monkey1

I have had my band for 7 years, and two years ago was doing really well until I started to get severe pain for a couple of months, it was missed in an ultrasound that my port had disconnected with the band, and was floating around, causing me great pain when I moved. I had surgery immediately after the discovery and found it really hard getting used to it again. After a few months, weight continued to increase, and I still had some discomfort. Now 18 months on from surgery, it is not working, and have a specialist appointment next week, and possibly have to have a second repair. I feel a lot of emotional torment, being back at square one, I have put 20 kilos on in 2 years (half the first time it broke, and continually until now), but physically I struggled the second time around, especially going back to work, which is a physical job, the doctor thinks I had an abdominal adhesion following, which was why I continued to have pain. I guess I have to wait until next week to have a definite opinion on what has happened this time, but there's definitely no saline in it, and my appetite is HUGE. Just wondering whether it's happened to anyone else, and if they are struggling like I am...

I finally had my band tested a couple of times, filled to high pressure under an xray, and there was no sign of the leak, despite losing a 5th of the fluid after 10 minutes. I had surgery, and they still could not find a leak, but they did decide to replace everything. It's been a few months, and I'm only just starting to feel the effects of having a working band, my appetite is reduced and I can go to the gym again without any severe pain.

Sorry to hear that, next week I'm having the dye injected under an xray, so they can see if it's a leak or another breakage, have you had that xray?

I had no idea how much pain would be caused by the incorrect foods, emotionally it's very hard to see friends and family eat normal, and understand it's not possible for you to do the same. Make sure you get some good nutritional information, and ask what kind of progress you should make. My mistake was not going to follow up appointments in the first year, and increasing my fill, I didn't lose much weight for a few years because of it, once I started increasing my appointments, I was really happy with the results. Good Luck!