Hi everyone, just wanted to share my stupidity with you. I seem to be posting these "learn-from-me" novels every few weeks. I just want to help people avoid doing the same things that I do. :w00t:

I got my first fill a few weeks ago, and I have done well with it. I was eating a lot less, and as I added foods I enjoyed, I didn't seem to be having a problem. My issue is that I enjoy a lot of food.:eek:

My body has been trying to tell me to stop! I have never been "stuck" nor had any unpleasant problems, but over the past week, I have had stomachaches. I generally ignored the problem. Two days ago, I had not eaten all day and had to go to the grocery store. I didn't want to impulse-buy, so I stopped at good 'ol Jack in the Box and got a 99 cent chicken sandwich. The sandwich was really big for a value menu, and I was full after about a quarter of the way thru. But it tasted so good...I ate it. All of it. I had a lot of discomfort for hours after that, and I cursed myself and made a note to take off the bun next time.

Today I made a new recipe for my family. Skillet pizza. Yum, right? I thought, okay, I can control the crust on this so I will make it very thin, no problem. It was a quick crust recipe and so the dough didn't have to rise, 1/3 cup of beer was used. It also had very little cheese and was topped with tomatoes. Healthy, right? :confused2: I sat down with the fam and the pizza was indeed tasty. After about three bites I noticed it wasn't doing down well. After the fourth and fifth bites (well chewed) I HAD to stop. I started to have quite a bit of pain! I didn't let on to DH something was wrong, so I went about my chores.

About two hours after I ate, I was miserable. I thought for sure the food was stuck. Nothing seemed to be going down, and nothing was coming up. I was crying I was in so much pain. I called my doctor and he wanted me to go to the hospital to check for obstruction. I took myself at 10 at night. They wouldn't give me any meds until DH could make it. He wasn't planning on coming up, as he was staying home with our 17-month-old. I was in so much pain that he finally called his 82-year-old mom to come and sit with the sleeping baby so he could come to the ER so I could get some pain relief. He looked like this when he got the the hospital: :w00t:

After three failed IV attempts (painful) :thumbup:, an XRAY, and finally some meds, they determined I wasn't stuck. My upper belly, however, was very swollen. How embarrassing was it when it finally occurred to me what the by-product of yeast (beer) is when it ferments. Say it with me...G-A-S! :scared2: I had gas in my pouch that was going nowhere fast. The pain meds didn't help, and they won't help with G-A-S! So, I was sent home, humbled and ashamed in front of my (thin, never overweight) DH, afraid that he thought I was a pig, unable to control what I was eating, even being banded. He says he doesn't think I am a pig, but clearly I have been out of control on my portions and what I have been eating. :thumbs_down:

In conclusion, I am sitting here still bloated, my husband will only get four hours of sleep tonight, and I am ashamed that my elderly mother in law had to get out in middle of the night in order for me to cope with my bad choices. I will NEVER, ever, ever, ever eat doughy bread again, if I eat bread at all. :wub:

The moral of (yet another) story from me is please don't be overconfident like I have been. I am lecturing myself when I say pay attention to your body! I know everyone is different but I am still learning how to live with this band and I am learning truly the hard way that it is a lifestyle change. I love having the band, but I have to take care of it or it won't help me.

I hope I have possibly helped somone. God bless. :thumbup:

Wow! Bless your heart. I am glad to know you are doing better now. Spme of the others are showing you some tough love. Know that you can do this and that we all make mistakes. good luck!

80s Chick, thanks for giving us a good cautionary tale. Chewing, chewing, chewing and stopping when I'm full, not when the plate is clean, is really hard, but I'm trying to train myself pre-band so post-band I've got some practice under my belt (er, band).

I hope you're feeling better now and can hold on to this memory in a good way.

Cheers,

Lisa

I think we all have been there, done that in one form or another. The day before my second fill, I knew I was relatively "open" and was dying for a little french fries with melted cheese, chives and sour cream. I thought, I'll splurge this once but take it easy and tomorrow is a new day. I was so horrifically sick it wasnt even funny.

So we all know the rules, but some of this is trial and error as well. A bad experience makes us avoid certain foods in the future. So all we can do is chalk these up to experience, put it behind us and make different choices going forward.

Thank you so much for sharing this. It is a good reminder to those of us who haven't yet had any problems, that we DO need to remember we have the band and we need to go slow, and listen to what our bodies are telling us, because things like that can happen to any of us if we don't follow the rules. I'm sorry you had to go through that and I hope you're feeling better soon.

