Causes Of Band Erosion

[Banjo257 920]

Thanks for all the 411 about erosion.It has been my only pre op worry.

Now I'll have to find something else to worry about

[bigpoppy 1]

I had a lap band installed in June 2008- The one they installed was too tight so after a week at home with a feeding tube down thru my nose (so tight i couldn't even swallow my own spit) they decided to go back in and install a bigger one. I woke up and passed the the swallow test and was so relieved to not have the feeding tube- I was so afraid to try to put anything down that i stayed on liquids for a very long time. I was 45 years old and 6'5' weighing in at 385- Fearing the restriction I never had an adjustment (fill) and by diet alone dropped from 385 to 235 in about a year- it seemed to be tight enough- Well I started getting excruciating stomach pain about 10 months ago off and on to the point of staying in bed for days at a time (wishing it would just go away. Finally i scheduled myself a colonoscopy and an endoscope with my original surgeon- colonoscopy was fine but endo revealed that 75%of the band had eroded into my stomach-My surgeon referred me to a specialist 4 hrs from here because he thought he could take it out endoscopic-ally - went to Portland Thursday(10/31) for surgery and when I came to found out that he had to take it lapriscopically- spent the night in the hospital then a 4 hour drive home in rush hour-glad my wife was driving-even with all the pain meds I'm still up every 2 hrs-- and of course our Healthnet Insurance didn't cover one cent of it -nothing bariatric or bariatric related complications- liquids for a month (great) - Left shoulder pain is back and lots of gas and lower abdomen pain- ready for this to be over with