After suffering severe pain in the chest and ribs, and unable to keep anything down on Tuesday, I finally put in a call the my doctor on Wednesday when it looked at shaping up to similar to Tuesdays no liquid/no food outcome.

Living 1.5 hours away from the hospital (in Abu Dhabi), I really was looking on advice on how long should I "stick it out" to see if the fill (1.5cc) would settle down.

Wednesday had certainly been easier than the day before as I had successfuly got down a small bottle of water and a carton of Boost but I was still just not comfortable at all. (Think pain for a single swallow, chest obstruction and sore ribs emanating into the back, sliming and foaming were the least of my worries!)

Although the doctor was not seeing patients due to Wednesday being a surgery day he immediately provided a time to see me. As he was unsure of whether there were any other underlying causes to my inability to keep things down I was warned to expect a barrage of xrays and tests.

A colleague from work offered to drive through to Dubai with me and off we set. The presence of a work colleague was both comforting and worrying as I had taken the choice not to tell anyone at work that I had had a LAP-BAND®® done - they knew I had had stomach surgery but no more. I just did not want an office full of diet police and having read some of the recent blogs I am glad that I made the choice I did.

Anyway I digress.

On arrival in Dubai I was seen by my doctor, a decision was taken to remove .5cc and viola... comfort again. Just 10 seconds to overcome 36 hours of huge discomfort.

A benefit was the loss of 2kg which was more than welcome having plateaued the previous 2 weeks. However the ability to at least get some fluids in ,given that is is currently 50 degrees celecius during the day now that Summer has hit , was ultimately more important.

Today is day 4 of my extended liquid phase - I certainly have restriction now and hopefully I am back on track for loosing.