I have had my lapband for almost 2 years (june 3rd will make 2 years) I have lost 75lbs. I love my band. However, I am having issues. Now, when people see "acid reflux" they automatically say... "band is too tight, go see the dr." etc. Well. about a year ago, i started having severe acid reflux, where i am actually waking up at night choking on it. Even sitting straight up to sleep. I went to my doctor, he unfilled me. I still had acid reflux, but it was taken care of by pepcid. I got a great fill and wham... the severe acid reflux is back. So he unfilled me again, did the barrium swallow... and seen i did have acid reflux even with out a fill. So he put me on protonix for 2 months, which worked amazing. Gave me a great fill... and kept me on the protonix. Which worked great for the first 3 weeks. Now... 1.5 months later i am taking protonix in the am 30 mins before i eat, then around 4pm i take pepcid and around 8pm im throwing up my food just to get relief from the acid reflux... not bc im stuck. Then i chew some tums, go to bed sitting up. I really dont know what to do. I made a dr appt to see my dr on the 4th to discuss this... but all he will want to do is unfill me. But my fill is fine. I never get stuck. And the thing is, my acid reflux flares up 1-2 hours AFTER i eat. I get that "stuck" feeling 2 hours later. I think whats happening is ... the food i eat is sitting in my pouch and slowly going through to my stomach. The acid is coming up and getting stuck in the pouch with the left over food. And i end up throwing up the food in the pouch.

Im at a loss... scared. I dont want an unfill nor do i want anything to mess up my throat, or band slippage. With all the fills and unfills... ive gained 16lbs. I recently lost 9 lbs with this last fill. So the fill is great. This acid reflux is killing me. Is anyone else dealing with this? I feel so .. blah! Any words are welcomed.

Add one more to the bunch- but not so bad and not evey day. Monday is Dr appt think I'll have him decide what I should do- -not been the best of months, but NOT knowing what is wrong with you or if you hav slipped is the worse,, Unfortunately- working that P-TIME job after reg job-

has me eating later at nite or in a hurry- and now my biggest meal---breakfast I can't do- hardly can get coffee down... geesh

Hiya. I had my band done in march 2009 and have lost 112lbs. I still have another 42 to go. I have been suffering with terrible acid reflux over the last few months. The thing that really upsets me is waking up in the middle of the night with the drowning/choking feeling. It's awful. I found that this feeling is worse on the days when I haven't eaten anything at all.

I have had a few ups and downs with my band with over fills and not eating appropriate food or chewing it properly so this year my weight has been up and down with all this. I found that taking any medication earlier in the evening and go to bed with a rennies/tums in my mouth seems to work a treat.

I have often wondered whether I should get a barium meal to see if there has been any slippage/hiatus hernia. I suppose I'm scared to coz a fuss coz I don't want them to take any Fluid away or worse take my band away!!!

I had LB surgery in 2006 I too have had GERDS for a long time. I recently developed full blown intolerance for lactose. Since eliminating cows milk from my diet I suffer no GERDS at all anymore. If all normal complications and concerns have been looked into try eliminating milk and see if it helps. Within a week I noticed it was gone. I choose not to use Nexium or Prilosec due to them causing me to lose hair.

I have acid reflux when I am stressed or worried about something. If I eat to late at night I make sure I take my pepcid or I will have to get out of bed sometime and take my pepcid and sit in the chair and sleep for awhile.

I too am suffering with severe acid reflux. Was banded in July 2011 and in the last 6 months with fills and deflations it has been miserable. Just started nexium today and praying it works. I liken it to spewing hot lava... Not fun but I knew I signed up for this, good and bad.

Update: had my band deflated to a 3 and had upper GI. No slippage and reflux gone. My doctor says he has about 25 patients that are ultra sensitive and I'm one of them. Oh well...

I hope that everyone takes chronic acid reflux seriously! It is not OK! My dad passed away a year ago from esophageal cancer! He was constantly taking meds from doctor along with hand fulls of tums! The symptoms he had was a full feeling and pain in his chest! Of course the doctors just kept treating him for acid reflux! By the time they caught the cancer it was stage 4 terminal! Acid reflux is not just annoying or inconvenient, it can cost you your life! Take it as seriously as your vow to lose weight!

I fear that once you have started with reflux, you have started a new chapter. It now becomes managing the reflux rather than maintaining weight and eating healthy.

Reflux can be a very quirky thing. I never had it in my life and then about 3 years after being banded I developed it very abruptly. No slip, no change in diet, just awakened by severe relux one morning. I tried everything conventional and unconventional to treat it. Emptied the band for long stretches and refilled gradually with tiny amounts. I stayed on twice daily proton pump inhibitors for years, tried apple cider vinegar, liquid antiacids, accupuncture, novena's, you name it. I was so determined to hang on to that band. This was not garden variety reflux. I had to sleep upright and I would still find gastric contents (that had come out my nose) on my pillow. There was often projectile reflux if you can imagine such a thing, usually just as I was falling asleep. I know this sounds crazy in retrospect that I put up with this for so long (4 years!). I just could not cope with the fact that the band had failed me as I had been such a believer. When the sleep deprivation and sensation of being in a toxic acid bath became too much I threw in the towel and had the band removed. The reflux resolved immediately. I was truly so traumatised, physically and psychologically, any further bariatric surgery was not something I would consider.

Some of the band literature touts it as a remedy for reflux, this was not my experience.

Each of the major bariatric procedures has had patients who developed reflux and others whose reflux resolved.

By all means, do everything you possibly can to treat the reflux. But do not take it as a personal failure if it keeps coming back. Physiology is a complicated thing and frankly there is alot of over simplistic interpretation and advice appearing on many boards.

I suffered so long, not accepting it needed to go, I simply would not accept defeat. I was the the poster girl, expert, high priestess in the band cult. My preparation was a master class in clinical research and analysis (I am a nurse). I was brainwashed by the oversimplistic mantras on the support group boards (Smartbandsters on yahoo in particular) that fuel the notion that any band issues are completely due to the behavior of the recipient.