I am bored to tears and I want nothing more than to stuff my fat face right now with ANYTHING! Protein shakes are not cutting it, I want to chew chew chew chew until my jaw falls off!

HELP!

Can you chew gum without swallowing? I did it after my surgery. I also chewed ice. I know it sounds gross but It helped.

seppi beat me to the punch.. I was gonna segjest gum as well! It will get better aftrer you can eat regular foods. Hang in there anad just know that you are doing the right thing for your bady right now...but I realize your brain is suffering.... Talk ugly to that head hunger get mad a groal at it!!!! Good luck in the weeks to come hoping you will be posting soon sayiing how pleased you are with your band!!!

I know the feeling.

Can you get out of the house and go do something?

Make a goal for yourself that is easy to achieve-like clean out a drawer?

Eat ice chips, sugar free popsicles, sugarfree/fatfree pudding?

Go see or call an old friend?

Make yourself of list of alternatives to eating and put it somewhere where you will see it often.

You may want to check with your surgeon before going with gum. Some Dr.'s don't recommend gum and/or hard candies post banding because of the risk of blockages if you accidentally swallow. There have been some threads on this before. I know there are people out there post band who are big time gum chewers, have chewed pre-band and post-band, and have never swallowed gum, and whose Dr.'s have no issues with gum, and swear by it. I also know of a few people who've written that they've accidentally swallowed gum and it's been a pain, literally. I totally think it's a personal choice, and we're all grown-ups and can decide to chew or not chew. I may eventually start chewing gum again, I'm not sure. I've decided to play it safe and quit it for now post-banding, and haven't really missed it too much. Since my habit was always to just swallow a piece of gum after it lost it's flavor I've decided to follow my Dr.'s advice and not do the gum thing, as I might be a higher risk to swallow accidentally. Hang in there, it will be over before you know it, just take it one day at a time. I found the liquid diet the hardest part of the whole process, but it does end!

XO

Leila

Chew ice and drink ice water....the colder the better. That will give you the feeling of restriction and help with the need to chew on something. Once in a while I will do gum but I am extremely careful to watch that desire to swallow. The desire to chew is very strong with me - so I can feel a bit of your pain. I also try a little bit of online browsing to distract my brain - especially looking at beautiful clothing that I want to eventually wear. ) Hang in there - you can do it!!!

My doctor told me I could introduce soft foods as I thought I could handle them. I was so hungry yesterday I had watered/milked down oatmeal - just a couple of spoons and it went down great and I was fine. I had liquid all day today and then about 8pm I had a SF Jell-O pudding and it was heaven and went down great. It's 11pm and now I'm growling again. I'll drink Ice water and then go to bed. We're only a week out - so hang in there! We can do this!

Do something if you can. Anything to keep your hands occupied. If you don't crochet, try taking it up. It took me hours just to get a line done and during that time I wasn't eating, because my hands were busy and I didn't even realize how much time had passed.