I am almost 4 mos postop and had 4 fills already. After 3 fills I was not losing any weight and did not feel restriction even when I had 8cc in 11cc band. Last fill I told my doc that I was very discouraged with the whole lapband thing. He took out all the saline from the band which was 7cc and put in something called xray contrast fluid. He didnt tell me how much he put but he told me it takes less volume with this fluid and I should be tight. I never heard anything like that for fill other than saline, so I was curious if anyone heard this before? I do feel restriction better than before and cant eat rice and bread which get stuck. thx.

No, that's new to me. Sounds like a promising alternative when you can't good restriction with a normal saline fill. I had to have my band overfilled to reach restriction, so if I ever have problems keeping restriction in the future, I'll be sure to ask my doctor about this. Thanks.

I was curious and looked it up. The first article doesn't mention using the Fluid for greater restriction but they discuss using it when looking for a leak in the band. Here is a link that shows some really cool pics of what the lapband looks like inside us.

http://arturorodriguezmd.com/lap-band-leaks

I also found a thread on this site called symptoms of slipped band? and they said this:

"Our surgeon also said that because our doctor was using only contrast fluid to fill the band, it somehow gets thicker and slowly causes more and more constriction on the band. He says they (mexican surgeons) have learned that they should use only half contrast and half saline solution. He also mentioned that the saline slowly and gradually evaporates or somehow is absorbed into the body and that is another reason why people with only saline may need another fill from time to time."

Wow...check out this article on different lapband fluids and the effects of each....interesting!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11288845

Edited October 21, 200916 yr by roo22
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This is interesting. Thank you for the links and info!