Jachut

I find there's a slight delay in whatever I've just bitten off going down and the stuck feeling starting. Its just too easy to eat too much that way, you dont feel the feeling till five bites later and by then you're in strife. Its so important to eat very slowly for that reason. I try to remind myself to just take breaks between bites and that generally helps me. Then if something is stuck because its not chewed enough, its only one bite of something and it goes away within a few minutes. If I've loaded it up with five more bites I can be sliming away for half an hour, my darn cast iron gut refuses to puke anything up so it can last a long time for me.

I think a lot of people here sound positive and happy because when they had the surgery they were ready to make the change. And when you're ready, even when you hit bumps in the road you can keep on going. You also view success in many ways, it doesnt all hinge on a number on the scale. If you wife had the surgery before she was really ready to face the changes she needs to make to conquer the weight problem, then she's going to find it hard. The band working well depends on it being properly filled but personally, I've found it all about having to do the same things I always would have had to do to lose weight, the band helps me more in my weak moments when I want to overeat but cant. She needs to attend her follow up visits and have a reasonable fill schedule but that's all for nought if she's not mentally in the right place to do this. I live in another country and dont know how your medical system really works but I'd be looking for a referral to a counsellor of some kind. That's the beauty of the band though, its there waiting when she finds the strength and courage to work with it. YOu dont sound cold or mean at all, you sound concerned and unhappy. My DH and I have a great relationship but he's extremely prone to anxiety and depression and I find it really really hard living with that, I want to help but he cannot see his destructive thought processes at times. At one point I was very concerned that he would ruin his very successful career with his anxiety and paranoia. He had no diagnosis at this stage but I felt what he was experiencing was panic attacks. I sat down and typed him a long letter about how I felt about his behavior, and what I thought it was all about, found some internet info and emailed it to him at work. He rang me a few hours later and thanked me from the bottom of his heart. He agreed he wouldnt have listened had I tried to talk to him and he had had to take a few hours to digest what I'd written but it really really helped him.

I got through Christmas last year having only just been banded, I was on mushies, just blended my turkey and veg with a bit of gravy. And plum pudding is mushy enough. Tiny quantities, a glass of wine, I was so excited by what was to come and the thought of how I would look and feel Christmas 2006 that I didnt care. I'd go for it. Its only food.

Personally, I'm happy with how my scars are healing up and disappearing and I'd rather a small bulge than a new scar.

I think its a great start. My DH and I have a great routine going where he walks with Eliza in the jogger and I jog beside him. Because he's bigger and taller than me he can walk much faster, I simply cant keep up with him. So he's walking at the same speed I'm running, lol. Which goes to show that if you really put the effort into walking (not just strolling) you can really get a workout - he wore the heart rate monitor the other night and was up at around 155 and we did 8km in under an hour - that's 5 miles. However, I'm the one jogging - and for me proportionally its more work than he's doing - because I"m smaller, less muscular and female. I've surpassed walking now, even though I've gotten much much fitter over the past year, my maximum walking pace has not increased, physiologically, I simply cannot do more than about 6.5 kms per hour or my gait starts to suffer and I hurt my back. I have to break into a run at that point. Now, walking full pelt at my absolute fastest, I cant get my heart rate above about 130, which for me is not even a workout. I can workout comfortably now in the 160's, as I'm used to running. BUT - I didnt start out that way. I started slowly and just increased slowly and steadily. I had really bad ankle problems, it would have been dead easy to say "oh, I cant run" and never feel I had to but over time, the running has greatly increased the strength I have in that leg and rebalanced it with my other leg, and plenty of stretching has increased the range of motion - so a high impact, injury prone sport like running has actually improved the musculoskeletal problems I had.

Yeah, I can eat thin crust, gourmet style pizzas, which is all I ever would have eaten anyway. I wouldnt touch anything like pizza hut with its thick gooey base with a barge pole and the thought of cheese filled crusts makes me want to barf, lol.

Anything doughy does that to me - cake and doughnuts being the worst offenders, they feel like ground glass. I dont get a golfball or blocked up feeling with those foods at all, they just HURT. Other foods that are problematic for me as far as it goes (I can eat pretty much anything, but some things are harder than others) sit above the band and block me up, they dont scratch like you're describing. I dont get a sensation of the pouch filling and it sitting at all, but that's obviously what happens because all of a sudden I get full and to go even a bite past that can cause pain.

Ooh, very best of luck. At least you know with the liquids to mushies regime, lots of that extra weight will disappear very fast. Hope you recover quickly, as you probably will, being in such better shape now.

Surely you could NEVER band a 12 year old? How would you choose an appropriate size band - you'd have to be fully grown because if they made child size bands what happens as she grows? I wonder what her parents will say when she wants a big pair of silicone DD's for her 15th birthday?

