GeezerSue

Have you checked this info with a dietician or Inamed? I ask because I've never heard this and I've been reading about the band for quite a while. Sue

If you haven't had a fill, it is totally normal to have no restriction. A month post-op, no restriction without a fill just means you are healing normally. Good luck! Sue

I didn't, but.... interestingly enough, I think I've read that, for people with GERD and relux pre-band, the band seems to cure the problem for a lot of people. Unfortunately, for those who are fine, GERD and reflux become a possibility. Weird, huh? Sue

What happens after the perfect fill is that a very small amount of saline is lost through osmosis. At the same time, you are losing weight, inside and out. If you lose fat from the internal organs (that's the fat that will kill us first, so we hope to lose that), you will lose a little bit of fat around the stomach. SOOOOO: a little fat gone + a teeny bit of saline gone = loose band.

I don't mean to be diagreeable, but I do disagree with this part. From what I understand, one of the main reasons for no solids is to keep the band healing where it's supposed to be, so that it can take the wear and tear it's going to get later on and doesn't end up moving to where it will be a problem. There is no way to know whether it has already moved from that location or not. HOWEVER, it isn't too late for sarellano to give the band a little more time to heal into place, and to hope for the best. Sarellano, I didn't mean to scare you...and doctors certainly hand out plenty of erroneous info. But I suggest asking "why?" And if the doctor won't tell you, go online and look for the answer in the literature or with patients. Then you'll know which rules are "written in stone" and which are arbitrary. For example, the very most experienced doctors have almost no pre-op diet and some of the least experienced doctors have a pre-op diet of a month on yogurt and Water. See, that rule seems pretty negotiable to me. But the post-op diets--no matter how they vary--all (except for the MIDband) seem to want us on no solids for at least two weeks. After that, they vary in how rapidly we move to solid foods. So, you almost made the two-week rule, so keep it liquid or pureed. About the hunger...get Protein in. That will help. Do you live anywhere near a Jamba juice or someplace that sells yummy drinks with high protein content?

Hey, Tack! My hubby is from your neck of the woods...Perry County. Sue

I think--you DID ask for comments, right?--that you have limited understanding of the band and how it works. The point is not to see how much you can cram in there post-op, the point is to allow the band to heal in the right position. If it heals in the wrong position, you could have plenty of problems later on. The band is a TOOL, not a cure. If you use the tool incorrectly, it may not work the way you thought it would. If your surgeon did not go over these things with you pre-op, you need to read all about it right now. And, we were ALL hungry post-op, and we ALL had trouble during the liquid stage. But we have to change, or die from morbid obesity. Sue

Then, let me put it another way...if we could REALLY lose weight via diuretics, who would need WLS? IMHO, the person who lost 100+plus pounds is doing something right and just hasn't figured out what it is.

Okay, then. This chick is overdosing on salt...betcha. Corned beef (you can find it with canned meats, like the canned roast beef from Argentina or canned chicken) is traditionally beef that is "cured" or preserved in a salt brine. It's not really a regional dish, as much as a pre-freezer way to preserve meat. To make hash you chop up onion and potato into teeny tiny pieces, fry them up and add the already cooked corned beef, also chopped into tiny pieces. So it's fried meat and potatoes. You can find canned corned beef hash, too, but it's really bad. Anyway, one cup of this stuff (according to FitDay) has half of the sodium most people need in a day. (And enough to make me immobile!) So, she sounds like she might even "need" a diuretic, given the high sodium intake she's involved in. (The actual cure is to stop eating so much salt.) The corned beef is why she's "retaining Water." The diuretic simply counteracts the effects of the excessive salt she's eating. Not the best plan. But she is losing weight for some other reason. Because what she is doing is eating a lot of sodium (salt), which causes her to "retain water," and then taking a diuretic to make her kidneys work overtime to dump the water in spite of the sodium. Nothing in that equation causes any long-term weight loss. Before she got to that, she'd end up with severe dehydration. If she 'fesses up to the doctor, she might even find out what she's doing RIGHT!

