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I had it done on 4/2/12 and I'm down 10 lbs since surgery. The hardest part is how long, both pre op and post op you have to be on a liquid diet (total liquids for 3 weeks straight). Towards the end of week 3, I did test with some real food. It is amazing how small amount of food makes you feel so full. Today is day one of pureed foods (2 weeks of that post op), and I feel almost normal with eating some actual food. This option was only avialable as part of a research study.

No, I just get strange feelings when the food hits the top part of my stomach if I eat too big of a bite of something or take too big of a drink. Feels like it wants to come up, but nothing has. I find that I burp a lot more after eating that I did before. I can't say that it has been painful with anything liquid or pureed which today is day one of pureed foods!

I think the pre op diet is come kind of tourcher. My MD told me that if during that time it was eat something or someone would die, he said to eat something. I found that putting in a couple of pieces of frozen fruit and crushed ice helped with the chewing sensation loss with the shakes.

Walking is the only thing that provided any relief for that gas pain for me. 10 days post op and I've still got some back pain, but it's not bad at all. The pain meds will help too.

Talk to your pharmacist. They often have suggestions for alternative medications and other options for extended release medications. My MD said to never swallow a pill that was bigger than the tip of your pinky finger as it could get stuck.

When I was put on Metformin for DM, I was told that it has been shown to help people loose weight. It never helped me with that. I too hate taking medication, but understand it's importance. I can't tolerate any of the meds to help lower my cholesterol, so I am hoping that mine will come down with the food choice changes that come with having a LB. I am on BP medication as well, and just before my sx, it was increased by my PCP. My surgeon wanted nothing to do with the management of these medications so as long as you keep the lines of communication open with your PCP, you should be able to come up with a plan that works for both of you. If your lab work shows some insulin resistance or you have had trouble with PCOS, then metformin would be a good choice. I've not heard of it being given just for WL.

Unsweet tea can help as a diuretic to shed some of the water weight. I would do the protein shakes and skip the veggies and drink as much water as you can. Also, make sure that you use the bathroom before you are weighed to get as much of the water out as possible.

Things to consider are that after the surgery, it will be PAINFUL to cough. The gas that they use to inflate your abdomin, caused me to really have a hard time breathing deap and clearing my secretions for the first 24-48 hrs post op. Just remember that your symptoms could be allergie related due to the high levels of pollen that are out now and not a cold. I would try some allergy relief before calling it a cold.

It totally depends on what your surgeon recommends. I'm on 2 weeks of liquid protein shakes and water only. I can supplement with broths, SF jello, SF popcicles, and not much else. Goal is 60grams of protein a day from protein shakes and 64 oz of water. During Pre-op found out I was lactose intolerant and had to switch from Whey protein powders to Egg White powder. Jay Robb vanilla mixes well with vanilla silk. Overall it will totally depend on what your surgeon wants.

My MD said that once I start eating food (still on liquids post op), that it should take about 30 minutes to eat between a 1/2 and 1 cup of food. He said to chew at least 27 each bite. He also prescribed Zantac 150mg twice a day to help with any heartburn issues for the first 30 days post op. It makes a big difference. He also said to make sure you put your fork down inbetween bites to slow your self down.

I went back and forth with wether or not to tell my co workers. I thought about it at first, I didn't think it was anyones right to know, but the way I figured it. It wasn't like I was able to hide the fact that I was fat, and my co workers were professional, respectful, everything you would expect before I got the LB, so why wouldn't they be happy that I decided to do something to become more healthy and loose weight? So far I've had nothing but support, and those "I have a friend who has the LB, or I know someone who has the LB". But it is a personal choice.

Middle, above belly button.

I too had the LP with plication. I'm on week 2 of the liquid protein diet with jello and broth supplements, and it is tough. I call it some kind of tourcher. I started to be hungy around day 5 post op. It's so hard. For me, I need the negative feedback and pain in order to prevent myself from doing what I know is the wrong thing. So I had a cracker, and it tasted so good, but hurt because I had not chewed anything yet, forgot to slow down and take small bites and almost had it come back up. Learned my lesson. 6 more days until pureed foods.

Since I am on liquids for another week, and was on the same diet 2 weeks prior to my surgery, I try this approach. I get up, drink my protein shake, then in between breakfast shake and lunch shake, I try and drink between 20 and 30 oz of water. then again between lunch and dinner shake. Then anything after dinner is like bonus water. I find that having a water container that has between 20 and 30 oz of water helps to keep track of your intake throughout the day.

