:help: Hello friends! I was banded on dec 6th and I am having thoughts of removing the band! I am so depressed and anxious I can hardly stand it. Before I was so excited to have the surgery I couldn't have imagined feeling this way. I cannot pinpoint exactly whats wrong, but i know I just want to eat and I cant! I just want to go back to the way things were. I would appreciate any feedback, Suzy

:help: Hello friends! I was banded on dec 6th and I am having thoughts of removing the band! I am so depressed and anxious I can hardly stand it. Before I was so excited to have the surgery I couldn't have imagined feeling this way. I cannot pinpoint exactly whats wrong, but i know I just want to eat and I cant! I just want to go back to the way things were. I would appreciate any feedback, Suzy

Hi Suzy! It is normal to have a bit of a mood downturn after the surgery. In my opinion, several things are happening:

• The body acts very strangely after anesthesia. Thinking can become distorted and you may not even recognize yourself and the things you are thinking/worrying about.
  
• Your body has undergone a shock too and it needs time to adjust.
  
• I know, the first few days after surgery, usually while having gas pains, my mind would start spinning, whenever I thought about what I had really committed to. I think I was really hoping to wake up after surgery and the fat would just be gone! I knew better than that, but that was my secret hope.

For me, everytime I have embarked on a big new direction in my life, I would generally feel overwhelmed by the hugeness of the task. Imagining life without cigarettes was so scary, that I literally couldn't even to talk to myself about "quitting." When the day came, I just never had the first one of the day. I still haven't had that first one and it's been more than 25 years!

When we committed to having the band, we committed to getting in touch with the way we handle food and chose the lapband as a tool to help us with portion control and (hopefully) hunger so we could make steady progress in losing the weight and not having to regain it as soon as we got off the "diet" as we had so many times in the past.

This tool is meant to help us stay the course as we take a look at our relationship to food in our lives and learn how to make OTHER choices that are to our benefit. It gives us some time to break the chains our other food behaviors have put us in. It is not going to happen at once; there is time to adjust. That's what the LBT is all about.

We share our fears, make confessions to behaviors that we never told a soul about before, our victories and setbacks to people who know exactly how it is for us.

So if I can take you back to the cigarette analogy, concentrate on taking care of Suzy today. Let the future take care of itself. Drink your Water and other liquids, walk for gas and BREATHE. Tomorrow do more of the same. No one expects you to do anything for the next six weeks but to follow instructions your surgeon gave you and heal. Any weight loss in that time is a bonus.

If your mood doesn't lift in a few days, ask your doctor for help. In the meantime, know that we are here for you! :xena_banana: :girl_hug: :girl_hug:

Jo Ann

Hang in there Suzy! I had my surgery Dec. 1 and it is a lot harder than I ever expected. But I am certain that things will get better as time goes by. Just remember there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that the long term success will be worth a few difficult days or weeks. It will get better! Don't give up. You have come too far for that!

It's normal for you to go through a depressed period of time due to the rapid decrease in calories. I know I did and I got more upset because I was unable to eat my pain away anymore.

Give yourself time to heal then make the decision.

thanks i really needed to hear that. i just get overwhelmed at the thought of clear liquids for 2 weeks when i am so hungry! please drop me a line any time. needless to say u have no regrets? have you known of anyone who did? suzy

Hi Suzy,

this was the one thing of which I was utterly TERRIFIED before my surgery. I had images of myself, wanting, needing to overeat and not being able to.

In short, that has NEVER happened to me. I've enjoyed food far more than I ever did pre surgery because I taste it now. I'm not afraid of it since I know I wont overeat, I love to cook now and to eat out and social functions dont make me afraid of gaining etc etc. I eat slowly and savour it.

When I feel like a bit of a treat - then the foods I previously struggled with just happen to be the easiest to eat, Cookies, chocolate etc. I can indulge when I want to but having lost so much weight, I no longer want to, I think because I dont have that terrible anxiety about my body and my weight that I need to quell with food. I've become focussed on exercise, have taken up running and now eat to fuel my performance, and try to avoid eating things that will drag me down. I dont ahve that glass of wine at night because I have my long run planned and dont want to be tired and sluggish kind of thing.

Its very hard in the early weeks, but all this could be waiting for you too in the next few months as you get used to your new lifestyle and begin to marvel at the changes for the better your body is undergoing. You just need to hang in there, food fills an enormous need in most obese people and you cant just take it away and not feel the absence.

