I was so excited to finally eat food today. I chewed and chewed, yet by my third bite it started. The tremendous pain, the saliva backing up my throat...oh no! I held out as long as I could, but it would not go down. I had a PB:( ! Now I am terrified to eat and scared that my band will be compromised. What do I do now?

I was banded 5 days before you and am not allowed to advance to solids until May 11 (6 weeks post-op). You might still have some swelling that needs to subside before you tolerate solid food. My advice would be to go back to a soft diet for a day or two and then slowly introduce solid foods.

Boo, you shouldn't be eating solid foods three weeks out from surgery. It takes longer than that for your insides to heal and a PB at this stage is far worse for you than having one when you are healed.

Go back to liquids for 24 hours, and then stay on soft foods for another week or two. There are lots of great soft foods that you can eat and not feel deprived, like refried Beans, mashed potatoes, frozen yogurt, bananas, even baked sweet potatoes!

I was eating solids 3 weeks out but you need to follow the advice of your doc. Only eat soft stuff.

Boo, what did you eat?

I agree with everyone else that you should only be eating mushies at this stage. I also agree that you should go to liquids for the next 24 hours and give your esophogus time to recover. PBs cause irritation and swelling and if you keep trying to eat, you'll most likely PB again making it even worse.

Don't worry about this being a normal thing. You do probably still have quite a bit of swelling going on around your band area. This is why most Dr's want their patients to wait about six weeks to move on to the really solid foods.

I hope you relax and realize that this isn't necessarily the sign of big problems. It is probably just a sign that you need to give yourself more time to heal. Keep us posted on how you're doing.

*hugs*

Thanks for the advice.

I followed my doctor's and nutritionist's plan. There is NO mushy stage. It is liquids and yogurt until day 22, then on to solids. I was eating the tiniest bit of chopped-up, paper thin deli meat. I think what I did wrong was try to eat at 8:00 in the morning. So now it is soft food for me and I'll try another go at it after I talk to the nutritionist. Hey, I'm thrilled to get to eat soft food instead of soup and yogurt! So you don't think a PB at 3 weeks will ruin my band?

Stick with the soft foods for at least a week and no, I doubt you did any damage to the band... especially since you don't have a fill. Take it slow, listen to your body and heal.

Great advice! Thanks, I'll try that for the next week. Soft proteins... I guess that means mostly dairy and soft eggs?

Moist flaky fish is considered a soft, or mushy, food. Tuna with a couple of tablespoons of fat free thousand island dressing is quite good and has about 34 grams of protein. Gorton's makes some wonderfully tasty and moist fish fillets (non breaded). Fish is a great source of protein!

According to my food list also shredded chicken with something saucy. Make sure it's really tender and chew to paste