kiz

I'm so sorry to hear that you have a leak! I know that's better than a medical problem, but it's still bad news, especially for self-payers. Has your doctor given you any estimates to what you might expect to pay to get it repaired?

The first thing you should do is to get rid of all those temptations. Ice cream, Halloween candy, Cookies...yikes. That would hard for a sweets eater to ignore, even if you felt you had your eating under control. As far as curbing your night time eating, that's going to be a little harder. At least if you have healthy choices to chose for the evening, you're better off right off the bat. The next thing to do is to make sure you're eating enough food during the day, so that your night time eating isn't a result of hunger. Next, you might want to budget in a healthy evening snack, if your allowed. The last thing to do is to really get to the bottom of why you've been snacking on junk food in the evening. Is it boredom, mindless eating, hunger as I mentioned earlier, etc? Then, attack the problem. Personally, I budget a healthy snack in the early evening. It might be plain Greek yogurt with fruit, Stevia, & little Fiber Cereal, a few baby carrots, 1/4 banana, spinach, or a sf Jello (for examples). But, for me, the important thing was to get rid of the temptations and have healthy alternatives.

I agree with you Wendy. One remedy could be that rather than put it on the contestants to pick the most needy participant to stay regardless as to whether they pose a threat or not, they could allow the ones who were voted out to stay for the instruction but to be out of the running for the money.

I'm glad you're going in tonight rather than waiting. What you're going through sounds absolutely miserable. I hope the unfill helps you feel better.

I agree with frenchvanilla. That sounds serious and not something to wait until Friday to have checked.

I just did a search through the sub-forums and social groups and I couldn't find a group for self-payers either. I'm going to send a suggestion to the administration using this thread to ask for one to be added here--> Sub-Forums : Special Interest Lap-Band® Support Groups (NEW!)

I was a self-payer too, and if there isn't one, that would be a great sub forum so that there'd be one place to share the different types of obstacles we face and the hopefully positive resolutions to those problems. My biggest fear is a major band failure that affects my health, and how that would be handled through my insurance. I also have private health insurance, and I worry that I'll be axed if I have a medical problem as a result of my band. On the other hand, and on a positive note, I truly feel blessed that I have this medical marvel. I cannot believe the difference it's made in my life. I eat small healthy meals, and I'm satisfied for hours. I was a junk food grazer, and once I reached good restriction, my gnawing round the clock hunger was obliterated. For all my nagging worries, I would have the surgery again in a heartbeat. I'm sure I would anyway, but I take very good care of my band. I followed my pre-op and post-op diet to the letter. I wanted that sucker cemented into my stomach, so when my doctor said liquids only, I kept to liquids only, when it was mush time, I stuck to my mush. I've never had problems with a too tight band, but for me, I'd rather lose at a little slower rate then risk a band slip from too tight a band. Anything under my control that can help reduce band failure, I'm on it with a passion.

There is a bit of luck involved in the slimers/pb'ers vs the non-slimers/non-pb'ers. For whatever reason, the few times I've gotten myself into a sliming situation, I know darn well it was my fault, and it has been a lesson learned. As in, slow down and when in doubt, stop eating. Many people who have those problems have addressed them by adjusting their eating habits, having their bands a loosened a bit, etc. I've come to the conclusion that some people are just more band tolerant than others. There are some things you can do to help minimize it though. Don't try to wait out a too tight fill for more than two weeks (or whatever time period your doctor advises), even if you are losing weight. Of course, if you can't tolerate liquids, go back to the doctor asap. It's not good for you or your band and will almost assuredly lead to future problems. Eat at a slower pace. Put your fork down between bites, and chew, but not to oblivion. If you're having to eat pea sized bites or chew your food to a liquid mush to avoid sliming or pb, you're too tight in my opinion. You want your food to stay in your upper stomach so that you achieve satiety, so while you want to chew well, you don't want turn a good solid meal into a virtual liquid. (This has been what has worked for me so far.)

