Hi

I was banded Oct 31 and had ZERO restriction until last week. I got my fourth fill and now have 4.9 in a 10cc band.

I DO feel restriction...in fact, I feel very tight and have that golf-ball feeling at almost every meal.

However, I am STILL hungry! There is no "full" feeling.

Is there a way to live post-band where you have restriction without pain, and no hunger between meals???

If so, HOW?

I think I have a problem with liquids. I don't seem to be good at stopping drinking before I eat and then waiting another hour to drink. I get thirsty!!!

Thanks so much for any help.

Ginny

This is a great question! I hope you get some good responses. I've yet to have a fill and I'm luckily not too ravenous at this point with what I'm eating, but I've often wondered this myself.

I don't know if I'm normal or not, but I never get a "full" feeling. Instead, I eat a few bites and feel a tightness in my chest. Sometimes it's painful, but, if I stop soon enough, it's just uncomfortable. I take this as my signal to stop eating. Sometimes I even still feel a little hungry, but it goes away very soon. I can only eat a few bites before this happens. I used to wait until the "plop" feeling; however, my thought on that was this: my understanding is that the band stops us from overeating by filling the top pouch with food. Since the "plop" feeling is food transferring from the upper pouch to the lower pouch, that defeats the purpose of the band and means I am eating too much. So, even though I only get a few small bites to eat (read: beween 5-10), I know that in a few minutes I won't be hungry anymore.

But, to answer your question, no, I never have a "full" feeling anymore. It is either uncomfortable in my chest or actual pain. Both make me stop eating!! :-)

I am no expert, especially since I do not have restriction yet,but since the food does not travel to our lower stomach right away, I don;t think we'll get that same old "full" belly feeling. I think we'll need to re-learn what "full" feels like. I believe "full" will be higher up in our chest.

It's a new process of learning the new signals our bodies send to our brain.