TownDrunk

Sad but true considering I barely drank before banded, which is why I jokingly call myself the town drunk. My Mexican doctors encouraged booze and said it was fine to drink with the band and playfully offered tequila instead of pain med. Band surgeons used to (do they still?) host huge drinking bashes for their patients. I knew better but still, liquid went down so easy that I found myself drinking things I never drank before.

Everyone is different. There are some Super People that take the surgery like a bleep in their busy week, while people like me must have blocked the horror out of my memory. It was awful for me.

STARVATION MODE. I laugh every time I hear it since it's a very temporary phase. Thousands die each day from starvation because they have no food, yet I constantly hear obese people using starvation mode as a crutch to avoid missing a meal. Forcing myself to gag down breakfast, to break the fast, in order to get my metabolism going is nonsense. I went decades without eating breakfast and my weight hasn't changed at all by forcing down something in the morning, it just adds calories. It's a tiny little temporary phase not worth mentioning. Weight loss is scientifically simplistic... calories in vs. calories out. Good thread!

YOU PEOPLE <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:stockticker>ARE</st1:stockticker> PARANOID Steve Martin. If you try reading a little more carefully you might realize that this is one story of one person’s erosion that never suggests only one cause. There are no absolute answers, only theories, beliefs, myths and supporting data that might potential cause or “lead to” erosion. It’s not an overnight process, it happens gradually. Think of battery erosion or a rusty can, it starts with a tiny spot and gradually erodes at a slow pace. A fill under fluoroscopy often suggests erosion, but if the erosion is in the beginning stages, the saline fill might still flow correctly through the band and go undetected by the fluoroscopy. If a doctor, while under fluoroscopy, notices a problem with the way the saline flows, only an endoscopy will verify an eroded band. When people here arrogantly debate and override reality to express their own useless opinions it misleads other who come here to hear real facts that can save them pain and suffering both physically and financially. To think strangers posting at LabBandTalk have answers is ludicrous, but to print items found here to discuss with a qualified band surgeon(s) is a priceless tool. Instead of suspicious insinuations, just call your surgeon since Ariel Ortiz has his fair share of eroded patients that are no longer banded. While you’re on the phone, tell him to log in and send me a private message so I can inform him the 2 patient coordinators that are spreading the most vicious terrifying rumors imaginable about him so he can do some damage control. When your band slips, you gain a lot of expertise on slippage. When your port flips, same thing. Likewise for erosion or any other complication because you are put in a world surrounded by the same. You frenetically call every doctor on the planet, meet as many others in your situation, spend hours researching the implant/supplier/maker. I'm not an expert but having lived, barely, through erosion, I bet I know a lot more than an antagonistic egghead.

It's sheer narcissism that anyone would disagree with someone's personal erosion experience. Unless you've experienced erosion then you're clueless and only base opinions on and endless supply of unconfirmed reading and hearsay. Only a paranoid delusional narcissist would post disagreements to a true story of real erosion to turn yet another thread into a debate. If you don't have any complications, stick to what you've been through and debate your know-it-all disagreements to the Rants and Raves section.

My band was removed because of erosion, and I will never be able to get another band according to my team of surgeons (too much damage/scar tissue.) I felt like a science project the whole time I was banded and was glad to have the contraption removed and wish I'd have done a gastric sleeve or bypass instead. Like I said elsewhere I didn't exactly have "medical" symptoms but I certainly felt different in the Digestive Department. While banded, food and liquid passed a certain way, and I was accustomed to the sounds my stomach made. Once eroded the gurgles were way off key, they lost their rhythm. It wasn't painful but something felt really wrong. I still had restriction and PB'd the night before band removal. My doctor indicated a port infection most likely lead to erosion since he was removing a lot of bands from people that had port problems such as port revision, flipped ports, pulled ports, infected ports. He also believes that a tiny nick on the stomach during surgery can go unnoticed, something so small that the doc will ignore. The smallest infection from the nick grows bacteria that can't ever be stopped, not even with antibiotics. The infection makes its way up to the port, and the rest is history. I simply woke up one day feeling really strange, an eerie instinct or intuition that had me make an appointment for an endoscopy that confirmed I eroded. So many people that don't have a clue are posting their beliefs on erosion so I wanted to share some facts. Ports should never be replaced or treated with antibiotics once infected, and there's no indication that we cause our own erosion. I see that a lot here, and it's not true. This isn't up for debate, either, because everyone has different band/erosion experiences. It was a great way to limit portions but I never thought it would last forever and really wish I'd gone straight to a bypass/sleeve instead. I said the same thing 1000 times, that I wanted something reversable, which is pure nonsense considering I never wanted to lose 100 pounds temporarily, and that's what the band did for me. Hot, now not. Hindsight, damn.

This isn't always true since I had restriction and continued weight loss with over 50% erosion. I didn't exactly have "medical" symptoms but food/liquid certainly did passed through my pouch much differently. The old gurgle sounds changed, and something didn't feel right. No pain or anything but I did have one PB right before my band was removed (had maybe 5 PBs in the 2 years I was banded.) My doctor indicated a port infection most likely lead to erosion since he was removing a lot of bands from people that had port problems such as port revision, flipped ports, pulled ports, infected ports. He also believes that a tiny nick on the stomach during surgery can go unnoticed, something so small that the doc will ignore. The smallest infection from the nick grows bacteria that can't ever be stopped, not even with antibiotics. The infection makes its way up to the port, and the rest is history. I simply woke up one day feeling really strange, an eerie instinct or intuition that had me make an appointment for an endoscopy that confirmed I eroded.

Everyone's different so some people spring up feeling better pretty fast while others take longer. I felt horrible for over a week after surgery.

I'm no longer banded but why so hard on someone who simply shared some info? No need to defend the almighty band when it's obvious that it's a great tool for some and not so great for others. Isn't this the place people can share the ups AND downs without being ganged up on for not having such a spiffy band experience?

I'm a Libra.