Alexandra

Ah. OK, thanks. That's pretty much what I thought.

Hi Sandy, Thanks for letting us know about this new board. Am I right in understanding that it's primarily for patients of Dr. Ortiz? Does his office sponsor the site? (Sorry if I'm being dense, but it's possible the banner at the top is a paid ad and I'm assuming something that isn't true.)

Hi Dave, I'm not qualified to speak on the technical aspects of the various bands, but I do know one thing I'd consider important if I were seeking surgery in Mexico. I've heard that many docs in the U.S. won't take on Mexican patients who have anything other than an Inamed band. If you're planning to line up aftercare here in the U.S.--which I hope and trust you are--you might want to ask your local doctor if your getting a non-Inamed band would be a problem for him. Good luck with your research!

Neicy, if .8 was your first fill and you feel absolutely no restriction, then it's probably fine to go ahead and get more sooner rather than later. My doctor fills to what he thinks is a good level right out of the gate, not a "sneak-up-on-it" kind of approach. If I hadn't known that at the time I might have thought I needed more sooner than I did. All three times I've experienced a delay of about three weeks for restriction. But again, if your doc fills only a little at a time then it could make sense to get more. He may not have been trying to give you a good level of restriction with your first fill.

Hi Carolyn, You may be right, you may be too tight. But it may be something that will pass by itself. I get tighter several weeks after a fill, it seems, and then it resolves to a level that remains. There's no question that the restriction level can change weeks after a fill, and for no obvious reason. If you're not having trouble eating or drinking, though, that may not be the problem. Have you done any upper-body exercise recently? When I started doing some circuit training I had pains in my chest that were a little alarming, but I realized it was because I'd moved and used muscles deep in my chest that were just not used to it. There was some soreness when I took a deep breath and I felt like my spine was cricked, somehow. Naturally the suspicion for any unusual pain is that something is wrong with the band. But if there's no change in your ability to eat or drink, I think it might be something else besides a tightening.

Yeah, I know it sounds like a lot of milk, and I didn't realize how much until I put it into Fitday. It started with my 32 oz bottle, and the fact that one serving of proteinpowder (two scoops) was supposed to go with 8 ozs of milk. When I made it according to directions, it was grossly thick. So I thinned it down with more milk, realized it wasn't thick enough, and in any event was only half-filling my bottle, etc., etc. In the end I was using 24 ozs of 1% milk (or three times what the "recipe" said) and about 3 scoops of Protein powder. Plenty of protein and calcium and all that, but waaaaaay too many calories. Live and learn.

Oh, it's so exciting when they finally give you a date! Congratulations!! Now you have to watch out for that pre-surgery food fest known as "The Last Supper." Rememebr that once you're banded you WILL still be able to eat; nothing will be off-limits and there is nothing you'll have to give up permanently. I know it's really hard to believe that and it's so easy to go hog-wild. Have fun, but in moderation.

There are varying degrees of PBing, and yeah, I've had cases where something too large or oddly shaped doesn't go down all the way. I'm thinking that's what happened with your peanut. I hear you about not eating in the morning. My throat/tummy can only handle coffee until about 9:30 (three hours after I get up). At that point my stomach starts to rumble and I can whip out my Atkins bar and nibble till satisfied. They're really pretty good. I used to make shakes, but it's just so hard trying to get all of us out of the house in the morning. A few days of coming home in the late afternoon to find the yucky blender in the sink and the lunch I forgot to take to work rotting on the counter convinced me that simpler is better. Whatever works, right? But your shake sounds yummy. Altogether how many ounces of liquid is it? My shakes were about 24 ozs of milk plus the Protein powder, and I figured out it was close to 700 calories!!

I think your space includes both your inbox and your outbox, or your saved copies of sent messages. Try deleting the messages in your Sent Items folder and see if that helps.

Well, well, well. Our little girl has all growed up! Now you've got both feet in bandland; how do things look from this side of the fence? I'm sure you know the ropes, even if it's never happened to you before. Go GENTLE on yourself today, even sticking to liquids if you can. Give your insides a chance to get over this event. You might think about keeping some Protein bars around for just this kind of morning. More often than not one, or even less than one, will do me just fine until lunch. And they're easy to get down with fewer calories and more Fiber than the shake I'd been having.

Megan, I think this is the crux of the battle between head hunger and real hunger. Physically, when we no longer feel hungry is a good time to stop eating. If we eat to a point where we feel FULL, wait ten minutes until the feeling passes, and then eat a little more, we are clearly eating more than we NEED. In short, the answer to your question is: It depends on how you define "full." It sure doesn't take much food to turn off hunger pangs. But I do exactly what you describe sometimes when my brain just can't be satisfied with three bites of something at dinner. My body most definitely can be satisfied with that tiny amount, and lots of times I let it be. But once in a while the sensation of less-than-full that comes back after a few minutes is an opportunity to take another bite or two. The way I look at it, the difference between three bites and five bites is really negligible. So I give myself permission to take those two additional bites. I still can't clear my plate, or clear my daughters' plates on their way to the dishwasher, and if I want dessert I have no choice but to wait another half hour or so. I am consuming a tiny fraction of what I would have been consuming pre-band. So if my brain absolutely needs those next two bites to feel OK about this, I let it have them. This is doubtless why my loss has been "slow." But I didn't get banded to be deprived and resentful. A tighter fill might allow the food to stay in the pouch longer and prevent those last few bites from getting in, but I personally don't want to take the physical and emotional risk that entails. Not yet, anyway.

