Carol-TX

I had my surgery in March of 2011 in Texas and weighed about 269 at that time.  It's been a hard journey for me.  At first I went to a few meetings with other lap-band folks, but was so discouraged that the others were having much success, and I wasn't.  I tried to talk about it, but it seemed that they only wanted to hear up-lifting success stories, so I quit.  I am so addicted to sweets that it is hard for me to just say "no".  Few people understand what that is like.  If I had the will-power to do all the things required of me with the lap-band, I would not have been overweight in the first place.  I only eat a little bit, but I eat all day and binge all night.  My desk drawer at work is stuffed, and I would be humiliated if anyone saw it.  I live alone, but my cabinet, freezer, and fridge look like a family of 6 lives here.  Before I eat at all in the morning, I don't crave.  I dread eating breakfast, because I know that the cravings will start.  And sure enough, "boom", all day and night.  I want something sweet, then I want something not sweet (like crackers/nuts, etc), then I want something sweet, and it goes on and on and on all day.  Sometimes I yell at myself  in my head, "STOP EATING!!!".  I think there is something wrong in my brain.  I know how to eat properly and what to eat.  It makes me feel absolutely stupid that I don't do what is right.  As a school counselor, I talk to the kids about saying "no" to drugs and maintaining good behavior, and doing the right thing when others around you are not - and I feel like a jerk, because I ask them to do what I can't do with food.  I'm starting over as of yesterday, 11-06-15, because my esophagus is stretched.  I had not seen a bariatric doctor in a few years until last year.  My new doctor gave me one little bit more filling last spring.  In early summer, she noticed that the barium did not go down, so she held off any more filling.  Just yesterday, she said that it was still stretched, so she unfilled the band.  Bummer.  Now I have to be on liquids for a month, and hopefully the esophagus will go back to normal.  I understand that this is a common problem with lapbands.  I had not told her that it hurt to eat breakfast, and that I coughed a lot after I ate and at night when I went to bed.  I didn't realize that  it was associated with a problem regarding the band.  I thought the soreness was from eating so often.  She told me that the stretched esophagus is allowing me to eat too much and not feel full.  She also told me that it stretched because I over-eat and when you do that it backs up in the esophagus and stretches it.  Maybe I needed this wake-up call to jar my thinking and get me back on track.  I feel good about starting over.  We'll see what happens.