I had my surgery on April 2nd. Arrived to Hosp at 530 am, reviewed paperwork, expected costs to be billed, got my arm band. Called back to go to the surgery waiting room around 6. Was there with like 6 different groups of people. Nurse called me back arround 630. Had to do a pregnancy test since it had been more than 10 days since my LMP. Got changed into a gown, and got under the covers on the stretcher. Met several of the recovery room nurses. I was asked several questions, just to verifiy information they already had about medications, allergies, past surgical history. Was given some pre op meds. A patch for behind my ear to help with nausea and motion sickness. I was given a pepcid to help with heart burn, my blood surgar was checked since I am a diabetic. Had the compression devices put on my lower legs to help with blood clots. Then my family was able to come back, talked with surgeon, asked if I had any questions. Anesthesia MD came and put in my IV, then I was wheeled back to the OR right at 730. Don't remember much after that. Came back to recovery room vomiting, kept going in and out for about an hour, vomiting off and on. Had oxygen in my nose, and nurses all around. Had to have my gown changed due to vomit. Stayed in recovery for about 2 hours, then went and had an Upper GI done to confirm band placement and since I also had Plication, to check for leaks. Then up to my hospital room. I was hooked up to an IV and since I was high risk for sleep apena, and my O2 sats were low on room air, I was on O2. I also was put on a continous pulse oximeter on my left middle finger and then that was attached to a telemetry box to monitor my heart rate and rhythm. I have 6 small incisions that really never hurt, just were sore. The pain I had was from the gas. It made it hard to take in a deep breath. The only thing that helped was walking. I vomited a couple more times, but after about 12 hours after I stopped. Didn't feel hunger, IV pain meds worked well to keep me comfortable. Sent my family home around 8, Had to sleep sitting up right to keep any stomach contents at bay and prevent heart burn and on my back. Not fun for a stomach sleeper. My Vital signs were checked every 4 hours and between that and my telemetry monitor leads coming off every time I moved, I got little rest. Walked about 3 times the day of surgery. Was up, walked 2 laps around the unit, and washed up all by 630. Was up in the chair watching TV when family arrived at 7. Managed to eat a bite of Jello and about 1/8 of a cup of unsweetened tea. Didn't vomit. Was discharged home around 930. Car ride of 45 mins wasn't bad, had some soft cussiony stuff to protect my stomach from the seat belt which helped, but bumps were not fun. Most pain came from giant gas bubble that moved from my lower stomach to my chest and shoulders. liquid pain medication helped with pain, and took that until Thursday AM. Gas pain was only helped by walking. Minimal if any incistional pain, but still kind of uncomfortable to sleep on my stomach yet. Today is post op day 7, feeling pretty good. Took one week off of work, and back to work today.

I took off a week. Had surgery on a Monday, and was D/C hom Tuesday. Glad I took off a week. Probably could have gone back on Thurs or Friday, but I kep getting a small fever in the PM that would zap any enegery I had. I have a desk job, and so far so good on my first day back.

Well I feel like I'm back to the land of the living. I'm one week Post Op (LB with stomach plication) and feel pretty good. My experience has been a little unexpected, but I am so glad that I had researched some information on this forum before the actual surgery. Pre surgery was pretty hard. The last couple days of the pre op diet were bad. I had my mom come in from out of town, and seeing her and my DH eating anything they wanted almost sent me over the edge. But they were encouraging and I did it. Pre op , checking in, all that was great. After surgery, I didn't tolerate the general anesthesia well AT ALL. I had warned them that I had issues with GA back in 1984, but had not had it since then. Well as the recovery room nurses put it, I was vomitig when I hit the door. I vomited for about 4 hours every time I would move or try to wake up. They maxed me out on everything they could give me. Changed my pain meds, anything to get me to stop. It wasn't fun. Since I had the plication, there was no fear of the band slipping. Then after recover, I had to go and get another upper GI to make sure there weren't any leaks and that things were working well. Having to swallow the barium wasn't pleasant but it didn't come back up, at least not for about another hour. I was admitted for an over night stay, and was surprised at everything that was going on. I had an IV going with fluids running pretty fast to keep me hydrated since I wasn't keeping anything down. I had O2 because my sats wouldn't go above 88% on room air, so I was on oxygen. Then I was on continusous pulse oximetry which was securely attached to my left middle finger, then I was on telemetry to watch my heart rate and rhythm. Try getting comfortable with all that. Wasn't happening. So they kepy me as comfortable as possible with IV morphine and IV Zofran as often as I could have it, that afternoon and night. I was able to walk around and do about 3 laps around the unit with REALLY helps with the gas pain. I had both internal gas and external gas pains. I kept burping, which they said was good to do, but I had this HUGE gas bubble that over the course of 24 hours moved from my lower abdomen to my chest and shoulders. It made it really hard to breath. I have 6 small incisions, which never really hurt, but were just kind of sore. The gas pain was the worst. It caused some back pain and the only thing that really helped was walking around. Once discharged, I took my pain medication and felt pretty out of it for the next day. By Wednesday I was able to login to work e mail and do that for about an hour. I'm on a 30-60 gm protein shake liquid diet for the next week (total of 2 weeks), then can move up to pureed foods. I will say that I'm back to work today ,and feeling pretty normal. I will see if I can survive all day. I did spike a small tempuature each afternoon, not bad, just to like 99 or 100 which advil took care of nicely. Hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend.

