Ok- so I'm on day 7 with my lap band- gradually I've been going between clears and fulls and mashed stuff the past 2 days. My question to you all.... I will get this awful pain in my left shoulder along my collar bone,:w00t: last night it was after cream of brocolli soup and it literally went along intermittenly with a mild cramping in my abdomen. Even the cramps were intermitten, but the cramping and shoulder pain went at the same time. Is this an indicator that I am too full? There isn't much in my band since I am a newby, but why the pain? Today, currently, it has occured after 2 mashed up wonton noodles- just 2! Earlier today it was because I was thirsty and chugged a lil water. God forbid I breathe a nice deep breath when the pain is present because I swear it's like a knife! Can anyone relate or shed light here please please please?! :smile2:

Congrats on your banding. I was banded on March 2 and my Dr. did tell me specifically that left shoulder pain (along with some other areas) might occur and was normal - even with a clear diet. I have not had any such pain although I am still working to take a good breath. But if you are concerned, of course, you should contact your doctor.

Good luck. :smile2:

The pain in the collar bone area is usually from the air/gas they fill you up with during surgery. The left shoulder pain is usually caused by pressure on the phrenic nerve. Some people have that pain for a short time and others, like me, have it for months. It was my "full signal" for quite some time. The one thing that helped me the most were equate brand menthol pain patches from walmart. They are only about $4 and well worth the trip to walmart. I hope the pain doesn't last long for you.

Thanks for your replies! I really think it must be my full sign right now. The pain from the water chug didn't last as long as the food thing has, but I do notice that I have a lil gas in my tummy at the same time the pain, so all this must be related! Gas is painful stuff! I hate that part of recovery! I also hate when it wants out and your not at place where it would not be appropriate to let go of it =[ I'm gonna try those patches! Thank you guys again!

Below is a post that I copied from another banster's post many months ago. I hope this helps .....

Best explanation of left shoulder pain I've ever found.

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If you woke up with a pain in your shoulder, you'd probably think something was wrong with your shoulder, right? Maybe you slept on it the wrong way, maybe you're a weekend warrior who threw the football a few too many times. In most cases, your hunch is probably right. Pain in the shoulder usually indicates an injury or disease that affects a structure in your shoulder, such as, say, your subacromial bursa or a rotator cuff tendon. Makes sense, doesn't it?

But you might be way off. Sometimes the brain gets confused, making you think that one part of the body hurts, when in fact another part of the body, far removed from the pain, is the real source of trouble. This curious (and clinically important) phenomenon is known as referred pain. For example, it's unlikely but possible that your shoulder pain is a sign of something insidious happening in your liver, gall bladder, stomach, spleen, lungs, or pericardial sac (the connective tissue bag containing the heart). Yup - conditions as diverse as liver abscesses, gallstones, gastric ulcers, splenic rupture, pneumonia, and pericarditis can all cause shoulder pain. What's up with that?

Neuroscientists still don't know precisely which anatomical connections are responsible for referred pain, but the prevailing explanation seems to work pretty well. In a nutshell, referred pain happens when nerve fibers from regions of high sensory input (such as the skin) and nerve fibers from regions of normally low sensory input (such as the internal organs) happen to converge on the same levels of the spinal cord. The best known example is pain experienced during a heart attack. Nerves from damaged heart tissue convey pain signals to spinal cord levels T1-T4 on the left side, which happen to be the same levels that receive sensation from the left side of the chest and part of the left arm. The brain isn't used to receiving such strong signals from the heart, so it interprets them as pain in the chest and left arm.

So what about that shoulder pain? All of organs listed above bump up against the diaphragm, the thin, dome-shaped muscle that moves up and down with every breath. The diaphragm is innervated by two phrenic nerves (left and right), which emerge from spinal cord levels C3, C4, and C5 (medical students remember these spinal cord levels using the mnemonic, "C3, 4, 5 keeps the diaphragm alive"). The phrenic nerves carry both motor and sensory impulses, so they make the diaphragm move and they convey sensation from the diaphragm to the central nervous system.

Most of the time there isn't any sensation to convey from the diaphragm, at least at the conscious level. But if a nearby organ gets sick, it may irritate the diaphragm, and the sensory fibers of one of the phrenic nerves are flooded with pain signals that travel to the spinal cord (at C3-C5). It turns out that C3 and C4 don't just keep the diaphragm alive; neurons at these two spinal cord levels also receive sensation from the shoulders (via the supraclavicular nerves). So when pain neurons at C3 and C4 sound the alarm, the brain assumes (quite reasonably) that the shoulder is to blame. Usually that's a good assumption, but sometimes it's wrong.

From:

Anatomy Notes: Referred pain

Edited March 6, 201016 yr by Humming Bird

Ok- so I'm on day 7 with my LAP-BAND®- gradually I've been going between clears and fulls and mashed stuff the past 2 days. My question to you all.... I will get this awful pain in my left shoulder along my collar bone,:smile: last night it was after cream of brocolli soup and it literally went along intermittenly with a mild cramping in my abdomen. Even the cramps were intermitten, but the cramping and shoulder pain went at the same time. Is this an indicator that I am too full? There isn't much in my band since I am a newby, but why the pain? Today, currently, it has occured after 2 mashed up wonton noodles- just 2! Earlier today it was because I was thirsty and chugged a lil Water. God forbid I breathe a nice deep breath when the pain is present because I swear it's like a knife! Can anyone relate or shed light here please please please?! :smile2:

Dont panic........I know this is easily said and hard to do but I had shoulder pain for 18 days and I'm just fine now. ( I did sorta panic though - especially after I read some of the nerve related things on here)

liquids, full liquids, soft foods, semi deep inhalation, hiccup, burping, laying down on any side or back, bending over, waste bands, sitting to long, etc.... would set off my shoulder pain. Some of these things would trigger the pain every time and sometimes they wouldn't trigger the pain at all.......weird, huh?

At my 2 week check up I asked if it was normal because it could be very intense through-out the day and wake me up or keep me up at night. They said a small percentage of people could have this up to a few weeks and it would be "normal". They said we would address it at the 6 week check up (first fill) - I was sure it would kill me by then.......a couple days later it wasn't to bad and at day 18 it was very faint.....have not felt it since!:w00t:

Dont panic........I know this is easily said and hard to do but I had shoulder pain for 18 days and I'm just fine now. ( I did sorta panic though - especially after I read some of the nerve related things on here)

Liquids, full liquids, soft foods, semi deep inhalation, hiccup, burping, laying down on any side or back, bending over, waste bands, sitting to long, etc.... would set off my shoulder pain. Some of these things would trigger the pain every time and sometimes they wouldn't trigger the pain at all.......weird, huh?

At my 2 week check up I asked if it was normal because it could be very intense through-out the day and wake me up or keep me up at night. They said a small percentage of people could have this up to a few weeks and it would be "normal". They said we would address it at the 6 week check up (first fill) - I was sure it would kill me by then.......a couple days later it wasn't to bad and at day 18 it was very faint.....have not felt it since!:smile2:

Thanks for the advice! I'm confident it will get better becase throughout the day it does. Less gas means less pain and if I eat just enough no pain either, but when it hurts it really does make you feel like your gonna croak! I see my dr on Monday and I'll bring it up, but I know he will tell me what many have, it's normal and may last a while. 18 days is a long time! Poor you =[ I can't imagine! Thank you again for replying! Being new to this I still have lots of things to experience that the doc doesn't tell you about! All the research can't prepare you for certain things! I'm learning with day to to day experience and nice people who provide me help like yourself! Thank you tons