amella

Im terrified of waaking up in recovery being told I have no sleeve. My drs plan is to do it all at once, but I know he can't guarantee that. I hope so cuz I can't afford sleev plcmt without insurance and insurance wont pay for a 2nd surgery since my bmi is 28. Im pretty much screwed if he cants do it at once. My band Is herniated, not sure how much damagge it can do in 3 mths time.

Please send positive thoughts my way...

This happened to me 2 weeks ago, the nurse from hell says to me really mean tone, "you are crying??!! why are you crying! that wont do you anygood!!

I had my lapband removed 1 week ago. I have hot flashes (not fever) and the roof of my mouth feels real hot, burns when I rub it with my tongue and my right neck gland is slightly swollen which gets much worse if I eat something along with sore throat. anyone else have those weird symptoms? My body is almost reacting allergically to any food I put in my mouth.

An important consideration on the topic of reflux symptoms after band surgery is the hiatal hernia.

What we now know after doing nearly 5,000 band procedures over the past 7 years is that in essence every patient has a hiatal hernia (even if small) and needs to be repaired in every case - reinforce the hiatus with suture. This also mobilizes an intra-abdominal section of esophagus which is a very important anatomical consideration for an anti-reflux mechanism.

More and more, band surgeons are now realizing the importance of hiatal hernias and fixing them at the time of surgery to prevent problems with increasing heartburn with band fills.

Of course reflux/heartburn can also come from a dilated pouch, keeping the band too tight, eating too much or eating "plugging" foods such as bread, sticky rice, raw vegetables, microwaved Pasta, restaurant scrambled eggs or calamari (doughy, fibrousy or rubbery foods).

Before I started fixing hiatal hernias routinely in every case, I would see patients that would get heartburn when we tightened the band. This caused frustration and poor weight loss. We don't see this scenario now that we reinforce the hiatus in every case. Fixing hiatal hernias has also improved the "sweet spot" of the band and reduced dilated pouches significantly.

Unfortunately, many band surgeons do not believe the hiatus is that important and there are many band surgeons out there that are ignoring important hiatal hernias at the time of surgery and this causes frustrated patients and poor weight loss.

I have a lot of patients transfer their care to my practice and many of them have no sweet spot and lots of heartburn. Some of them have agreed to a hiatal hernia repair and this always creates a better sweet spot and the ability to tighten the band without reflux.

Any band patient having significant heartburn should have an esophogram to rule out a dilated pouch and if the esophogram is normal consideration should be given to the hiatus.

Hope that helps

brad

This is so true - I had a hernia that was fixed at time of surgery - I had reflux which was getting quite worse before my surgery but since my surgery I have had no reflux at all no matter what I eat:smile2:

It is totally normal to lose restriction within 2 weeks paticularly with you first couple fills because what happens is you have fat all around your stomache on the inside of you and that is some of the first fat to go so as you lose that fat surounding your stomache then the band gets looser because their was fat imbetween the stomach muscle and the band that is no longer their.

I have had my band for 4 months now with no problems but on one little area (on opposite side of my port) - small area size of a quarter area where my band is, I get like a poping sensation or something whenever i sneeze or cough i have to kind of push down on it with my hand to keep it from doing that - I dont know how to describe it other than some kind of crackling or pop sensation in area of my band just under the rib cage - note: it is on opposite side of my port so it is not a port issue. Does this happen to anyone else? Anyone know what that means?

since most or all of us have such big stomaches anyways then how do you know if your stomache is bloated to the point of erosion? Is that litterally the only symptom you had? no pain or sickness or anything?

girl you are hallarious! and i luv the little dancing figure what a cutie - you should go into the chat room sometime you would be fun to chat with good luck to you on your journey

I agree with you maestreata - their are many different factors to take into consideration. Long ago when I was a stay at home mother and did not have to work, I litterally spent 2 hours at the gym daily and always ate healthy foods cause I had plenty of time for meal planning, shopping and cooking. Now that I work full time 10 hour days in an office setting it is so much harder! I went to the gym tonight and monday night after working a 10 hour day which is not an easy thing to do - yesterday I was just too wiped out and did not make it their - I wonder if the person who started this thread works and if you do do you work full time?

It is much harder when you work full time. also the dynamics of what you do for a living also plays a big part - I work in an office at a sit down job all day and people always bringing in goodies and potlucks and offering chocolate and candy - constantly pulling on your will power - whereas someone else might have a job where they are moving around and/or not exposed to wrong foods all day long - also the bigger you are and the more weight you have to lose the quicker you lose it in the beginning. If a person is 300 pounds they are going to lose much more weight much more rapidly than a person who weighs 180 and it would be absurd for the one who weighs 300 to judge the one who weighs 180 for not losing as much weight as quickly!!! then the person who only weighs 180 could turn around and judge the person who weighs 300 for getting that big in the first place! Too many factors to consider to be judgmental about peoples weight loss journey!!

:scared2::scared2: Hey all my fellow Arizona bandsters!

I want to start a get together where any Arizona bandsters can get together for Breakfast - lunch or dinner or happy hour - let me know if you are interested and what you prefer. Also let me know what day or night is best for you - friday, saturday or sunday - and then I will organize it - probably in april sometime. I will let everyone who is interested know ahead of time where it will be. If it goes well, I would like to make it a monthly event wher we can all get to know each other and start a bandster friendship base. Be their or be square!! :scared2:

one thing i decided to do is to go on a liquid diet for 2 to 3 days before i think about getting another fill - that way you shrink your pouch down as low as possible and if you dont need a fill then you will get some good restriction back from doing that otherwise if you are still not full on 1 cup of solid food after doing liquid for 2 or 3 days then you know you are probably ready for a fill. Another benefit of doing that is it kick starts you into a good loss again too if you are plateauing.

if i have not lost 10 pounds by the end of each month then i go on a liquid diet for 2 or 3 days (all i can stand) that seems to help kick start me back into action

thank you - at this point it is evident that I need to ignore such animosity and accusatory behavior, I am not even going to bother to try to defend myself to such an individual, she is quite sad actually. peace to you too. :laugh:

Hope you feel better hon

i can eat cole slaw just fine no problem but i have never eaten hot dog since my surgery - did you eat it with a bun or by itself? hot dog meat is intestinal food maybe its just not a good meat to have with this band.

Thank you for coming on here with some sense - that person makes the forums a miserable experience for everyone - she is mean and rude and she does not even have a lap band anymore she has a sleeve now so I dont know why she does not go on some sleeze oops sorry i mean sleeve site instead of trying to stir up so much trouble on here when she is not even a bandster anymore! and your doctor is a wonderful person for coming on this site and giving us free information - what doctor does that??? I may not ever agree with the pricing of fills but I have nothing but praise for such a kind man who is willing to give of his time and knowledge for free the way this doctor has.

My surgeon never told me stop drinking coffee. He asked how much I drank. I had just heard it on the boards (people's doctors telling them it causes band erosion)

so I had a conversation with him about it with regards to any JMA articles and he said as long as he has been instructing LB surgeries and doing WLS he could not cite a credible study that showed a link between coffee band erosion, slippage or damage. He surmised that each surgeon has his/her own personal 'take' on caffeine and that as 'surgical' patients some docs want us to follow a more pure lifestyle --- caffeine is a drug..and a lot of WLS have co-morbities (HB, heart trouble etc.)

So each person has to decide on their own.

thank you so much for your answer hon appriciate it!

No problem here. LB nurses (who are patients also) use em too.

But I am a person that questions things when they don't quite add up and pushes until I get a reasonable answer.

Couple of my favorite 'rules' are: You will erode your band if you drink coffee and don't drink soda 'cause your pouch will blow up like a balloon.

