What causes erosion? Was reading a post on here, talking about puking up blood and almost dying...kinda freaking me out!!!

I don't KNOW, ok? but I THINK it's caused by the band not being properly placed and/or slipping early on, agitating the stomach. Like when people advance their diet ahead of doc's orders they can mess things up enough that they aren't in pain right away but don't heal right and have problems down the road.

I do know that erosion is rare. For me, for example, at my high weight, I had way more chance of a heart attack or stroke than I do band erosion or slipping.

Its thought to be any or all of those things - not following post op instructions (which all are so different, so which surgeon is right?), having your band too tight (and I suspect this applies to an awful lot of people who dont think they are too tight), constantly overeating or pbing, possibly irritating the stomach by taking things such as NSAID's on a regular basis, poor band placement, overagressive, fast filling.

Basically, if you put your band in, fill it gradually, dont overfill it and leave it the heck alone (avoid the constant fill/unfill cycle) and use your head -work WITH your band and exercise rather than rely on extreme tightness to control you, your chances of being OK are better, but even then, it still happens.

But its a very small percentage.