AlienBandit

Some people need their band filled to have good restriction. From the people I know banded, I find that when people have the SAG band (swedish the version vefore realize) They need more fills and bigger amounts in their band for restriction. Lap band people dont seem to get close to filling their band. I had this band and was once at 10cc in 11cc band and had no problems eating many things and had to use a lot of will power to stop myself from eating breads etc. I know two people right now who have the swedish band ( 11cc) and one is at 11cc and one is at 10.5cc. Sometimes you can fill your band a little more since some of the saline stays in the tubing. Iti is really strange how bands work cuz I now have the lap band ap and have 6.5 cc in it and I am almost at my sweet spot.

So I had a mini tummy tuck which then turned into a super extended tummy tuck. My belly button was moved and my doc cut off a lot of skin almost 365 degrees around my body (did not have my muscles touched). I am now 10 weeks post op a revision on my front and 3 weeks post op the extension on my back. Anyways I am starting back at the gym and tried to do some sit ups. I got to about 15 ( full sit up, lie down not crunches) and my lower stomach hurt. It felt like I was really stretching the skin near the scar. I actually stopped and didnt try to do more. My question is, has anyone had any problems doing sit ups after a tummy tuck? Im so excited to be back at the gym and used to do 150 sit ups a day ( 50 full sit ups and then 100 motorcycle way) but now with this uncomfortable feeling, I wonder if I could somehow cause a problem with the incision or....?

Like someone stated above, you might still be in bandster hell after your first fill. All doctors fill differently. Some give you 1cc fill per visit making it a long time till you get to restriction while other do big fills or even smaller fills. Ive heard people having bandster hell till fill 6 some losing it after fill 2. Lets hope you get some good restriction with your first fill Good luck

Dont eat and drink at the same time. Stop drinking 30 minutes before a meal and wait at least 45 minutes after a meal to drink again. Don't drink carbonated drinks too. Drinking Water during the day won't stretch the pouch just dont drink big gulps. Drinking more water might help curb your appitite. If you find you're hungry between meals I suggest sugar free Jello or yogurt or pudding. I am not sure how long it would take for your stomach to go back. I dont think it can ever go back to the size it first was but can get a little smaller if you cut down your portions. Also dont eat things that can expand in your stomach like rice, Pasta, bread etc.

You want to eat smaller portions each meal. The less amount of food in your stomach might help shrink the pouch. Try to eat 1/2 cup or less. This will probably mean you'll be hungry more, but would you rather an unfill?

I dont live in Ontario, but I am from there and will be returning next year. It would be nice to know other bandsters there and hear about the places where they get fills etc.

My doctor told me to remove the bandages the next day and to clean and put new bandages on once a day. Every doctor is different, but in my experience under the bandages would have been so nasty if not changed for a few days.

I dont tell people im banded so I am always in similar situations like this. You seemed to have handled things well, but there are always a million ways to handle things. For me, at a meal I always just ask for Water and dont drink it until the end of right before the meal ( if we are chatting for a while before things are prepared). As for the food, I pick out the amount I want and sometimes leave leftovers. If I am served the food by someone else I always end of leaving left overs. If someone questions if i like the food or not I say I ate before, I eat like a bird etc. Here is a post with some excuses people can use. http://alienbanditinkorea.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/excuses-from-my-band/

I would like to hear a story from someone who has actually had gum stuck though. My doctor has never had a banded patient have problems with gum... yet

I can feel my tubing. It is kind of strange like a long worm what goes from the center of my body just under my rib cage down to the left of my belly button. I can feel it better closer to my ribs and it kind of disappears into my body as it gets lower. It hurt once because it was too close to the surface of my skin and my doc wanted to move it but then I had to have the band removed anyways. The tubing with my new band I can feel and my doc says it is no biggy.

This sounds exactly like caffeine withdrawal to me. I was in the hospital a few months ago for a surgery and was on morphine yet I still had headaches. It drove me nuts. I couldnt sleep because of them. One day another patient who was there brought me a coffee because she accidentally paid for 2 with the coffee machine ( the machine didnt give back change) so I drank it and suddenly my headaches were gone! I found this so strange because I only ever have maybe one coffee a day if even that and yet I got headaches from it? So strange but maybe give it a try

The band may make us skinny but it doesnt change our brains. I have had a hard time with my body especially most recently because I started plastics. My body is not even my body anymore. It took a while to get used to it and i have accepted it but with my clothes on I still think of my body as how it used to be ( ie bend over and my extra skin will hang over but its really not there anymore). A while back I gained some weight from surgery but it didn't seem to go away. I stopped stepping on the scale, I was convinced I was 15 lbs heavier and it was really bothering me. But then for some odd reason I stepped on the scale one day and found I was back to my lowest weight and what I was seeing in the mirror as the "bigger" me was just all in my head. Even now that I am at the lowest weight i have ever been ( after losing lots of weight) I still see my self as big. I have pants that I kept from years ago when I was at this weight and I always stared at those clothes and wished I would fit in them again because I would feel so skinny again. Now those clothes are too big and I STILL see myself as being big. Our minds and bodies are strange things for sure!