Basic fill protocol is to stick with liquids for at least a day after the fill. We never know exactly how our stomachs will react. The other thing that might help is to really try staying away from solid food or meds completely after, say, 6:00 P.M. I used to take Vitamins in the evening and once in a while I could feel them sort of burbling back up when I lay down to go to sleep. Maybe something like that it as work with you. Since I've been sticking to liquids in the evening I've had no issues at all at night (except having to pee a lot!). Hope you're doing better!

Hi Maureen Nice to meet another East Coaster! Sometimes it seems like there's no place in America except California and Texas. Let's hear it for the NE Metroplex!!

Hi Minda, welcome!! I'm so glad the word is spreading about this site. The more the merrier!

Hi LisaG, welcome!! Someone should start a Dr. Speigel thread in the Doctors and Hospitals area, since I think there are several of you here now. You're clearly not the only banded patient he has, so you shouldn't be getting any guff when you call his office. Unite, and they'll treat you better!

Hee hee! I've been banded almost a year--I promise you you'll be way ahead of me when you've been banded that long. I'm taking it really slowly for several reasons, but am really happy with my almost 60-lb loss in 12 months. 5 lbs a month is just fine and dandy with me, thanks.

What a relief, Penni! I'm so glad everything worked out well for you. Onward and upward! (Or should I say, downward!)

Hi Sissyfaye, Hey! We started at exactly the same stats! Cool. The answer to your question is that there are no "normal" amounts of fill, and no normal schedule. There's a discussion of this exact issue in the General Discussion area, in the thread on Plateaus and Weightloss http://lapbandtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2569 There are only three kinds of fills: not enough, too much, and just right. And as for knowing when you need one, it's a matter of how YOU feel, not some magic schedule your doctor has devised. The only common denominator seems to be that you should not have a fill until at least 6 weeks post-surgery, to allow ample time for healing.

I'm convinced this is true. Especially if we've been carrying around lots of extra weight for years, our bones will be denser and heavier than those of people who have always been slender. This is just a fact of life, and is why 170 on one 5'10" person is too much, while on a different 5'10" person it would be too little. (That'll be me.) More important are the yarsticks of clothing, stamina, strength, blood pressure, and all the other things that are negatively affected by extra weight. Lisa, you want I should buy you a dictionary for your birthday?

I agree with Leo. The standard line about not having lost weight for 3 or more weeks being an indicator for a fill doesn't go far enough, in my eyes. There are lots of factors to consider when deciding if your fill is adequate, and getting overfilled can be dangerous so it's very important to look at the whole picture. Everyone is different, but I'm like Megan and really learn from my daily weigh-in. I plateau every single month, most of the month, and then in a week or two I'll drop five or six lbs. Then I'll bounce around that new number for another month and the cycle will start again. My fills tend to tighten up weeks after the fact, and I would never have known that if I obsessed about plateaus and went running off to get a fill after a 3-week plateau. I could be tighter, but frankly I don't want to be. My current level of restriction stops me from eating any more than enough, but still enough to feel mentally satisfied. See, while I'm not a fast loser and lots of people reading this might think I'm no one to take advice from for that reason, what's important to me is my quality of life. Constantly battling a too-tight fill is no fun, can be embarrassing, and potentially dangerous. As long as I feel a level of restriction that tells me when to stop eating, I don't need a fill.

When I was investigating banding this was a question that occurred to me. And then a split-second later it went out of my head. I know it will NEVER be a problem for me. But, logically, it seems obvious that if someone really can't eat enough to maintain the weight they want, a small unfill is always possible. That's the beauty and miracle of our chosen WLS--it's infinitely adjustable.

If there is one thing I wish doctors would mention to newbies, it's that HUNGER WILL RETURN pre-fill. Why is it such a surprise to people when they're healing up and they get hungry? You are NORMAL. Hunger is a perfectly normal way for a body to respond to limited caloric intake. Your stomach is healing and now you just have to tough it out until you can eat solid food again. This is frequently referred to as the hardest part of being banded, but the good news is that it's temporary and PERFECTLY NORMAL. My favorite food at this point was egg drop Soup. Full of Protein, and, since it was liquid, I could have a lot of it. There's also lots of interesting pates and spreads available that helped me get through the mushy foods stage. Good luck, and please come back and let us know how you're doing!

This is worth stitching into a sampler, if you ask me. What gets me depressed is reading lots of messages about that "last 20 lbs" from distressed people. I mean, people, really: We started, most of us, more than 100 lbs overweight!! If we've gotten to a point where we can no longer be considered morbidly obese, where that label no longer applies, THAT IS THE SUCCESS!!! Numbers are just numbers. Birdee, I'll bet that there are other achievements in the last year that are exponentially more important than the numbers on the scale. I know for me, at 317 my future was bleak. Now at 260 I'm still way overweight by any standard, but for ME it's a whole new world. I'm like anyone else, I have to remind myself of my accomplishment regularly. I also really like the reinforcement of lower numbers and it's very easy to get frustrated or depressed when the scale stalls--but I'm getting pretty good at it and hope I can share a little of that outlook with you.

Best wishes for a painless and trouble-free procedure, Penni. Is this general anaesthesia? Please let us know how it goes (like there's any chance you wouldn't ) Gentle hugs from NJ!!

Megan, I followed the same link you did and actually was in tears at one of those profiles. One woman had two children, ages 5 and 6 months (or thereabouts). My heart breaks in tiny pieces thinking about those children without their mom. I think I'd rather fly solo than take those risks. Even though I'd gotten to a point where my health was going to be compromised by my weight, it would have had to get a lot worse for me to think resecting myself was a viable alternative.