Thank you all for your support! I am still having problems today. I ate a banana this morning. It was soft and I chewed it to nothing, but I was in pain all day long. This evening I ate a couple of bites of a peeled, soft plum and a couple of bites of mashed potatoes. The pain is a little less so I am going to stick with the soft stuff here for a few days until I get back to feeling a little better. Now I know what it is like to have food problems, I will not have to go back to the hospital...although I am really going to try to prevent this from happening again!

My doc always recommends going back to liquids for a few days after an episode like you just had and in your case I would say your stomach really needs the break from food. Liquids for at least a day or two would probably do you a world of good.

I am a new bander also. I was banded May 22. I have gotten a couple of things stuck, one happened to be yesterday. I was eating a corn taco shell (broken up in a salad) and I think I didn't chew it well enough and I felt it get stuck. That was the closest I have come to vomitting/PB-ing. I actually walked to my bathroom. But, I just tried to relax and I took a couple of sips of Water and it went down. I am really scared to throw up with the band because I am scared to death of having a slippage and having to have another surgery. I have had something get stuck about 3-4 times and each time, I waited it out (it usually takes about 5 minutes for me) and then it goes down.

I think I read somewhere on the forum or talked about it at a meeting, but if I am out at a restaurant, I have the waitress bring a to-go box with my food, and put between half-3/4's of my meal in the box. That way it is out-of-sight and out-of-mind, and you don't feel like you are depriving yourself as much. It really works for me.

I am however, having a harder time when I eat at home. I have a tendency to want to snack. I have tried to do it with healthier choices, like sugar free Jello pudding or 100 cal. snack packs tho. What's funny is that i was never this much of a snacker, so I don't know what happened. Maybe i just didn't realize it as much before.

However, with my main meals at home, I look at how much I am giving my 2 year old and I give myself roughly the same. I haven't been weighing my food although I probably should start. Plus I don't know if my band is tight enough yet. According to the diet plan my doc gave me, I should only eat one egg in the mornings, but I am able to eat two. So I don't know if my portions are quite right yet.

Sorry if I got a little off topic.

I don't weigh or measure my food either. I am taking a hard look at how I have been eating. I am just going to start over...LOL.

I too have had frequent gas build up problems, I drink way too much and often have Coke Zero with is a no no! I have found that when I am feeling really blocked up I take some Gas-X thin strips and it will disssapate that gas right away and give some much needed relief. My situation is wierd. I have not had a fill yet but have some fluid in the band which was actually left during surgery. So I do have some restriction and gas has certainly been a problem for me.

80's chick I am so sorry you had to go through this, but chalk it up to a very hard lesson to learn! It could have been SOOOO much worse! You could have damaged your band or your body. It sucks you had to go through this, but maybe it is what your body needed before you really caused problems. Your pride will heal hunny! Good luck! And BIG hugs!

I didn't know that I would still be hurting two days later. :scared2:

I guess I probably have some inflammation or something. I am just trying to take it easy...

80's Chick:

You probably irritated your pouch big time. Please just have liquids for a couple of days and then you can try mushies for a day or two and then solids. You need to rest your pouch and the best way is to have the liquids.

One of the tricks that I've learned is that I put the food that I intend to eat into a 1 cup container, then put it on my plate. That way I'm not tempted to eat more than a cup, and most of the time I cannot eat what is on my plate.

Take care and I hope all of your lessons aren't learned the hard way.

Sue

OMG - your story made me laugh out loud....I am sure it wasn't funny as you were going thru it but a good lesson to us all.

For me, being stuck and GAS are two entirely different types of pain. Being stuck is like a flaming golf ball sitting right behind my sternum. It's intense and I slime. the pain I have from gas is different. It's a progessively dull ache. It builds. I burp a little and my stomach gets bloated. My doctor told me that some people are more prone to swallow air while eating and even talking. That seems to be me. Excess air in the pouch hurts. sometimes I can force burps to get some relief, but if it's a gassy food that I've eaten, it just keeps coming. That's when I turn to my new miracle drug. CHEWABLE GAS-EX. It's saved my butt 5 or 6 times now. won't go anywhere without it. I even keep it in my desk at work. TOTAL relief in less than 10 minutes. Ahhhhhhhhhhh........

Welcome to the convoluted land of the LEARNING CURVE. Yep, it's a bugger! It only takes one of two of those little instances to give you proper negative behavioral modification (NBM)! Don't feel bad. Most all of us have gone through it in one way or another. Learn from your mistakes. NBM is a VERY effective learning tool!