Hi all - I have had the band for a few years now and have lost lost of weight and I had a tummy tuck about 12 weeks ago now (BTW - LOVE it, best money ever spent!!).

Anyway, I have been having major problems with loud noises and gurgling from my tummy. It doesn't seem to be connected to what I'm eating (but I am terrible about noticing that kind of thing), and it is often, but not always, accompanied by gas. I kept thinking that if I was able to get rid of the gas (which seems to get trapped at times since the surgery), the noises would stop but they don't seem to be. So now my stomach is gurgling away all the time and is VERY loud. Like strangers noticing and asking if I'm all right! Is this normal? Should I be trying to pinpoint a food that is the culprit? Is this just life with the band? Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions and/or just plain old complaining would be welcome!!

PS - annoying and uncomfortable enough to finally post something on the boards, not even close to making me want to get rid of the band - I LOVE my band!!!!!!

The first thing that came to my mind is that maybe the excess skin that was removed with the TT served as insulation and muffled these noise before.

My tummy makes loud noises every day!

One more thing......I'd take a noisy flat belly any day over a saggy quiet one!!

i'm interested in the finding out the cause too. I've had my band over a year. I haven't had a fill for a while, but in the last couple weeks i've had a lot of gurgling and stomach gas....the gurgling vibrates up my esophagus. It's totally embarassing in social situation...yet, I don't really know that other's are tuned in to it, but I sure am. I've told my doc about it...but because it's not all the time, I can't seem to have it happen when i'm in the office.

You know, it DID occur to me that maybe this was how it has always been, but all the fat and skin muffled the sound - especially because I carried all my extra weight on my tummy and they removed 14 lbs of skin and fat!! But then I realized that I can feel it on the inside too, the rumbling and vibration can get pretty loud and strong, and while it has happened on and off since I got my band, lately, it seems to be all the time AND more severe then I had ever experienced. It is moderately annoying and mildly uncomfortable, but I was mainly concerned that it might be a symptom of a problem or something. I figure that I'm going to see my Dr in a few weeks anyway and I'll mention it then. But then I thought about the board and realized that it might be a really common thing with a simple fix, I just had to ask - so I did!

I will also DEFINITELY agree that I'd rather have a loud flat tummy than a quiet fat one!!

But if I can manage to keep the flat one just a bit softer, that'd be nice too!

Any chance that your band is getting tighter? My band slowly got tighter on me and it was making tons of noise. It was definitely embarrassing. I got a slight unfill and it completely went away. In fact, everyone in my office was too polite to say anything when it was happening, but they all commented when it stopped. I just wish it hadn't taken me 3 months to figure out I was too tight!

Cindy

Hmm... that is very interesting and I never thought of that. Especially because I am about to make an appointment to go get a fill!! I'll have to think about that one now. I wonder if it could also be too loose? It feels like I'm hungry a lot of the time it is happening, so maybe it is actual hunger (but I'm eating enough and the right stuff, etc.) because the band isn't tight enough and I never feel full? I dunno.... I'll update the post when I do get the fill and we'll see what happens!

My stomach makes a lot of loud gurgling noises too and I've realized that they occur primarily when I'm really hungry. Once I satisfy the physical hunger the gurgling ceases only to be followed in ~4 hours or so by more noisemaking. My hunch is that they never really existed prior to the band because I never before really allowed myself to become physically hungry. I was pretty much always sated or overly full prior to banding.

I think I have lactose intolerance now that I am banded. I have lots more stomach noises and I think its from the gas produced by the milk based products. However, dairy is a very important part of my diet so I just ignore the noise.

My stomach (and DH's he's banded too) is so loud when we lay down in bed at night!

What I think happens is that with good restriction, less air escapes up your esophagus. YOu dont burp as much and less just comes up without burps. Along with the gurgles and noises, I can feel the gas moving around but its in my small intestine, becuase its high up in the abdomen and in the centre. It must come from my stomach and be air that ordinarily would come upwards.

It never seems to make its way out becuase I dont fart a lot, lol. But you know when gas is in your large intestine because you can feel it lower down and it DOES make its way out.

It probably could just be air. My stomach made the biggest noise today. It was so loud that I actually said "Whoa!" out loud. lol