check in, you are down 5 more pounds (great in band-land!) they go.. oh, well, uumm.. cool. Eventually it does stop though. They get bored, life goes on. You being banded becomes old news.

Band patients have to take what their individual doctors tell them to take. It is not a one-size fits all. In general we do not need the prescription level doses of the other WLS procedures due to the fact that we do not have the malabsorption issues. I am anemic, vitamin D and B12 deficient. The amounts I am told to take will be different from others on the board. My primary care doctor checks my vitamin levels annually and adjusts my supplements accordingly.

Don't take it with Calcium (milk or creamer) or other minerals, either. Such a pain in the patootey medication!

You can check with your surgeon as to how big of a tablet you can swallow. Mine had no issues with the size of the pills that I was on, as long as I took them one at a time. The largest i took was the size of an extra strength tylenol. I use Vita Fusion's gummy Vitamins. They don't leave any weird aftertaste. As long as you like sweet fruity gummies, they might work out for you. I consider them my desert. I use their Calcium chews, too. They are creamy, my dog insists on sharing them with me, he likes them so much. :-)

Feb 15, 2008 here. Loving my band. 75ish down, give or take. I've been maintaining for over 2 years with great ease. I eat moderate amounts of whatever I want...except for white meat chicken and doughy breads. I am about to have a slight unfill. The fill I had in September is just a bit too much. It was fine for a few months then got VERY tight. Then got a bit looser. So, I'll just have a bit taken out. I had a flouroscope done 2 weeks ago, all looked very good, except for how tight I am. I LOVE normal blood pressure, normal blood sugar, normal cholesterol. And the vain side of me LOVES wearing a size 10!

Armour is short acting, at least the t4 part. That is why there is twice daily dosing. So you really don't have any fall back if you miss a dose. But if you were put on it due to conversion issues, then that is what you need. Or levoxyl and cytomel. But ti would be the same idea of NOT being able to miss a dose or three. In medicine, there is no one size fits all. Do they know why your TSH went that crazy? If it were me, I would want to know that before proceeding with surgery. If the cause is something that needs intensive treatment, that should be handled first. WLS can wait. Or, do you already know why you are Hypo, and you were non-compliant with your meds? For example, I had radiation on my thyroid, it no longer functions. If I stop taking my levoxyl, my pituitary will start screaming for thyroid hormones..the TSH goes up. And up, And UP. I don't know how long it would take to reach 96, that is pretty extreme. But if mine were that high, I would KNOW the cause if I were not taking my meds. I would want to be assured by my PCP or endocrinologist that I was OK for this surgery with my TSH that high. Did they do a full thyroid panel? It could be that the TSH is wonky, but your ACTUAL thyroid levels in your blood are normal.

For many of us it takes a couple of weeks for a fill to take full effect. Odd but true. For me, this last one took a few months. I am having a slight unfill soon. After my fill in September, I got very tight in February. It's loosened up a bit since then, but still too tight. Go Figure.

Humor doesn't always come across the boards. Throughout my banded process the only "diets" i've been on were the pre-op and the pos-op. They were horrible to get through. Otherwise I eat whatever I want in moderation unless my band won't allow it. Pre-op, you are a asked to drastically change your eating habits without the help of the band. But our surgeons ask us to do so for a reason. On another board a lady who was having RNY had her liver split in two during her surgery, it was so damaged and brittle from all the fat. Her medical condition going in was very poor. My surgeon said he could tell I followed my pre-op diet well, because my liver was small and very easy to move around. Our surgeons are operating on us to help us get healthier. The pre-op diet is a time limited event in our lives. Why not do everything you can to make the surgery as safe as possible for yourself? I recently had a complication from a non-related band procedure. It was a simple thing. In-and-out. Miss a day of work. Back on your feet the next day. I ended up with a blood infection (Sepsis) that has a 30% mortality rate. I was in the ER twice, had a fever of 103.8, and missed 3 weeks of work. What could have been done to avoid it? I don't know. But, not cheating on your pre-op can help to limit liver complications. ANYTHING you can do to limit complications is a good thing!

Yes, the slime is mucous your body creates in an attempt to help the stuck food go down. Since the stoma is blocked it cannot go into your stomach, it must come up. It sounds as though you are a bit too tight.

I would stick with the armour. It is a T3 T4 combo pill and better suited if you have trouble converting t3 to t4 on your own, They can pump t3 (levythyroxine) into you all day long, but if your body cannot convert it to t4, then you are sunk. Downfall of strictly t4 meds is they are short acting. So you have to have frequent dosing.

I didn't take them at first, either. I ended up deficient in Vitamin D, B12 and have been anemic since before my surgery. It is important to work on the habit now, while you are still eating a larger amount of nutrients. I don't think you really want to end up deficient. Lack of B12 can cause permanent neurological problems. I was fortunate my PCP checks my vitamin levels at least annually.

You are only putting yourself at risk. The pre-op diet is meant to clear your liver of fat to make the surgery safer for you. By clearing the liver, it is smaller and easier to maneuver around. The instruments they use to hold onto it don't slip off as easily, because the outer coating of fat is also gone. Keep your focus on your upcoming surgery. You can do this.