Glove- just remember, everyone is different. Sounds like she is bitter that things didn't work out well for her. Just like with any surgical procedure, there are risks as well as benifits and you have to decide if the benifits out weigh the risks for you in your own mind. Remember we can't sail to discover new land if we are too afraid to loose sight of the shore.

Hello to everyone. My name is Renee, and my surgery date is scheduled for April 2nd. I am a nurse, working in upper management for a large practice in TN. It has taken almost a year to jump through all of the hoops that insurnace has required but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was first interested in the lap band after the surgeon who is part of the health group that my clinic is part of did a seminar for our employees to provide information to our patients about the benifits of weight loss surgery. He explained all of the options that were avialable at that time, and I felt that the lap band was the choice for me. I'm like most of us on here, busy, but my business was just an excuse not to do what I needed to do to loose weight on my own. I work about 50-60 hours per week, with about an hour commute each direction so that leaves little time for much else. I would skip meals, and then be so hungry that I would eat anything I could get my hands on or get a drive through. I knew this was not good behavior and needed help. I've been successful loosing weight twice. Once was when I was in collage and had braces and it physically was painful to eat, and I was walking about 2-3 miles per day to class. I hadn't even noticed it really until I was trying on jeans at a store, and the size I had been wearing was too large. Then the second time was when my friend at the time asked me to be in her wedding and the brides maid dresses only went to a size 16! Yikes, so I got a personal trainer, and on the days that I wasn't working my 12 hour shift on the floor, I was at the gym for 2+ hours. Plus I was using some over the counter weight loss stuff. It's wasn't until I actually fell on the floor while working because of muscle fatigue and starving myself that I realized that was not something I could maintain realisticly. I did manage to fit into the dress but after it was party time not to have to do that anymore. So after that I really maintained my weight for about 5 years or so, but kept creeping up. Then I participated in a medical research study for a medication for your cycles, where you wouldn't have them for a whole year. During that time is when I gained ALOT of weight, but couldn't figure out why since everything I was doing was the same as it had always been. Fast forward to now, I've struggled with PCOS so infertility issues are many. The clock is ticking if I ever want to have children and any infertility physician I have been to says the first thing is to loose weight. If it were only that easy. So, now I'm ready, keeping that goal in mind, not that it is a guarentee, but it's a start. I'm having the lap band done with stomach plication, which is part of another research study where the results have been shown to be as effective in loosing weight as gastric by pass at the 1 year mark. I'm only the 21st pt that this surgeron has done this procedure on, and I'm excited. Duke medical center has been doing this research for a year and my physician was trained there to perform it. I had my consult last week, and he spent over an hour with me explaining everything, showing me the improvments that have been made to the band itself and I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in this study. One thing I have come to realize is that the support groups are not for me in a large setting. Since I'm in management in the same system I'm getting my surgery done in, I don't feel as if my information or feelings will be confidential so it's a little bit different for me so I'm glad that this group exists. I've been reading posts for about 2 weeks and finally have the courage to write my story. My DH is supportive, said he would do the pre-op diet with me. To him that meant, I won't eat fast food, but cooking a pizza at home was still ok. ARGHH! The pre op diet is harder that I thought it would be. I am craving the feeling of being full, which is hard to achieve with this. Good luck to everyone and thanks for the support.

My surgery date is April 2, and I'm on day 3 of the pre op diet. Day 1-7 is 2 proetin shakes per day that are 200 caleries or less, and have 15g of Protein or more and a small dinner that has no more than 200 calories, no more than 15 grams of net carbs, and 15 grams or more protein. I was given a list of some lein cusines and smart one's dinners that meet this criteria, and it's not many. Plus they change all the time, adding and subtracting carbs as they desire. Then day 8-13 is 4 protein shakes per day. I can supplement with jello, broth, popcicles, and they stressed at lease 64 oz of water a day. Then day 14 is just clear liquids the day before the surgery. The goal is to shrink the fat around the liver and the actual liver itself because of it's position relative to the stomach. If the liver is too big, they can't get it out of the way in a safe manner to place the band. The liver is a very vascualr organ and they want it safely out of the way so they can get to the stomach so there isn't any damage to it creating more complications. That is one of the reasons that surgerons cancel sx or don't preform it once you are in the operating room is that if they can't get that liver out of the way and visualize the stomach, they can't safely do the surgery.