Astrasmom

Thank you everyone. Things are going well. I will probably be having open heart surgery on Wednesday. I'm stable at the moment. I had heart catheterization today and there are no blockages. Just my aortic valve is leaking. I'm trying to stay strong. Now I have to say I have an awesome lapband doctor. I was having problems the last 2 days with my band being too tight. I was freaking out because I'm in a heart and lung center. These doctors know nothing about the lapband. And I am about an hour away from where my lapband doctor is. So anyway since my lapband doctor is not affliated with this hospital I thought they were going to have to call another lapband doctor in. Well my doctor actually drove out here and removed ALL the fluid from my band. He said he wanted me to be safe during open heart surgey and after he would put the fluid back in for me. I thought that was so awesome. Anyway since I have been in the hospital I have lost 8 more pounds and I am now 2 lbs from goal. Of course I am hoping that I will not gain TOO much back beinging totally unfilled. I am watching my protion size. And my husband brought me my protein supplements to the hospital. Thanks for all of the prayers and well wishes. I will get over this bump and come out with flying colors.

Thank you everyone. Things are going well. I will probably be having open heart surgery on Wednesday. I'm stable at the moment. I had heart catheterization today and there are no blockages. Just my aortic valve is leaking. I'm trying to stay strong. Now I have to say I have an awesome lapband doctor. I was having problems the last 2 days with my band being too tight. I was freaking out because I'm in a heart and lung center. These doctors know nothing about the lapband. And I am about an hour away from where my lapband doctor is. So anyway since my lapband doctor is not affliated with this hospital I thought they were going to have to call another lapband doctor in. Well my doctor actually drove out here and removed ALL the fluid from my band. He said he wanted me to be safe during open heart surgey and after he would put the fluid back in for me. I thought that was so awesome. Anyway since I have been in the hospital I have lost 8 more pounds and I am now 2 lbs from goal. Of course I am hoping that I will not gain TOO much back beinging totally unfilled. I am watching my protion size. And my husband brought me my protein supplements to the hospital. Thanks for all of the prayers and well wishes. I will get over this bump and come out with flying colors.

Thanks everyone. It means alot.

Thanks so much. I will post updates now and then when I can. I have my laptop at the hospital. You can only watch so much TV and it gets very boring after awhile. Here's the news so far. My valve is leaking a very large amount. I am however stable. They are watching me very closely. My surgeon is out until Monday. He is the one that did my surgery last time so he knows my case and I really want him to do it again. You ask why would you wait if you are bleeding so much? Reason is because with every surgery the risk becomes more and more. This is a very risky surgery anyway. Could take 6-10 or more even hours to complete. So I want the surgeon that I trust. Here's the dilema. I have had 25 doctors in and out of my room. I have had test after test after test done. They are trying to determine if I have a bacterial infection that caused my valve to colapse. So far it's not pointing that way because I have no symptoms of being sick. Meanwhile I had a TEE (ultrasound down the throat) today. It revealed that I have some type of growth on my valve and aren't sure if it's a blood clot or if it's a crustation from bacteria. SOOOOO..I am told that I need a heart catheterization before my surgery. They need to determine if I have any other blockages also so they can fix when they are in there. And no good heart surgeon will do open heart without this catheterization. My surgeon remember is away until Monday. Ok so if the do the cath they may dislodge this entity on my valve (which could be a blood clot), which could travel to my brain and I could have a major stroke. Which of course comes with brain damage. If the DON'T do the cath and let the blockages go if I had some and just fixed my valve, I could have a massive heart attack on the table. So tomorrow they are doing a CTscan and have decided to wait until Monday when my surgeon is here for the catheterization. Needless to say I am in the hospital now for at least 2 weeks maybe longer. I am stable but I am exhausted from the stress and from all of the tests they are doing on me. And naturally very scared. But I have been through it once I can do it again. I have to put on the strong face for my family. Not to mention that hospital food doesn't cater to the lapband patients so it's been hard. I pick what I can eat. It's not to bad. However for the last 2 days I think I have eaten about 2 meals because with the tests you can't eat or drink so I have to stop eating at midnight and can't eat until dinner time the next day. So I have probably lost the remaining 8lbs I needed to lose. :thumbup: One hell of a way to lose it...geesh. Anyway thanks for your prayers. I sure could use them. As I said I will update when I can.

