Trinity

Hey everyone. Im looking for responses from banded people that have been doing this for a while I will start by saying.... My parents both had gastric bypass(completely different surgery) and they eat whatever they can and then all of a sudden they feel like they have eaten too much and they couldn't eat another bite... If they let the "fat person" in them take over and keep eating it usually results in throwing food up. This is how they eat every meal though... their mind gets the que from their stomach that enough is enough and they don't have a problem stopping. My question is, when and why do you stop eating? I know ideally we are all suppose to weigh out the correct amount of food and only consume that no matter how our body feels... this is obviously difficult. Do normal bandsters have a full feeling that makes them stop? do you just know the size of your normal portion and stop because of that? Do you eat just until hunger is gone, but you don't have that satisfying full feeling? My question is what is the trigger that makes you start wrapping up the leftovers? Thanks PS (I have been banded 1.5 years and still struggle with this... read more of my situation here http://www.lapbandtalk.com/topic/145712-first-byte-syndrome-and-heart-burn-suggestions-needed-for-15-years-post-op/

Hey everyone I will start with my story- Banded aug 2010, my doc is really conservative with fills and crazy busy so i didn't start feeling a bit of restriction or real weight loss until march 2011.... now i am 80 lbs down. Start 300, currently 220. As soon as i started getting fills i realized i have what is called first bite syndrome. It sucks. As soon as i eat anything my throat starts contracting, i develop a rediculous amount of thickkkk mucussy saliva and i feel pretty intense pain. Usually lasts 10 minutes, and then i can eat pretty normally. Smaller bites and pre-drinking hot Water hasn't helped. My doc says that i am just one of the unlucky few that has this problem. I have dealt with it over the time and became use to it. The problem is that i have trouble defferentiating between feeling full and the pain from the FBS. There are some meals where i just stop on the third bite just because the pain isn't worth it, but i usually just wait the 10 minutes and eat. Well, currently i keep having feelings of heartburn/FBS problems when i am not eating. Sometimes i feel like my body goes crazy on the anticipation of a meal... like driving home from work. I hear everyone say that if you are having heartburn you are probably too tight.... my problem with this is that i don't feel like i am. After i get over the FBS and 10 minutes i can eat pretty large portions before i feel full. Most food goes down easily (bread is main exception, that stuff is bad) meats like chicken, beef, pork i can consume decent sized portions before feeling a full feeling. So i feel stuck, here i am with heartburn... probably needing to unfill, but reluctant to because my portions are pretty large still and i want more fill. I know my situation is unique with FBS and maybe i am not really having heartburn, but just more complications with my body reacting poorly due to FBS. Does anyone have any comments, suggestions, advice? I am making an appointment with my doc as it has been like 5 months and 30 lbs since my last fill. Thanks everyone

hi all So i am having trouble knowing what is going on with my band. When i eat ,i eat very slowly, but i never get a significant FULL feeling, or do i feel like i really need to stop eating. even though my band is in the range when people get full restriction, i know that for alot of meals i can eat way more than i know i should as long as i eat slowly and with enough time. My question is, what is full for you? My parents both had gastric bypass, and their full comes when they know that if they take another bite they are going to loose all of what they ate. i never feel like i come to that point. ( i know, different surgeries alltogether)... but i was wondering if lapband people have that sensation? or what do you wait to feel for when you are full? I know the best thing to do would be to weigh out what im going to eat, and just walk away from the table as soon as i hit that, but, like dieting, is hard to fallow through on. I am going to buy a scale tonight in an attempt to help this. (also how much weight should a lapbander eat? i forgot) Thanks, any insight appreciated. PS!!!! i have realllllly bad first bite syndrome. As soon as i take my first bite, no matter how big or small, i feel alot of pain and my throat and mouth fill with lots of mucussy slime. Definitley not comfortable, but i have had it for 6 months now and have learned to tolerate it. I have trouble desciphering a satisfied full feeling from the pain/uncomfortableness of the FBS.

Thanks for the weights and amounts that you stick too. Im going to use those amounts going forward.

Thanks for the help. i feel frusterated when my parents eat a little bit and they say "im so stuffed, i couldn't possibly take another bite" and i know that i havn't felt that way in months. The mental part of this whole experience is wayyyyyyyyyy more challenging than i thought it would be. "am I still hungry or do I just want to eat more?" is the game that i play everyday. I never knew that i was so programmed mentally to want to keep eating even if hunger is not an issue. Im going to start weighing food, and simply stopping when thats gone. making the band work is like everything else in life... you need to set yourself up to suceed.