It's important that you realize that there might be things that you just can't tolerate after getting your band, and it's great that you're asking questions. I always think it's better to be prepared too. There are very few foods I can't eat. For instance, one is raw celery. I'm not even sure that I can't eat it, but I tried it once after banding, and the texture of the fibers in my mouth made me decide not to try it. The thought of swallowing it kind of made me feel gaggy. Often times, it's better to try a new food at home, just in case. But, as Cathy described, as long as meat isn't dry, I don't have any problems with it, and I never liked it dry anyway. It's important to try new foods slowly, and if you start to feel tight, and you'll get to recognize that feeling, not to push it. Actually, some people have issues that their tighter during certain times of the day or month, so it's always best to take those first couple of bites with a bit of caution, especially if you're prone to band fickleness. Pre-banding, not knowing what I was going to be able to tolerate, I decided to go into this WLS as if I was an alcoholic giving up alcohol. If I had to give up steak, for instance, to be healthy, so be it, however, I have been very lucky that most foods don't trouble me. I know you're saying the same thing too. For me, eating smaller portions, eating at a slower pace, taking slightly smaller bites, and chewing a little longer has allowed me to lead a very normal life with food.

I found that drinking sodas (mostly caffeine free diet coke) was just a habit for me. I've had some sips here and there, and probably part of the reason I don't find them refreshing anymore is not drinking them straight up and bubbly. I've had champagne on a few occasions since surgery, but it's not a chugging drink like a soda and it's not a 12 or 16 oz or more serving (at least for me), so the bubbles didn't come back up. I was never a two-liter a day soda drinker in the first place, but I generally drank one or two cans/small bottles a day pre-band. I don't miss them in the least.

Tony, check with your doctor about moving on to mushy foods. Different doctors, different schedules. Others on the forum have consulted their doctor's when they've felt ready to move on to the next food stage and have been approved (not always though), but I wouldn't do it w/o my surgeon's okay. You're healing now, and if you're like me, I selected my surgeon because I trusted him and his education and expertise and longterm success rate with a lower than average band complication rate in his practice. Here's a medical/technical answer to the likely cause of your shoulder pain: shoulder pain following a laparoscopy

I have two brands of Greek yogurt in my fridge now. Brown Cow, which food Lion carries, and Oikos, which I've found at Whole Foods, Kroger's, and Walmart. Both brands come in fat free. They both have 6g of sugar and 15g of Protein in their small 5.3 oz container. I buy the plain, and sweeten it with a pack of Stevia. I also might add some fresh or frozen berries with a dash of vanilla extract. There's a whole thread with Greek yogurt recipes, that you might want to check out if you get the okay from your dr.

Shay and Daniel both looked good on Leno. I believe Shay has lost approx 50 lbs and Daniel has lost approx 30 lbs since being sent home. Shay has six different trainers that concentrate on different types of exercise. She has a different one every day (I don't remember her saying now, but I would think that means she takes one day off a week). On days she works, she exercises four hours, and on her day off, she exercises six hours. I wonder if the extra work outs the "young" team was doing in their room after hours ended up backfiring on them. I've read time and time again that proper rest is very important to weight loss too. Speaking of the "young" team, Shay and Rudy are only one year apart in age. Shay is 30 and Rudy is 31. I would have thought she was much younger given her personality. I'm pulling for a Rudy win. I like Allen and Danny too, in that order. I can't believe Danny's only 39. Liz, who is 49, looks ten years older to me too. Of course, referring to herself as Grandma doesn't help. (I think the makeovers will be very dramatic for those two). I don't mind Rebecca, and I hope Liz and Amanda are the next to go. I'm so tired of Amanda talking about how she's America's choice and Bob's drooling over her. After Bob's and Jillian's side bar on how much Shay needs to stay, Bob added that Amanda needed to stay too. I can see that Shay needs the support, but Amanda more than some of the others? Bob is under some kind of Amanda spell.