My doctor kind of laughs at the gum myth. He has even offered me some gum before while we were chatting at a conference. As for swallowing it and needing surgery. I think that can sometimes be untrue. I swallowed my gum a few months ago when I was a little overfilled. I saw my doctor two days later and nothing was wrong. I happened to have a endoscope check 2 weeks later and the gum wasnt there. So I survived swallowing gum and didn't need surgery or anything. I even told my doctor what I had done and he never told me to stop gum chewing. I think i'd die if I wasn't allowed it. Has this actually ever happened to anyone? Or is it just something some doctors tell us ( like no caffine or carbonated drinks etc)

Your band and the size depends on where you live ( what country and what is FDA approved), what your doctors office has and how your stomach looks. There is the realize band, the swedish band, the lapband, the midband, and many others. Even within those names I listed there are big versions, small version and different generations of the band. The lapaband for example has 3 generations that I know of. The first generation band LAP-BAND 9.75/10 is a single baffle that is 4cc in size. The second generation band LAP-BAND VG has 6 baffles and is 10cc in size. The third generation ( and what I have) LAP BAND AP has 7 baffles and has 2 sizes 10cc and 14cc. Another topic and decision maker if you can choose your band is port sizes. There are different size ports. All of this you can discuss with your doctor. See what he does in his surgeries and research those kinds. My doctor uses the swedish band (NOT realize band! It is the kind that came before the realize band as realize is based on the swedish band) and the lapband ap series ( just FDA approved in Korea last year). I had the swedish band but when i got rebanded I switched to the lapband and that was my decision. Now as for fills, everyones stomach is different as well as your doctors ways of fills. My doctor discusses with his patients weekly how they are doing and if they sound like they need a fill he will give it to them. How much they get depends on how they feel. If he wants to try 4cc and you feel it at 2cc he stops and doesn't try to put in the rest of the cc, if you seem to have no feeling at all he might put in more than 4cc. My first fill with the swedish band my doctor wanted to try 7cc ( the band is 11cc) and I thought he was nuts. I made him stop at 4cc even though I didnt feel much different. I of course went on to get more fills later but a first fill can be scary for a newby. With my second band I got 4cc during surgery and didn't even know! When i went for my first "fill" I got another 1cc put in and that gave me some good restriction. I am now at about 6.5cc ( the band is 10cc) and things are almost good here. Here are some photos and a little info about bands. http://alienbanditinkorea.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/bands-very-important-please-read/

Depending on how I was healing I would usually shower after a week. However I had a revision and my belly button wouldnt heal and it took nearly 3 weeks so it was sponge baths and wipe baths for me. Im so glad my doctor didn't tell me I had to wait for my drains to be removed before I could shower because with my belly button problems I had my drains for 5 weeks. I'd go insane if I had to wait that long! Honesly follow what your doctor recommends. Every case is different so the rules might change some.

Your port might be on your right side. It could be about in your hip level area. I am sure the pain is just from healing. Some people experience pain for a month since your port is sewn to your muscle. As for the shoulder pain, everyones experience is different. I never got the left should pain with my first band. However once my band was removed I started to get the pain even though I no longer had the band. When I had the balloon in my stomach, if I ate too much once I would have lower back pains for hours sometimes a day or two. It was really unpleasent. This time around with a different band, I sometimes get the shoulder pain. Your body is adjusting to this new foreign object in you. This will take time. My body had problems accepting my tubing once I was rebanded and I was on meds forever because I was afraid of an infection and it took nearly a month before my chest felt normal again. I understand how you worry trust me I have been there, hopefully you can see your doc soon to reassure you.

I live alone and the lapband surgery was my first surgery. I am glad I stayed over night though my doctor has let people leave the same day. When I tried to leave my doctor tried to get me to stay because I had so much gas in my lungs that he was afraid they would collapse. I had to leave however because I had to go back to work the next day. I find staying over night ( I usually do after any surgery) is good in case something happens. A few times I had bleed out tons of fluids and needed drains to be put in after plastics etc. If I had gone home and that happened the 3 hour trip back to the doc would have been hell.

