What are you feeling when you say you can feel food moving through your pouch? I see this mentioned when the discussion is about eating not too fast. I can't imagine actually feeling food moving along inside me.

I am newly banded and don't yet have a fill, so food (still liquids right now) move through with no problem, but I would like to know HOW you know food is moving along so you can take your next bite.

Things like this are so hard to describe. There's no real easy way to say "it feels like this" because it's a unique feeling. It's like when someone asks you, "What does <whatever> taste like?" and the best you can come up with is trying to explain that it doesn't really taste like anything else because it has its own unique flavor.

So here's my best effort.

I'm going to get gross on you.

Have you ever been suffering from sinus drainage or a head cold, or maybe allergies, and when you try to swallow if feels like there's a big wad of mucus in your throat that won't go down? Or even better, before you swallow, you can feel a ball of slimy unpleasantness sliding down the back of your throat?

It feels kind of like that, only instead of in your throat, you feel it where your band is.

LOL

ahhhhh, leave it to you Wheetsin to adequately explain!!!

I was also wondering, and now I have a very clear cut idea of what it feels like!!! LOL Thanks. (I think!).

Gross descriptions are OK. And, I know that everyone is different, but with enough individual descriptions, perhaps one of them will match what I will feel when the time comes.:nervous

Well you can feel the food in your pouch and when it moves thru you feel it kinda expand and go plop ! the heavyness of the food is gone (heavy meaning full not uncomfortable)..

Boy this is hard to describe LOL !!!

I can tell you that I haven't felt the food go down and I started solids a little over 3 weeks ago. I think more people feel it when they get their fills.

I have felt it when i didn't chew properly, and boy did I. Chew chew chew, it can get downright uncomfortable if you don't. Mostly it is just a sensation, I think wheetsin described it pretty well. I didn't feel it till I was on solids, and then only a couple of times. I am sure I will experience it much more when I get some restriction.

The discription above isn't too far off I think... Basically, pressure, and then the pressure moves a little lower, and then disappears entirely.

In my experience, I feel my food the most when it's a little 'stuck'. There is nothing quite like the feeling of thinking you are going to have to dash for the bathroom, and then feeling the 'stuck' go down, and knowing you are going to be alright. lol

Wheetsin, you NAILED it! Gross or not, that described it perfectly.

BTW, I love your signature quote about walking a mile in someone's shoes! lol Very funny.

This is a great post. For the last year since I was banded, I had always wondered what people were talking about when they said that.......until I experienced it. About a week ago, I got a fill. My doc requires us to move from liquids to puree then slowly back to regular foods after a fill because of possible swelling, etc. I'M SO GLAD HE DID because when I moved to solid foods, often I can feel those first couple bites go all the way down.

Here's another kind of colorful description that isn't exactly right, but close. Imagine before you were banded and you got a pill "stuck" and you could feel it laying there in your esophagus. It's kind of like that. You can feel something there, a pressure, but it might be moving.....then all of a sudden the pressure is gone. It's not necessarily painful, you can just feel it.

Here's another kind of colorful description that isn't exactly right, but close. Imagine before you were banded and you got a pill "stuck" and you could feel it laying there in your esophagus. It's kind of like that. You can feel something there, a pressure, but it might be moving.....then all of a sudden the pressure is gone. It's not necessarily painful, you can just feel it.

Now, THAT I know about! And, I have also eaten too fast and had a very uncomfortable lump in my esophagus. That is probably the "golf ball." This thread is really helping me.

I don't have a lot of restriction yet, but when I feel food go through the stoma it feels like a small glug. Like if you were to fill a 2 liter bottle with water and hold it upside-down. Glug, glug, glug... It is usually only once or twice during a meal, and then when the texture is thick. Sometimes I get a small amount of pressure first before the glug and sometimes a little burp after.

I can't wait for true restriction.