leroyspuds

Easter will be a big challenge for me. Fourteen of us are going out to an Easter brunch buffet. Everyone's plates will be piled high with all sorts of culinary delights and mine will contain a measely anthill's worth of scrambled eggs and token bit of ham. Boo hoo. (Just had a fill today too so need to be especially careful.) :thumbup:

So sorry to hear about your painful and frustrating experience. That really sucks. I had my first fill today and fortunately the nurse had no problem with it. They gave me a shot to number the area first that stung a little, but I didn't even know I had been filled until she said I was done. Did you get a numbing shot? I wonder how experienced that assistant was at fills. Hopefully you weren't her guinea pig! Maybe you should talk to your doc about it. Those fills will help with your hunger and weight loss, so don't give up. Good luck on your next try.

Banded 2/22 and had my first fill today. There was nothing to it. I found out I had 2.5 cc in my 10cc band at surgery and today he put in another 2 cc. I'm not expecting much restriction from this but I hope by the second one I'll start to benefit from it. Down 19 pounds since one week prior to surgery but the last couple of weeks I haven't lost much. In another week I'll be on solid foods. Hope that plus the fills will help get me going again.

Boy I couldn't wait for mushies! Scrambled eggs, mashed potatos, tuna salad, chicken salad, cheerios soaked in skim milk. It was heavenly! I just started soft foods a week ago. Just wait until you wrap your lips around a small hamburger patty! Real food is on the way folks -- just hang on, it goes really fast.

I was banded about 5 weeks ago. Haven't lost a pound in the last 2 weeks. Haven't gained any though. I lost 8 lbs the one week of pre-op diet and 11 lbs post-surgery so far. I seem to be stuck there. :frown: Finished the pureed stage and have been on soft foods for a week. I'm eating the right foods, getting in my Protein and fluids. But three 4 oz meals a day leaves my stomach growling every couple of hours so I've been snacking in between meals too (not unhealthy stuff tho.) Having my first fill tomorrow. I hope when I start feeling some restriction I won't be so hungry. I also need to do more exercizing. Keeping my fingers crossed that restriction and exercize will make a difference! Good luck everyone!

Hi Mel, (this is a long post and only reflects my personal experience) I chickened out twice before actually having the surgery. It took me three years of emotional push and pull to finally have it done. I was scared of the surgery itself, scared of Pbing and food getting stuck, and grieving over never being able to eat tasty foods again. (None of which has been a problem.) During that three years I tried several times to diet on my own to no avail. The final straw was I bought a treadmill and started using it only to have my knee give out on me. I just couldn't win. Because most diets fail the lap band was my last hope. The reality was the surgery was a cinch. I also realized that I could eat tasty foods after a few weeks, just in smaller portions. I don't miss junk food very much and I'm already starting to develop much healthier eating habits. There were some challenges. I felt kind of crappy the first week because of gas pains and I was very hungry during the liquid stages. That all goes by really fast, and my doc said I could have as much full liquids as I needed so I wouldn't be hungry. He said the first several weeks were for healing, not losing a bunch of weight. With the one-week pre-op diet and five weeks post-op I've lost 19 pounds just by sticking to the diet progression prescribed by my doc. Your band will not begin to be operational until you have some fills. Between surgery and finding you're sweet spot with the fills you may be hungry and have to rely on will power to avoid eating bad things and too much food. I'm having my first fill in three days. As my band starts to be more filled up I'll have to eat slowly and chew really well to prevent Pbing and food getting stuck. There are some foods a lot of people have problems with, like doughy bread, and it will be trial and error to see what my tummy will like. So that challenge lays ahead for me yet. For Protein I order unjury unflavored whey Protein powder on the internet and mix it with Crystal Lite. I can't even taste the protein. I drank four 8 oz servings a day for 80 grams of protein. It also counted toward my Fluid intake. Now that I'm on soft Proteins I only do three servings of the supplemental protein. That's been my experience and I don't regret it at all. Lots of people on this website have lost 100 pounds and more with the band. Good luck with your decision and surgery should you have it.

Agreed on all points. The only exception I'd make would be if a religious organization was organized solely for charitable purposes and charitable services such as provision of food, shelter, health care were provided to people in need without strings attached.

Right you are BJean. I generalized. In particular the Unitarian Church is rather open minded and I'm sure there are other churches that are as well. I just hate when people use their religion to persecute others and when religious beliefs drive our nation's politics and laws. Everyone has the right to believe what they want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. We just need to be careful not to become mere sheep rather than responsible thinking people as it leaves the door wide open for tyranny.

Quote Patty Green: "The federal government has no right, according to the Constitution, to impose upon the people to purchase anything." How about the military, the highways, public education, air traffic controllers, food safety, disease control, care of the mentally and physical disabled, and so forth? When is the last time anyone asked you if you wanted to pay for that stuff? You are paying your federal taxes aren't you?

QUOTE=pattygreen "What kind of church do you go to anyway? Get out of there, quick! What church keeps their congregants guilt ridden and down? None that I know of." How about the concept of "original sin" for starters. We're all rotten sinners right out the box. The only way to make up for it to pray to a diety they invented, give up the right to think for ourselves, and put plenty of cash in the collection box. Oh, how about the Spanish Inquisition where if you didn't agree 100% with the church you were considered a heritic, punishable by torture and murder. Yes, there's the Salem Witch Trials. People were so scared of going to hell they whipped themselves into a religous frenzy and accused innocent people who were burned at the stake for nothing. Let's not forget about the hate crimes against homosexuals in the name of the bible. Hmmm, pick your guy: Leviticus, who also tells us not to shave our beards or plow the corners of our fields and which insects we're not allowed to eat; or Jesus, who preached tolerance and love of our fellow man. One of my favorites are the adulters and pedafiles who pose as ministers and priests while braying from the pulpit that we must obey "god's laws" or we'll go to hell, all the while counting their cash, having affairs, and molesting their parishioners. Last but not least are the "pro-lifers" who take lives by bombing clinics and killing doctors. Hey, even if you're not a believer, you better not tell these god fearing people or you might just find yourself tied to a stake getting the old hot foot! If you're discovered just drink some stricknine, grab a snake to dance with and talk in tongues like those good ol' pentacostals. Now they know how to have a good time!

