srussell8

My original surgeon never did a single fill without the x-ray and barium. A few weeks ago, I went to a new doctor for the first time and had my first fill without it. Your experience truly does sound like a nightmare! Definitely demand that something be done - there is no excuse! Shelly

Hi all - My name is Shelly and in a few weeks, I will reach the 7 year mark since getting my lapband. My pre-op weight was 306 and my lowest weight was 165, which I reached about 5 years ago. About that time, I moved to another state and stopped having regular check-ins with my lapband doc. Naturally, I lost restriction and got lazy, which earned me about a 50 pound weight gain over the past 4-5 years. I recently re-connected by finding a new bariatric doc here and had a recent fill. I'm working on getting back to where I want to be and returning to following the rules and using my band as the tool it should be. In the 2 weeks since the fill, I've lost 5 pounds, s I'm beginning to feel hopeful again. I'm hoping that by joining this group, I will be able to re-capture some of the enthusiasm and motivation I had in the beginning. I've looked around the site and suppose I should feel fortunate that I have had no complications with my band whatsoever. I just learned over time how to defeat it and went back to old eating habits. Hopefully I can return to the successful behaviors I had before! Shelly

Don't give up! I'm 7 years out. Originally lost 140 then gained back 50. Now I'm re-motivating and getting back to basics. If we did it once, we can do it again. I am finding that forcing myself to use my fitness pal is helping me stay on track. I find myself wanting to lie on the food journal, but then I think about how pointless it is. It helps motivate me for exercise too.

If I drop below 60 g of Protein a day for any length of time, I do notice hair loss. I have thin, fine hair anyway. I've always been paranoid about hair loss because some of the women in my family have been nearly bald when they were old. I just focus on increasing protein and take Biotin. Once I get my protein up, the hair fills in pretty quickly, and I don't think anyone else really notices but me. I also tried Nioxin. It helps a little, I think. But it's really too expensive for me to use all the time. Shelly

I was told by my surgeon to never take non-chewable vitamins - only chewable. I was told they were an occlusion danger. I have found that I like the newer gummy vitamins better than the chalky kind.

I had never really dated at all until after I lost the weight. Then I started dating and things got crazy! I made a few bad choices, then I met my husband and married him 5 1/2 months (yes months!) later. Talk about a whirlwind! (Although I am fantastically happy, I don't recommend it for the faint of heart!). I think I'm incredibly lucky for things to turn out well, because I was kind of careless for a while there. I think I sort of got this new body (I have never been thin) and thought - "OK - let's take this baby out for a spin and see what it can do!" Keep good friends you can trust for sound feedback around you and have fun! Shelly

On June 6, I will Celebrate 7 years post-op. I can honestly say that there is nothing I cannot eat. Bread and meat can get stuck if I don't chew enough, but that's on me, not the band. I just had lunch at my favorite Indian restaurant and loved it as much as I always did before. As others have said, you are still healing and this is a HUGE adjustment. My surgeon required a 6 week pre-op liquid diet and 3 days post-op Clear Liquids only. Then 2 weeks more of mushy food before moving on to soft foods and finally solid food. I would never have believed that it would be possible - and even now, I have a hard time imagining myself doing it. I will never forget my first scrambled egg post-op! It was the most delicious thing I have ever put in my mouth! No matter how you look at it, a liquid diet is not natural. Humans are hard-wired to want food. It is a basic instinctual drive and it's purpose is survival. It's not a personal short-coming to want to eat! In fact, there is something wrong with you if you don't want to eat! That's why food tastes good. It's supposed to be rewarding so we'll keep doing it and not starve ourselves to death. So as others have said, don't beat yourself up for it. Survival behaviors are not moral weakness - they are smart. Remember the guy who cut off his own arm when he got it stuck while rock-climbing by himself? Pretty impressive survival behavior! Almost everyone I've ever talked to knows who I am talking about because he was a hero and plastered all over the news and talk shows. Now - what would have happened if he had not been in a life or death situation and did the same thing? As a psychologist, I can tell you - he would have been committed immediately for self-harm. It's the very same behavior, but the context makes all the difference in how we perceive it. One is considered heroic survivalism, the other is considered self-mutilation. The problem is, in our society, we don't face famine and the real possibility of starving to death, as our ancestors did. So that drive to eat as much as we can, whenever we can, backfires on us. We don't need that survival behavior, so we look kind of crazy and it just becomes self-defeating behavior. To make matters worse, our society has this obsession with unrealistic body images. For those of us whose bodies are very fuel efficient, the excess is stored and on display for all the world to see and judge. Don't try to defeat the natural drive for food. You won't win and will always feel deprived. The beauty of the band is that you don't have to try to defeat the instinct to eat until you are full. You still will eat until you are full. You will just be full much sooner. The hard part is learning to stop when you are full. Seven years later, I still have a hard time when there is still food on my plate and my band says stop. It's even worse when there are just a few bites left on the plate. I will also admit that sometimes when I am eating something really good, I am sad when I have to stop. And sometimes, I just want what I want when I want it. That's why I learned how to defeat the band and I have gained back 50 of the 140 pounds I lost. So now I have another fill and I'm learning to respect the band again. Make it your partner, not your enemy. The way I have come to think about it, the band is the reason I can eat my favorite foods, not the reason I can't. Without the band, I'm back to "dieting" with certain foods (most of the good ones, in my opinion) "off limits." Hang in there and keep with the therapy to continue to develop coping skills besides food for the emotional eating. The rest will take care of itself! Shelly

