I have been reading in a lot of people's post about shoulder pain. Why would my shoulder hurt if the surgery is on my stomach? Did I miss something?

Your tummy will be pumped full of gas to expand so they have room, as the gas starts to move out it tends to move up towards your shoulder....I am 2 weeks out had gas pains for about 3 days but it didnt move into my shoulder ..your doctor with give you something for gas or just suck on a lot of gas x strips lol

It's very common for the gas to move into that area. I had it but not too bad.

Oh that makes sense now. Thanks for the info.

I wanted to elaborate on this question:

There are 3 reasons to be aware of:

1) Surgical Gas- Because this is a laproscopic procedure, the doctor uses carbon dioxide gas to expand the abdominal cavity so they can access and visualize internal organs and have sufficient are to operate in. They attempt to expel as much of this gas as possible once the procedure ends, however, it is impossible for all of it to be removed. The residual gas will rise and put pressure on the diaphragm. The diaphragm is innervated by the vagus nerve and this nerve will radiate pain into other areas it innervates, such as the shoulder. Unfortunately there is nothing but comfort measures that can remedy the pain (such as heating blankets and walking). You have to wait for the gas to be reabsorbed by the body naturally.

2) The vagus nerve is what runs alongside the esophagus and is what is stimulated by the band apparatus. Sometimes when bandsters eat too quickly, too much, get stuck etc they hyper stimulate the vagus nerve and again will feel pain in referred areas such as the back/shoulder

3) I also wanted to make mention that many bandsters will have gallstones. A classic sign (aside from abdominal pains) is referred pain in the right shoulder blade. I wanted to make this differentiation in case someone who typically does not experience shoulder pain finds themselves experiencing shoulder and abdominal pain they'll think of the gallbladder.