I wanted to ask you about the coffee thing - that is just pertaining to caffienated coffee right? From what I heard that Decaf coffe is fine is this true? I have gotten addicted to the starbucks frapps because they come in light and sugar free so sometimes i drink them in place of a meal because I have heard that decaf is ok but I would really like to know if you have heard differently - thanks :thumbup:

excersize makes a huge difference hon - if anything start out by walking - if you are not used to walking start with short goals - like 15 minutes a day for 2 weeks then 30 minutes a day for 2 weeks and then if you like it try to work up to an hour a day or join the gym once you master the 30 min a day. I got my band on 11/14/08 - also it is normal to plateau for awhile b4 you start losing again. let me know if you need any support or help. You will do this! just make up in your mind that it will work. You can also find alot of support and learn things in the chat room too.

Hey thanks dilario!! I deffinately was not initmidated at the least! I just got bored and moved on. Have no use for this forum anymore. stated what I had to say and moved right along. :thumbup: bigger and better things baby!! LOL

I just want to toss in my two cents here in a little defense of Dr. Watkins. I know it's easy to toss in things like, (the guy who charges over $1,000 for a lap band fill), without really knowing the guy. I was banded by Dr. Watkins on February 13th, 2009. Let me tell you something, he's an amazing doctor. I say this for many reasons. First, his clinic has performed almost 5000 lap band surgeries with only one reported case of 'slippage' and that one case happened after the patient had undergone chemo...not saying that it was the cause but it is an interesting coincidence. Also, when I went in to meet with Dr. Watkins on my initial consult he spent over an hour not only answering every question I had but also filling me in on many aspects of the lap band that I had no idea about. He also took the time to chit chat with me about himself, his upbringing, etc. and made me feel more comfortable than any doctor i've ever met before. Also, i'm about 12 days post-op and my surgery day started at 9:30am and I was in the car heading back home to recover by 1pm the same day. My recovery has been awesome. Since the procedure was laparoscopic my incisions are healing very well and i am exercising and feeling great now. In fact, I've already lost 30lbs. in the last 3 weeks.

I would also like to point out that Dr. Watkins didn't say that the band was more powerful than the sleeve. He said that the band is a powerful tool. He then went on seperately to say that the sleeve is newer...i'm sure he means as far as approval by the FDA for weight loss uses...not as far as invention goes.

Also, his point about the adjustability is for reaching an ideal weight and maintaining it. I have a friend that has the sleeve and honestly he's lost TOO MUCH WEIGHT...he looks like a skeleton now and it's really sad. The nice thing about my band is if I begin loosing too much weight I can always have my band adjusted to whatever ideal weight I desire.

Finally, I would like to address the comment about going to a surgeon that performs all the surgeries for a balanced opinion. I don't know about you but I don't take my Lexus to Wal-Mart to get my servicing. I take it to a specialist that works on my type of car exclusively and has a proven track record working with high performance machines. To me that is what Dr. Watkins has done. He has chosen the procedure that he deems most successful while balancing risks and benefits and has chosen to make a stand and to specialize in that one particular procedure. To me that's a good thing to know that i'm getting specialized care catered specifically for the exact procedure that I chose to receive.

I'm not going to knock the sleeve or bypass just because I have the band. I will however defend my doctor for being nice enough to write a message about why he performs and recommends the lap band over the sleeve. He was taking the time to give his opinion in a polite manner and i don't think that he deserves to be discredited in a public forum by someone that doesn't even know him.

Again, just my two cents.

Amen!!!!! Thank you for putting this in here!!! What a good kind caring man this doctor is to come on here and give of his time like he has been just to have some bubblebut come on here and take over the whole forum and try to discredit such a kind and caring professional man!! How many doctors you know are going to answer questions and talk to you for free to the extent he has! and now that woman is trying to ruin it for the rest of us who would like to ask him some questions!!

you are so kind to give of your time to let us know this. It is so very scary when someone says they had erosion with no symptoms. Im scared because I have been naughty and drinking a starbucks frappacino almost everyday because they have them in sugar free light - but i also have been using a straw - can this cause erosion? i had my surgery on 11/14/08 - but have no problems but again im scared now because that girl said all she had was a little bit of bloating when she got erosion?

oh I see now!!! wow thank you so much for enlightening me! I had no idea that the amount of time one has a lap band matches the amount of time an individual should have on basic intelligence and opinions!

