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I am glad that you have checked in with us. I live in the Fort Worth area myself and this summer has had all of us stuck in the house for long stretches. Hopefully this weather that we have this week will stay a little while. I think that you have done great since you were only banded in April. I hope that you continue to feel better.

I think the thing is people get frustrated. You're right, if you really could control your eating you wouldnt have needed the surgery. But if surgery and the possiblility of mucking it up isnt enough to keep you on the straight and narrow, I really dont know what anyone can say to you. Everyone goes through it, true, but really, how committed were you? Were you ready for this? That's not judgemental but for heaven's sake, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back on the program. Support is not going to come in the guise of people validating what you're doing. That does you absolutely not good. Support comes from people suggesting what you can do to make this easier. Just becuase you're on liquids is no reason you have to starve. Liquids can be calorific, contain fat and Protein and keep your body going. Make yourself some Soup with real meat and some Pasta in it, for example, blend it up really well, thin it out with broth to a consistency you can handle now, and have as much of it as you can handle at a time, as often as you need not to be hungry. Make a real smoothie with real fruit, yogurt and milk rather than a Protein shake, get some fibre into yourself to feel some satisfaction. You can even blend up family dinners with broth to get the flavour or real food - NO food is off limits, just in solid form! There. There is no reason to go hungry. And as for "wanting to chew something" as so many people say, you just have to suck it up. Its only a couple of weeks.

Cindy, I am sure you will do great! I ve told you before and will say it again. You are one of my biggest motivators on this site. I do have a question for you though. Dont know if it is something for your seminar though. When you have gotten fills and gotten to your "sweet spot" as I hear it called on here, are you done with getting fills then or does somehow the Fluid leak out or what??

Boy, listen to you! All professional and stuff.

Doreenviv, I had the same problem for a while about needing to PB right after I started eating. I think I was doing it just about every day for months, and when I talked to my surgeon about it, he explained it like this. Your stomach has three strong muscles around it. These muscles are the ones that contract and relax, moving food through your system (and also cause your tummy to "growl" when you're hungry). For a Bandster, we often don't have a lot in the stomach if we are not snacking between meals. When you sit down to eat a meal, these muscles are eager to go to work and are very stimulated when you smell the food, see the food, and first bite goes in and chewing starts. The stomach anticipates the food about to arrive and the muscles clench up all the way to the opening of the band. So if you eat too fast, with bites that are too large, the food can't go down at all and you'll start sliming and usually end up bringing it back up. My surgeon told me that the first 2 to 5 bites are critical in a meal. So, what I've done is literally take a pea-sized bite as my first five bites, and take about 30 seconds between those bites with my fork down. I chew until it's disintegrated, and I'm not really swallowing as much as it just disappears. Once my stomach realizes that there's more food coming, it relaxes and I'm able to eat and not PB. This may not work for everyone, but it took me five months to finally get some answers to this and I have not PB'd since I started doing this except for some scrambled eggs the other morning (which I'm always tight in the morning and usually I don't eat at all). I also found that definitely not drinking during a meal has helped and was also a cause of PBing - I make sure I don't accidentally drink by not even having a drink next to my plate. If I dump a bunch of liquid on top of anything I definitely will be seeing it again! As for the two hamburgers - I haven't been able to sucessfully eat white soft bread since the day I was banded, but that's just me. With fills, your band opening is about the circumference of your pinky finger - it's not easy to get larger items down it, especially if it swells up. Good luck, I hope this helps you as it helped me!

PB stands for Productive Burp and sliming is not short for anything, it's just sliming. When something gets stuck while you're eating, you start sliming. It's a mucousy "slime" that's the result of an influx of the enzyme used to break down your food because it's trying to get rid of it. Sometimes the slime helps get it down, but sometimes it comes back up, which brings us to the PB. If the sliming doesn't get the food down, then it will come back up, which is what people are referring to as a productive burp. It's not quite like vomiting, but it is a regurgitation of the food, and the slime will come up with the food. <when sliming happens, I wouldn't really say that you can feel it happening, but you do feel a thick mucous in the back of your throat> Hopefully whatever was stuck will become dislodged and then you will fee MUCH better. When you are stuck it is a very uncomfortable feeling and it's like someone is sitting on you/you're having a heart attack. I didn't experience being stuck stuck until my third fill (6 cc's in a 10 cc band). I just have to make sure I chew my meat up before swallowing. The old habit of inhaling food or starting off eating fast because of being super hungry CAN NOT happen anymore. I have had to consciously think about slowing down my eating and chewing more.

Again- I simply don't know why you would sabotage your weight loss that way. Maybe a couple of bites to get it out of your system. If you can't change your diet from pre-band then post-band won't work. No need to respond. I'm truly just trying to help.