What kind of discomfort with food?

mistybreezes · January 30, 2005

I haven't gotten to the food stage yet of my banding but I have read a lot of threads where people say they "can't tolerate" certain foods. I am just wondering what kind of effects you mean when you say you can't tolerate something? Is this like severe pain, throwing up or just a feeling of bloating? Is it ever possible to tolerate a slice of pizza again? That is the one food I seem to want more than anything, even though I didn't eat it much before surgery. Has anyone else noticed that their tastebuds seemed to change after surgery? I mean I used to love sweets and candies and now anything sweet is like 100 times sweeter to me and it is just too sweet for my tastebuds, like juices (I haven't made it to real food yet).

I am still really fresh out from surgery but man have I had a hard time with this. Did anyone else feel like they just were completely drained of energy? I feel like it takes every ounce of strength I have just to walk across the room most of the time. Hope this goes away soon!

claraluz · January 30, 2005

Don't get ahead of yourself. The first step is to recover from surgery. It does take some time.

pizza is not the easiest thing to eat and certainly not the healthiest, but I have been able to eat part of a slice of thin crust pizza. I wouldn't try it for a long while, though. Not until you have plenty of experience with your band and know what a soft stop feels like.

There are certain foods that just don't go through the band easily. They get stuck and cause pain, salivating, and sometimes a PB. These foods are different for everyone, but I think most people have problems with bread, for example. It's kind of a trial and error process to know what you can eat and what you can't.

Hope you feel better soon.

Nancy

blossom · January 30, 2005

Misti, did you know that there is a pizza flavored Campbells Soup at Hand? I have not tried it yet, but since your craving pizza....

I think of food that I cannot tolerate as being those that consistantly give me any kind of problems going down, whether is it pain or sliming or gas. I haven't actually thrown up yet but some people do.

Alexandra · January 30, 2005

Hi Misty,

Just about any food can cause discomfort, if you eat too much of it or take too big a bite. Discomfort is different than being unable to tolerate something, and I think the latter is really rare with the band.

I say I can't eat eggs, but by that I don't mean they cause me distress. In my case it just means that the first bite doesn't go down well, so any more than that and I feel it in my esophagus. That amounts to being unable to eat them; one bite isn't eating (in my book).

Other things are harder to eat than they were pre-banding, but scrambled eggs are the only thing I really can't eat more than a bite or two of. Thin-crust pizza goes down OK for me, though one slice is WAY more than enough.

There are certainly various kinds of discomfort, and various degrees. The trick is to learn when to STOP eating so that you escape the totally avoidable discomfort of having eaten too much--of anything.

mistybreezes · January 30, 2005

pizza flavored Soup? I haven't seen that one yet, maybe I will look for that next time I go shopping. I wish I wasn't fixated on pizza so much. I dream about it lately, isn't that just weird? There is this one pizza place in town that has really good pizza and I would just die for one half of a slice. Oh well, I will wait and be good. So far the liquid phase has been a rough go for me, so I am wondering what the mushie phase will bring, hopefully better than this!

julie · February 5, 2005

hi it took me a full 3 weeks to feel ok after surgury i still get tired easerly but it is getting better i have cravings for dark meat turkury with gravey thats weird i start eating on monday scared to death

Jonathan · February 9, 2005

Pizza flavored Soup? I haven't seen that one yet, maybe I will look for that next time I go shopping.

I had some for "breakfast" today. It is AWESOME. And I think about 140 calories. I REALLY like the Campbell's Soup-At-Hands!

donali · February 9, 2005

Misty -

You are likely to find that once you really start chewing (and therefore actually TASTING - lol) the food you eat, there are some things that just don't give the same satisfaction as pre-band. pizza is one of my trigger foods - I still had it ocassionally after banding, but when you have to chew chew chew before you can swallow, and only take small bites... Well, frankly, eating some things became work. And since apparently a lot of the pleasure I got from food was the quantity I could eat in a short amount of time, eating certain things just didn't give me the same sense of pleasure as before.

And then some things have a downright nasty taste/texture when they're actually chewed... lol I'm not a big fish fan anyway, but I did like shellfish. But let me tell you - chewing chewing chewing a rubbery clam or shrimp or lobster that maybe doesn't have the freshest freshest taste is a big turn off - but I would never have noticed before and would have eaten them with gusto, as it was more bite/swallow with the taste of tarter sauce or cocktail sauce instead of the taste of the actual food.

After you get full a few times on half the amount of food you used to before, you will look at a hamburger or a sub-sandwiche and your head will just say, "NO way am I going to be able to eat all of that." I was never even tempted to try a sub-sandwiche, because I knew how long it would take to eat it with small bites instead of the giant bite/chew just enough not to choke/swallow method I used pre-banding.

And when the eating of a particular food is no longer pleasurable, you'll be surprised how uninteresting it is to you any more - even if it used to be one of your favorite things.

Mariposa Bella · February 9, 2005

Donali, you are so correct, it is really hard work to eat some foods and actually when I first started eating solids I had a very rough time, It was kind of disgusting to keep chewing the food in my mouth, so that I could swollow it, like so many of us, I used to just kinda chew and swollow and keep gobbing down the food. My favorite food is seafood and I just loved shrimp, but I can't eat them now, its too rubbery for me to try and chew it enough to eat it, it is really quite disgusting, yuk... I have eaten pizza, but I don't eat the 3-4 slices I used, I eat 1 slice and I have to chew it really-really good. I sometimes just eat the cheese and the pepperoni cause the bread gives me problems and it takes to much time to chew it down.. So I still satisfy the urge to eat it by just eating the cheese and toppings. You know what I wish I could have, a cold, cold beer. I'm wasn't much of a beer drinker, but now that I can't have it boy do I crave one. My husband and I went dancing Sat night and he was drinking beer and boy did it look good, all cold and frothy, boy oh boy, do I crave beer, do you know if there are any beers out there that don't have gas, cause if there are, I want some...

slenderella · February 9, 2005

The thing that I craved was cottage cheese with tomatoes in it....I dreamed about that for almost 2 weeks and then had to peel the Tomato it was sooo good...weird thing to crave...I have found that any food can be a problem, especially if I am trying to talk and eat at the same time....slow down and chew then I am fine...Chicken gets caught alot for me- but every thing else if I am careful is ok.

Nancy