it feels a bit excruciating for me

also, im finding myself getting hungry but feeling disinclined to eat/drink anything.

Hi,

How far post op are you?

I know it has taken a while for me to discern head hunger from real hunger....but I think I am getting there.....

Real hunger....I "feel" it in my stomach.....I 'hear" it in my stomach.......I can't distract myself away from it. Drinking Water does not make it go away.

It is very hard to explain.......

im about 4 days post-op...early, i know.

its like an aching in the center of me....i thought before it was surgery pain, but its not. yogurt makes it go away. it hurts a lot.

Are you sure it isn't gas pain?

Since my band, I don't have hunger but I know I need to eat when I feel a bit weak.

the gas pain seems to feel more like pressure than aching. this feels like ive been run through with a red hot aluminum pole! it starts with a contraction feeling in the stomach and then a hot/achy/hollow feeling in the center of my chest. if i eat something it stops, so i assume thats hunger.

the gas pain is usually higher...i'll feel like i want to burp, but the traditional way i used to be able to make myself burp fails and hurts. but only lasts a few seconds.

i hope this isnt how its going to be forever, but if it is, i will just have to devise a structured eating plan that makes it so i never have to feel THAT level of hunger....ive been good at that in the past. kinda hope i dont have to, though.

It maybe that your stomach is still healing and that is the pains you are feeling. I know what I thought was hunger pains actually went away in a couple of weeks. Yogurt four days post-op? Lucky you... I had two weeks of clear liquids!!!!!

ack! another two weeks?!?! i would fling myself into oncoming traffic! lol...i was on clears for the first 3 and from now until the end of two weeks, its full liquids, which includes yogurt

The hunger sensation I feel since being banded is completely different than what I used to experience as hunger before. It's now very much a physical sensation and it starts with my stomach rumbling - loudly. When I drink water it doesn't ease the hunger sensation. If I wait too long to eat when I know that I am physically hungry I get light headed. I'm pretty sure that what I called hunger in the old days was just 'head hunger'.

I had a type of pain during the 2 week post op period that was only soothed by food. I didn't know if it was hunger or not, but yogurt cured it.

Mine happened at night. My stomach would be so empty and would only let me sleep if I ate a spoonful or two of yogurt. I ended up taking a carton of yogrut to bed with me and would eat a spoonful whenever the pain would wake me up. The yogurt would soothe the pain enough to let me sleep a couple of hours and then I'd wake up again.

I went through this all night long.

I told my nurses about what I was doing, and although it's not really the way bandsters are supposed to eat, it was during the healing phase and they were OK with it.

If you haven't talked to your doctor or nurses about this pain and what you're doing for it, may I suggest you do so.. just to be sure that it's ok with them.

Hope you feel better soon. And yes, this pain/hunger did go away for me. I don't recall how long it took, but not all that long in the overall scheme of things.

Best wishes

I'll usually start feeling the signs of hunger about 4 hours after my previous meal and it's just sort of an empty feeling that reminds me it's time to eat. If I ignore it, within 15 minutes my blood sugar level reminds me so perhaps the two are actually working as one to give me that 'feeling'.

.