SeattleSweetie

Hear hear! (or is it here? I don't know... :thumbup:) Also, you surgeon may not realize how much the last fill has affected you, maybe he thought it wouldn't be as tight on you as it is? If you're feeling good where you're at and you're losing weight, then go ahead and postpone your fill until you drop more weight and your band becomes looser and you start missing the restriction you have now. From what I understand, the point where you're at right now is about where most people want to be (minus the PBing, of course, but that will probably get better as you lose just a bit more weight and the band becomes a tiny bit looser, if you don't want an unfull). Good luck!!!!

I'm so sorry to hear about this, but all my prayers go out to a fellow bandster (or former, I suppose) in pain! :thumbup: I truly truly hope things start looking up and she will most definitely be in my prayers for a full and timely recovery!

Yep, that's basically what my doctor told me as well. I needed a 14cc band because I had a lot of fat around my stomach.

Congratulations on your decision, I hope you're able to get this done and meet your goal by next June, it sounds like you've got a good plan so far. That's great that you're able to get this done at such a young age, you'll be feeling so much better about yourself as you go through the rest of your life. I'm 24 and was only banded about two weeks ago. I wish I could have had this surgery 7 or 8 years ago (high school was hell :frown:), but I'm glad I can at least do it now, rather than living like this into my 30's or 40's. I couldn't imagine another 10 years of being as overweight as I am now, it's just miserable. The sooner you can work on it, the better! I can't offer any insight on the psych appointments, as I only had to have one, but I still wish you all the best and I hope everything goes really well for you. Keep us up-to-date on how things are going for you. Hitting your goal for graduation will give you a great emotional boost and I'm sure you'll feel awesome! :thumbup:

Great, glad to hear everything went well for you! :thumbup:

I would call your doctor and ask him what you should be eating/drinking to get your protein in. You should definitely - DEFINITELY - be getting plenty of protein right now to heal and to help you not have that sick/dizzy feeling, but he may not have made it clear or explained it too well. I would ask him for clarification.

My surgery was last Monday, and I don't have any swelling, but I do still have a good amount of pain where my IV was. It's fine if I leave it alone, but if I touch or press it hurts quite a bit. From what I understand, that's normal and it will go away, however, I've not heard that swelling is normal, it sounds like you should call your nurse as you're planning.

Stick to liquids for a few days just to make sure you're getting something down, let your stomach calm down, and then call your doctor after the holiday.

I'm still on my post-op liquid diet, and I've been losing weight really quickly on it because I've been really good to get in all my Protein and keep my carbs pretty low, but I've been to Starbucks twice for a small frapuccino and even though they're a few hundred calories, I know that I'm making up for it because I'm doing so good elsewhere. I'm staying well under 1000 calories a day right now, so I know that 2 or 300 extra, just once or twice, isn't going to be a big problem. Now that I've had a couple though, I know it's time to lay off for a while and make sure I don't start indulging too often. And honestly, I'm okay with that because I haven't let this big craving build up to where I cant control it and just go nuts. Better to have one cupcake every now and then, than to let a craving build and binge on 10 of them at once when you finally can't handle it anymore! As you should! It sounds like you're doing great. :thumbup: Happy 4th!

I'm so sorry for your loss, MM! You're not crazy at all, dogs aren't called "man's best friend" for no reason! When I was in high school my dog got cancer and had to be put to sleep. I was completely devistated, and I'm sure it's even worse to lose a loved pet in an unforseen accident like you did. He looks like he was such a sweetie. :thumbup: Huge hugs to you and I wish you all the love in the world.

Yes, this has happened to me too (though not due to excercise, it just happened on it's own, probably from a weird movement I made or something). When I saw the yellow stuff I started freaking out a little (okay, a lot!) so I went back to my doctor and had him look at it. He said it was fine and pretty normal. So long as there was no pain, swelling, redness, smell, etc that it was fine. He cleaned it up, taped some fresh gauze over it and said to keep it clean and change the guaze as needed, but otherwise not mess with it. Let us know how it went when you saw him. Hope everything thurned out to be okay for you too!

I had to pay a program fee (which I don't have a big problem with, for the reasons IndioGirl explained above), but this was clearly explained at the time I scheduled my first appointment. If this appointment that you're going to is your FIRST appointment, then they really aren't out of line to expect payment, they've told you about it before you started the program. However, if you've already been seen and started your pre-op stuff, then that's a whole nother can of worms and it seems very inappropriate to me.

Dr McMahon is my surgeon! I just had my surgery last Monday, and he and his staff have been really great. Someone (Usually Jeri or Carol) is always available to talk to when I have questions or concerns, and Dr McMahon himself has been really great throughout my time with them. He always makes a point to stop in and see how I'm doing anytime I come into the office for any reason, even if it's just to talk to the nurses or nutritionist, or whoever. I was originally scheduled for surgery on May 5th, but when he went in, my liver was really really big and there was just no way to do the surgery laproscopically, it either needed to be converted to an open surgery or I could just diet for a few weeks and come back and do it right the second time. He stopped the surgery, feeling the diet was the best option (He said he didn't want to give me a huge scar across my whole stomach at such a young age (I'm only 24) without at least trying the diet first, and we could do an open later if the diet still didn't work.) Anyway, as soon as he stopped the first surgery, he went out and found my mom, who was the person with me, in the waiting room and sat and talked to her for, like, 15 minutes all about the surgery, what was wrong, what the options were, what he thought would be the best plan of action and answered all of her worried-mother questions and was just very supportive. My mom's been around the block a couple times with various surgeons and doctors in her life, and she was really impressed with him, probably even more so than me, just because he was so willing to sit and talk to her about everything as if there was nothing more important to him at the time. So anyway, back to the point here, I don't know anything about surgery in Mexico, but if that's the route you choose, maybe it wouldn't hurt to see if doctor McMahon and his staff could handle your fallow-up care and fills here afterward? I wish you all the luck in the world, whatever your choice!

