Hi all - I will try to be to the point.
I was banded in May, 2005. Had 2 fills within the first 6 months. Went from 325 to 250 by July, 2006. Then my mother went into the end of a 2 year illness and she passed away in June of this year.
I started having reflux for the first time in my life about a year ago. I allowed myself to be so wrapped up in what was going on with my mother, etc. that I ignored myself.
Mylanta was not doing the job after awhile, so I would take a Tagament 150 each night before bed to be able to sleep through the night without waking up coughing from the acid splashing up into my throat, etc.
During this time I developed little to no restriction. Then I started to have an ice cream or a shake every day just to quell the burning sensation in my esophagus that I would get about an hour or two after I ate.
45 pounds crept back on in a year. The Tagament package says to contact your Dr. after 2 weeks of symptoms and now it had been about 6 months. I could not go on taking it for the rest of my life.
I was afraid to go to my lapband Dr. because of feeling like a failure in the weight coming back on. But I sucked it up and made the appointment for Sept. 19.
In the mean time, I went ahead and got a referral for a gastroenterologist from my GP who I happened to see for sinusitis.
I saw the gastro Dr. on Sept. 21 and he scheduled me for an edoscopy on the following Wednesday, Sept. 26.
My lapband Dr. was nothing but kind and extremely concerned for me. Almost as if he took it as a personal failure on his part that I was having problems. I expressed my concern that I feared my band may have slipped and briefly discussed how that would possibly be rectified if that was the case. He had me make an appointment to be looked at under the flouroscope on September 25, the day before my endoscopy.
On September 25, he looked at the band under the flouroscope and everything looked fine (huge relief and thanked God!) :Banane30: and he gave me a fill. He withdrew 5.5 cc's which was just about what he had put in previously total, and he added 1.5 cc to make 7 cc's total.
The next day I had my endoscopy. They discovered that I had Grade 3 Esophagitis - the lower 1/3 of my esophagus was inflamed with ulcers. :think:think
I was in a lot of very bad pain :think:think:think:think after the procedure as they had biopsied something else in there I had never heard of, plus I think the procedure irritated everything going on. I was out of work for the rest of the week and was told to drink fluids - Protein drinks - for a week.
They put me on Zegered - one capsule in the morning on an empty stomach with Water and you don't eat anything else for an hour. It stops all acid production in your stomach and lets things heal. The Dr. did not want to see me back until December 17 - it takes about 3 months to heal.
In the meantime, after a week of telling them I had very bad pain every day (as it said in the instructions I took home from them - let them know if you are in pain), the Dr.'s nurse finally relented and consulted the Dr. who said I could have 2 teaspoons of liquid Gaviscon 3 times a day if needed as it coats the esophagus.
Just about that time the pain relented and I only had to take it once.
From all this adventure I have lost 13 pounds in the 15 days that have passed. I have restriction again and am blending up my chicken or broccoli or potato before I eat 3 oz. of it. I eat 3 oz. of something or a protein/vitamin drink every 2 hours. I try to get in all my water during the day as well. It is a full time job!
THE POINT OF ALL THIS IS: If you have been having reflux for awhile, get it checked out ASAP. You do not want to go through the pain I was in. I slept with 4 pillows under me for a year and it didn't do very well. I have tipped my bed up 8" and still have to sleep with the 4 pillows because although the stomach acid is neutralized, once a night I still get Fluid coming up a bit even though I only eat bland things and nothing after 4 p.m. The fluid is not acid but it can still make you feel like you have something in your throat and have to clear your throat or cough a few times.
I did read on the internet that if you distend your stomach (I took that to mean by overeating) then after awhile you can throw the little flap (that protects your esophagus from acid coming up) out of whack. The acid reflux certainly would help make that flap not work correctly as well.
I believe that this is what I did to myself.
A no win situation! I would say I was eating more than I should have because I had no or little restriction in the past year.
I also feel that now I have a second chance as my band had not slipped and no erosion - so I am as good as gold.
Thus ends my saga - I signed on to this discussion board specifically in the hope that relating all this will help someone reading it to make that decision to take care of themselves better than I did before it is too late. Don't ignore or mask what your body is trying to tell you.
Grade 4 Esophagitis is as high as it gets and I have Grade 3. The nurse said "You don't want to know what Grade 4 is."
That's it for now. >phew!<
