:confused2:I have not had my first fill yet, I am only 2 weeks out from surgery. The good thing is I still have restriction and can only eat 1/4 to 1/2 cup of food at a time.

However, I was wondering, why most people say it is better to have a fill with fluoro? What is the reason? I am seriously uneducated with regards to the fills and was wondering because I see it on the forum a lot.

Any feedback is appreciated! :cool2:

First of it all welcome to BandLand...

Next , id like to start off with stating that its a mater of opinion which one is better.. I think that Flouro. fills are good in the sense that the surgeon completely controls how tight your band is based off how he see the barium flwing through the stoma..

But as far as im concerned i like the regular fills just fine.. You have to be able to listen to your body and band and you decide on the restiction.. Im pretty sure that for newbies some surgeons will decide by only doing a little everytime until they hit the right restriction.. but it realy depends on the Dr.

Me and my dr. have a pretty relationship in which he trusts my judgement on restriction level.. But then again i am 16mths post-op

GOOD LUCK on your journey and let us know how your first fill expirience went!! (by the way dispite what you might hear it really is quite a painless experience)

I think Jeni might be getting simple fluoro mixed up with the full barium swallow test. Some places will opt for the full-on barium test. Some docs use fluoroscopy (kinda like an xray machine) to better visualize the port. That way, they can hit the port with only one "poke" of the needle, and don't have to dig around. Having said that, I can palpate (feel with my fingers) my port very easily, and apparently so can my doc, since he's never had to use fluoro to give me my fills.

I think Jeni might be getting simple fluoro mixed up with the full barium swallow test. Some places will opt for the full-on barium test. Some docs use fluoroscopy (kinda like an xray machine) to better visualize the port. That way, they can hit the port with only one "poke" of the needle, and don't have to dig around. Having said that, I can palpate (feel with my fingers) my port very easily, and apparently so can my doc, since he's never had to use fluoro to give me my fills.

i was just basing it off my own expirience, i always had to drink the barium whenever he did my fills under fluoro.. (i only had it done under flouro twice) I'm pretty sure each dr has thier own way of doing it.. my drfigures if he aleady has me under the fluoro he may as well have control over the amount of fill i get..

As far as finding the port, the only time had a hard time was for my first fill.. And he said that it would get easier with each fill as i lost weight..

And the second time he did it under fluoro was 1 yr post op to check if everything looked ok and to control the amount that flows through my band because i was having heartburn issues