Hi everyone, been searching the net for a while to find a forum so am pleased to have found you. am feeling very alone right now and would love to hear from anyone!

I privately payed for my lap band , and am 6 weeks post surgery .... i payed £7,600 at BUPA - which is a well known uk private hospital .. a big ouch to my wallet .

The op went well, the hospital was great. I managed the liquid diet for 1.5 weeks (i was asked to complete 4 weeks). I came off it having an egg sandwich which went down nicely (much to the horror of my surgeon). But was starving on watery Soup.

I have felt no restriction what so ever and had my first band fill 2 days ago. I asked the doctor how much liquid he put in , he said 5 mls, and the band can take 10mls , but they dont fill it right up ever (bit of alien language for me really).

So the moment i have been waiting for, for many years has been a huge let down!!! I dont feel at all restricted on what i can eat. I can eat the same amount as pre-op. Although i am forcing myself not to. I can drink as much Fluid as i like, downing a pint of Water is no problem. I feel so let down by everything. My hospital told me i would only be able to manage a cup full of food,and i would full up at the top of my body... i dont feel any of these things. only difference is a little more wind.

If it wasnt for the fact that i saw the band on the xray machine at the 'fill' appointment and if i couldnt feel the port in my side when i bend over, i would never believe i have had surgery.

I feel very alone and that my expensive surgery has been a failure and a waste of my life savings.

Just want to give up and eat lots of food (which is sadly my life long way of dealing with stuff)

I have just started self funding Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help with that side of stuff, but my body just isn't feeling full as i was lead to believe it would. And will take a while i guess to sort out my head with my overeating.

I have a BMI of 37 kilos - so not heavy enough for gastric bypass op, hence i chose the band.

I am 5ft 7 and weigh 104 kgs, pre op i was 109 kgs. my weight loss has been due to the restrictive pre - op and post op diet .. nothing to do with the band at all.

right now i feel like it has been an expensive waste of time. And i dont know anyone else who has had the procedure so cant ask their advice.

i would be so grateful to hear if anyone has had a similiar experience, is there any light at the end of the tunnel ?

should i demand more support, when and if will the hospital decide to do another band fill.

I only get one more fill in with my package price of £7,800 so will have to pay for others.

many thanks to you all.

Marjon9,

Well said!!

Cindy

Thanks for the info on the 10cc band. 3rd fill tomorrow, 3rd times a charm, right!!

I don't know from experience but I heard a woman at my support group say the exact same thing.....she was feeling very frustrated also....just HANG IN THERE until your next fill......she felt much more restriction after her second fill. Don't let all this hard work and money go down the tubes....HANG IN THERE!!

:biggrin1:I just wanted to thank you all for posting in this thread! I have learned so much and feel like I will be that much more prepared when I head into surgery soon. This kind of dialogue is priceless, and definitely faster and kinder than the doctor's offices! lol This is an amazing board, and I am SOOOO thankful that I found it! You guys ROCK!

I went for my 3rd fill today. I told the nurse that the first 2 had not helped me. Her response was "you're thinking there is no band!" I thought that was funny considering what had been posted on this thread.

We'll see how this one does!!

Hi all

thank you for your message and encouragment.

Its must have been almost 6 weeks since the first fill and i reckon i am eating only a little bit less than pre-op. i am due to see my surgeon this week for the first time since the fill. not looking forward to it at all, i think he will go on about how its only a tool etc etc, and he will be surprised about how little restriction i have. i am going to try to demand another fill.. i will let you know how i get on . but i know i will feel like a failure.!!

oh and weight loss , i haven't had any. i havent put on, but am staying about the same.

how do others manage.. ? life is full at moment .. i am in process of emmigrating from uk to nz, and its a lot of work and stress, and emotional ties and guilt about leaving my family etc, my job is full of stress and i have a terminally ill grandmother, not that i am moaning about these things at all !!! i just feel stressed an tired at mo. with very little time to focus on diet and gym and planning food. i know that i am also extra stressed worrying the band doesn't work. so more and more stress leads to more and more eating..i know some people will say 'make time for you' etc, but the realists out there will know that outsides influences are very real and they cannot be pushed to the side. i know they will always be there.. but sometimes they a lot more harder to deal with than other times.

i went to a support group the other day, the people were all very nice, but it was a mixed bunch who have all had surgery paid by the National health service as their weight was significantly bad for their health (i was self funding), i guess they were all about 8 stone more than me to begin with.. the group didn't fill me with confidence. 2 of them had their bands removed and now have 'sleaves' as they didn't work. One woman has a band with restriction but has only lost 3pound in a year !? and the others had bypasses but were still pretty large people.. there was one woman who the band had been a great success for. and another band person who was on her way to losing weight. none of them have ever been able to eat what i can 'post op'. ..

i can still eat a full plate of food, bread, carbs etc, and a can of coke . I worry that people think i am forcing it in, but there is no way i am doing that. its goes down just at it has all my life

the only difference i really feel with the band is i have more wind from the downstairs area, sad but true , ha ha

so i guess i will see what the doctors says this week,,

oh dear i worry this email sounds a litte 'feel sorry for me'. soz its not meant to.

i will ask what type of band i have, i know its the swedish band, but don't know much it holds , how much of a fill i have, or if its horse shoe or all the way round. ? i think the more i know the better i will feel.

and i defo got to shop around for the price of fills, or wil have to donate a kidney to pay for them, does anyone know how much a kidney ways,, may be a quick way of losing weight, ha ha .

cheerio and thanks for your much needed and much appreciated support.

Paula, sounds like you are having a time of it--you are right, life comes in waves and sometimes are worse than others and nearly drown us. Hope things get better for your soon.

I didn't have any restriction at all until this last (5th) fill and I still don't have much. Luckily, my doctor schedules fill appts. 2 weeks apart and then you can just call to cancel if your fill is adequate. I can still eat everything and plenty of it but once in awhile I get a pain in my left shoulder and start burping a lot. No PB yet but I think I've been close. Hopefully the next fill after I return from my grandma tour at the end of the month will be THE ONE!

What patience we need!

Thank you so much for your post! I was banded in November to the tune of 9000 dollars. I have lost a total of 25 lbs but 10 lbs was pre-op I didn't have a fill until the end of Feb. I felt some restriction right after the fill (probably swelling) but nothing when that went down. second fill late April and here I am again without losing any weight. As before the surgery it's hard to diet without seeing results. I am going in for a fill the end of July and hoping for some restriction. I have had the overeating/not chewing enough pain and I think that would be a good deterent to overeating. Good luck to you. Please don't give up- you've invested too much. I'm rooting for you!