Don't despair - I could have written your post myself! I was down to a solid size 14 with an occasional size 12 thrown in. Now - I'm working on staying in an 18. Since I have battled the scale since I was about 10, I have a real problem with the numbers on the scale. For some reason, I do better if I measure things by the size of clothing. I will never forget the joy of going into a store that was not plus size and finding things that fit! Probably the biggest blow and most discouraging thing for me was having to go back to Lane Bryant to find clothes. I will do this!

Thanks for pointing me to this thread, Stephanie! I really think that to get back on track I need to become active here. It's so easy to lose sight of the goal and forget the basics. After I got my band 7 years ago, I lost 140 pounds, and promptly met someone and got married. We moved away from all of our family and support to a new state with new jobs and no money. I mean - really - no money. Oh and by the way, I became a mom (for the first time) to my husband's 2 kids from a previous marriage, which we have full time. Can't imagine how in the midst of all that, I lost focus on losing weight. So here I am 5 years later and I've gained back 50 pounds. I fell back into using food as a means of self-soothing. There's no way around it - I LOVE FOOD! As I read other's posts about what triggers cravings and binges, there is no doubt that mine is simple carbs in any form. Doesn't matter if it's pure sugar or if it's a starch. Once my body gets that quick fix from a carb - we're off to the races. Unfortunately, my brain seems to automatically think "If one is good, two is better!" Nom, nom, nom! The best eating plan for me seems to be South Beach-y. High protein, low/good fat, low/good carb. The nice thing is that it works well for me with the band. If I'm eating the protein first, I'm pretty much filled up and have no room for the rest. My biggest problem is that now I know how to defeat the band. "Yeah, I'm done - the pouch is full. BUT if I just have a little drink of water, then I can have some more of this tasty dinner... Come to think of it, I'm feeling a bit dehydrated and need a drink. After all - it's important to drink enough water, right?!?" I am (as always) my own worst enemy. So - I just need to re-focus. I'm enlisting my husband and kids to help me NOT drink with my meals and I'm getting active here to keep this a priority. I just keep telling myself that it's do-able. I did it once, I can do it again! And I'm glad to be stopping the skid before I am totally back to where I started. Shelly

Mine was an airplane. I was at the luggage carousel and overheard the guy who sat next to me complaining to his friend about the fat lady he had to sit by (me) who crowded him into the window during the flight.

I can honestly say I have never regretted my decision to get the lapband. I was (am) fortunate to be surrounded by supportive people who have been positive every step of the way. The most negative has been my mom, and she only nagged when I regained part of the weight - but was never negative about the band. To be honest, one of my biggest inspirations has been a "failure story." I learned about the band when a friend's daughter was going through the process to get it. She had to self-pay and re-financed her house to get the money. She lost 50 pounds on the pre-op diet, and during that time, I decided to do it too. I cashed in my 401k to self-pay for the surgery. Then, after she got the band, my friend's daughter didn't lose another pound. She continued to defeat the band and eventually re-gained the 50 pounds, plus some. I recently saw a picture of her and thought - that's where I'm headed if I keep going this way. I never want to take the band for granted and waste it. I am a psychologist and often work with addictions. People are constantly amazed that someone would choose their drug over their family and throw away everything they have - job, home, kids. If I don't deliberately use the band, I am choosing my drug (food) over everything I worked so hard to gain(lose). I know that the band is not magical and some people have complications. Just follow the rules and confirm for yourself why you made the decision in the first place. Change doesn't happen until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. The pain of staying like you were must have been pretty bad to make it worth what you have been through to get the band (at least it was for me). Hang on to that. If you forget the reason you decided to do it in the first place, you'll get discouraged and give up. When you get ready to cry - repeat the mantra "I did this for a reason!" and remind yourself what that reason was. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm preaching to myself here as much as to anyone else!) Right now your body is probably still in shock and is out of whack. Your brain is part of your body, so it makes sense that your emotions are out of whack, too. Plus, most of us who need bariatric surgery in the first place have some emotional connections to food. If eating has been a primary means of coping with stress, you are likely to feel quite lost when you go through something as stressful as surgery that completely takes away your primary coping skill. OK - I'll stop lecturing now. Combine my "therapist self" with my "lapband self" and I tend to get a little preachy. Hang in there! Shelly