rifka2010

If you don't mind, where were you debanded? How has the recovery been? How are you feeling now? So sorry for all you've been through!

Well, I am really really grateful to find this forum. I got my band in 2000 with Dr. Rumbaut in Monterrey. (He is wonderful, btw!) I confess that my aftercare was never the best, I couldn't exactly fly down to Mexico at the drop of a hat. I did see several different fill doctors, had flouroscopies done to check everything, and physically everything has been fine. But.. except for the week after my surgery.. I'm always hungry. When I have good restriction, I feel clogged. food goes into my pouch and stays there... basically until I throw it up. But while that food is clogging my pouch, I don't feel full or satisfied, I feel hungry and deprived. Junk food goes down easily, most of the time, and that is the only way I get unhungry, generally speaking. Pretty ironic that I can eat junk food but literally cannot eat a salad! I had my fills removed in 2006 when I got pregnant, gained 50 lbs with my baby (after having *gained* 20 lbs since my initial banding), and have not lost it. I can't eat properly or healthfully this way, and I feel deprived and hungry all the time. I really wish I'd never put myself through this. Even just a removal is *surgery* and has risks, not to mention the whopping expense. Anyways, just wanted to say HI out there to all the others who've had a tough road with the band. I kind of feel like the band, more than any other surgery, brings out the blamers when you confess that it hasn't worked for you. But I have tried everything. It's been ten years!

I am so grateful to find this forum, but kind of dismayed that every person who posts about wanting to remove their band is being grilled as to why. Maybe it straight up just doesn't work for some of us. Including me. I'd love mine removed and if anyone has any resources for less expensive venues to do so, I would love to hear it. I'd honestly like to sit down and eat a big salad, with lots of crunchy vegetables in it!