elcee

I drink tea all day long, always have. Never noticed that it makes any difference.My stomach regularly sounds as though some beast is waking from its winter hibernation in there. Lucky for those of you who tea does help.

Mine does this all the time. Not too much you can do other than get used to it!

I would eat omelets,burgers (just the patty not the bun),salad - so long as they are salads in the true sense of the word(lots of raw veggies not cheese, dressing fat, meat etc etc with a couple of token lettuce leaves), the asian food and Soup could be OK. I have no idea what a quizno is. I would try to find someway of getting out of the meal plan or buying some food to add to it but if you can't then you will just have to do your best. It's no wonder so many people have a weight problem if that is the kind of food that is served and deemed to be acceptable. I still feel sorry for Jamie Oliver who tried to help change some of this bad food culture and got no thanks for it just heaps of resistance.Maybe you could get onto the student council or some body that has an input on the food served in the canteen and try to make changes that way.

I agree that at the start of the journey it is easier than later on. Initially you are excited, fired up and committed but you eventually get tired of that. Also the longer you have been banded the easier it becomes to eat many foods that were difficult before. It is not something that a fill would fix as that would probably make you too tight .I am a grazer and always have been. I only work casually and spend a lot of time at home so it is easy to go back and fore to the fridge. Luckily my grazing doesn't seem to have reached the level where it is causing problems. I am obviously not consuming as much as I think I am because I am still maintaining. However this is what I think is going on. The initial period after banding is the honeymoon period. You don't normally see this term associated with banding it is normally talked about with a sleeve but I believe the same thing happens with all WLS. This is the timeframe when you will have the most benefit from your surgery and are able to lose the most weight. Gradually over time you will find that you get hungry quicker, that you can eat more and a wider variety. If you had a bypass and had dumping syndrome that may no longer happen etc. People need to make the most of this period to lose their excess weight or as much of it as they can. They also need to try and learn good habits in the hopes that once the period is over some of the habits will remain. Once your honeymoon period is over you can still lose weight but it will be a bigger struggle. Hopefully if you have lost all the excess by then the band/sleeve/bypass will still give you enough assistance that you can maintain without too much effort. It is normal to eat "unhealthy/sometimes foods" sometimes. The trick is to make sure that you don't break all your newly learnt good habits and go back to the way you were preband.

Your Dr is also the person you should be talking to if you want to advance your post op diet ahead of schedule. Instead people come on here and say is it OK or I have done this is it so bad. As a support group we can give tips etc on how to stick with the diet even when it is hard as we have all been there. But we should not be saying yeah sure go ahead do this/that/whatever against what a persons individual Dr has recommended. I can imagine in the future someone trying to sue the group or a member if something goes wrong.

I hate Dr's like that. One at my Dr's practice was similar when I was still in the weight loss phase. At one point she told me that I had lost what i was expected to with the lapband so I was successful. Yes maybe I had but I was still either overweight or right at the top end of normal at that point and I certainly didn't go through surgery to settle for that. I hate the way they have so much power over fills and yes I know they don't want people to be too tight but I only had just over 3.5ml at the time and I have a 10ml band. What is the point of having the band if they aren't going to let you use it properley. She was also skinny and I mean skinny in the true sense not what a lot of banders consider skinny which is often normal weight. After that I always asked for the other Dr when I went for my fills and she was so much more understanding. I eventually got fed up of travelling so far for followups and managed to swap Dr's last year to one a lot closer to home.( Not sure how I managed it as generally he doesn't take other Dr's patients). He is great. I actually get to see him and not an assistant and he always seems to have time to talk and discuss how things are going.

I agree you should get it checked out. Better to be safe than sorry. I have issues with the surgical dressings - they always make me itch but it doesn't normally spread. As the above posters have said it could be the meds, it could be an infection , it could be anything. Only your Dr can tell.

I got my first fill (a very small 1ml) at 3 weeks out. I lost 4kg 8.8lb between surgery and that first fill. I was extremely happy with that.

Yet another person that has decided to go against their Dr's instructions and then come here looking for approval/validation. What is there to say that hasn't been said before............................................ NOTHING

Why would we think you are crazy. Stretch marks can be caused by rapid weight gain or rapid weight loss.

Do you have any op shops? They are a great place to get cheap clothing whilst you are still losing weight.

It is standard procedure to stitch a part of the stomach over the band to stop it slipping. As to the plication as far as I am aware that is another procedure where they sort of fold the stomach and staple it to make it smaller. So it is like getting a sleeve except they don't remove any of your stomach. It is supposedly reversible but I would think that would be hard to do without any damage having occured as I am sure scar tissue would form at the points where the stomach is folded. Sometimes the plication is performed in addition to a banding. So do you know which procedure you are actually getting?

I started at 74kg(163lb). I am only 5 foot so although that doesn't sound huge it was. I looked about 11 months pregnant as all the excess weight was around my middle. I now weigh 50kg(110lb).So I am well within a normal BMI. I look great , feel great and don't regret get banded at all. I have found the whole process relatively easy. The weight came off slower than if I was heavier but it was still steady. I got to 52kg within about 6 months. I am now 2 years out and seem to be maintaining quite easily. I have been on holidays and eaten "fairly normally" and come back without having gained. I don't count calories, track, or do any special diets that exclude specific food groups. I just eat smaller portions of what I consider to be normal healthy foods.