I am so glad I didnt tell people I was getting banded because I hate hearing so many negative things. How would you know whether I was "that big" or not when you are not in my body? How do you know it is the "easy way out" if you have never been overweight/ or had to have surgery etc Now that I am almost at goal and my friends have seen me struggle with losing my weight ( I do talk a little about wanting to work out more/lose more etc) if I do ever tell them, I dont think they can say anything bad just because I am almost finished my journey. The band could make losing weight harder if I really wanted to f- things up. I could live off ice cream, soda, and junk food no problem and gain weight and not get fills. However I needed something to help me lose weight and the band was perfect. It helps remind me not to eat too much, not to eat certain things etc but it is not the easy way out. I have been banded, unbanded, ballooned, unballooned, and banded again. If ANYONE wants to tell me that, that was the EASY way out, I will KNOCK them OUT!

Sometimes I swear my oldest wakes me up earlier in hopes ill leave the house earlier so she can get her treats earlier. After our morning walk she mostly sits in her crate waiting for her treat even though it will be another hour before her treat, but she doesn't care. Maybe she is afraid she'll miss "the treat boat" Anyways I know it is hard to leave your baby, but it would only be for one night and he will probably be more worried about you when you come home looking injured and unable to do all the things you did before.

Some people notice that after a few fills they start to need unfills because they are getting tighter. I don't know why it works that way but it can. However have you done anything recently that could have caused your band to get tighter? Maybe it is just a little swollen and you need a small unfill. You want to make sure you can get in the right amount of nutritious foods to help you lose weight. It sounds like you might need an unfill. If I was in your shoes I would def go for one. Next time your doc asks you if you can eat half a cup tell him no you cant eat half a cup but you can drink half a cup of things ie soups and that doesnt sound right to you.

I met with my doc once for the consult then saw him again for the pre-op. Honestly if I had more questions or wanted to chat with him again I could have but I didnt find it necessary. I know of someone meeting him, the same doc ( who also does plastics) 1-2 times a month for 5 months because she had so many questions, concerns, wanted to know more info etc just for a tummy tuck consult and it was fine. 1-2 visits sounds normal to me though

Your port is near your belly button that is why it might be sore. The area will be swollen because the surgery was near that area. I would say it is normal and you should be ok. When do you see your doctor?

I am the worst when it comes to my babies. So bad that I dont even like taking long vacations though I have the time and money because I hate being away from them. Even being away for a whole day drives me nuts sometimes. My band surgery was hard for me because my dogs were left alone at my house and my friends were just going to take them for a few walks. I worried so much and left as soon as I could the next day, not even the pain could stop me. There is really no way to get over leaving your babies alone. You just have to worry about your own self in recovery and trust that they will be fine. I swear my dogs love when I leave for a long time because that means they get more treats

How does a doctor add their name onto the surgeon list?

I kept my band a secret because I live half way across the world from my home, family and friends. When I had laser eyes surgery 2 years ago some of my family were afraid I would go blink or something they are such worry warts. Now that I am banded I still wouldn't tell them because I am doing plastics and that would worry them more. They are also very against things like that and would think i wasn't that big to get banded ( I left home skinny) and plastics isn't worth the risk of losing your life etc. I know eventually I will tell them but not while I am still in Korea. As for my friends in Korea, I kept my band a secret because there is a year turn over of friends because most people only stay here a year. Therefore you are friends just because you happen to be foreign and live in the same city etc. Some people you stay in contact with when they leave most dont. I have also found that though Koreans are very accepting of plastics and weight loss surgery ( they are very open about weight ie if your too over weight they will tell you etc) foreingers are very judgemental of those things. Once on a date I chewed a guy out because he was going on about fat people and then went on to dis weight loss surgery and he didnt know I was banded. Another time I had to bite my tongue as a close friend ( not close anymore) dissed weight loss surgery as it was a waste of time and money and you gain it all back in a few years etc ( as if she would know or understand she has never been over 120 lbs in her entire life). Slowly over time I have told some people some things ( friends who want to lose weight and are thinking of surgery, friends that I have supported in difficult times where they have confided in me etc) and everyone has been really positive, but I still prefer not many people know. It really isn't their business and I don't want them watching me and what I eat and commenting if I decide to eat something that isn't so good. It's my life, my decision, and my business