Missy1966

I am 6-months post op. The band was removed and I converted to sleeve. It has been a great journey so far except for one thing. I have this pinching/ stabbing pain near the old port site. Surgeon wants to go back in and remove scar tissue. Has anyone been through this?

I had another surgery to remove the scar tissue on June 9th. The surgeon said he found more scar tissue than he expected to find. The pain I felt before surgery at the port site is now worse after almost 7 weeks post op. There is nothing he can do other than try and find the nerve causing the pain and kill it. Totally sucks to be me right now.

Follow-up: found out my sleeve is larger than most sleeves. Due to band removal and sleeve in one procedure. So that explains having NONE of the difficulties others are experiencing coupled with a 3 month stall/plateau. Also old port pain (tearing sensation) when I twist/turn is still there. Having another surgery in 3 weeks to cut out scar tissue. May or may not resolve pain. This is the only part that really stinks...

Peggy, I had it done in one procedure. However, the surgeon warned me that depending on what damage or how much scar tissue there was around the band he wouldn't know until he went in as to whether he could do both. I recently had an upper GI done and the doctor said that my sleeve was larger than most probably due to the band and condition of the area at time of surgery. Knowing that I need to be careful not to overeat. What you don't want is your new sleeve to leak so trust your surgeon if he can't do it in one shot. You don't want be deathly ill due to being over anxious. I think you'll be fine tho as the percentage of people who can't have it done in one procedure was low according to my surgeon. 😊

I was 208 at surgery with hypertensión, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart issues, GERD and a partridge in a pear tree! I lost 30 lbs in 4 mo and stalled, which is ok. For some reason banders lose more slowly. I have 40 to go and am glad that even at the tender age of 51 my skin isn't sagging, so slow is ok. So if that happens to you don't worry, be happy [emoji4]. The first 2-3 weeks will be a little hard because your diet is so drastically different. I have some recipes for you when you get bored with liquid. BUT this is the phase where you lose the most so take one day at a time. Make sure you drink your liquids so you don't have other issues like a UTI. My diabetes is gone, blood pressure is normal, gerd is controlled as long as I don't eat and go right to sleep. And, when you get discouraged like we all did at some point make sure to come back to the forum for support [emoji4]. Also, wearing the surgical binder helped a lot. They sent me home with one but no explanation of its importance. It will definitely help you sleep. It holds everything nice and tight. Now I wear the Genie 360 panty (lol) every day at work because the compression is comforting with the port pain... they do make you look slimmer [emoji4]

I had the same experience and was told the same thing. Thanks for replying. I can't believe no one else has experienced this. Just make sure they remove all the old scar tissue around the port area so you don't have to have another surgery like me. I'll post the results after surgery. I don't have a date yet. Happy Easter by the way.

I joined this forum today and read a lot of interesting posts with different points of view on the Lap Band. I decided to share my story and let anyone who reads it take from it what helps them. I was banded three years ago in Mexico. To date I have lost 30 pounds. I would say it’s more of a maintenance weight of 185. Is it a “fail?” I don’t know… I’m still in deliberations. 1) I can tell you I have always had problems getting protein down from the beginning so I chose foods that went down easier. It didn’t matter what size fill I had. Protein was not my friend, ever. But I was eating 1/3 my normal portion and sometimes even less. But it was pasta, rice, and adding gravies made food go down even easier so I wouldn’t get stuck, which happened quite frequently. That was a wrong choice, so for any reader here, don’t do this! When my surgery was performed the Dr. fixed what he described the biggest Hiatal hernia he’d seen, which would explain the feeling of Satan living in my stomach for years. I recently had bouts of heart burn, waking from sleep choking, a lot of sliming episodes and it didn’t matter what I ate, I ignored it and went to liquids for a day or two on several occasions with success (but not this last time), again don’t do this! My point…I had to go back to the Dr. 2 weeks ago, it was an emergency visit because I let it get to the point where water was having a hard time going down and staying down (for a couple of days. You know what I’m going to say, don’t ignore this symptom of a tight band). The Dr. thought that I may have had a slipped band and had symptoms of a perforated stomach (from what happens when you get stuck repeatedly and ignore the signs of a tight band, yes, vomiting food back up). Turns out it was neither of the above and with an un-fill (now two weeks) I am fine and enjoying protein and other foods I still shouldn’t be eating BUT CAN. Big FAIL on my part! I realized the other day with a 5 pound gain in 2 weeks that HELL, like alcoholism, drug addiction, and other addictions, that food is an addiction for most of us on here that have had the surgery whether we have all realized that or not. We’re just not wired like thin people, bless their tiny little bodies . So I proclaim tomorrow is day one again for me with eyes wide open. I’ve already messed up breakfast today! In two weeks I’ll get a refill and start counting down again, smarter this time. A poke from someone on here now and then would be great. I will say that the band stopped weight gain but I don’t think my Dr. would agree that using this tool upside down is how it works. I’m glad I found this forum because when you have surgery in Mexico you go home and that’s it. You have no support group, no follow-up nutrition classes to go to, no nice office staff to check up on you to see how you are progressing or to give helpful pointers during plateauing. You are on your own to figure the whole band experience out for yourself, good, bad and indifferent.

Right now I'm on empty. Dangerous.

Hi Banderina. I want to say it is 4cc? At 2cc it was tight and at 1.6 & 1.8 too lose. Looking forward to fill in a couple of weeks. Not looking forward to drive to MX though.

So much for cut and pasting from a word doc! Apparantly the a's with a funny symbol on top are my apostrophes. Sorry for any annoyance it causes during your read but we learned something here too. Gotta love technology!

Don't know what happened with fonts.???

I just joined 20 min ago. I can't figure how to start a new post. Can you help?