well i had my surgery on aug 11th and here i am. i did it! but let me tell you my experience because all i read about in this site was how painless and drug free this postop time is. now don't get me wrong i don't regret my getting the band at all. :wub:for some reason i just remember reading about how some people only needed their pain meds once. Not me! When i first woke up was the worst part of it. I wasin pain and i could hardly move and yet they were asking me to roll around for an x-ray! :mad2:the sholder pain is the worst. i think i remember people saying it's b/c of the port but whatever the reason my left side hurts and makes it hard for me to breathe. now as long as i take my pain meds i can knock out and just sleep through the pain. Now i hope not to scare anyone and again i don't regret it. just telling it like it is. :crying: on a better note i have been drinking Water and beef broth with no probs of nausea. juat a little nausea due to the anesthesia first day post op.

again i hope i don't scare anyone:blushing: but maybe for those who are thinking they might be back to normal 2 days out.... well just don't plan on it because we are all different.

This is probably my main worry for the surgery is dealing with the pain afterwards. I have pretty horrid reaction to Morphine of Vomiting vomiting vomiting, in fact a few of the pain meds I've tried after surgery have led to the same thing. I hope they can give me something for the pain with enough ANTI nausea stuff to combat my reaction

When the anesthesiologist came in to see me before the surgery, I let him know that I had a reaction to anesthesia once that caused a lot of vomiting. He immediately gave me a shot of anti nausea stuff. That took care of it - no nausea at all. And the pain medication I received was lortab - no morphine. It worked really well and did not cause any nausea.

The pain is quite controllable with the medication and it doesn't have to make you sick. You just need to remember that you may not be up running marathons and feeling normal for about a week. You can do this:thumbup:

I had an overnight stay in the hospital and I wish I had outpatient surgery!!

The majority of the pain I had was hospital-caused. My first IV in my left hand gave out 15 hours after surgery and my arm started getting puffy. So we had to switch to the right arm. Well, veins are really deep in the right and hard to find-so the nurses (I had 2 trying to find veins) poked a couple of times and were searching around inside my hand with the needle-had to look away because it was causing me pain and anxiety. Blew a vein and then had to poke AGAIN. This one hurt like heck -3 times to get it in and I cried a bucket of tears. :mad2::crying:

That IV lasted an hour and a half.

Then they switched back to my left arm and put it in my forearm. They (this time I had 3 nurses trying) put lidocain on the arm first and that helped-just a single sharp pain and they got it in on the first try.

It was 4am by this time.

I then slept in my CHAIR til 5:30 a.m. Why the chair? Because the other source of pain came from getting in and out of the piece of crap hospital bed.

OMG..I hate that bed. It made me cry:crying::smile::crying:. With the IV fluids, I had to go to the bathroom about every 3 hours-round the clock. And the bed was too high off the ground (at its lowest setting) so my feet couldn't touch. On top of the pain, I was seriously freaked out that I would rip something internally, like my port! It was so hard getting in and out because you can't turn or use your stomach muscles to balance and shift.

It would have been so much better for me to have been home right after surgery- way less pain and way more sleep:sad_smile:

Today I'm 3 days post op...not too bad. Belly looks about 7 months pregnant, a little pain in the port area, and my back hurts. So much better since I got home:thumbup:

Yes it did hurt..... When I woke up I felt like I had been hit by a truck.... But I had a smile on my face... Kinda like after you have a baby.... I knew that this was a good pain. I knew that this was a gonna get skinny pain. I am at post op day 5 and have to say that I am Soooooooo much better. My stitches are starting to itch... so let the healing BEGAN.... :thumbup:

Oh I hurt and I didn't hide it. My first post after my op was 'sore and sorry for myself...'. But it does get better after that first week. That first week I was in pain, was grey and drawn from only having had liquids, and so so tired. But now 2 + weeks post op, you wouldn't think it to look at me, and I feel pretty damned normal (bar the much reduced food intake).

Ro, I was also given anti-nausea tablets in hospital as well as to bring home. Hopefully you'll be okay this time.