Hey all.

So there's a bunch of us in this group, all split up into our different banding days. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have one master thread as we move through the month, in which all of us could post as we go, from the pioneers going on March 1st to the finalists on March 31st.

I'd love to talk about our anticipation and any worries as we approach our banding date, for people to talk about exactly what happened from the moment they walked into the hospital door until the second they walked out, about how recovery is going, about weight loss and plateaus, about non-scale victories and challenges.

I was thinking that if we all contribute to one thread, it'll form a more substantial channel for information and support. At the moment, I was thinking that we might be too spread out into individual date, and that a central thread would be a really good backbone for the group, in addition to the date-specific threads.

What do you think?

Fenton

Today I went to the park with my kids for them to burn off some energy. I have a very limited wardrob at thsi point and was in the middle of laundry, so I literally had to choose between 10 yr old sweatpants and jeans that did not close at all. We are talking zipper all the way open, button spread 3 inches apart. I chose the jeans. I put on a huge sweatshirt over it, and had on my down jacket to cover as well, but I really hope this is the last time in my life that I will venture out like that.

I am so ready to start my liquid diet tomorrow and can't wait to be banded.

Christine

Christine

I could keep going about all that happened. The bed didn't work, the compression booties stopped working about midnight, pain shot (that I took only to get some sleep) gave me a headache, I used the sore throat spray on the scrape the Anesthesiologist made on the top of my mouth, ate alot of ice, tried to sleep, 3am ripped out of sleep by the fire alarm clanger next to my bed, the people running through the fire door also next to me,(the false alarm was never explained but since my hospital was in the fire district my husband volunteers in I knew I was in good hands), 8pm 12am,5am 8am temp and blood pressure, 2 more Lovenox shots, multiple trips to the john (about 500cc each for those that were counting) 8am trip to radiology for the barium and x ray. They messed up the first picture and had to do a total of three which meant that I drank 16oz of barium. Then Im sent home with instructions to drink 1 ounce every hour. (I asked about the 16 0z of barium, noone had an answer or comment) a pain scrip (later at the pharmacy I found out it was one that Im allergic too) and the instructions printed out from the nutritionist for my meals for the next 5 weeks.

I dont think I want to go to the hospital again.

At home all things are better. Heating pad for the shoulder, liquid Tylenol(good stuff!) for pain, lots of juice and broth with unjury added.

Im a happy camper now. Very minimal discomfort. I don't think I will ever stop passing barium. (ya-TMI)

Im off to take a shower. Yes Fenton showers are wonderful!!!!! You can't have too many.

Hugs to all.

Hahaha, Amanda! Sounds like you had even more of a rough ride than I did!

The important thing is, though, you're through on the other side, and feeling OK - plus you have a couple of tales to tell! And don't worry - as you probably suspect, everyone in bed in the Recovery Room is so zonked out that being flashed didn't register at all, and all the Recovery Room staff have seen it all before.

I'd like to stress that I had absolutely NO nausea. I'm told they give you three anti-nausea meds while you're out, and when I came to, they gave me a shot of another one. It really wasn't a problem for me; when I talk about nausea in the post-op period, it's mostly my innards waking up and going, "Hey??? What the...???"

You'll have a chance to speak with the anesthesiologist. Tell him or her you've had bad problems with nausea post-anesthesia in the past, and ask them to make sure you don't this time - you don't want to be disturbing that band. My money says they'll already be on top of that problem.

just finished life skills on 2/26

at that class you were still finishing up your 12 weeks nutrition classes, right??

maybe we will be roomies at the hospital

i have finished my 10 days with cpapa and can now get the clearance from pulmonology....full speed ahead

email me at aol lynnt1215

Let's face it, no matter how you slice it, getting a lap band installed is not "fun". But this is a decision we've made, and it's an incredibly great decision.

I think that I posted that when I went for my cardiology clearance, the cardiologist congratulated me, and told me it was the best decision I've ever made. And I think it will be.

All of us who've come to this board have struggled with our weight for a long time. We've allowed our eating habits to control our lives, to derail our lives, to threaten our lives.

And we've decided that now is the time for that to stop. It took us years of sick indulgence to get us to the desperate place we've reached now; a couple of days feeling under the weather isn't a bad price to pay for getting brought back to life...

And Christine: it's good that you have a very limited wardrobe right now - you're not going to need those big clothes for much longer.

nothing better than loging on to your favorite thread and finding 4 pages of posts to read,,,Amanda , that recovery room story was hilarious , i laughed untill it hurt , that could be a stand up comedy bit LOL.

I feel much better about the surgery today, I have 7 more day's to go and am looking forward to getting past this. So thanks to everyone for posting the supportive notes and helping get all of us through this together,,,also i am using a weider protein powder fruit splash mango flavour , and it tastes ok, with 1 gram of carbs and 20 grams of protien per serving,,,,,,I am trying to have 2 protien drinks and one low carb high protien dinner per day for my post op diet , the optifast will not stay down.

