Hi everyone, I have been lurking here for sometime and appreciate being able to read about everyones experiences here.

I am a self pay, newly-banded as of 7/23/07.

I had a very easy surgery and recovery thereafter. My problem is that I was supposed to do 1 week of clear liquids followed by 2 weeks of full liquids. I did fine the first week, except there was a mishap with a slurpee (for those after me, even the fruit ones are carbonated) so its a bad choice.

Week 2 and so far this 1/2 of week three I have been doing my full liquids plus taking bites here and there of my family's food that I cook.

It doesn't seem to bother me, and today I overdid it and ate a full bandster size meal. I feel fine, but now I am worried about future consquences. As of right now, I promise I will not cheat myself any more as I am just being plain stupid.:help:

Anybody experience this?

You are not alone, but you can also see how one bite snowballs into something more very quickly.

You have to stop, NOW.

Sure, you think you'll be fine, most folks say "I didn't notice anything and it went down okay, I've had no problems." Do folks think that as soon as we swallowed the chewed food that light would flash and alarms would ring, or that daggers of pain would pierce our stomachs? The damage probably wouldn't show up until down the road possibly a year or more in the form of a slipped band. So yes, while it's okay right now, later it might not be.

Why not chew?

The reason for the liquid diet is because the band gets "seated" on the stomach and held in place by scar tissue that forms during the weeks we are taking in liquids. The stomach is a muscle, and that muscle has to churn and undulate to digest and move food through. Liquid requires little stomach movement to process. When we start to chew something, that lets our digestive system know that food is coming down, fluids begin to be secreted to aid in digestion and the stomach starts moving in preparation to start the breakdown of food. The band is held in place on the front of the stomach by sutures in the stomach where it is pulled up and over the top of the band, then sutured to itself. There is nothing holding the back in place, the surgeon tunnels behind the stomach to pull the band around and then scar tissue forms to hold it. That scar tissue can't form properly or as well if the stomach is churning and moving to digest.

Hope this explanation helps.

I know that some docs let their patients eat earlier than others, and that's fine for them, but you need to follow your doc's advice.

Good luck! Remember it's only a few weeks out of your life, how long have you been fat? I'm guessing a lot longer than a few weeks. You can make it through this!

Thank you, Faith for your quick response. You explained it nicely and I can see how the process works. I don't want to have to go through the surgery again or have repairs. I hope that I have not done too much damage.:cry