They say things happen for a reason. Sometimes I honestly can't understand that. Here I sit in my hospital room after thinking that losing 111lbs would change my life. And then suddenly BAM!! Something else happens totally unrelated to the lapband. For those not familiar with my case. In 2001 I had open heart surgery for an aortic Aneurysm and valve replacement. At the time I chose to have a pigs valve put in. Bad side is they only last for 10-12 years. I chose this because I didn't want to live on blood thinner for the rest of my life. Needless to say 5 days ago, the valve gave up and decided to colapse. My valve is currently bleeding pretty significantly so they are watching me until my surgeon returns on Monday. If I have any other signs of struggles they may have to do the surgery before then and I will need to choose another surgeon. I'd rather wait though because it's a very long and complicated operation and my surgeon is familiar with my case. So here I sit, being proded and poke with all types of tests to find out exactly why my valve colapsed so suddenly. So I ask for prayers to be sent my way. Hope everyone else is doing well.

Unfortunately gang I won't be updating my status for awhile. On Wednesday I was admitted to the hospital. My heart valve is leaking pretty badly and I will be having ANOTHER open heart surgery on Monday. For those not familiar with my case. In 2001 I had open heart surgery for an aortic Aneurysm and valve replacement. At the time I chose to have a pigs valve put in. Bad side is they only last for 10-12 years. I chose this because I didn't want to live on blood thinner for the rest of my life. Needless to say 5 days ago, the valve gave up and decided to colapse. My valve is currently bleeding pretty significantly so they are watching me until my surgeon returns on Monday. If I have any other signs of struggles they may have to do the surgery before then and I will need to choose another surgeon. I'd rather wait though because it's a very long and complicated operation and my surgeon is familiar with my case. So here I sit, being proded and poke with all types of tests to find out exactly why my valve colapsed so suddenly. So please send your prayers my way and when I recover I will update you with my stats.

You won't bring food back up from your stomach through your band. You will only bring the food up that is stuck that hasn't passed through your pouch yet, and slime which is just saliva. If you 'slime' ALOT, yes you can cause slippage. But the every so often of stuff coming up won't hurt you. So if you are in the red zone you really need to have some Fluid taken out. Otherwise I would suggest chewing your food at least 24-30 times and taking a good 20-30 minutes to eat your meal so you don't get stuck. If you have a virus that is causing you to vomit alot, I would highly suggest calling your doctor so that he will prescribe some anti-nausea medication because excessive vomiting could cause slippage.

My doctor told me that once you get down to near goal weight or have lost alot of weight, you will need to rely more on exercise to keep the weight coming off. So I think you probably have to up your exercise routine a bit more. I have about 8lbs to go until goal and I teeter back an forth all of the time.

I only had a barium swallow the day I was discharged from the hospital. I do the water test in the doctors office after a fill, each time before I am allowed to leave the office.

I have BC/BS of NJ. I have dual insurances. Mine and my husbands so the surgery costed me nothing. I also had a Hiatal hernia repair at the same time (total cost $35,000). And my fills are all covered too. I'm with an out of network doctor that only takes in network fees. He doesn't back bill. Anyway from the seminar to the surgery it was 6 months for me. I had 6 nutrional visits, cardiac clearance, phsyc eval, pulmonary eval, gastric clearance, and a letter of dietary habits from my PCP. At first I thought the day would never get here, but now that I look back, I thank God for that 6 months because the nutrional visits alone taught me so much.

I eat chicken all of the time. In fact I live on it. Sometimes we have to learn to cook things differently. Just a bit of advice to everyone, if you have a slow cooker (Crock pot) put your chicken and whatever other meats you want to cook in there and they come out very juicy and tender. Chicken can be very dry so you might want to add a little gravy to it, or even some chicken broth, just to make it moist. Also if you are going to bake your chicken, roll it in some whole wheat flour first. It tends to keep in the moisture.

Wow thank you so much for being frank like that. More people need to be honest about things. I do hope that you are feeling better and I wish you a speedy recovery if you do need to have your band fixed. Hopefully you won't though.

Absolutely because you don't know what you are going to expect. You'll probably have these boughts of nerves all the way up to the day of your surgery. It's perfectly normal. You will be fine though. The consult is nothing at all. He will go over the surgery, talk to you about what to expect. PLEASE ask many questions. And tell you what you will need to have done before your surgery date is set. Good luck to you and congratulations on the start of your journey. Be sure to read as much as possible at this point and ask many questions. Keep us all posted.

It sounds to me that you do need a tiny un-fill. Even if you had scar tissue it still shouldn't make you regurgitate or heart burn. Do you have night coughs as well? If you aren't getting the proper nutrients in you won't lose weight either, you can actually gain weight. I would definately talk to your doctor. As for your gain, are you journaling your foods that you eat? If not you might want to start. Sometimes you will be suprised at the amount of calories and things you are eating. Also walking is great but you might have to up your exercise a little. Incorporate some weight training into the routine if you can. Maybe a bit more cardio. Hope this helps and I hope you feel better soon. Keep us posted. Good luck to you.

Sometimes after you exercise you will be tighter. Its from your muscles contracting. I find myself tighter in the morning and of course around a womans favorite time of the month.