I can't understand why you would be ashamed about having diabetes. I also can't understand why you wouldn't tell the people close to you. If you have a medical emergency such as a hypoglycaemic episode (very low blood sugar) they need to know what is wrong, be able to recognise it and know what to do. As for the rest of your questions phran seems to have given you some very good answers. All the best.

That is a pretty standard post op regime.It's hard but it's doable. If you want to start progressing ahead of schedule you should be asking your Dr not looking for approval on a website! Whatever your Dr says is what you should do.

Your band sits outside your stomach/oesophagus. Presumably this means he will need to make an incision in that area and then pull the band into the oesophagus and out. I can't see the advantage myself. It is not as though it is going to be incision free and presumably he is still going to have to cut you abdominally to remove the port. I would have thought taking it out the same way it went in would be the easier and preferable option.

I would say you are too tight.If you are hungry between meals because you have not been able to eat a reasonable meal because it hurts too much that is a problem, Going to mushy food as the above poster suggested will not help. The band is designed to work with solid food - you do not want to get into a habit of eating mushies or sliders. They do not fill you up, they are easy to overeat, they leave you hungry and as they are often high calorie they can lead to weight gain. Your Dr also gave you what I would consider to be a huge fill. To go from 5.1 to 8.3 in one go is enormous - flouro or no flouro. I would suggest going for a small unfill.

I've lost my car before and I wasn't that old at the time. Couldn't remember which floor of the multistorey carpark it was on. It wasn't old age and wasn't post surgery but my son was only a couple of years old so it could still have been that. I still believe that porridge brain syndrome starts when you are pregnant and doesn't end until they turn 21. My youngest is 16 so I still have a few years to go and then Alzheimers will probably kick in!

I think this person posted this just to stir. How long has she been banded, yet this is the first time she has posted anything. Think about it - rather weird.

What you do 90% of the time is what is important. If you want a treat occasionally that is fine. If you deprive yourself completely you are more likely to fail. Not being able to eat "good Stuff" is way too diet mentality and that hasn't worked for most of us in the past.

Stop trying to shrink your clothes - you deserve to treat yourself to new ones.

This is not a proven fact. This is merely a theory espoused by a handful of Dr's. Yes it is now believed that the food passes through a lot quicker than originally thought but it certainly doesn't only take a minute. Even Allergan do not know how long it takes but they still state that the food is emptied slowly from the upper pouch into the lower one. The reason I know this is because I asked them the question and they called me, we had a long conversation and they could not give me an accurate answer. There are a number of factors at play - stimulation of the vagus nerve, slower emptying of the pouch and also it is now believed that the food "bounces" 3 or 4 times before passing through. However the funnel comparison is still a good one. Whilst the first bite may pass though in a minute or so the rest of the food will start accumulating on top and it will go through slower. Think about it - if all the food went through in a minute you wouldn't ever PB . Also when you have been eating and then you take a bite that gets stuck it is not only the food that was stuck that you regurgitate it is generally also the food that would have been sitting in the pouch that gets regurgitated too. The difference between regurgitation and vomiting for those who are unsure Regurgitation is food from above the stoma, it is not digested or mixed with stomach acids/bile and looks (and tastes ) the same as when it went down. Vomiting is from below the stoma. The food is partially digested and is mixed with stomach acids/bile. It tastes awful and vomiting is a horrible experience. Sorry if the description is gross but a diferentiation needs to be made.

Here is the info from Allergan's site. Contraindications The LAP-BAND® System is not right for you if: You have an inflammatory disease or condition of the gastrointestinal tract, such as ulcers, severe esophagitis, or Crohns disease. You have severe heart or lung disease that makes you a poor candidate for any surgery. You have some other disease that makes you a poor candidate for any surgery. You have a problem that could cause bleeding in the esophagus or stomach. That might include esophageal or gastric varices (a dilated vein). It might also be something such as congenital or acquired intestinal telangiectasia (dilation of a small blood vessel). You have portal hypertension. Your esophagus, stomach, or intestine is not normal (congenital or acquired). For instance, you might have a narrowed opening. You have/experienced an intra-operative gastric injury, such as a gastric perforation at or near the location of the intended band placement. You have cirrhosis. You have chronic pancreatitis. You are pregnant. (If you become pregnant after the LAP-BAND® System has been placed, the band may need to be deflated. The same is true if you need more nutrition for any other reason, such as becoming seriously ill. In rare cases, removal may be needed.) You are addicted to alcohol or drugs. You are under 18 years of age. You have an infection anywhere in your body or one that could contaminate the surgical area. You are on chronic, long-term steroid treatment. You cannot or do not want to follow the dietary rules that come with this procedure. You might be allergic to materials in the device. You cannot tolerate pain from an implanted device. You or someone in your family has an autoimmune connective tissue disease. That might be a disease such as systemic lupus erythematosus or scleroderma. The same is true if you have symptoms of one of these diseases.

As far as I am aware having an autoimmune disease is one of the reasons given on the lapband site for a band not being recommended. When I have a chance I will try and find the info and post it.

I am quite surprised that they decided to band you. Having an autoimmune disease is supposed to be a contraindication for being banded.