GuyMontag

Absolutely. The more fluid you have in your band the greater the restriction. When I'm really tight I can only eat dense foods like meats, cheeses, eggs, and nuts.

NSAID's are fine as long as they are liquid.

That's actually very common. I think they fix hiatal hernias in something like over 75% of the cases.

Be careful because you are much more likely to stretch your pouch by drinking and eating than by eating too much.

I got a fill a week for the first 8 weeks. I'd recommend frequent fills with less fluid over large fills infrequently. Smaller fills let your body adapt better and gives you a chance to get used to the new levels of restriction.

That all sounds pretty standard. For the port pain try to avoid any heavy lifting. Also, put your hand on the spot and apply a little pressure any time you sit down or cough. The port attaches to your abdominal muscles so anything you do that uses that muscle group can make it sore. That should go away by the second week. As for burping, that will probably become your new best friend. Burping tells you that food has passed through your band and some air is escaping up your esophagus. Taking deep breaths is good for your lungs and I would recommend doing it every so often. Many times the gas pain shows itself as a referred pain in your left shoulder. You may still be experiencing pain from the surgery itself and this too should fade with time. Any time you have questions or are scared you feel free to call your doc's office as because that's what they get paid for! Good luck!

I had heartburn every day so I just take one prilosec to combat it. When I'm too tight I get acid reflux at night. To me there's a big difference between heartburn and reflux. I've been banded over 4 years and the daily prilosec has worked great.

It's called referred pain. Your body just defaults a lot of times to making the back of your shoulder hurt instead of giving you pain in your body. You can google referred pain for more info.

I've read that a single glass of wine nightly can be greatly beneficial. Anything more than that, while enjoyable at the time, makes me super tight and miserable for the next few days. Whenever I drink quite a bit I make sure to liberally take liquid ibuprofen the next day to help with the tightness that comes from the dehydrating effect that alcohol has on my body.

Whenever I would get stuck I would immediately go on a liquid diet for a few days to let my stomach heal. Start out with some protein shakes, then mushies, then slowly introduce solid foods again. Once you've got it irritated and swollen it's just going to continue to hurt. If you're doing liquids for a few days and its hurts or you can't get them down you're probably going to need some fluid out. If you can't swallow your own spit then you need to call the doc ASAP.

The key I've found to constipation problems is to always drink lots of fluids. Whenever I try to use fiber, laxatives, etc. I just throw my body out of whack in the other direction that I started. Fluids are the best long term fix that I have found.

I am new to cooking fish myself but I've found that searching on recipe sites helps a lot. Here are some recipes I like: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/heavenly-halibut/detail.aspx http://allrecipes.com/recipe/crispy-fish-fillets/detail.aspx http://allrecipes.com/recipe/broiled-tilapia-parmesan/detail.aspx http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beer-batter-fish-made-great/detail.aspx http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-dijon-salmon/detail.aspx

I agree Carolinagirl. Drinking nonstop all day helps with my hunger immensely and greatly increases the amount of time I can go between meals. If I don't drink something I get hungry in an hour or so but if I drink something, especially warm like decaf coffee or tea then I can easily go the four hours I'm supposed to.

Bananas give me grief. It really depends on the day and time of day. Here's what I have trouble with on a 'tight' day: Anything bread based like sandwiches, pizza, pancakes are a no go. Lots of fruit gives me trouble and doesn't go down very quickly. I can do some pastas but lasagna is never a good option. I can almost always eat meats, cheeses, eggs, potatoes, and most veggies. Nuts are great as well. Mainly things that are densely packed are good to me. Anything that can collect in my stoma and ball up like dough causes me pain. Rice and beans are also easy for me. Those are just some things off the top of my head.

Preop sucked. I only had to do two weeks. Some lucky folks don't have one at all. It was pure torture!

I cheated but still lost 10lbs. I think if you're still losing weight quickly you'll be fine but I am not your surgeon!

That's too bad. Glad you are okay though. Good luck whatever your future holds.

You'll be hungry until you start getting good restriction from fills. My advice is to not starve yourself. If you're hungry then eat. Just watch what you eat and start your diet slowly. It'll get easier the more restriction you get.

My doc used to say he sees better food tolerance with the 14cc bands. This might make sense as the bands keep going up from their original starting point of around 4cc.

Uh...the band wasn't even available in the US in 93...was it anywhere in the world? Troll much?

Be a mom first, heal second, worry about weight loss third.

I've been banded over 4 years and so far my experience has been more positive than negative. The positives are obviously the weight loss, better health, confidence, sleeping, athletics, and more. The negatives are the limited foods I can eat, the days i'm super tight because of dehydration or over exertion, the many many lessons I had to learn about being too tight or too lose or what I could or couldn't eat. Also, I do get very hungry most days and I still have to diet and exercise often to keep the weight off. If I had to do it over again I would definitely do weight loss surgery again. Whether I would stick with the lap band I am unsure. I would definitely look harder at options like the sleeve or plication. The people that say they wouldn't consider those surgeries because of how harsh or invasive are do not have a proper grasp on how harsh and invasive lap band surgery can be. Ask someone who has had a slipped band how gentle it was. And don't kid yourself into thinking that slipped bands are only caused by people abusing their bands...sometimes they just happen. Plain and simple. The bottom line is weight loss surgery is effective but should not be taken lightly. Do your research and realize there is no quick fix to weight loss but there are tools to help. Good luck!

A fact for me is eating more protein and fat calories allow me to lose faster than carb calories.

There are lots of different reasons a band may not work in an individual case from the individual themselves, and I'm not necessarily saying the individual didn't try but their body could not be very compatible with the band, or the surgeon may have placed a band in a bad position, or the band itself could be defective. These are all possible complications that we have to realize are real when we go into banding. I've known plenty of people that the band 'didn't work for them', I've also known people it did work for, and I've even known people that their first band didn't work well for them but their second did. It's unfortunate that your specific experience with the band wasn't a good one but that's the chance we all take with any kind of weight loss surgery.

Have you asked yourself why you are eating around the band? I think many times bandsters think weight loss is all about diet and exercise and forget the mental part of weight loss. I think all bandsters should also seek therapy while losing weight to figure out why they put the weight on in the first place. I know many of us like to say that we have this or that physical condition but I think we say that many times to downplay the mental and emotional aspect that food plays in our lives. Find out why you overeat and try to combat that and you'll have an easier time with the diet in exercise in my opinion. Good luck!