Suzzzie.

Woo hoo. My first PB. Ugh!!!!!!!!!!! I was sooooo grateful when it finally came up. I still feel like something is a little bit stuck. Dang. I was only 3 bites into dinner. I'm not even going to try anything else tonight! I'm going to bed!

Wow!!! How exciting!! Looks great!

Hmm, the flying thing will be interesting when I go to TX in Sept!!

lo2us - I could take them whole before my fill... not sure now as I haven't tried. Hmmm. Lol. I think if I try one now and it won't go through that I may just buy liquid motrin, cause seriously, tylenol will not help my backaches.

Well, I'm still lingering around 20 pounds lost, but no one has noticed mine either. People sure notice that I eat different though!! (The people who don't know about the band.) I have been able to fit into a pair of jeans and a few of my scrub tops that I haven't been able to wear in a year or more!! They're still a bit snug, but I'll take whatever I can get!!

IBUPROFEN - When I went back to see the NP for my post op she told me I could take the small OTC tablets of ibuprofen, just not the big pills. I've had a bad back for about 12 years now and when the pain really flares up ibuprofen is the only thing that helps at all...at about an 800mg dose, sometimes more. NUTRITION - My NP doesn't care if I snack, or have 4-5 small meals a day as long as I"m making good choices and getting my protein in. Again, I think that is just one of those things that everyones doc is going to vary on.

Or you can just open the photo on your computers photo veiwer. Right click on the photo, click 'edit'. That should open it in Paint, click 'Image' (above photo.) then click the 'Stretch/Skew' option. Once there you will have 4 boxes for numbers. Make sure you are in the ''stretch' section and in the horozontal and vertical boxes put in any number smaller than 100. (I usually go with about 50, this will reduce your picture size by 1/2.) Skip the 'skew' option, and click OK. Its not nearly as complicated as it sounds. And its better than downloading an unknown program to your computer.

Faith- Yes. You should always wait 2 hours after iron to take a calcium. I take minewith lunch. I just pack it in with my lunch bag I take to work. And I will confess that on my days off I usually forget to take it, since its not right in front of my face!

YES!!! My doc billed for like $56,000+!! I was shocked since the self pay is only $13,000 there. Insane. Apparently they want the insuance to pick up the slack? Lol. And i was only there for about 11 hours. Insane. Well..... then my insurance sent me a check for just under $2,000! (I have to give it to the doc) but still... I'm soooooo not paying $54,000. Lol. So now the doc office gets to fight with the insurance. Yay for them!!

marga - I know what you mean about taking the time to eat. Fortunatly since my fill on Friday I've not had trouble taking that time!! If I don't, then things get stuck and I slime for ever. This morning I had a biscuit w/ gravy (yes, so nutritious!) and it all went down fine, but I was so scared of having it get stuck (I was at work) thta i took the smallest bites and sat the fork down between bites, and focused on chewing. It was so strange for me. I' really hopingthat I can continue to chew well and take small bites, slowly. It is hard when you've inhaled food your whole life!!

Hey. I'm at 195 minutes. I've begun to realize that for me - this first month - I have over estimated my ability to get to the gym and do the exercise. Lol. I'm semi-pleased with what I have done, but I know I could do better. I know I won't reach my goal, and I'm cool with that. I think for August I'm going to stick with around 500 minutes. Lol!!

Everyone keeps talking about the benefiber. I think I should try some. Haha. Lack of movements ya know... and like someone else said, fiber fills you up longer. I get paid Friday, I'll buy some when I do all my grocery shopping. Today has been good. I had 1 small bite kinda stick for a second...mild sliming, then with some throat and tummy gurgles it passed and I was fine. So weird. Where is everyone? We seem to be missing more than a few of our Junies around here lately.

I haven't PBd yet, but earlier when I had a bite stuck I was HOPING for it just to get it up and out of me!!

