My 21 year old daughter was just banded yesterday. She came home last night, and actually felt fairly well this morning. BUT NOT NOW!! She is starting to experience the shoulder pain, the gas and everything else I have read about on here. She has not gotten on this website like I have advised her to read about all she is going through, so I was hoping to bring it to her. If someone, anyone could email her...new banders, old banders...and just reassure her that it will go away and that everyone else is going thru it to...and maybe someone could even talk her into signing up to use this wonderful website that would be awesome. Her name is Whitney and her email is NITWHIT78@AOL.COM. She really needs encouragement and only someone who is actually going through it is going to be able to fully understand. I hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving and please, please email her. She is really feeling down and scared. Thank you!!!!:grouphug:

I just sent her an e-mail. Hope she joins here!

I wrote your daughter and hope she does well. I know how she feels it's very scary at first. She will get better and be thrilled with this in the future.

Some things that really helped me through this stage were as follows:

* The best fix is time, and walking around. Even though you don't feel like you want to get up and move around, it does help you feel better later. Staying in bed does make it worse in that it takes a lot longer to feel better.

* Taking a really hot bath also helps, but this might sound counter-intuitive. You are not supposed to submerge your incisions in Water so near to surgery, so I only had enough water to lie in it with my belly completely exposed to air. It really helped relax me and get rid of some of the pain.

* Gas-X helps some people more than others. I got some limited relief from it.

* There is also a chewable tablet called Nausene that you can get in grocery stores, pharmacies or Wal-mart that really helped with my nausea in the early days. I found that when I was first banded, it was drinking water that made me nauseous. I only used this a little over the first couple of weeks post banding, afterwards I never needed it anymore.

Perhaps some of this information will be helpful for her and you can share it. I didn't want to send her an email out of the blue when she doesn't know me. This website is very helpful . . . even if it is just to read and not to post. I would highly recommend it because you can find great support here.

please let your daughter know about the twenties thread on this forum! it is probably one of only 3 places i visit on this forum regularly, but it is sooo nice to talk with people my age going through the same things. i am 20, and there are a lot of people there 18-26ish so we all can kind of relate with a lot of things. it looks like she has been emailed by a few people so i don't want to bombard her with emails, lol. now that she has gotten a few hopefully she will come to the site and see how helpful it is. if you would still like me to email her, let me know and i can.

i started out wanting to be all anonymous and alone but i really got into it after a few months, pictures and weight updates and all. it really helps to know people have got your back. please let her know she is welcome to come find me on here! or i can find her! and feel free to private message me if you two need anything. you sound like you are a good mom, by the way! i always complain to my mom that she is hovering too much or that she needs to let me be independent... but secretly deep down i really like it. shhh.. don't tell my mom! i hear she reads this site too! (hi mom!)