Elisabethsew

Sparkpeople is MUCH easier to record your dietary intake with. I used fitday for over a year and dropped it once I found sparkpeople.

Get up and MOVE! You're having gas pains and the only things that help are moving, bending, staying hydrated, weaning off narcotic pain meds (tylenol is fine) and anti-gas meds.

As an RN I can tell you that most OB/GYNs want the band totally unfilled for the last 5 months of the pregnancy. Check and see what YOURS wants and go with that advice.

My surgeon has no pre-fill requirements. After the fill I had to drink 4 oz of water at a normal pace and was instructed to do full fluids for a day, soft foods for the next day and then progress to solids.

You might have been feeling the effects of some tissue swelling. Hang in there as sometimes it takes 1-2 weeks for a fill to "kick-in."

Shread it and then put it in small sandwich size baggies and freeze it. You can use it anytime you need some shreaded cheese.

There are a lot of success stories so focus on them. Congratulations on being banded.

You are definitely in my thoughts and prayers. Ask the MD's to do a hypercoagulability work-up on you. I had bilater pulmonary embolisms and testing revealed I was positive for MTHFR 2 which causes abnormal clotting. Keep on posted on your progress.

Get on the phone, gas the car, and get back to the surgeon's office. If you can't easily swallow liquids, you're filled too much and excessive vomiting could cause a slip that might lead to band removal. Don't wait to call!

I did not feel restriction until the second fill and go back for a check next week (4 weeks after fill #2). I am going to discuss getting a tiny fill at that time.

Since you're crafty, why not decorate a nice basket and then put in things for the entire staff. You could do poupouri sachets for the staff bathroom, little pins for staff to wear on labcoats, memo pads with colorful banners, gourmet coffees (medical people LOVE coffee), some boxed crackers and cookies, hard candies in little dishes, etc.

Congratulations on getting the band and it's good to hear you're healing fast. Personally, there is no way I could do a full liquid diet for more than 2 weeks and it was very hard to stick to it the last few days post-op but I managed and was more than ready for "real" food by then. I think as more research is done on the band, the surgeons will come to more of a concensus on what constitutes the "best" post-op diet plan. Until then, it's best to follow what the surgeon YOU have recommends.

Losing Girl, Don't worry about where other people started and just focus on you. I am a year younger than you, the same height and was 351 pounds before my surgery. Like you, out of nowhere I was hit with bilateral pulmonary embolisms in January of this year. That delayed my surgery but I was determined to get healthy and finally got banded. Unlike many people, I felt no restriction at all from the band after the first week of surgery and then felt the same after my first fill. FINALLY, on fill number 2 I understood the purpose of the band. While not dieting, I am now enjoying a healthy eating plan and losing at the rate the surgeon expected. Good luck with the seminar.

Congratulations on being banded. If you're allowed to eat yogurt, it sounds like you're on a FULL liquid (clear soups, tomato soup, yogurt, pudding, shakes, etc.). Make an appt. to see ONE nutritionist and follow the plan she/he advises. Have a speedy recovery.

My insurance payed for the band and 90 days of free after-care. Visits for fills after the 90 days cost a co-pay of $35 on my plan. As for most of the comments being negative, what have you been reading? Most people here would opt to have the surgery again and don't regret their decision to be banded. Keep the appt. with your MD and ask a lot of questions. Get all your options on all the surgeries available and then do more research. When you're informed, you'll make the best decision for you.

Are you diabetic? Reduced gastric motility is sometimes a problem if you're diabetic.

Zofran (anti-nausea) is now available sub-lingually. You place it under your tongue and it dissolves in a few seconds and is essentially tasteless. The drawback is that it's very expensive but my MD gave me a Rx for 10 pills that I keep in case I do get a stomach flu.

Welcome, Cathy! You'll find a lot of good info here. I hope your recovery is progressing smoothly.

Hi Ladies, Fills are NOT painful and you don't have any pre-fill prep. After the fill, you'll likely be given a piece of paper that instructs you on what to eat post-fill. For me it was full fluids for 24 hours, a soft diet the next 24 hours and then normal foods. You'll be asked to drink some water after the fill which takes about 10 minutes. Afterwards, you might have a small bruise at the port site from the needle stick.

From a medical standpoint, colon cleansing are NOT necessary and could cause electrolyte imbalances (loss of potassium). If you want a healthy colon, stay well hydrated, eat fruits and veggies, get in fiber in the form of whole grains and stick to a low fat diet.

Be careful with a first fill. If you're already having restriction and a PB with no fill, you might be one of the lucky few who doesn't need a restriction. As long as the weight is coming off, you might want to reconsider a fill.

Have a blast, ladies!

I think you need 2 things... a small fill AND to stop making bad food choices. A fill won't do anything is you're eating bad foods that can easily slide past the band. You can do it, toss out all the crap in the house and get some healthy food in it's place.

I hope by the time you read this you're both well on the road to recovery. Let us know how it went.

For me, the wait was for the actual surgery time. I completed all the requirements for the surgery but the surgeon is popular and does about 5 cases a day (over 1500 lapband surgeries). Therefore, surgery bookings were 6-8 weeks wait time. It took 3 months from consult to surgery and THAT included fighting the first insurance company's refusal to approve me.