I've never had any kind of surgery & I'm worried about the insisions. Is there a standard number or does it vary by doctor? Are they always all stitched or can they use strips or glue? I also wondered where the port is put and does that depend on the doctor also? Since I've never had surgery or stitches (only an episiotomy) I'm concerned about how painful the healing is.

HI Candy, I had 5 incisions...if you want to call them all that!!! One which is where my port was placed, it was the biggest...mine is just a tad left of center, about 7 inches below my breasts. It is about an inch and a half long. The next biggest in size was further left, and just a big higher, it is where they put the band itself into the body the Dr. said, and it is about an inch long. Then I had 1 more on the left side, and 1 on the right down a bit, and one right between my breasts basically...they were all VERY small, just pokes more than cuts.

Mine were actually stitched. Then bandaged. All the stitches except the port stitches come out on day 10, the port stitches come out on day 14. They healed really well considering I have keloid factor, and scar badly.

My biggest issue with healing was the fact that my breasts laid on my incisions...not pleasant, and I worried the sweaty, heat would cause infection, but I used some handkerchiefs that were my Dads and covered them at first, and then they did fine.

Pain in the incisions was nothing, as the time come to remove the stitches, they felt tight, and itchy, achy, I was glad to see them go!

Welcome to LBT!

Kat

I had 5, but one was in my belly button and I never really could see it, so all you see is four. There were stitches below the skin and then the skin was glued and then steri-strips were placed on top. The incisions are really a NON-ISSUE. I've had major surgery on my abdomen several times and this is NOTHING like that. When you are REALLY cut open, afterwards you have this pulled-purse-string feeling, a tightness and a discomfort that goes down inside you. This is more like a topical injury, like you cut yourself. The outside is a little tender, but you don't get the feeling that someone's been digging around in your insides at all.

I have 6 insisions, but my Dr said with a lot of men there stomach is larger and not much room, so they have to make one more insision to be able to pull the Lab-Band around the stomach. I never cheated on my liquid pre surgery diet (Hard going but made it) and lost 17lbs. The insisions don't hurt but do itch a little. I had my surgery 7pm on 10 Sept 07. Since my Doctors visit on 15 Aug to today I went from 294lbs to 268lbs, so I am happy so far.

Pat

I had 5 incisions and all were closed with clear tape strips. I pulled them off after a week and by week two I couldn't even see two of the incisions anymore without searching for them. All of them were really small except the port one which is about an inch and half long, and really that was the only one that hurt and it was kind of like an infected cut kind of pain. I noticed a little discomfort when I went to work in my garden during week two, bending over, pulling and standing up was a little uncomfortable but managable.

I had six. I'm not a man and I'm not considerably larger (BMI 40) than most. However, I had a lot of scar tissue from four previous abdominal surgeries and that may be why I had the extra one. It really didn't matter to me, though, as my tummy is already scarred up so much from the other surgeries.