TickledPink

A short history of my banding: Was banded in May of 2005. Had maybe 6 or 7 fills until I hit my sweet spot. The fill that took me from feeling pretty loose to just perfect was 0.25 cc. This was the first time I could feel my food sticking in my pouch. Life was so much easier and I was happy. This was in November. Just before Christmas, I got the flu and then a cold, back to back. With the flu, I had a fever that caused me to swell so that I could only get hot liquids down. I stuck it out though, and the trouble subsided. I was fine for a few weeks. Since then, every couple of weeks, my restriction changes for one reason or another. PMS bloating, stress, etc. I'll go from being pretty loose and open (food doesn't stick in pouch) to being too tight. I've had a couple of tiny unfills and then 1 cc taken out in April to let my stomach rest for a couple months. In the beginning of June, I started with tiny fills again. Just as I was going to schedule another fill to reach my sweet spot, I get the flu again and am tight for a couple days until my fever subsides. Since then (it's been about two weeks), I'm back to being loose, but I'm having reflux at night. Food goes down fine though. Do I just have a sensitive stomach?? Or is crazy restriction like this a sign of possible slippage. I'm going to speak with my surgeon tomorrow to figure all of this out, but I'm pretty scared right now that I possibly slipped at Christmas and have been living with it since then. I just thought the band was a "fickle b*tch" and this was something that I had to live with--at least that's the advice I was given. Now I feel like I should have been more aggressive in getting this looked at. :cry Any ideas? TickledPink -100 lb

I hate to be negative or ungrateful, but I am really down right now about the level of restriction my swedish band is (NOT) providing. So far I've had 4 fills, equalling a total of 9 cc, and my band only holds 9 cc. I still feel very little restriction. I can still eat just about anything, including bread. It takes a lot of willpower to eat like a bandster at this point because I can eat more than a bandster portion if I want. I feel discouraged because I paid $15,000 for this device, and I (mostly) don't even realize it's there! I do appreciate that the band has made me more conscious of my eating (eating slower, taking smaller bites, chewing more thoroughly) but I am really disappointed that I don't get that full feeling. So what do I do now? Pretend that I have restriction and just eat as a bandster, ignoring that nagging feeling that I've wasted my money? My first fill was done under fluoroscopy, and my band appears to be positioned right where it should be. That first fill showed a good restriction too. But like all of my fills I feel the restriction at first, but after a couple of days, the swelling goes down and I no longer feel the restriction. For two of my fills, my surgeon has pulled out some Fluid (not all fluid, I don't believe) to be sure that there was fluid in my band. I'm at a loss as to what could be the problem. The other surgeon in my clinic said that it is possible but very rare to fill the band to capacity and still feel very little restriction--and this scares me. Regardless, I will lose this weight, whether or not this tool provides the restriction that I was promised it would. It will be difficult, but I'm going to do it. I'm just in a kind of mourning right now about not having any restriction in my band. I plan on calling the clinic tomorrow so I can make an appointment to speak with my surgeon about this later in the week, but in the mean time, has anyone else had this issue? Can you offer any advice or support? Is it possible to fill a 9 cc band beyond the 9 cc?