Shelly, i can't imagine people taking "Water pills" to make a dial on a scale move. The concept escapes me. I take a diuretic (what some people call a "water pill") because of congestive heart failure. My heart cannot keep up with the demands--many of them related to weight and being out of condition--being placed on it. What the heart "gives up doing" (because it can't do everything) is pumping the body fluids back UP the legs and arms. When that happens, I get edema--my feet and ankles are swollen, my knees get so sore they can hardly bend. Also, my fingers are swollen, rings and bracelets don't fit, and I can't hold a pen very well. It has been (before the band) so bad that the excess fluids "wept" through the skin on my legs. The diuretic I take is Demadex; it's a little more powerful than Lasix. And as I have lost weight, I have decreased the amount of Demadex I take. The diuretics have to be taken on a regular basis, but only as needed to assist the heart in doing its job. And caution is crucial. Many diuretics are NOT potassium sparing, that is, they deplete the potassium from your system which can cause immediate cardiac problems. Now, to the "successful" bandsters. I think they are wrong...and possibly not too bright. There is no cumulative weight loss from diuretics. All they do is make the kidney work harder, and nobody's lost weight from that. On a really bad day before I took a diuretic on a regular basis, I found myself puffed up and feeling like I was walking on sponges. I went to the doctor and took a 20mg Demadex. Within eight hours, I "lost ten pounds." But that was not "excess weight." That was about a gallon and a quart of excess water in my body, that almost kept me from moving. Ten pounds of "water." But NOBODY loses 100 pounds on diuretics. It's too bad--on several levels--that those "successful bandsters" believe that they are losing weight from diuretics. One reason it's too bad is that they are doing something right, but have failed to identify it. So they are not likely to rely on a good behavior they cannot identify. Another reason is that diuretics are tough on the kidneys and the heart. You absolutely have to regulate the body's potassium level when taking diuretics. They are not toys. Also, it's a wonderment to me that they have PCP's who would prescribe diuretics to people who don't understand why they are taking them. I'll look for a couple of links. Sue Edited to add: http://www.tmc.edu/thi/diurmeds.html http://www.gwu.edu/~cade/diuretics.html http://www.e-kidneys.net/diuretics.html http://www.healthcentral.com/mhc/top/001840.cfm

Oh, yeah...the BR weight loss. It won't be much. My kid went from a 36 or 38J (yes, Virginia, there IS a D-cup), down to a tidy little 36D and they removed less than four pounds of tissue. BUT...I'd think you'd want the WLS prior to the BR. Otherwise, as you lose weight, the sisters will be heading south all over again. Sue

The pain in the left shoulder has nothing to do with stretching anything. It has to do with the location of the band and the location of a nerve that is connected to the left shoulder area. The pain subsides within a couple of weeks and rarely again rears its ugly head. Sue

1) Your BMI is over 40 and that is more important than your weight. (He's probably used to taller people and, therefore, higher weights. Many companies say "100 pounds overweight," but most say "a BMI of at least 40.") 2) The costs of the two surgeries should--in a perfect world--have no bearing on which is approved and which is not. Don't put yourself in a position of thinking "Well, if I have to choose, the surgery i want is..." If both surgeries are medically indicated, and you want both surgeries, your insurance should pay for both, unless your policy excludes one or the other. Just be prepared to appeal any denials AND--if the situation presents itself--learn how to write an effective appeal. Good luck, Sue

Flouro. Otherwise, they're guessing. (There is no guarantee that the patient gets the "correct" amount, but you will see for yourself that liquids are going through and you'll also see the size of your upper stomach. Also, without flouro or at least an x-ray, they cannot see if the integrity of the esophagus is compromised, and that's important to know.) Sue

anted somewhere around $150, call the day before the appointment so say that I'd need endoscopy first. There was once more chance, but it was tough to get through his office, he wan't in town every day and by then I was exhausted anyway. I went to Mexico. This time I went to Mexico directly. It was fun and had I planned in advance, it would have been easy.

Hopping in here doing my grumpy thing...I do not wish to worry you, as I see no reason to worry. I do wish to cause you to question yourself and make sure you know all about what you're about to do. Let's make sure you are fully informed on what is likely to happen if "the band works" for you. The average WLS patient (regardless of which surgery) has lost about 60% of their excess weight two years out. And, 60% of 60 pounds is 36 pounds. So, if you are going into this knowing that there is an EXCELLENT chance that two years from now, you will weigh 174, not 150...and if it's worth it to you to go to all the trouble and expense knowing that a thirty-six pound loss will be typical, then you are sufficiently informed. It's a different call for the seriously Morbidly Obese. If you are well into the MO range and need to lose, say, 160 pounds, and only lose 96 (60%), you life will STILL have changed so dramatically that the surgery would be well worth it. I'm not sure the same applies to losing only 36 pounds. This is not to say that you won't meet or exceed your goal, of course. I'm just mentioning the AVERAGE result. Good luck, no matter what you decide. Sue

It might impact on your decision. PCOS patients lose--according to the study authors--a lower percentage of their excess weight than do other patients. (Older patients--and I'm one--are in the same boat.) That doesn't mean YOU won't lose much weight. It just means the odds are not a good for you or me as they would be for a younger non-PCOS patient. Good luck to you. Here's the abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12527345&dopt=Abstract Sue