So because I only had my lap band few months I should not have opinions about the price of fills! Thank you so much for your help on that, gee, I had no idea!

Personally I would much rather learn from the beautiful, intelligent and obviously very educated lady who brought up all the good and intelligent points she brought up about the price of fills and the robbery that is taking place with them.

She obviously is a very educated lady who probably works very hard for her money and she is just tired of being robbed! She is also very beautiful if you observe her picture, and that usually strikes a cord in other woman - beauty and intelligence in one whole package - whooo - look out cause that is a recipe for attack by other females, that is what i think is really going on here.

Their is nothing at all wrong with her voicing her opinion about the price of fills. I dont understand why anyone would have a problem with that. Its so easy to be complacent and just swim with the tide! Well she obviousy does not and she has been attacked for it. Don't you realise that it is because of people like her who speak out about things that are wrong is why anything in life ever changes for the better?

I dont ever want to experience getting stuck or bp so i prefer my fills to be conservative. I do agree with you though that they are completely exploiting us in what they are charging for these fills! It is robbery! I wish someone would come along like a Walmart (only a quality walmart that does everything correctly and safely) and would charge a reasonable price for fills and put all these other ones out of business or force them to stop robbing us!

I totally agree with you on that! Dont worry about the person who is fighting with you about that - who would argue with something like that!!!! What your saying so totally makes sense!!!!! :thumbup: if someone enjoys paying up the ying yang for their fills and argues with what you are saying then maybe they are spoiled brats - id be willing to bet maybe she does'nt have to work for a living. She also happened to mention that all of her fills were free the first year!

She certainly seems to have lots of time on her hands to write one reply after another and take over your forum! any hard working person does not have that much time!

Just read some more of this forum!!!! Unbelieveable!!! What an abuse of power that is for someone who is a moderater to cause so much friction and drama on someone's forum and take it over and be so emotional!!!! What are you going to do to me now ha? are your going to kick me out for having an opinion about you???!!!! For gosh sake mam! Get more professional!!!! Of course you are always going to have people who are going to come on here and side with you - oooooh cause your a big shot SUPER MODERATER! OOOOOH! Well I happen to disagree with YOU moderater! You going to be a big bully now and kick me out for having an opinion? Im not worried if you do because I have a life and a job!

I also got banded in november and i had my 2nd fill this monday - i went on 24 hours of liquids like i was told and then after that i had 1 cup of chicken salad and was not full so i called the fill nurse and she thinks that maybe i might of stretched my pouch so she sd i need to go on liquids for a week! to shrink it back down again - she was not very nice or helpfull at all and left me feeling absolutely horrified and afraid of what might be going on - oh and i never eat bread or Pasta or anything like that - she did no exrays or anything - but i found a site from the chat room here called 5daypouchtest.com it gives you a 5 day menu designed to shrink your pouch back down in case you might have stretched it and also it is for any bandster who just wants to get back on track again - great recipes. I am doing that right now and I am looking for a new surgeons office to take me on for my fills since this one im dealing with right now is so mean. I hope you will let me know what you find out at your doc office today - please feel free to go into my profile and become my friend! maybe we can help each other through this mess!

hi trenya - i was just banded on 11/14/08 and i went for my 2nd fill on monday and after going on liquids for 24 hours like i was told i then ate a cup of chicken salad and was not full so i called the surgeon office and the fill nurse sd that she thought maybe i might have stretched my pouch - she sd to go on liquids for a week to shrink it back down again - she was not helpfull at all to me though and i found out about a site to go into from my chat buddies here - *** 5daypouchtest.com **** it gives you a specific menu to follow for 5 days to shrink your pouch back down again. and you should never ever ever eat bread - if you had been eating bread you may very well have stretched your pouch. I would like to find out what you did about this and how it helped you or if your surgeons office was any help to you with this problem because i am going through same thing right now and my surgeons office is of no help whatsoever. Hope you will go into my profile and become my friend and keep in touch with me - maybe we can help each other out with this. also chat room is very helpful too:)