"New health insurance requirement ... was GOP idea" follow link to read the story http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_overhaul_requiring_insurance Another Republican trick!

Agreed, big business runs the country. Historically, when the very few at the top prosper and everyone else suffers there's a revolution. What's ironic is that many folks who are suffering vote Republican because they've been duped into believing the Republicans will end their suffering. In fact, the powerful conservatives at the top don't give a damn about the common man. They're very clever about disguising that fact. They employ Fox news to shout at us about "gun control", "taxes", "abortion", "gay marriage." Add a little racism, religion and fear to the mix and they manage to keep us distracted from the real problems that plague us and the greed that prevents us from being a better society. TV, radio, magazine ads, billboards are also shouting us all the time to buy buy buy. We march off to work like ants to produce goods and services that provide big profits to the richest, then we spend our measly paychecks on those goods and services. We're the human machinery that's fueling the greed. Advertising leads us to believe that all this "stuff" will make us happy, the new opiate of the masses. Meanwhile we're taking anti-depressants and tranquilizers to make it all bearable.

Did you hear McCain and Palin have teamed up again. I guess she's his political viagra. She's good for his pole, I mean poles.

My soft diet is a two week period between between between clear & full liquids/mushies and fully normal foods. I can eat add ground meats, fish, cooked veges, soft fruits and things like that. I must say that I battled hunger real bad during the five week liquids and mushie stage but having a little more solid food in me and because my big stomach has shrunk I don't feel as hungry all the time. It's a great feeling. I approached my soft foods stage carefully because I wasn't sure how my tummy would handle it and I'm not having any problems. I started with 2-3 cc in my band from surgery and next Wednesday will have my first fill. So the next hurdle will be to see how these foods do after being filled (with a couple days of liquids and mushees until the fill settles down). A week after that I will start fully normal foods. Keeping my fingers crossed that everything stays down and doesn't get stuck!

Oh ma gosh, I just realized I said "left-wing" media instead of right wing. You all knew what I meant hopefully! (By the way, a PG version of the name could be Dumbcluckistan.) My hope is that FBI will pipe valium into the water supply of all the red states. They could send a notice to all the Democrats alerting them so they could buy bottled water!

What's scary to me is that the Republican militia (Tea Party) is becoming a domestic terrorism group, committing acts of violence against people who are just exercising their freedom of speech by voicing their opinions and voting their conscience. These supposed patriots don't uphold the principles of democracy where we the people elect lawmakers and the majority rules. These supposed Christians don't follow the teachings of their lord Jesus but instead persecute others in his name. I don't think they'll be getting an invite to heaven when judgment day comes. I think it takes at least two things to create a wing nut -- IQ on the left hand side of the bell curve and paranoia fueled by the left-wing media. The media stars are only in it for fame and money at the expense or the poor little lemmings they are leading off the cliff. Let them secede and create their own country called Dumbfuckistan.

2 days clear liquids (broth, non-sugar jello) 7 days full liquids (cream Soups, non-sugar yogurt and pudding) 3 weeks pureed (add mashed taters, scrambled eggs, tuna and chicken salads, hummus) 2 weeks soft normal food (add ground meats, fish, veges, lo fat Peanut Butter, cereal, crackers) full normal food I started the soft normal food today and had part of a hamburger tonight. Soooooo good! Was afraid of how it would sit with my stomach but everything was fine. Get my first fill next week and have to be careful to avoid pbing and stuck food. Will go back to liquids for a couple days before eating the soft and full normal foods. I'm a little scared of what it will be like when this band really goes into operation!

Like some of the others said, the first few weeks after surgery is not for losing weight it's for healing the stomach/pouch. I've read that when you eat less than 1000 cal/day your metabolism slows way down and you don't lose weight. When you start eating more dense foods your cal. intake will go up a bit and you'll probably start losing some. Your band isn't even in operation yet but will be after you start getting fills. That's why we get so hungry during bandster hell. Once we're restricted we'll feel full from small amounts of food. We're only supposed to lose 1.5 to 2 pounds a week anyway. Cut yourself a break and hang in there. You'll do fine. What I'm doing for Protein is using unflavored unjury whey Protein powder in Crystal Lite. I hate most Protein drinks but with this stuff I can't taste it at all. It's just like plain old Crystal Lite. You get 20 grams of prot. per 8 oz serving of the drink. It's awesome. You have to order it on the internet.

check this out: a surgeon shows everything under fluoroscopy and the part of the stomach that we think should be under the band is really above and to the side of it. Very interesting. I think we're normal! LOL

Believe it or not mine looks that way too. I have bronchitus and had a chest x ray the other day. My PCP pointed to the band and a dark space above it and said that's your stomach. I would have thought my stomach would be below that. I'm not having any problems with my band though so I guess I'll take her word for it!

I'm 4 weeks post-op and had chest pains the first week. It was mostly in under my sternum but also radiated to each side under my ribs. I called the doctor's office and they said it was probably gas and to walk alot. Gas X didn't really help. Then one day I had a huge burp and there was no more pain. What I think is that while there was swelling in the band area from the surgery the stomach gas couldn't get out. Once the swelling went down I could burp and haven't had a problem since! Yours will probably go away on its own in a couple days.