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When you eat less the alcohol will hit quicker. Also as your body weight drops it will take less alcohol before you are affected. So by all means have a drink or 2 but be very careful and make sure you do not inadvertently end up over the limit.
One of my worst experiences since having the band was when I drank too much wine at a friends. I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and feeling like I wanted to hurl. Preband that is what i would have done - stuck my finger down my throat to speed the process up . Unfortunately vomiting post band is not so easy ( and it is not recommended either as true vomiting can cause the band to slip) so I had to suffer for far longer. Lesson learnt, I have not done it again.

I mentioned the beauty salons because if you can't afford to buy the system outright you may be able to pay for the treatment at a salon

There are also not very many long term studies of the success of the sleeve. It has not been widely used as a stand alone procedure prior to the past couple of years. Most people who have the sleeve have probably not been sleeved for more than 2 - 3 years.
Once the long term results are in it will be easier to make a judgement.

How many people have you spoken to?
How many people are on the sleeve support group as compared to the lapband support group?
How long have they had their bands/sleeves? Probably not too many people that have had a sleeve for 2 or more years.
I have a band , I am 100% happy and I believe myself to be successful.

I am 5' exactly. If I had weighed 199lbs when I got banded I would have had a BMI of 38.9! Sorry that makes you mad. What makes me mad is people that don't think some people are/were fat enough to get surgery.
Personally I am glad that I had the motivation to do something when my BMI was only 32. Being obese was bad enough , I don't see why I should have had to wait until I was morbidly or super obese to do something about it.It is always better to do something sooner rather than later.

Do not bake muffins when she comes home. My husband did a week or 2 after my surgery and I could have quite happily killed him.

I have to laugh because when I was in the preop stage one of the things my nutritionist said was that if I was for example out shopping it didn't matter what I decided to eat, that I could get a slice of pizza from the food court if I wanted. I was going to be eating a lot less and 1 slice of pizza would not be a dietbreaker.
Maybe I'm lucky to have a nut that was "honest" and is not going to send out the hitman

That sounds like good news. Hope it all goes well.
I am sure if your surgeon had unwanted breasts he would sympathise with you a bit more. Doctors!

I am 5' exactly. If I had weighed 199lbs when I got banded I would have had a BMI of 38.9! Sorry that makes you mad. What makes me mad is people that don't think some people are/were fat enough to get surgery.
Personally I am glad that I had the motivation to do something when my BMI was only 32. Being obese was bad enough , I don't see why I should have had to wait until I was morbidly or super obese to do something about it.It is always better to do something sooner rather than later.

Do not bake muffins when she comes home. My husband did a week or 2 after my surgery and I could have quite happily killed him.

I have to laugh because when I was in the preop stage one of the things my nutritionist said was that if I was for example out shopping it didn't matter what I decided to eat, that I could get a slice of pizza from the food court if I wanted. I was going to be eating a lot less and 1 slice of pizza would not be a dietbreaker.
Maybe I'm lucky to have a nut that was "honest" and is not going to send out the hitman

To me it sounds as though your band is too tight. The band is not designed to work with liquids even if they are healthy like Soup. Whilst you may think that is great now you could be setting yourself up for problems in the future.

Sorry that you went through this.
It does sound as though your band eroded which is listed as a possible complication of the band.The fact that you never had a fill and kept getting constantly tighter makes me wonder if the problem was with the initial placement of the band. Maybe too small a band was used or it was put on too tight or in the wrong position. Unfortunately you will never know and will always be left wondering.
the good news is that you came through this and are Ok.

Do not bake muffins when she comes home. My husband did a week or 2 after my surgery and I could have quite happily killed him.

In reply to your title -
How long is a piece of string?

Do not bake muffins when she comes home. My husband did a week or 2 after my surgery and I could have quite happily killed him.

Do not bake muffins when she comes home. My husband did a week or 2 after my surgery and I could have quite happily killed him.

Keep up eating well as it will make it easier after you have the band but do not let this delay deter you. You may or may not be able to lose the weight without the band but the problem as most of us know is keeping it off. I am sure that everything will be resolved soon and then you will be on the other side thinking wow have I really had my band that long already!

Do not bake muffins when she comes home. My husband did a week or 2 after my surgery and I could have quite happily killed him.

3 hours between eating is not bad. That's about how far I go. My surgeon says snacking is brainless eating. If I need to eat between meals due to hunger, then a planned bit of nutritious food is not snacking.

Keep up eating well as it will make it easier after you have the band but do not let this delay deter you. You may or may not be able to lose the weight without the band but the problem as most of us know is keeping it off. I am sure that everything will be resolved soon and then you will be on the other side thinking wow have I really had my band that long already!

Just tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and let your doc make his or her recommendation...

Your Dr seems to have been negligent so because of that you advise everybody that they should not get a lapband.
People get organ transplants and their bodies reject them - would you advise them not to get the transplant?
Women get pregnant and die in childbirth - does that mean people should stop getting pregnant?
You can get MRSA in hospital - does that mean noone should go into hospital.
You can have surgery for something minor and end up dead because of a blood clot or some other unforeseen complication.
You can take medication and have a serious allergic or anaphylactic reaction - should everyone give up taking medicine.
Yes you have had a bad experience and I am sorry about that. It sounds as though the NHS or whoever it is in Scotland messed up. That is hardly a good reason to advise others not to go ahead. If you want to caution others maybe you should make them aware of the risks of this particular Dr or the NHS in general.
Life itself is risky. There are no guarantees. Imagine trying to live your life without taking any risks - that life would be no life at all. You wouldn't be able to go outside your front door because you could get struck by lightning or run over by a bus. You certainly couldn't go in a car as that is one of the most dangerous things people do every day. But staying at home is dangerous too, that is where most accidents happen. You could:-
Have a fall
Burn yourself
Get electrocuted
Be poisoned by food, or chemicals or gas or plants
You certainly wouldn't want to have sex as that could involve catching a life threatening STI
You would probably be so bored sitting in your room wrapped in cotton wool to protect you and keep you warm that you would over indulge in food and then you would get fatter and fatter and fatter and probably die prematurely anyway from a stroke or heartattack

I still don't see how an artificially manufactured Protein powder could be considered a better choice than red meat!

This is the vicious cycle, isn't it? You gain, so you feel like crap, so you eat, and you gain some more, and you feel even worse.
So stop that cycle. Now.
Every single day is a new day to start again. Pretend this is the first time you've had your band. You're in bandster hell now. Don't think about the weight you lost and gained because it's going to derail you. You had geniune problems and you had to have those fixed. Now you're coming back from that,
Focus on the now. Think of what you need to lose today, not yesterday. Straighten up that spine and start doing it.
There are so few things in like that you can control. This is one of them. So get control back.
P.S I have no restriction either. My band has a leak and I have a small slip. My band's been loose for 12 months now. But it doesn't mean that I don't have the choice to eat well and exercise until that's fixed. You *can* do it.