This is a very old study. These are the very first U.S. doctors, who didn't have any experience with the surgery, doing their first surgeries with procedures which have since been modified. It is essentially worthless. I am glad that most of the doctors who stopped doing lap-band stopped, as they were apparently not very good at it. The so-called side effects included such things as one or more occurence of nausea...hardly worth mentioning...especially when compared to the frequent side effects of RnY surgery. The doctors didn't know how to deal with a steady ten or so pounds per month weight loss--they wanted immediate results. And they didn't want to deal with adjustments, because IMHO, those just cost them money. Excuse me for not answering sooner, but I've had kind of a troll-in-the-house feeling. The WORST side effect I've had from the band is reflux, and there are meds for that. Before the band, I couldn't climb the three steps into my house and had to move. But I'm wondering how your band could be going into your liver, since they are on opposite sides...or is your liver just moved way over from the usual location? (Or is my geography way off?) Sue

Balanced Eating-Lifestyle Concentrating on Health? Or, maybe: Better Attitude Regarding Food?

And Leo has lost over 50% of his excess weight in a very short time, but he has lost fewer pounds than you have. (I'd start being jealous if I focused on that.)

Oops, duplicate post. But since I'm here, there's more. You need to lose 257 pounds. In the first three months, without a fill, you have lost about 21-22% of your excess weight. This is GREAT. At two-and-a-half months, with one fill, I had lost over 25% of my excess weight. Not as many pounds, but I don't have as many to lose, so the percentages match pretty well. Now the bad news: for me, that was the easy part. And 30% came fairly easily, and 35% wasn't all that hard, and then POOF! It started getting REALLY HARD. We all have different experiences, even when we start with similar stats and have the same surgeon. But add in THOSE differences, and there really is no way to predict who will need how many adjustments (the "real" name for fills) and who will lose how much weight, and when. So, congrats on how well you've done so far. You may be one of the lucky few who never needs a fill. You may get to goal in no time at all. Or, you may be like some of us who get almost half-way to where we're going and need a time-out and an attitude adjustment and retraining. All you can do IMHO to keep from going crazy is to compare your progress to how well you've done the previous week, and what you plan for next week. If you start to compare your progress to that of anyone else, you'll probably end up spinning your wheels. Sue

Nicole, Your band experience has absolutely no bearing on what another person's experience will be. The more you read, they more you'll learn that the band is nothing if not inconsistent. Sue

Nicole, Since LapBand related deaths are so rare, do you have reliable information on this? Is it a recent death? Was it surgeon error or did the patient's actions contribute to the death? (I know that in the Michigan death, the patient didn't seek care, then sought care at a different hospital, without mentioning the surgery and by the time the staff figured out that she had let a minor problem become life-threatening, it was too late.) I don't know Fox and wasn't recommending him for surgery, just aftercare. But if there is a potential problem there, can you hook us up with the sources of that information? Sue

You know, one day, I was lecturing my daughter and realized that I made no more sense than my mother, who had told me that if I took my baby to Wisconsin or Germany in the winter the baby would--beyond a shadow of a doubt--die. I believe that I somehow decided that our daughter would become a hooker on the strip in Las Vegas if she didn't do her homework...which was odd, as I NEVER did my homework and didn't become a hooker. Now (she's 28 and seems to have survived Wisconsin and Germany to the point that she just got back from one of her two or three times per year visits to Frankfurt and Copenhagen) when I nag her on the phone to do something, she asks, "And if I don't do it right this minute, do you suppose I'll have to move to Las Vegas?" (So I guess not doing your homework will make you a smart ass.) I don't know what to say except the following: most of the time, most of us are doing the best we can with the wisdom (?) we have at hand, and mean no malice at all. Well, that, and: generally, we screw up monumentally. Not making excuses for your mom...just warning you that some day, you, too, may get goofy as hell. It seems to run in even--or especially--the best of families. Sue Perhaps if you addressed the issue from another angle, in a way that she can process...?

Well, if you're as slow a learner as I am :ermm...when not chewing means a big lump of unchewed food ends up blocking your stoma and your brain starts The Saliva Thing, and you have to stand over a toilet and spit for 30 minutes is right about when you start to learn new habits. Because even a wiggling, squealing toddler cannot stop the saliva and because there's nothing you can do until it stops, you will eventually do whatever it takes to make it not happen. Most of the time. Sue *whose baby sister has grandchildren older than two and who has several more decades of bad habits to unlearn than anyone rearing a two-year-old*