Glad you got your fill!! I had lost weight after surgery - and gained back all but 2 pounds when I went in for my fill on Friday. The NP was happy with that. I never expected to be cured overnight. The only way to make me stop eating is to not be hungry - or to get full quickly - which THANKFULLY the fill is giving me! I can't get another fill for 4 weeks, and I'm cool with that. RIght now I definatly have restriction. I know the first fill can be sneaky and only give good restrictino for a few days, and I'm cool with that if it happens. Don't be so hard on yourself, and hang in there, This is a journey. Enjoy the scenery.

LadyHR - Good job with the Oreos!!! Those cookies are my weakness!!! specially the double stuffed ones!!

The Riviera is still standing. Its been sold, but not tore down. Same with Sahara. Alladin is not there anymore - its now Planet Hollywood. I think the Excalliber or Treasure Island would be OK, they are both mid-strip and shouldn't be too expensive for those of us on tight budgets!!

Owwwie! I've got to learn to SLOW down. I am so hungry today. At work I ate a yogurt around 10am. Starving at 12 I ate about 3/4 cup of tuna - I was STUFFED. Then about 2pm I was starving again. Ate about 1/2 cup tuna - stuffed again. Weird! Shouldn't I stay full longer? And I mean I was hungry! My stomach was growling and everything, water didn't satisfy me. SO I get home from work at 4:30 and decide to make myself a wrap with turkey and grated cheese and FF ranch drsg. I was so hungry I forgot to chew well and STUCK CITY. I paced the house for about 20 minutes before it finally went down. Thought I was going to drown in my own saliva!! Now, I have slowed down and I feel better. I'm stuffed again - and I've probably only had about 1/2 of the wrap. I'm sure I'll be hungry again in about an hour. Sigh... Made an appointment for my next fill - Aug 16. Yes, I have to wait 4 weeks between fills.

Hey all, I found this fabulous website yesterday - Recipezaar: Where the World's recipes Are - It is too cool. You can search for anything. I put in 'low fat, high protein' in the search bar and got thousands of good, easy recipes. I'm not big on cooking, so I made my search even more focused by saying that I wanted low fat, high Protein, crock pot recipes, still got over 3,000! It give the nutritional info for each recipe too. Janine - Congrats on joining the gym!! Don't worry about the popcorn and cake! If we were all perfect we wouldn't need the lap band!

I thought these were kinda cute: "The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it."~ Andy Rooney "I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks."~ Totie Fields "When I buy Cookies I just eat four and throw the rest away. But first I spray them with Raid so I won't dig them out of the garbage later. Be careful, though, because that Raid really doesn't taste that bad."~ Janette Barber "I've been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet!"~ Erma Bombeck "My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people." ~ Orson Welles "I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them."~ Unknown

Thanks everyone for your comments. I"m feeling MUCH better now. I ate a few bites of tuna and waited about 15 minutes and could tell I was starting to feel better. The stomach pain was lifting and the nausea went away. Now I'm eating some more tuna that I mixed with some low fat bacon ranch salad dressing. Its so good. Haha. I'm eating really slowly, still a bit fearful. To anser Insub's question, no there were no chunks of fruit in my smoothie. I blended it for FOREVER, plus I mooshed every bite in my mouth, Lol.

PS. to last post - (too hard to edit) - I was fine Friday and Saturday. Also Since the milk incident this morning I have felt nauseated and my stomach has hurt.

OK... sorry to be whiney here... I'm HUNGRY. But I'm SCARED to eat! I had a fresh peach & necterine smoothie this morning, and all was well. Then a few hours later I was a little hungry, but decided to just sip on some skim milk. The MILK got stuck in th throat an di nearly cried. It hurt so bad. I haven't had anything since then, except water. I just opened some tuna, I'm thinking about trying it. I'm looking at it... but so scared ot will get stuck and I'll have to go to the hospital to have it either pushed down, or sucked up. Anyone else having probblems? I had my first fill of 4cc (10cc band) 2 days ago (Friday).

during the week is cheaper - but it doesn't matter to me either way. My work schedule is pretty flexible.

Oh how awful!! So will they have to open you up to re-stitch the port in place? I can't imagine going through all that again so soon. DO they have any ideas on how it got flipped so quickly?

10cc band - got 4cc on my first fill.