I've had my band for about 5 weeks now. My surgeon and nutritionist both told me that it would be okay to start taking small sips of water 30 min. after eating a meal and that should be okay. So I try to wait between 30-45 minutes and then I usually am good. And with the food thing that lap banders cant tolerate it feels like something is actually stuck sitting there and when this happens, I noticed that is usually comes back up within a few minutes.