Shay and Daniel better be worth sitting through this..haha

No, they didn't show Shay, but they're both going to be on Leno shortly.

1. I keep papaya enzyme on hand in case I have a stuck or too tight episode with meat, but I've only used them two or three times. The time I used them when I was stuck, I believe saved from a full out PB episode. I had already started sliming, and I chewed three pills, and everything settled down. I bought mine at Trader Joe's (Papaya/Pineapple Enzyme), but others have found them at Vitamin shops. 2. You can potentially have gall bladder problems with rapid weight loss, but my problems developed during my third pregnancy (long before I had WLS). I've read that because people with lap band generally lose at a slower pace than with other WLS, that they tend to have gall bladder problems a little less often than those that have other WLS's, but I've not seen an actual table showing that to be true.

They flush the band with saline during surgery to be sure there's nothing leaking, and a little fluid can stay in the band. Also, some doctors put a fill in the band during surgery. I hope you're feeling better now.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!!!

If you completely lost all restriction, there is a chance you have a leak. I know someone that this happened to after several months of good restriction, although you generally expect it to happen soon after a fill (if there was a puncture). She was able to have it repaired. I think she had a leak in her tubing, but I can't remember for sure now. On the other hand, maybe you just need a fill adjustment. It took several fills to get me to where I have long lasting restriction. I would have decent restriction for awhile, and then it would diminish after several weeks. Since you've lost a good amount of weight, maybe you've lost all the fat stores around your stomach, and your band just naturally loosened.

Yes, I would say you need a slight unfill. It's not natural (even with good band restriction) to be having to spit up saliva when you're eating or drinking. I would think just a very small unfill would do the trick.

Ketosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I started out as a 7 1/2. Sometime during my late 20s to early 30s, I moved up to an 8. I think the loosening ligaments during pregnancy led to that 1/2 jump. After I really started putting on weight, I moved up to an 8 1/2. Now, after loosing 50+ lbs, I'm back to an 8 again.

Until you see your doctor, you can't know for sure, but those are some of the classic symptoms of a band slip. I hope all is well, and you find out you just need an unfill. Good luck.

Welcome to LBT. The first step is generally finding out who preforms the surgery in your area and then attending their seminars. I would recommend checking out more than one surgeon, if you have options. If you have weight loss surgery covered on your health insurance, you're going to have to get the ball rolling in that area. My health insurance doesn't cover it, so I just had to make an appointment with my surgeon of choice, book my surgery, and go through his office's required medical testing and classes. I went to the seminars in June, saw the doctor probably late June to early July, and although I could have had surgery in late August, it didn't work in my schedule, so I went in the first week of September. As you might imagine, the time frame greatly varies from doctor to doctor. If you have WLS on your health insurance, some require a six month diet, but not all have that requirement. Some surgeons also require a supervised diet for three to six months, but mine didn't. I did have to do a two-week "liver shrinking" pre-op diet.

Great question, and lots of varying and interesting responses. I'm another one who doesn't miss certain foods. For one thing, although I have great restriction, there's really not any foods I can't eat, although some more carefully than others. I wasn't a big meal eater, so I don't have that to miss, but I was a junk food grazer. Man, I don't miss that in the least. I hated that I felt such a compulsion to eat and eat and eat some more. One Oreo..no way..I'd eat a six or more over the course of a day. One Hersey's Kiss..are you kidding me? (lol) Now, with the band and good restriction, my hunger is under control, which lead to having control over my head hunger. I also attribute cutting out white carbs to my reduction of junk food cravings. (I get my carbs from veggies and whole grains, so I don't consider myself low carb, and I'll eat an occasional sweet without guilt). It could also be the anger that I had with myself for not controlling my junk food eating is greater than any regret I have for almost eliminating those foods from my diet. Plus, as a HUGE side benefit, I know I'm exponentially healthier.