Ok, so Im scheduled for surgery next Friday the 30th and a know a couple people who have had the surgery and they have had a good experience with surgery and Iv been trying to stay positive but today I spoke to an aquaintance who had the surgery 2 weeks ago and she had a horrible experience with ALOT of pain...she said that she woke up out of anthestia and could barly breath and she was in recovery for 6 hours being put on pain meds every 30 minutes..and she had EXTREME pain and ended up off work for 2 weeks (i am only off for 5 days). She said she had so much gas pain that it even hurt to walk..she had blood coming from her incisions and that she was even vomiting from the pain...she had to go back to the hospital because of the pain and bleeding. So this of course freaked me out and Im so scared Im going to have a bad experience like this..I know there will be pain but is this rare occurance?? and are a majority not this way?? Please help calm me down!!!

Im so happy to read so many good experiences!! Thank you Meri,I know you will be there for me...Thanks everyone!! I do love this site!

Nicole you will do well. Listen to your surgeon, take the pain medicine before the pain gets to bad, that's what it is there for. I was banded July 6th. My pain was tolerable and I am a wimp when it comes to pain. I did take the pain meds in hospital when it got to 3 out of 10 and it never got worse. Get up and walk as soon as you can, I know that helped me, At home I did take Lortab for first couple days mostly at night for pain at port sight. re work If you are able, recommend 2 weeks, I took 3 only because I travel and wanted to get back to soft diet if needed to travel. It takes ~5-10 days for anesthesia to get completely out of your system so you will be tired off and on until your body is free of all anesthesia. Good luck and look forward to hearing how you do.

Thanks Denise I only have 1 more day till surgery!! I cannot believe it but reading how most people's experience with the surgery is pretty good with limited pain It makes me feel much better. I am a little worried about "going under" since I never have before but hopefully that will be nothing as well.

Hope all went well and you are doing ok now.

Hi murpel. I did do ok ...having some problems..a little more pain and uncomfortableness that I expected and wasnt one of those "ideal" situations but I wasnt a worse case either I would say somewhere in the middle. its been 4 days and today I still have alot of gas pain and am uncomfortable more so than yesterday for some reason but Im trying to keep calm about it and take it day by day.

I'm sorry to hear that. I understand as I was in pain for a week and used loretab to sleep for another week. I hope once you feel better, you will be amazed at your progress.

Good luck!

Make sure you keep up with the pain medication. One thing I was told from my doc was if I take it as I start to hurt it's better to control it than waiting until I'm hurting pretty bad because getting it under control is another thing.

I was banded August 3 and I'm mostly recovered now (4 days later). The first 20 minutes after surgery were painful, I won't lie. Everyone reacts differently, when I woke up I was in intense pain for about 10 minutes. As the morphine kicked in, I started feeling better. I first rated my pain an 8, then a 6. I stayed overnight and had mild pain in my shoulder. I walked around in the hospital and slowly felt better. My incisions still hurt a little but much much less than the first days. My biggest problem now is that I'm really sick of sleeping on my back. Yesterday I attempted to sleep on my side a little and it is still painful but not too much. I can't wait to be able to sleep on my stomach again.

I have no regrets and I'm looking forward to recovering completely and start losing weight!

Good luck, everything will be okay. :party: