Hi Everyone,

I hope y'all can give me some insight, because I'm at my wits' end. I've had my Realize band for 5 months, and the last 4 have been hell. I vomit at least once a day, and have developed severe reflux. For the past 2 days, I have not been able to eat/hold down any food, not even soft foods or "liquids" such as grits.

I've lost 56 pounds, but I am absolutely miserable. I don't want my surgeon to remove my band, but I can't continue to live like this. I am terrified of gaining this weight back, because I couldn't get it off without the band before.

Has anyone else experienced this? Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

Yes i put up with it for 3years i thoght it was normal i stoped loosing after a while as i was e ating slid foods as that was all i could take i was sick about 4times aday i got a unfill and life just changed so much [only sick about once a week]lol ihave lost most off my weight only 12ib to go and feel great. It souds to me you need a slight unfill it will make you so much happier good luck jacqueline

I am experiencing the same thing. I am also from Houston and my surgeon was Dr. Robert Davis. I have lost 58 pounds since February. I am experiencing my second episode with vomiting and severe acid reflux. I have not slept in three days because of the reflux. I can not even keep waterdown. I am going to the Dr on Monday, but I have had to wait three weeks for this appointment. I am not a happy patient. I tried to go to another Dr, but they are all weird about insurance and I can not afford to pay $200 cash. It is only Thursday, I don't know if I can wait until Monday. I may go to the emergency room. I am doubting my decision to have lap band and am considering removal.

I am experiencing the same thing. I am also from Houston and my surgeon was Dr. Robert Davis. I have lost 58 pounds since February. I am experiencing my second episode with vomiting and severe acid reflux. I have not slept in three days because of the reflux. I can not even keep waterdown. I am going to the Dr on Monday, but I have had to wait three weeks for this appointment. I am not a happy patient. I tried to go to another Dr, but they are all weird about insurance and I can not afford to pay $200 cash. It is only Thursday, I don't know if I can wait until Monday. I may go to the emergency room. I am doubting my decision to have LAP-BAND® and am considering removal.

If you can't even keep Water down you should probably go to ER because you'll become dehydrated which is very serious. I think a couple of the symptoms include thirst and dark colored urine. Please don't fool around with dehydration.

I'm concerned that with symptoms like you are having they made you wait 3 weeks to get in to see them. I am very fortunate that my surgeon's office says to call 24/7 if you're having any issues and if necessary they'll come in to the office overnight to do an unfill. They say if you're uncomfortable for more than 20 minutes give them a call. The aftercare is just as important as the surgery and without a good aftercare team it's hard to succeed with the band.

I hope you feel better soon. Let us know how you make out.

Sue

I am experiencing the same thing. I am also from Houston and my surgeon was Dr. Robert Davis. I have lost 58 pounds since February. I am experiencing my second episode with vomiting and severe acid reflux. I have not slept in three days because of the reflux. I can not even keep waterdown. I am going to the Dr on Monday, but I have had to wait three weeks for this appointment. I am not a happy patient. I tried to go to another Dr, but they are all weird about insurance and I can not afford to pay $200 cash. It is only Thursday, I don't know if I can wait until Monday. I may go to the emergency room. I am doubting my decision to have LAP-BAND® and am considering removal.

How interesting...my surgeon is Dr. Garth Davis! I am sorry to hear that you are having a similar experience. I only received one fill, and from the moment I got that fill, the hell started. My surgery was June 12, and with the exception of vomiting that kept me in the hospital overnight, I was fine. The first month was great--I lost steadily and had no problems with eating. I started having problems keeping food down soon after my fill in July, which caused them to remove 2 of the 3 CCs they put in. I continued to get worse, so in September, they completely unfilled me. You would think that I would be able to eat, but instead, I developed severe reflux and vomiting. Most days, if I can get a half-cup of Soup down without vomiting, that's an achievement.

Dr. Garth wanted to put me in the hospital Thanksgiving Day, but I held him off by going on all Protein shakes until my scope procedure on Tuesday. He suspects that I am suffering from "band intolerance"--apparently my body isn't liking this band at all. He wants to revise to RNY, but that scares the crap outta me!

I keep trying to tell myself that this isn't my fault, but it's really hard to accept that the one method that has actually worked in my weight loss battle may be making me very sick.

I appreciate the feedback everyone, and I'm glad to know that I'm not alone, particularly in my saga with the Davis Clinic.

teachermommie I hope you're doing all right. Did you have the band removed? Did they do any revision surgery?

Hi BJean...I did have the scope procedure on 12/1, and the results were normal. No damage to my esophagus, no slippage, nothing. Thankfully, I've actually been able to get some soft foods down these past few days along with shakes--I almost cried when I was able to get down some macaroni and cheese for lunch yesterday without throwing up once. (This was even more special to me because I'd left my Breakfast and lunch shakes at home by accident, and the mac and cheese was my "emergency stash"!)

Dr. Davis told me at my appointment on Thursday that he was able to "stretch out" my band a little bit with the scope instrument, which explains the vast improvement. I can literally feel a difference--before he told me that, I noticed that I didn't feel nearly as tight, and the constant pressure in my chest had eased.

He is monitoring me for the next month, and if I do well with the shakes/soft foods diet, he'll hold off on removing the band until I get closer to my goal weight. I am cautiously optimistic, and feeling a LOT better. Thanks for checking on me!

My doc has been extremely conservative with fills. That's good and bad. The good is that I've only been overfilled a couple of times in the past 3 years. The bad is that I have sometimes seen him as often as every 3 or 4 weeks trying to get it right. That's a whole lot of punctures to the port. I had unrelated surgery last summer and had to have all restriction removed. I've finally been able to have 2 fills and nothing seems to get me back to a point where I am losing weight. I'm seriously tired of the whole routine. So I've been thinking about either just having it removed or getting revision to a sleeve. That seems very drastic, but I've regained nearly all the weight I originally lost and the weight I lost due to the other surgery.

So I've been reading the revision stuff and it sounded like maybe you were getting to the point where you might have to do something drastic too. I'm really glad that your doctor has been able to give you some relief! Hang in there.

Hi Everyone,

I hope y'all can give me some insight, because I'm at my wits' end. I've had my Realize band for 5 months, and the last 4 have been hell. I vomit at least once a day, and have developed severe reflux. For the past 2 days, I have not been able to eat/hold down any food, not even soft foods or "liquids" such as grits.

I've lost 56 pounds, but I am absolutely miserable. I don't want my surgeon to remove my band, but I can't continue to live like this. I am terrified of gaining this weight back, because I couldn't get it off without the band before.

Has anyone else experienced this? Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

I would LOVE to talk to you about this! I am going through the exact same thing. I was banded Maty 20, 2009 and am miserable with the same problems you are having. I feel really alone about this whole thing.

It sounds like several of you have your bands too tight. You have to make sure that your doctor is able to schedule you in a timely manner so you don't wait 3 weeks for resolution to a potentially dangerous problem. It's really an easy fix once you get into the office, if the problem actually is it being too tight.

Does your surgeon have a nurse practitioner or physicians' assistant that can do adjustments when he or she is unavailable? If the other office has more flexible scheduling, they may be worth the extra money.

Adam is right on!! It is very important that you get some of the restriction removed - ASAP.

Not trying to worry you, but there can be some bad consequences for having the band so tight you vomit that often. Vomiting is never a good thing anyway, but while occasionally is somewhat acceptable, vomiting every day is not.

I don't know if your doctors aren't aware of what you're experiencing, or if they are inexperienced doctors. But you need to read up on what can happen if your band is too tight. There are threads here at LBT that discuss slipped bands, reflux and all that. You need to take good care of yourself. Losing weight is great, but you should not be experiencing the kind of problems you're having in order for the band to work properly.

Hi TeacherMommy,

I'm kind of going thru the same thing. i was also banded in June 09. Did great for a while. Had one over fill and an unfill and was doing great up until middle of November. It's been 4 weeks now and I vomit almost every day. (I've been unfilled for months now, so I know I'm not too tight). Contant reflux despite prescripton meds and tums. I also have horrible left sided abd pain. (my port is in my right side). Pain is when I eat and up to an hour or two after I eat. NOTHING helps it..heat, ice etc. I'm just happy to keep any food down. I'm eating little ( I stop due to pain or feel it regurging) I'm sick of vomiting and most of all this left sided pain. What makes me MAD is the fact that I called my bariatric dr after the first week of vomting/pain and was told to "eat less" and "chew better"....gee, I didn't already think of that one!! And don't know how you can eat less than 3 small bites but I did. Called back another week later to let them know that it was getting worse. They told me "do liquids for a week or so". So, I did with no relief. So, now after 3.5 weeks I went to my family dr. They did a CT abd/pelvis and said The band looked too high and got me right into bariatric office (at least THEY could get me in!!) The surgeon told me the band was fine and that my GP didn't know what they were talking about. Then they suggested a FILL!!!! Since I'm not losing a lot of weight (down 45). I told them they aren't touching me and I need relief from this issue before we mess around with fills. weight loss right now is not a priorty, living day to day with constant pain is my priority. Have never lived with this much abd pain/vomiting. I've never been treated so poorly by a medical team either. I try hard not to be "that patient" that calls with issues. Funny, that pre-op they said "Oh call anytime blahblahblah". Now that it's 5 months post op they won't even see me unless my GP is calling them demanding it!!! i can't live like this much longer. I told them I was ready to rip it out. I'm not afraid of gaining weight back. if anything, I'm more motivated to do it on my own and continue on with the gym. But, they said it wasn't medically necessary to remove so insurance won't cover it. Joy!! So, where I'm at is more testing to see what's going on. My GP scheduled me an upper GI for next week. I just want to know what is going on. So frustrated and upset. And with the holidays now, it's hard to get these tests done in a timely manner. Just so upset with this whole thing:frown:

Oh my. I really hate to hear of another person having the same kinds of problems.

You hang in there and keep insisting on finding out what is causing the problems. I'm glad your GP is following up and has you scheduled for more diagnostic tests. As for your bariatric surgeon, it sounds like maybe he isn't very experienced. He couldn't possibly understand the potential consequences and still put you off like this.

My heart goes out to you! Please let us know how you get this resolved. We'll be thinking about you.

You too Carriemc!!

Hi everyone

I just had to jump in and tell everyone about all of my problems too. I was banded in March and at first everything was great. Then I had a few fills and my life has not been the same since!! Most days I can't eat, or if I do most of it comes back up. I was one of the original cheerleaders for the band and now I want to scream DON"T do it!!!!!!! I followed the rules and still my band has to come out. I'm scheduled Wednesday to have the revision done. The bad part is I'm self pay and I have to pay for 2 surgeries in less than a year!!

My problems started with pain on my left side all around the port site. At first I thought I had pulled a muscle, and in hindsite I know what I did to cause the problem. I was trying to move a box that was way over my head (and heavy) and I pushed it a little too much. I pulled the port away from the wall. So for 2 weeks I have been in severe pain. Oh well I wanted to do a revision eventually but I was not planning quite this soon.

So good luck everyone!!

Hey Fab, I was very sorry to read your story. But I have to tell you that I am jealous that you're scheduled for revision and I'm not. I can't wait to get mine out and no telling when I'm going to be able to afford to have it done.

There is a patient in my doc's office whom I've befriended who had the same symptoms that you have. She had a revision to a sleeve and she is one happy camper!!

I hope that everything goes well for you and this is the answer to your problems.

Btw, I've lifted and pulled and pushed things down low and way overhead, time and time again. I do not believe that you could have pulled your port loose if it was properly installed. I'm no doctor, but if the things were that easy to dislodge, everybody would be in a world of hurt.