minou

Thanks guys, like so much after the surgery, I just want to know that it's normal! It's not like massively painful, just sort of pinches when I twist to that side, or when I really crunch up. One of those things that until you hear others have the same thing going on, just makes you a little uneasy.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this? When I'm doing ab exercises (especially torso twists) I get a really sharp pain on my left upper stomach area. It tends to vary in intensity, but it happens every time I'm doing ab work. It sort of feels like something is being pinched inside, but that may just be my imagination. Anyone else experiencing this?

I've been having a similar problem, only I'm still on liquids and they're coming up even! I've found that if I drink something that's warm before I eat that the food will go down a little better, I've even managed some mushies that way. So, I've been sticking to hot teas, etc. for all of my fluids, otherwise everything comes back up. As for the swelling, you're dealing with very sensitive tissue around your stomach. When the band is filled, it's going to irritate that area and cause swelling. Your stomach doesn't want to be constricted like it is. My vision is to think of a ring around your finger. If you put on one that is slightly tight, but still goes on and leave it for a few hours you're going to find that your finger has swollen and it will be very difficult to get the ring off again. The same thing happens in your stomach, only even more so. After awhile the swelling should go down, but it may take longer than you think. I was thinking about having some Fluid out of my band, but hey last week I lost 7 lbs. I figure if I lose enough weight the band will loosen on its on and I can just wait a little longer for my next fill!

Angie, I think the swelling happens because of the irritation from the band gaining more Fluid. If you think about what would happen if you put on a ring that was too small, initially your finger would be ok, but if you left it on your finger would swell. I've been trying to tough it out, and it's definitely better than it was those first few days. I can get down hot fluids, so I've been drinking a lot of tea (decaf), but I still haven't been able to keep down solid food (regardless of how little I bite or how long I chew). The good news is that I lost 5 lbs last week, so I think I'm just going to keep going on and hope that as the weight reduces I'll find a more comfortable level.

I just had my fourth fill, up until then I felt zero restriction. If you read around this forum, you'll see how much the variance between what works for different people is, you just have to find your own sweet spot. However, you have to give it a little bit of time to know for sure if you need more fluid. I know that my doc will only do a fill once a month, give yourself a few weeks and see how you feel.

I had my fourth fill on Tuesday of this week. I now have about 8.75 ml in my 14 ml band. Up until this week I felt zero restriction (the only time I noticed a difference at all was if I ate too quickly and took too big of a bite, then I'd get a PB). So, b/c of the lack of restriction they put in a bit more fill than normal. At the doctors I drank a whole glass of the barium stuff (blah) and a glass of warm Water, it felt fine! Before I left the doctors, I tried to drink a glass of cold water, but it was really slow going down and eventually about half of it came up. I figured I'd already had about 8 oz. of fluids, so I might just be full and we went home. After I got home, I tried to eat, and made some watery mashed potatoes, I was able to eat about half a cup of it and felt so excited that I actually got full on such a small amount of food! Then when I woke up, I realized things were a lot different, now I can have about two small sips of water, any more than that and it's coming back up. It takes about 5 - 10 minutes for that water to go down. For lunch I was able to keep down two spoonfulls of Soup (no solids). I tried to spend my day sipping on water to avoid dehydration, but even after a whole day of doing this I couldn't even get down 15 ounces of water . This morning, I'm showing some signs of dehydration, dry mouth, etc. It's not severe yet, but I'm getting worried. My question is this, I would guess that the reason it's different is swelling, which in the past has lasted about 2 - 3 days. So, do I stick it out and see if the swelling goes down, or go for an unfill now?

AF here too, Barksdale AFB, Louisiana Ramstein AFB, Germany We keep getting extensions here in Germany, looking now like we'll be here til 2010, yay! No clue where we're going afterwards, my fingers are crossed for Hawaii though

I agree that you should form your own opinion, he just reminds me of a really old fashioned doctor, the kind that doesn't feel he needs to inform his patients on anything, yet can feel free to blame them for anything going wrong. I have a background in medicine and am one of those people who has to understand what's going on, so for me getting the blow off when I had a concern about pain was a big deal. I would not take that from a doctor in the states. I also had a similar experience with my fill, it wasn't Prof Weiner, but his surgical assistant who did it, he stabbed me at least 20 times before he found the port, I'm actually still sore from it 3 days later! He initially only put 2.5 cc extra in, but I was feeling zero restriction so asked him to put in another 4.5 so that I have 7 total now. Btw, if you call tricare, I think there's someone in Landstuhl who does the band too, I was given a choice when I got approved, but chose Prof. Weiner b/c I'd heard such good things.

