I had my band put on in 2005 and had problems from the beginning. I told the surgeon I had extreme hunger and my port area was very painful. He assured me as I had more fill the hunger would subside, but it didn't, my stomach growled like crazy, it was embarrassing and my port area hurt so bad nothing could touch it. As I started to eat more normal food choices I found the healthy foods were off limits as they caused me to choke, foods like chicken breast, lettuce, fish, brown rice. I choked so bad once I pulled muscles all over my body, including in my armpits and broke blood vessels in my eyes and the food was blocking my airway and I almost passed out at the toilet. I should have had the band removed then, but I kept it in for 8 more years and eventually I had 6 of those years with no fill, however I still would have a problem eating. I told the surgeon I would sometimes take just a couple bites of food and the stoma of the band would block and I would get chest pain and not be able to swallow water and a thick mucus would come up. I was hospitalized a couple times when I went to the hospital with chest pains but my heart was fine. My primary care doctor finally sent me to an gastrointestinal doctor that did some test and found my body had been trying to push the band off of my stomach by giving me esophageal spasms my body had rejected the lapband and developed a motility problem which means the muscles in my esophagus have weakened over the years of fighting to push the band off. It happens to people, but not as young as I am. I started in a long distance walking group 18 weeks ago, we started out walking 2 miles on our long day and 1 mile 3 days during the week. About a six weeks into the program I had my lap band removed. Yesterday I walked 8 miles and over 4 bridges and have lost 30 lbs. You can make it if you want to. Good luck!!!
