KBlyth

I have been banded 1.5 years and the list of what I can eat changes daily as well. But I can almost never eat chicken or breads of any kind. Anything crunchy I can always eat.

I had my surgery 1 year and 5 months ago. I suffered with left shoulder pain a lot. It was the worst intense pain I ever had. I could not function at work or anywhere when I had this pain. The good news it is almost gone now. I get "attacks" every now and then but if I lay down and I fine within seconds. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p> I did a lot of research I believe it is caused by the pain in the band area. From what I have found out (I am not a medical person - so this is just from research and living with this pain), the nerve ending in your stomach/diaphragm are closely related. So when there is a problem, the nerves signal the brain to produce the pain response. But since you brain can’t tell where the signal is coming from, it sends the pain to the shoulder. Thus it is not really your shoulder that is hurting but your band area. So to relieve the pain you have to relieve the band area. That is why you get the pain after a fill, or after the initial surgery, or I get it when I am sitting down hunched over a desk (press on the band). I tried everything – heat, gas medicine, pain pills, etc. Nothing worked. The only thing that worked was laying flat on my left side. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> As I said the good news is it gets few and far between, I am still glad I got the surgery. But I wish the doctor or someone would have told me this might happen. My surgeon gave me the same answers and what you all got (from reading this tread), that it is from the gas from the surgery. But I really believe it had nothing to do with this. The lapband community needs to educate the medical professionals on this side effect and better prepare new patients.