The Sweet Spot...from a blog by a Lap Band doc

[gkeyt 0]

I read a lot of blogs, and found one by a Texas lap band surgeon. He and his partner only do Lap Band surgery, because they feel the safety profile is the best, and because of its adjustability and removability.

Here's a great post that I saw in there:

In the Lap Band what we consider the 'sweet spot' is the ideal fill. If I had to think about a perfect sweet spot I'd have to tell you about a patient. One of our patients was 66 years old when he had his Lap Band surgery. Over the course of the first 9 months he lost over 90 pounds! But he was confused and every time we saw him he would say "Doc my Lap Band must be broken. I don't feel restriction, I can eat what I want, and I never have food come back up."

That is the perfect sweet spot. The Lap Band was adjusted to the point that he felt control of his hunger and was able to control his eating portion size, but he had no significant restriction preventing him from eating any particular food nor did he ever have any regurgitation of food.

Many people who had lap band surgery find the sweet spot elusive and some people end up with a fill greater than they need because they rely on the Lap Band for restriction rather than hunger control.

If you are having a tough time keeping many foods down or having more than a small number of PBs (productive burps) you might be too tight and need some Fluid taken it.

To summarize, the Lap Band is meant to help you with hunger control. By limiting the amount of food you eat with smaller portions, you can reduce your caloric intake, and lose weight.

I often worry about my possibly less-than-ideal restriction, because so many people can eat a lot less than me and have vomiting/PB/sliming and all the other common lap band experiences. I have not ever had any of these. In fact, I haven't vomited since having surgery, even 1 time. And I can eat a good 2 cups of food if I'm not careful or if I try. But my hunger has been satisfied ever since about my 3rd fill. I do have to be careful about how much I eat--I have to do some of the work too, I can't rely on the band to do it all. And of course this holds true for food choices as well, and grazing, and head hunger/emotional eating...all things the band can't control.

The "work" that the band does is control our hunger...NOT prevent us from eating too much. Do not try to challenge your band and then be surprised that you can "eat too much"--try to learn how to stop before the band "makes" you stop. Feeling full with a band is different than "full" was before being banded--most of us ate until we were stuffed before, but that is way past too much food now. Often the band will let you know if you get to that point, but the trick is to learn NOT to challenge how much your banded stomach can take!

I hope this helps some people out there! Here's the address for the blog if you want to check it out:

Texas Arkansas Lap Band Blog from Texarkana: October 2007

I am not affiliated with this doctor or his website in any way. I just found this out there and thought it might be helpful to others. Best of luck to all.

[Kat817 19]

During the seminar I went to pre banding, the surgeon explained to us that the nerves that signal fullness are located at the top of the stomach....that the only way they were normally reached was through SERIOUS overeating! Such as Thanksgiving Day.

He called them the Vegas nerves or something like that, he was talking, I never saw it wrote out.

He said when the band is placed, it applies some pressure to those nerves as it is tightened down----and it would vary among patients---but that just putting some pressure on those nerves often helped with the hunger we felt. He went on to explain, that much of our overeating was done out of head hunger as opposed to actual hunger, and that the band would not help that.

He said there have been cases where the band must have been placed upon the nerve, as the patient never required a single fill---but they are VERY rare!

I know I have little to no hunger anymore.....and have only had 2 fills.

Good article!

Kat

[gkeyt 0]

That's the vagus nerve he was talking about. It runs from the brain to many organs in the body, including the stomach, and does many things, including having a part in signalling hungar and fullness. There's another procedure that places a nerve stimulator over the vagus nerve in the stomach (it's called VBLOC) to stimulate that nerve and tell your brain it's full--I believe that one is still experimental. But it's the same principle--the fullness at the top of our stomachs, which as you said we didn't used to reach unless we ate a giant meal, stimulates the vagus nerve and the stretch receptors in our stomachs and tells our brains we are full.

Unfortunately, a lot of us who were used to eating like it's Thanksgiving ALL the time learned to get past that earlier full feeling, and keep eating until we were stuffed. That's eating PAST what your vagus nerve is trying to tell you! And we have to learn a new kind of full--one that's more subtle than eating until you can't fit another bite in. I think a lot of people look to the band to tell us we can't fit another bite in, instead of being "satisfied" and stopping. That's why this explanation of the Sweet Spot was helpful to me. :biggrin2:

[chocolate_snaps 3]

Wow thank for that! It sounds like according to this Doc I am close to my sweet spot. That gives me a lot of comfort.

[violeteyes37 0]

Thanks so much for that article. This is actually what I fight with each day. For some reason I want to equate good restriction with no being able to eat food and to date I havent found anything I cant eat and Im now at 10.5 cc in my band almost maxed out. Though just like the guy in the article my weight loss has been great and Im almost to goal. I have to wrap my mind around a new meaning of what good restriction means to me.

[chicamam1 1]

this was a great article. there are alot of ideas what good restriction is which i can tell you as confused the heck outta me. right now, the most i can eat is 1/2 cup, but I can eat anything I want. I dont really have an issue with anything going down. This article as helped me as Ive been told because I dont pb, dont have slime, can still eat bread sometimes that im not properly restricted. What this doc would call perfect restriction is where im at now. and im losing 1-2 pounds a week it seems now. Ive only had one fill and had a 4cc fill. I go back in on dec 15th. The band as worked in controlling my hunger and portions are definatly small. I feel better now with where i am at thank you :biggrin:

[Kat817 19]

I made it to goal, eating just as you describe. I lived an entirely normal life while doing it! No jumping up and running through restaurants to PB--no going to dinner with friends and being unable to eat what they served. I had cake with my grandkids on their birthdays---I just did not want to eat the whole thing!

Through the years, I have eaten wrong----too big of a bite too fast, and made mistakes that caused me to slime a time or 2! And I learned that eating donuts hurts too much to be worth eating them-they swell on me sooooo bad! But life can be normal without glazed donuts!!!

I have to travel 6 hours to my band Dr. so getting really frequent fills was not convenient!

I have the older, smaller band, which is 9.75ml, and holds a max of 4 cc.'s. I had 2 fills through the time to get to goal, and then had a total unfill for a Tummy Tuck, back in April, and am just now considering a small fill. I am managing my portion sizes, but am beginning to feel some hunger, which is leading to not so great food choices. But I will NEVER opt for being too tight!

I think you are right on target! Yay you!!!

Kat

[Doxie 2]

Thank you for posting this. As a brand new bandster, this really cleared some of the confusion for me regarding fills and what to aim for.

[Jachut 487]

I agree with him in principle but the thing is everyone is so different. For me to only be able to eat half a cup, I would have to be so tight that pbing and sliming would occur more often and there would definitely be foods I couldnt eat.

But aiming for "not being able to eat bread" or "not being able to eat more than half a cup" is pretty pointless. You have to listen to your body more than that.

[HeatherO 7]

I think too many of us have suffered reflux issues, slippage, pain after eating, etc. just by having unrealistic expectations of what restriction should be. The band should help you but not cause suffering.

I think this is an excellent article and thank you for sharing.