Suzy yes it is hard...there are a whole heap of lifestyle changes to be made with a lapband... but think back to why you are doing this? If you want a healthier, happier, more fulfilled life then battle through...the results far outway the sacrifices made to get there...We have all been there and felt what you are feeling but we battled through...lived to tell the tale and now...well, the fruit is in the puddin or so to speak... If you need come back to LBT daily...read through the running totals of people that have lost weight on this forum...PM/Email or MSN me at any time when you need encouragement...we are ALL here to help you through this...so that when you get to where alot of us are now...you will beable to say the same thing to a lapband newbie who is experienceing then what you have gone through now...Live each day as it comes...make the best decision that you can in that day...cause you have always got tomorro...and the next, and the next and the rest of your long/healthy life.

:xena_banana: Becky

Suzy - I had mine done on the 6th also and woke up feeling really "off" this morning. THinking, what the hell did I do? But then I got on the scale and had a protein drink and felt better. You did the right thing!!

I had my surgery on december 7th. I feel hungry, nauseated, and it lots of pain. I too just want the thing removed. When will this pass? I am anxious depressed hungry, and have even cried over this dilemma yesterday. i feel that i was ill prepared for the post op experience.

I was also banded on 12/06 dont worry you be ok .. we are all here to help each other .. I am lucky to say the only bad thing is that i am constantly nausiated but like everything will just look back and think wow it was nothing . You made the right desision you body is just going crazy or more like our bodies are going crazy its a big change also mind tricks do click in when we think we need food but it not true . we will achive our goal and at the end of the tunnel we will all look back and there will be others behind us that will go thinking the same as you do now. I know you will be ok if you need to cry cry . I be here for you ....i am in the same boat . YOU CAN DO IT GIRL YOU HAVE LOTS TO GIVE YOUR SELF>

NEW YEAR NEW LIFE NEW US !!!!

CLAU..

I too was ill prepared for the post-op experience! If you watch the lapband infomerical some of the patients say they went to back the next day! I felt terrible even 7 days out.

Just relax, take your pain medicine, remember to use your ice pack on your port incision (biggest incision), heating pad for the left shoulder pain. I couldn't sleep in a bed for over a week. Needed a chair next to my bed for leverage once I did go back to my bed.

Drink Water and your Protein, protein, protein. Pray - breathe in the through your nose and out through your mouth. Rest.

I have yet to be banded and will be next monday but the lady at my support group went through the same thing she even was wanting to commit suicide because of losing her best friend food anyhow the other members and I have really checked up on her and now she feels she has one of us to turn to if she is in need maybe you should try attending a support group where someone can help you

I am 3 weeks out from my surgery. In the first 10 days or so I had big doubts about my decision, but in the last week or so, I have been feeling MUCH better, started seeing results and have been able to eat stuff that mildly resembles food (I'm on mushies). I missed food alot and it was hard watching my fiance sit there and eat lovely big bowls of Pasta etc. I admit the pain really got to me, I was up pacing around my house at 3am crying several nights in a row wondering why I had done this to myself. And I was SO hungry. I'd never felt hunger like it before. But it passed, very quickly, I pretty much just woke up one day and felt a whole lot better.

I know its hard when you are feeling like this but try to focus on the future further past the next few weeks and exactly what you wanted to achieve from having the band. It will happen, if you believe in yourself

The day I was picked up from the hospital, my husband bought barbeque and french fries drowned in barbeque sauce. I could have killed him. He has been eating like crazy while I am on a liquid diet and get up at 3 a.m. hungry because I have had a lack of calories. Surgery was December 7th. It is the 11th and I have actually held down 3/4 cup of carnation instant breakfast. this has been the first thing that I have been able to drink without feeling sick and nauseated afterwards. i guess things are getting better. I am experiencing gas pains but the nausea is subsiding. I am starting to feel that I may be able to live with this decision.

I also wanted to thank everyone for their encouraging comments and support. It is so helpful to hear others that are going through the same thing. They have a support group on Tuesday nights at the hospital that performed the surgery for us. I have yet to attend (just had surgery thursday). Does everyone else have a similar set up at their hospital? Our doctor will not give us a fill until we have attended a number of sessions post op.

Mercy Hospital

Dr. Bonomo

Chicago, IL

surgery- December 7th

I'm only two months post op, but I can tell you already that 'this too shall pass' and you will be on the road to being a healthy bandster in no time. Those first few weeks post-op are brutal -- between feeling lousy and not getting to eat real food. Hang in there, make an appointment with a therapist if you need to, and give it a chance to do what it is supposed to do. Your body has just gone through a big change and the adjustments you will have to make will be both physical and emotional/mental. You've already taken a good first step...this is a great place for support.