I was originally banded December 2004 but recently had that band removed and replaced March 6th. Looks as if most of my Dec 04 bandsters have flown the coop so...since I was rebanded in March, can I be a shrinking shamrock?

Glad to hear everything went well with your rebanding, just curious why did you get your band removed and rebanded?

Hey all! I was banded March 5th. They found a hernia in there and fixed that too. I'm way more sore than I thought I would be but feeling better each day. I am having a strange pain though. I feel like I get a gas bubble stuck and can't burp and at its worst I get a horrible sharp, shooting pain into my left shoulder. Anyone experience this? I'm wondering if they pinched a nerve repairing my hernia.

yep that about sums it up. I think it is a burp/gas that can't make its way out and is pressing on the nerve at the base of the esophagus that is responsible for the referred pain in the left shoulder.

the following is from Anatomy Notes: Referred painand is the best example I have found.

"If you woke up with a pain in your shoulder, you'd probably think something was wrong with your shoulder, right? Maybe you slept on it the wrong way, In most cases, your hunch is probably right. Pain in the shoulder usually indicates an injury or disease that affects a structure in your shoulder, such as, say, your subacromial bursa or a rotator cuff tendon. Makes sense, doesn't it?

But you might be way off. Sometimes the brain gets confused, making you think that one part of the body hurts, when in fact another part of the body, far removed from the pain, is the real source of trouble. This curious (and clinically important) phenomenon is known as referred pain. For example, it's unlikely but possible that your shoulder pain is a sign of something insidious happening in your liver, gall bladder, stomach, spleen, lungs, or pericardial sac (the connective tissue bag containing the heart). Yup - conditions as diverse as liver abscesses, gallstones, gastric ulcers, splenic rupture, pneumonia, and pericarditis can all cause shoulder pain. What's up with that?

Neuroscientists still don't know precisely which anatomical connections are responsible for referred pain, but the prevailing explanation seems to work pretty well. In a nutshell, referred pain happens when nerve fibers from regions of high sensory input (such as the skin) and nerve fibers from regions of normally low sensory input (such as the internal organs) happen to converge on the same levels of the spinal cord. The best known example is pain experienced during a heart attack. Nerves from damaged heart tissue convey pain signals to spinal cord levels T1-T4 on the left side, which happen to be the same levels that receive sensation from the left side of the chest and part of the left arm. The brain isn't used to receiving such strong signals from the heart, so it interprets them as pain in the chest and left arm.

So what about that shoulder pain? All of organs listed above bump up against the diaphragm, the thin, dome-shaped muscle that moves up and down with every breath. The diaphragm is innervated by two phrenic nerves (left and right), which emerge from spinal cord levels C3, C4, and C5 (medical students remember these spinal cord levels using the mnemonic, "C3, 4, 5 keeps the diaphragm alive"). The phrenic nerves carry both motor and sensory impulses, so they make the diaphragm move and they convey sensation from the diaphragm to the central nervous system.

Most of the time there isn't any sensation to convey from the diaphragm, at least at the conscious level. But if a nearby organ gets sick, it may irritate the diaphragm, and the sensory fibers of one of the phrenic nerves are flooded with pain signals that travel to the spinal cord (at C3-C5). It turns out that C3 and C4 don't just keep the diaphragm alive; neurons at these two spinal cord levels also receive sensation from the shoulders (via the supraclavicular nerves). So when pain neurons at C3 and C4 sound the alarm, the brain assumes (quite reasonably) that the shoulder is to blame. Usually that's a good assumption, but sometimes it's wrong."

Hey, Tanya - get used to it, at least for a while! When you feel it, it helps to walk for a while. It jiggles the bubbles or something, which lets you burp, et voila! No more shoulder tip pain!

Also, I don't know how many of these forums ya'll frequent but I wanted to share this post with you: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f178/only-me-help-53631/

Kat finds a way to really describe why following the surgeon's orders is so important. She really makes it easy to understand and it has given me more insight into sticking to my full liquids for the next 5 weeks.

I thought it would be helpful to some of you as well!

Whimsy, Glad I am not the only one who has 5 weeks of full liquids. Mr. Hamn and Cribbins orders must be the same.

Hi there all,

I just found this page (5 days post-op) and I'm really glad I did!

It has been very reassuring to read through all these posts, those who have come before me and those who are yet to come

We share the same concerns and feelings for the most part.

Fenton, I was banded on 6th of March also, by Blair Bowden in Brisbane, Australia. He trained under George Fielding and took over Fielding's practice when he moved to NYU. Of all the people I have talked to about this (many bariatric professionals), they say the two best lap-band surgeons in the world are Fielding and Bowden. Looks like we're in good hands!

Also, can anyone give details on how to add the "Shrinking Shamrocks" logo to my signature? I've tried the "copy and paste", which shows nothing, and the "insert picture", which says the logo is too big!

Anyone?

Cheers fellow banders!

Annie.

OK. I figured I wouls squash my fears and post a pic of my tummy showing the incisions 3 days post op so those who haven't been banded yet can see pretty much what it's going to look like. There are 5 small incisions.