I have considered this, but I really dont feel like it is too tight for a couple reasons. 1. i was having first bite problems when i only had 4 ml in a 14 ml band 2. When iwas around 6.5ml fill, after the first bite problems i had no restriction and i could eat just like i did before surgery. 3. after getting over the first bite problems and waiting 5 minutes, i can eat larger portions than others say they can. i hear too often about people feeling like they have no more room, or cant eat anymore... and i have never felt that. Oh yeah, and my weight loss has been so-so. Took me a while to get restriction (doctor was too busy to do fills, waited 2 months inbetween fills sometimes, he was conservative and only put like 1.5 ml in per fill) But im down like 45 pounds all together right now, id like to say im im going down 1 lb a week.

I have had feelings of regret before, but not during or after the surgery. sorry to hear that you are having regrets. My regret feelings came quite a while after the surgery, while i was in "bandsters hell". I was so frusterated because 5 months out of the surgery i hadn't felt a thing and couldn't even tell that i had the surgery. (in my recent posts on a thread i started you can see my story). I felt like it just simply took way to long to get to the restriction point. But now that i have restriction i can say that i am so happy to have had the surgery. It is an amazing feeling to eat a small portion of food and feel completely satisfied physically. (emotionally i still want more food, but i can tell myself no). Its the coolest thing eating half of a small chicken breast and being full for 5+ hours. And then there is the benefit of seeing the lbs come off. As i write this, i am eating leftovers from a pulled chicken sandwich... This is the third meal i am making of this pulled chicken sandwich. (dinner the night i ordered it, and then two lunches.) That is the best feeling in the world. knowing that a month ago i would of eaten the sandwich plus fries in the one sitting, and now i can spread the sandwich without fries over 3 meals. IT IS AWESOME! So like most else will say, just stick with it. The rewards will justify the feelings of regret and hardships.

my doc said that the reason for different sizes is the amount of tissue around the persons upper stomach. Guys usually are banded with the 14 because they have more tissue. My doc said a male could have a 10ml band but it is safer and easier to find sweet spots with a 14 ml band. My surgeon said that in his office nearly all guys get 14s, while girls get 10s.

So i finally am experiencing restriction on what i eat. Here's my story. I was banded 08/13/10. Lost 20 lbs pre and post op. After the after surgery feelings went away my appetite came right back and i felt absolutley nothing. I couldn't tell that i had a surgery. I was slightly better at dieting but my portions were still pretty large. I never really gained or lost, and stayed right around 20 lbs lost. My doc is rediculously busy, and the closest he could schedule fills were usually 7 weeks apart. he told me that he would like to do fills every three weeks, but he never had enough appointments to do that. He was also conservative on how much saline he put in. That was frustrating because i just wanted it to go faster and it was taking forever. so now 5 months later i am finally feeling restriction!!!! Its a crazy feeling. As soon as i take bites i feel like it is hard to swallow. I feel like i can feel the food going all the way down, and i feel like i need to eat really slow and chew a lot. Sometimes it almost feels like im choking on my food, but when i sit for a minute the feeling goes away and i can eat more. But depending on what i eat i feel like i cant eat any more, and wouldn't enjoy it if i did eat more. For the last 5 days i have only ate like 700 calories a day, and i haven't had the awful torture feelings that i did when i use to diet. Im so excited for the future, and just wanted others in "bandster hell" to see that it will eventually work with time and patience.

Yeah, i wouldn't say it hurts to eat, but it does feel uncomfortable. But its weird because the uncomfortableness happens as soon as i swallow my first bite. Its like food is having a problem getting down my throat. I was only filled on wednesday night(5 days ago) so maybe my problems are still from swelling or just that the fills sometimes take 2 weeks to really adjust. Before my last fill i was at 7.75 on a 14ml band, and i explained to the surgeon how i could eat anything and everything i wanted, so he said "lets give you a good fill this time and hopefully get some restriction" . He never said what i was filled to. Like i said earlier, he is really conservative, and i cant imagine that he gave me more than 1.5 I will watch how i feel and let the surgeon know if the strange swallowing sensation keeps happening.

