How come some people say at night you should flush all food out of your pouch before going to bed???:Banane13:

What the hello is that? I have never heard of that term.

Flushing your pouch is when you drink a bunch of Water to make sure nothing is in there.

It's recommended to flush your pouch because it's not really good to have food in there all night. For some people it causes reflux, and for other people, it makes them unable to eat much in the morning.

Hope this helps :Banane13:

That is interesting. I never heard of that. Does the food sit in the pouch over night? Is is unable to go through when you are laying down?

Wha..?

Don't you have to get up and pee in the middle of the night?

Wha..?

Don't you have to get up and pee in the middle of the night?

sleeping through the whole night is just a dim memory.

This isn't something that everyone has to do, or that will even need to be done all along. As Marimaru said, some people might want to think about trying it IF they are having reflux at night or are having lots of trouble eating early in the morning and want to change that.

food that is still in the pouch when you go to bed might indeed stay in there overnight. Gravity helps with regard to moving food along its path, and lying down counteracts the action of gravity. So IF you are having reflux at night it might mean that there is still food/fluid in the pouch which, as your sleep and your esophagus relaxes, is refluxing back up. Making sure the pouch is completely empty is one tactic to try if that's a problem: don't eat for several hours before bed and have a cup of hot tea or something to help clear it out.

Flushing doesn't mean to drink a gallon of Water or anything; just try to make sure the last thing you eat or drink in the evening has gone all they way through and your pouch is empty before lying down.

Alexandra is always so much more eloquent than I am. :confused:

Alexandra said it so well, I'm not going to add to it.

I do it most nights, but I don't drink a whole lot of Water.....maybe 4 ounces or so. I had GERD before I had the lap band and I have bouts of acid occasionally. Not full blown reflux where I'm bringing up anything in my sleep, but I can tell it's getting irritated. So I try to not eat anything at least 3 hours before going to bed. I'm not always faithful to that, but I try. Then, right before bed I drink a little. Sometimes I've even had aloe vera juice that another LBT member recommended. It doesn't taste the greatest, but if it has "healing" qualities, I'll try it.

The way I "visualize" and try to understand it is that if the food is slow to move out of the pouch or if there are even little particles in there, they could cause irritation. I don't need any more irritation that I already have. So I have a little drink of water before bed and, at the very least, it eases my mind.