Hi!

I was banded in june and have had one fill (2.5cc). My question is that when I eat a few bites, I get a sensation of being kind of stuck, that uncomfortable feeling in your chest. In a few moments, the food passes through the band and I can eat more, which I do until I am full. Right now I can eat about the equivalent of half a sandwich until I am full (slice of bread, mayo and meat). My question is, should stop eating when I get that first feeling? Does this happen to other people too?

I guess I am confused between stuck/uncomfortable and full. I am not sure what full feels like now that I have the band. It is a very subtle feeling, if I can feel it at all.

thanks for reading and any advice you can give to enlighten me is appreciated. :wink:

That happens to me all the time. Usually I give myself about 5 -10 minutes then try really, really small bites. If I'm still uncomfortable I stop eating. I figure I don't have to worry about starving as I have enough excess fat that my body could burn.

That stuck feeling almost always is due to operator error....either you eat too large a bite, don't chew well, or are full (not likely in your case)

Make sure you take a smallish first bite and chew it very well. Make sure you are getting 64 oz of water in each day (dehydrated person=tight band)

I know another problem i have had are coldish foods. If your sandwich, bread / mayo / meat, is made of cold foods, this may cause slow/stuck feelings. Also, bread is one of the top foods that give us problems, unless it is toasted. Usually breads or pasta types foods will swell up in our pouch or along the way, that's why doctors usually tell us to toast our bread first.

Hope this helps, btw it gets better. Usually what happens between fills is this:

1st week, whatever your doctor puts you on, mine puts me on 1 week liquid again

2nd,3rd,4th --> normal eating, feeling good restriction

5th week --> starting to notice i can eat more.

6th week --> time for another fill, because i can eat a bit more than the beginning of the fill.

This is why it takes a few fills to hit that 'sweet spot", i've been told it's because there is fat between our band and our stomach, so when we lose more weight / fat between the band/stomach, it gets loose again, so that's why we get fills until we've burned enough of that fat to be comfortable with where our band is. Mine took 4 fills to reach.

Good Luck! :scared2: