Hello everyone!!!

I'm so excited to be here. I have been discussing lap band with my husband for quite some time now and I think we've finally decided to investigate it further and possibly take the big leap.

I work full time as a pharmacy technician and stand on my feet 8 hours a day...no sit down time ever. So, I worry about the recovery time. I also only get a weeks vacation time and I assume I will need to use that time for my recovery. I had to have emergency gallbladder removal 3 weeks ago and missed a week of work due to that already!

What incisions are made? What are the days of recovery like? Back to work in a few days? Able to lift a 2 yr old soon after? What are "fills" and what recovery time is needed after having one? :xena_banana:

I'm full of questions and see that if I look around here I'm sure to find answers. Thought I'd post and introduce myself anyway.

I look forward to spending lots of time here and getting on with this "adventure"! :clap2:

Okay let me see if I can answer some of these for you.

Downtime after surgery, I was up and cleaning house and doing everything I normally would on Day3. I walked immediately after surgery and every hour after. Day 7 I was riding 4 wheelers on rough trails for 8 hours that day. No down time really at all.

As far as scars, you can go to the scar thread and see mine and everyone elses, there's 4 little bitty scars and the port scar is about 1 1/2 in. You have to really look to find mine and I'm just 5 months postop. If you've had gall bladder surgery they use your same scars, you'd just have one more for your port.

Fills, they're not painful, just a little poke. They put saling in a shot thing and put it in where your port is and that blows up your band to make it tighter on your stomach. You can go straight from a fill on your lunch break and back to work. No down time whatsoever for these. It takes about 10 seconds.

You'll need about 3 fills before you get good restriction.

My surgery was very uneventful and my root canal gave me more trouble than my band surgery.

I'm only 5 months out and weightloss has really slowed down right now, that happens, I'm not making the best food choices but I had lost over 50 pounds at 4 months so I'm very very pleased.

About the lifting, you won't want to life the baby for a couple of weeks. I have a one year old granddaughter so everyone just handed her to me for the first week then I picked her up on my own.

Hope I got them all for you, if you have anymore, please pm me and I'd be glad to answer any for you. I have pic's of right after surgery, scars, and pics of me getting my fills if you want to see them just let me know.

Welcome

Hi, I'm an ICU nurse, and know about being on your feet to 12-14 hrs at a time. I went back to work on day 4 post-op, and I had a rough time, and I have a very high pain threshold. That being said I believe a week would probably be fine, but just don't overdo. I also have a 5mth old granddaughter who weighs about 17 lbs and carrying her was painful. I am now 2 weeks out and doing well, but not quite back to baseline.

I can't tell you much about the gall bladder surgery, but I have heard of them using the same scars, provided there isn't much scar tissue.

Good-luck with your decision, and feel free to ask your questions. We bandsters are a pretty supportive bunch. I myself have gotten alot from this site pre-op, and still do now.

P.S. I need to update my weight-loss but haven't weighed in a week.

WOW! Thank you so much for the quick reply and for answering all those questions!

Your reply makes me feel even more confident about having this procedure done.

Thank you so much!

Congrats on your loss!!!

Hi Mandy, I have 3 incisions about 1" long. Funny sometimes I wonder how he actually got the band in! About your recovery time. I would say a week is ample. I took off about 5 days and was fine. I am not on my feet all the time though so you may be a little tired when you go back to work. You should be fine to pick up your son soon after surgery. I would check with your doctor. Just make sure he doesn't jump on you as you will be sore. Best of luck. Let us know how you are doing.

I was up and walking one hour after banding, I was told that the more you walk the faster the healing will be. So within hours I was walking the streets of TJ Mexico, up and down the hills. Dr. Ortiz used some type of glue to seal the cuts. That worried me at first untill I learned more about it. The cuts healed fine and it is getting harder to find them (I am a show off)

WLS is one of the best things I have ever done, I enjoyed Mexico.