Hi Donna, I'm doing okay, how are you doing? I'm kindof worrying right now because I have this wierd drainage coming from two of my incisions and I don't know if it's an infection or this 'melting fat' thing I've read about, and I can't get a hold of my nurse right now. Other than that though, I'm good. How are you holding up? Still have pain and whatnot?

The same thing happened to me at about 5 days. The immediate area within about an inch all around the incisions turned a very deep, sickly looking yellow color, but then went away about 2 days after that. My incisions from surgery back in the beginning of May did the exact same thing, so I guess it's natural. I thought it was really strange though, so it's nice to know I'm not the only one who's experienced some odd things.

Right now, the concern isn't stretching the pouch, the concern is making sure that your stomach doesn't have to digest anything you're eating because the movements and contractions your stomach makes to digest food could tear your stitches, causing a number of different (very serious) problems. Your doctor is telling you to puree your food for a good reason - for your own health, it would probably be a good idea to stick as close to that recomendation as you can. I wish you luck!!

You could always supplement with something like a SlimFast or Atkins shake to help get a couple extra hundred calories in between meals without affecting how much solid food you're able to eat?

Yeah, like everyone else said, it's probably port pain. However, I know what you mean about feeling a hard lump under your incision that seems like it would be the port - I have the same thing under two somewhat large incisions (1 1/2" and 2 1/2"), and it turned out to be scar tissue.

Yes, you are definitely NOT alone! I was banded the day before you (Monday) and by Wed/Thu I was starving too. I was supposed to be on clear liquids for THREE weeks (are they insane??!) but I just couldn't do it. I called the nutritionist at my Dr's office and just basically cried to her and she told me not to worry, that if it was that bad, she'd go ahead and okay full liquids. Some doctors seems to be much more conservative about what they instruct you to do, but there doesn't seem to be a big difference between the safety of chicken broth and the safety of a Slim-Fast drink (after all, you have to have your Protein Drinks and those definitely aren't "clear"). If it's really that bad, tell them that you have to have something and that you wanted their input - but one way or another you won't last on clears. After all, what are they going to do? Take your band away? Really, they're there to support you and help you in every way they can. If they really understand what's going on and where you're at, they'll be more equipped to do so. Also, just a side tip - Slim Fast has a lot of carbs - basically empty calories - but if you can find them, the Atkins brand makes a high-protein, low carb vanilla drink that's really good instead (The Atkins chocolate is not good - very bland, but the Vanilla is pretty great). They have about 150 cals, 15g Protein, 9g fat and only 3g carbs. They seem to keep me from being hungry about as long as a thicker Soup does without all the extra fat and cals that cream soups have. I wish you luck and good job on your weight loss so far! 10 lbs in a week is GREAT!!!

Thank you thank you thank you all of you! :wink_smile: I know! How sad is that! I'm going to have to test if I can eat them if they're toasted and semi-crunchy instead of soft and chewy. Maybe if I take teeny-tiny bites... Ah, a girl can dream. :bored:

Yes! I had to do the horrible low-carb diet for six weeks (it sucked, it was really depressing and hard ) but I did it and it worked! I went back and got banded on June 23rd!!! YAY! (This is me jumping up and down shrieking! LOL)

Ditto here. In addition, the medication they put me on after banding was Vicoprofin - a combination of Vicoden and Ibuprofin. Taking more IB at home would have just been an overdose for me.

Hi Kaye. This must be really hard for you, but please reconsider before having your band removed - hair loss is fairly common and normal for anyone losing lots of weight, no matter how they do it (diet, lap band, bypass, etc). Once you've gotten to your goal weight and you stop losing, your hair will come back as thick and beautiful as before. This is pretty common with significant weight loss. I don't remember the exact scientific cause of this, but my doctor did warn me of it and said not to worry, that my hair would come back when I was done with my weight-loss. Also, you need to discuss the port and vomiting issues with your doctor. Can they give you an injection of local anesthetic when they do your fills so it doesn't hurt while they're poking around? And it sounds like they need to work with you a little more on just finding the right fill level for you so that you can eat without throwing up. All of this can be worked through, Kaye. Just talk to your doctors more. Don't feel like this has to be the end. Best wishes.

Happy to help. :eek:

No, from what you've said here, it sounds like you're doing great. Low-and no-carb foods are fine when you're trying to shrink your liver. Your liver basically feeds off carbs, so make sure you stay away from those and you'll be doing good. I don't mean to seem like I'm tooting my own post-horn, but I wrote a post on why the low-carbs diet works for liver shrinkage and how it affects you. Take a look at the top section or two and it will give you the basics on how it works, and you'll probably feel a little better knowing that what you're doing is just fine! http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f84/how-shrink-your-liver-increase-st-weight-loss-low-carb-pre-op-diet-65020/