As usual you all never disappoint me with you guidance and wisdom. You have come thru for me again. All the wonderful support, kind words, and experience you shared has really helped me.

I am now using fitday.com and really think it's a great tool.

Now I just have a couple other questions.

Would someone tell me what are the symptoms, if any, of a stretched band? Do you get sick? If it is stretched can you strink it again? If so, how? It there a limit on how many fills you can get? There's a part of me that thinks I need another fill but I'm concerned I might be needing too many.

After my last posting I have refocused and gotten back on track. Not that Im expecting immeditate changes I know it the process is slow. Its just this whole experience has been so terrific and I don't want to mess it up. My mental health is on track I just want to make sure I'm doing the best for the band with my body.

Again I appreciate all responses. They give me so very much.

Will see you soon

Micki

Hi Micki,

First, you can't stretch your band. What stretches is your pouch, and it's pretty unlikely you could do that without prolonged, ongoing overeating. If you find yourself eating past the point of being overfull on a regular basis, you might very well stretch your pouch and compromise the position of your band. But for most bandsters, the pouch stretches no more than it's supposed to (it's made of stomach tissue, after all) and it bounces back to its normal size as the food in it passes through the stoma.

Your question about how many fills one can get is a good one with several answers. First, the port can be accessed thousands of times, so there's no mechanical limit to adjustments. HOWEVER, there is clearly a point at which adding more Fluid to the band makes the stoma too small, so no food or fluid can pass through. That's the "too tight" scenario. People are different and the same amount of fluid can render one person too loose and the next too tight.

There's no such thing as "too many" fills or "too few" fills. There are only three levels: too loose, too tight, and just right. If it takes 3 or 30 adjustments to find your just right, so be it. A lot depends on how your doctor handles fills, whether they tweak by adding .1cc at a time or whether they go for good restriction right away.

If you're able to eat solid foods by chewing carefully and eating slowly, and yet are not hungry after a meal for 4 or 5 hours, you probably don't need a fill. Getting too tight is not a good thing, as many of us can attest.

Last time I went to Dr. Ren she told me that my stoma was a bit too stretched out- almost creating a little bulge on top of the band. We are going to monitor for a few monts, but one other patient's stoma stretched too much, and their band was opened ALL the way, resulting in the gain of 40 pounds. Has anyone had a stretcvhed stoma that went back to smaller size? ANY stories, advice would help. And no, I have not lost any additional weight in the last year (maybe 6 pounds). I have been banded for 2.5 years.