Hey there, just thought I'd get in on this thread. I was banded on June 3rd and since then I've lost 19 lbs. I know it's slow compared to some of you guys, but for some reason that's just how my body is. Even when I lost weight by myself it would take 4 - 5 months to lose 20 lbs. So, definitely going faster than I could do on my own!

God, I'm so glad I'm not the only one having problems w/Prof. Weiner! I went yesterday with some concerns and to get another fill b/c honestly I have really been struggling, and I felt like he was mad I was there. I asked him about the pain I'm having on my left side and he just blew off my question saying it was normal but not explaining why. I kind of feel like he doesn't like doing the band, he thinks it's unsuccessful and he feels like we're all going to fail and just be back for bypass at some point anyways. So, he doesn't give us any help or advice b/c it's like he doesn't think it's worth his time or something, blah!

Just beware, I ordered mine a month ago and it still hasn't made it here :cool2: I don't know why but for some reason things like that seem to take a long time to arrive.

Hey there, I'm near K-town too and was banded on June 3, 2008.

I've been having the same thing with being able to eat way too much. I stop myself usually, but sometimes I'm just so hungry that it's hard to keep up the will power! When I went back the first time (July 9) I'd lost 16 lbs and they did the fill, but I pretty much had to demand that it be done. Call Prof. Weiner's office and tell him you're hungry and want a fill and they'll schedule you another appointment. I'm going back this afternoon for my second fill. I'm a bit worried that I've done something to the band though b/c I've got this intermittant pain in my port area and can feel something hard beneath my skin on my left side (not the port).

You know what's funny, we've all heard the same things over and over again, we all know how ridiculous they are, yet we've all still let them bother us! I have three stories, the first was when I was about 15 years old. I can remember stepping on the scale in front of my grandma (who was 5'10" and never weighed over 135) and it was at like 132 and she flipped out on me telling me how disgusting it was for someone my height (5'5") to be over 120 lbs. The second was my freshman year of college, I weighed in at around 125 (yeah, definitely not fat considering I wore a size 2 pants, but I had really big boobs so wore a size 16 top, should've been a guy's dream right?) and my bf at the time told me "my fraternity brothers say you're cute but too chubby" as a reason why he didn't think we should be exclusively dating anymore. Turned out later that the fraternity brother in question actually was trying to date me and was putting that in his head so he would dump me and the other guy could swoop in, both of them...pricks! For some reason I thought I was in love w/the first guy and stuck with him, slowly gaining weight b/c of the low self-esteem I had. Eventually I woke up, saw him for what he was and dumped him when I was about 150 lbs. He called me a few months later and said "now I can only date fat girls though, b/c you ruined me, skinny girls just don't do it for me anymore". Talk about a backhanded compliment. The third thing didn't happen to me, but to a friend who is a bigger girl too, she came to visit me here in Europe and we went to Paris for a few days. We were sitting in the park beside the Eiffel tower and this beggar woman came up and asked us for money. We basically just ignored her, and she got mad and started saying things to my friend like. "Vous Mangez tout" (you eat everything) and then just started shaking her head in disgust saying "trop gros" (too big) over and over again. Luckily, my friend has a great sense of humor so she just looked her in the eyes and said "at least I can afford my own food". I've also gotten tons of the "you'd be so hot if..." comments or the "god you're good looking for a bigger girl" ones. For some reason I also get the guys who want to tell me how much they like a girl with meat on her bones, like yeah, that's how to compliment a girl!

I'm definitely trying to get as much Protein as I can, I've mixed some Protein shakes and things since day 1, but I just can't eat very much of one so the amount I'm getting is minimal. I'm a little bit vain about my skin and hair so I've been really making sure I had a balanced nutrition intake the entire time. Thank you for pointing out the numbers to me! Most of the other patients at my doctor's had the RNY, so when I went back for my checkup they had all lost somewhere between 30 and 60 lbs. The NP said I had done really well, but I just didn't know for sure. I know it's just like any normal weight loss attempt in that everyone will lose differently, but thank you for letting me see that it's a normal range!