Thanks, yeah i do worry about eating enough Protein and other stuff. I must admit that im sort of in a dilema because i just dont want to eat much more quantity than i am. I feel like if i wanted to get in the 1000-1200 calorie range i would have to start eating foods that get their calories from fat, instead of protein like i have been trying.

Yeah, i too have heard of starvation mode. i have definitely lost a couple pounds so i don't think that is a problem with myself right now. I had always imagined that was for people eating 300-500 calories. I was eating pretty bad before getting the fill, so i was up a couple pounds, and i have lost those and cruising lower.

Hello all, first time creating a topic! i have been reading this forum for the past couple months, and even though im sure this has been discussed i must of missed the topics. I had the surgery on 8/13 and when i got my first fill i asked my doc how many ccs i have and what are the limits. He said that i have a 14cc band, and i had 2.0 mls in at the time of surgery, and my first fill was another 2.5-3.0 mls. He said that normally people dont feel restriction until about 8.5-11.0 ml. So far i havn't felt much of anything from my band... i could easily put away food like i use to. Im not discouraged as i know that banding is the longer and slower but safest version of weight loss surgery. My main question is whats the difference in the size differences in bands. most people seem to have 10ml bands, but i have a 14 ml band. I know 4ml is such a small amount of saline... but percentage wise its a 40% increase in the size of the bands that most people have. advantages, disadvantages of having my type of band? any resources from the web so i can do some reading? Also i know my doc is conservative in how much he does on fills. I have about 5ml and i want to ask him so badly to just add 4 ml. but i have a feeling he will only add about 2. anyone else get frusterated and ask their doc for more than the doc would normally do. Thanks all for the help. Keep up the fight, if we stay motivated we can beat this.

Hey guys, just a quick update! I had my fill yesterday. Doc said i was at 4.75 ML and now i am at 6.5ML. That is less than 2 ML added. Yeah definatley conservative compared to the person that said they had 6 ML added on thier first fill. lol. I asked about why he used a 14 ML band. He said that Guys in general have more tissue and lining around the stomach so the larger band is needed simply to make it fit. He said that girls usually have no trouble fitting the 10ML, but guys rarely can fit the 10ML. So that seemed reasonable to me... it probably isn't the only reason, but the more i read about peoples experiences, the more i realize that different doctors have completely different rules.

Isn't this the hardest part about life... we often know what to do and how to do it, but simply don't. They call this part bandsters hell for a reason... it is difficult and frusterating because you are at where you were before the surgery. but, now we have more guilt because we feel like we made a mistake and our time/money was waisted. The best advice is to just stay on the right path. You knew going into this that this surgery was not a magic bullet and going to fix all of your problems. Everything worth achieving in life takes ambition and sacrifice. You made the right choice in having the surgery, now we need to just take more and more babysteps in making right choices. my best advice is to slowly switch from your old ways if you cant quit cold turkey... things i did/and am doing Food: i work alot and find it hard to make meals and not eat fast food... If its hard to stay away from fast foods then alter what you are getting there... at first instead of getting a hamburger get a grilled chicken sandwich and fries... and after you feel comfortable start cutting out the fries. Working out: start out with little steps... ie, take the stairs instead of the elevator... and then try walking around the neighborhood for 30 minutes instead of watching the extra re-runs of 2and a half men... then actually start going to the gym... Stick with it, you made the first big step... dont quit on the journey now. Dont regret not having bypass, this is far more healthy in the long run especially for younger people. My parents both had the bypass and they have to take LOTS of pills several times a day to supplement their diets. And they still strugle with dieting every day like i do. After having the lapband and seeing both of my parents have bypass i can honestly tell you that its not about the procedure you had, its about your personal dedication and devotion to improving your life. Good luck! Keep pressing on!

here we are, all in the same boat! i was banded august 13th and am experiencing all the same things. I haven't really lost any weight since the initial weight loss from the presurgery diet and post surgery pain. I am going in for my second fill tomarrow. Im really excited. So far i havn't really even been able to tell i have a band in. I feel absolutley no restriction and can eat like i did before surgery. I tell my friends and family that i can't wait for the first time i throw up. haha, i just want to feel like this band has done something! Keep up the work and dont get discouraged. Victory will come soon enough!