elcee

Well then your expectations are not going to be met. A band is not a magic wand. It is a tool that helps you with your hunger so that it is easier for you to stick to a healthy diet. It doesn't make the choices for you, it doesn't stop you putting junk food in your mouth and it won't make you exercise. I suggest you do a bit more research of what to expect before you go ahead with your surgery.

I would love to have an easy to stick to calorie controlled plan so this thread is a great idea. However i read it and get very confused. egg whites with oatmeal!!! How does that work? I have always eaten oats with a dash of milk and some form of sweetener and maybe some fruit or cinnamon. Also eggs are so quick and easy to cook I cannot understand how you could make a batch for the week! How do you cook and store them? Surely by the end of the week they would taste like rubber? There must be a huge difference between US and Aus cooking methods as I am obviously missing something here.

There is not a huge difference between protein bars and candy bars. I would also look forward to something if it tasted good and was covered in chocolate. I think that protein bars should only be used on the rare occasions that you are out, hungry and there is nothing else suitable that you can eat, other than that you should stick to real food.

Although the plication is supposedly reversible, I very much doubt that. I am sure that scar tissue will form in the areas where the stomach is folded making it impossible to reverse. That is a question that you might like to discuss with your potential surgeon.

This doesn't sound band related. Maybe you have some kind of food intolerance or an issue with your digestive system. You need to go and get it checked out. http://www.medicinenet.com/gastric_emptying_study/page2.htm

Good luck, I hope there is a happy solution .

I only used Protein shakes for the pre and part of the post op diet. Since then I have got my protein from the food I eat. It is quite easy to get more than enough protein from a varied diet even with a band. I eat meat, chicken, fish, eggs, yogurt etc. I also eat bread, Pasta rice albeit in small quantities.What most people don't realise is that a lot of foods that we think of as being carbs actually have protein in them as well. e.g 2 slices toast = 4g protein 1 small potato = 2g 2/3 cup of oats = 3g The only time I will use a protein/meal replacement shake is if I am in too much of a hurry to be able to eat a proper breakfast. Generally I find them really unsatisfying - I can drink 1 and be hungry again almost immediately.

I would say that he is not experienced and he didn't have the needle in the right place. It is easy to find the port but not so easy to hit it in exactly the right spot. When I ended up in emergency and needed an unfill the surgeon that tried to unfill me couldn't. He is a highly qualified surgeon, a partner to my Dr and knew how to do it in theory but in practice it wasn't quite so easy. After trying twice he decided to send me to have it unfilled under fluoroscope.

I never had one and never had any breathing issues either.

There was a person on this site a couple of years ago that the same thing happened to - Restlessmonkey.

maybe your port has flipped. This is something that does happen to quite a few people. Hopefully the fluoroscope will clarify what the problem is.

I took Multivitamins for the first couple of months after surgery but haven't done since. I eat a varied diet and do not think I have any nutritional deficiencies. My hair hasn't fallen out, I am not exceptionally tired, I don't creak any more than your average 49year old etc. If I was on a low carb regime then I might take a supplement but I think my diet is varied enough not to need one.

Interesting graphic in 1 of the links that Helen posted. It shows the modern placement of the band which is in a completely different position to where most of us believe our bands to be. I wonder how many of us have bands that are in this position and how many bands that were placed in the position shown in the other pic and what effect it has on how successful we are with our weight loss.

I agree, I think a lot of the theories are just that at the moment, theories. A bit like the hygiene hypothesis and allergies - although the theory has been around for ages it has still not been fully proven which is why it is still a hypothesis. Thanks Helen for giving us more clarification, unfortunately the questions I asked in my first response were still not answered. I think the funnel concept is correct but what we are not looking at is what happens to the last food that goes into the funnel. Yes the initial food that gets put in there goes through quite quickly but what goes in later goes through slower - "like sands through an hourglass".

I agree that the more solid the food the better, which was why I queried the frittata. I suppose it depends what is added to the frittata that makes the difference. I also think that soup is a good choice if it is homemade, full of veggies and blended to a thick consistency.

Is the pain low or high. It could be a grumbling appendix, kidneys, gallbladder, ovaries..........the list goes on. We tend to think that after we get a band every twinge is related to that but often it is something else altogether. Speak to a different Dr (not bariatric) and see what he/she says.

Well done, doesn't it feel great?

What was quite interesting was that about a year ago I contacted Allergan with this exact query. I asked how long it took for the food to pass through and why if it was passing through so quickly one could not drink soon after eating. They actually phoned me which I was quite shocked about as they are in the USA and I am in Aus. They could not give me an answer to the question. They did not seem to believe that the food passed through quickly and said that it took a while but could not put a time to that. Quite strange when the manufacturer does not know how it's product works. Yes Helen is a highly regarded dietician and works with one of our most highly regarded bariatric surgeons. However for me the info still does not give all the answers. Cocoa I imagine that with the test they only watched a few bites and presumably because it was test conditions you were not eating the way you would do normally. Even if unintentionally you were probably more aware of how you were chewing. I think that to come up with a definitive answer they would need to test a large number of people and watch as they ate an entire meal. The difficulty would be to get people to relax and eat the way that they normally do when at home.

No I know what a Frittata is. Yes it is full of Protein but also incredibly easy to eat and pretty high cal the same as a quiche would be except it doesn't have the pastry. My point is I don't see why that should be good and a nice healthy homemade veggie soup bad. If anything the soup is probably lower cal and can be just as filling if made to the right type of consistency. BTW I'm also from Melbourne.

This whole question of how the band works and how long it takes for the food to pass through is still very confusing and I do not believe that it has yet been fully answered. It does make more sense that the food passes through quickly as when you eat a bite and it gets stuck you feel it instantly. However if the food is passing through that quickly what causes the pain and discomfort if you have eaten too much? And also how is it possible to PB sometimes for hours afterwards totally undigested food that is not mixed with stomach acid if the food has already passed into your stomach?

This doesn't make sense. You say that you shouldn't eat soups as they are liquid and pass through easily but then go on to say frittata is fine. In many instances the soup is more nutritious than the frittata , it depends what type of soup it is. Also if it is homemade and thick then it is not going to pass through any differently to the food that has been chewed to mush. Frittata can be a slider as it is easy to eat, may be fairly high in calories and gives little satisfaction.

At the moment it is Stevia but it is relatively new and in a few years they will probably tell us that it is not good, that it is actually bad for us etc. That is what happens with most things! The best thing to try to do is to try and cut down as much as possible or even cut out sweet things if you can. When you have things that are artificially sweetened your body does not have the correct insulin response and they do not help us to lose weight. There is a proper scientific explanation but not being a scientist I can't remember what it is. They have found that artificially sweetened foods and drinks seem to have made us fatter.

16/20 However I would like to say that I think this is a badly written test with many of the questions/answers only being partially correct and many of them irrelevant for bandsters. If you have chosen a band then you probably do not want or need to know a lot of the things that it asked about the other types of WLS. If I wanted to devise a test I am sure I could come up with one that had far more relevant questions.

I have flown a number of times and never had an issue. I n fact I am about to go on a trip this morning from Melbourne upto the Sunshine coast for the weekend. I think it is 2.5hrs each way. I am not anticipating any problems and I am not doing any special prep or taking any food with me.

Congratulations, she is gorgeous.