I had problems with my first laband surgery (band was too small and I had horrible reflux, throwing up in my sleep, etc.). It took a year after the total unfill to get insurance to pay for the removal and replacement of the band. In the interim, I gained back all that I had lost plus another 60 lbs... almost 100 pounds. You can say I lost my mind when I found I could eat, but I was also very, VERY busy stuffing my feelings down my throat with food. I was extremely unhappy and felt unsafe in my own home. So, I guess I felt by adding more "layers," I was trying to protect myself, but to be honest, I've always dealt with stressful situations with comforting myself with food... especially late night snacking to the extreme.

Anyway, by the time I had the 2nd surgery, I had gained not only a lot of weight but a lot of new health woes. I had to have knee surgery to fix my knee cap. I had horrible, HORRIBLE acid reflux to the point that I felt like I was having a heart attack again. My diabetes went from type 2 to type 1 and I wear an insulin pump and a constant blood glucose monitoring system (my husband teases me that I'm almost the bionic woman, what with my lapband and its port, my insulin pump with it's "inset," and my Dexcom's sensor embedded in my skin. I had to start using a cPAP machine at night when I slept because of sleep apnea, and I was having some horrible interactions with some of my prescription drugs. Seems I'm anti-chlorgenic, which means certain drugs in my system will adversely interact with others, and my sleeping pill was making me have symptoms of early onset dementia.

Yeah... I was a mess. The new surgery stopped the throwing up for a time, but it didn't resolve the reflux. I'm still taking 40 mg of prescription Omeprezole daily. After my last fill, the "explosive" spit-up is back. I sleep with a hand towel again. But at this point, I'm not quite willing to give up. I have been depending on the band to keep me from over-eating and it does, but I haven't been living by band rules. That has to stop, and now I try not to eat anything at least 2 hours before bedtime (tough, because I have always been a night-time snacker), and I only drink water 2 hours before. At least that way, the spitup doesn't taste like whatever it was I drinking before.

ANYWAY... I haven't been on here obviously for some time, but am having some other weird issues and I wanted to come see if anybody else is having them. I had a doctor tell me that because I had weight loss surgery and have fibromyalgia, I needed to take SAM-e, probiotics, and liquid B complex. But when I do, something in that mix beats the 40mg of Omeprezole up and the heart burn flares horribly in the middle of the night. So I'm reduced to taking ANOTHER 40 mg!!! Good grief, it is hard enough to get the insurance company to pay for one 40mg a day! After two days of waking up in bad pain from reflux, I dropped the SAM-e, probiotics, and liquid B, but I have this sneaking suspicion it is the probiotic, because I've taken B complex before with no problem. Today I added back the liquid B vitamins and the SAM-e, because I really need help with lack of energy and depression, but I don't want to go back on anti-depressants with all the problems they gave me.

My weight loss is stuck at 70 pounds, but I need a fill, and will go get another in January, and no, I won't be telling them about the reflux. It seems as long as I stick to the band rules (no eating 2 hour before bedtime), and switch to water, I have very little problems... but I still sleep with the hand towel to save my expensive sheets!

Has anyone else heard that people who have had weight loss (specifically lap band) surgery need probiotics, SAM-e, Magnesium, d-ribose, and ATF? I did read an article today about a study where they studied "weight loss surgery" patients who took probiotics tended to lose more weight, but they didn't specify whether those subjects had lapband or RNY.