It really needs to be a procedure that's taught in general these days, you shouldnt need to have to call a surgeon in just to unfill a band, but I guess in the overall scheme of things not that many people have lap bands. Glad you got it sorted.

Hmmm, not hugely but some things have gone by the wayside. I cant handle as much rich food anymore, that's probably not due to the band itself but simply due to the fact that I've eaten so much less for the past year. And milky coffees - cappucinos and lattes etc which were a serious addiction for me, make me nauseous now, I cant handle warm milk, ergh. I always have a long black or simply a brewed coffee with a dash of cold milk now. I never liked my coffee sweet but I just dont like the milk anymore.

Slightly, yes. If I do my run after 5.30 pm or so, as I often do (I hop on the treadmill while dinner is in the oven) I often end up barely eating.

I got my gallbladder checked out, perfectly healthy. I actually think its related to my period, it generally happens a day or two before it starts.

*giggle* Dr Weiner in Frankfurt? Sorry I'm of no help other than to snicker.

Actually, I've had a few bouts of absolutely terrible cramping and diarrhoea since banding as well - really horrible, honestly worse than labour. Just out of the blue, no warning, I need to go like normal and then I'm stuck for hours, shaking and sweating. I dont think I can link it to a particular food though - but this sort of thing has only happened to me in the past when I've actually been sick, since banding it just strikes, and once its passed, its passed. Its only happened 3 times in a year though, but I can sympathise, its absolutely awful.

For once I was honest with myself and admitted that one more try was NOT going to bring results. I not so much as gave up as just admitted I had a problem. Once I did that, I realised that surgery to fix a health problem is perfectly acceptable (and not risk free) for any other part of your body, why not this. Nobody would question me if I had had surgery to fix my dodgy ankle, nobody questioned my husband when he had surgery for compartment syndrome in his legs, nobody questioned my decision to have the recommended caesar with my daughter (and that was TWO lives at stake). So why question lap band surgery? It is NO different, and it's brought me the results I needed.

I think I have 2.7 in my 4cc band (i've lost track) and I still could use a lot more restriction - being banded for me is a LOT about using willpower, dieting the traditional way and exercising an awful awful lot, the band does not just automatically make me eat so little that I lose weight without trying, apart from the first month or two. What it does do is when I'm not so perfect, I jsut cannot eat enough to gain weight. I have to do all the hard work, the band means I can maintain it. I dont ahve to be perfect all the time. I'm happy with that balance. Its important to me to feel that I'm doing something because if I ever had to lose my band, I feel as if I have made the effort to make serious changes in my outlook and behaviour concerning eating. I think the band probably does more in terms of killing my appetite than I realise though, and I dont kid myself that if my band were removed, I'd effortlessly keep the weight off. Its doing something. But real hard stops every time I've had half a cup of food - nup it doesnt do that for me. Stopping me from eating 4 pieces of pizza, it does do that. I think that I have "enough" restriction. I tend to think that being tighter puts you at greater risk of erosion and slippage, and that you can end up pouch packing on much smaller quantities of food without even realising it. Those are just my feelings on it, its not fact by a long shot, but I choose to use my band that way. I'd prefer to run regularly like I do than have more fill and not be able to lead a completely normal lifestyle that includes eating out, never PBing, not having to worry about menus being appropriate etc.

Than CANNOT be legal. That needle should go straight into a sharps container, even if it has your own bodily fluids on it, who says they are not a danger to somebody else who may happen upon the needle? And that needle would be so contaminated by the time you brought it back. Of course they're going to sterilise it but at least when its unopened you KNOW its clean. At the very least, if they were going to do this, the needle should be sterilised before you take it, to protect others. But its in no way shape or form acceptable, I'd be out of there, and I'd be reporting it.

Physically, dumping in the same way would be impossible, since food takes so long to filter through the band and cannot hit your small intestine in a sudden hit. But who knows? I personally cannot handle milk very well since banding, its OK on Cereal, but coffees, like cappucinos and lattes make me nauseous now.

I think restriction can be a very hard thing to define too. If I went by what I've read on this board, I would say I have "no" restriction. I can eat any food at all, I can eat reasonable amounts, and I have never PB'd. I have a feeling that were I to seek more fill, I would go from "no" restriction to too tight pretty quickly though. It is such an individual thing - I personally cannot rely on my band as anything more than a helping hand in making wise food and exercise decisions for myself. It just plain does not provide me with hard stops. Perhaps that's my doing and I'm misunderstanding what level of fill I really need, but I dont mind it that way. Now, I'm not at all suggesting that its the same for you, but you do need to stop and think hard - how can you eat as compared to before the band? Can you eat as fast? Can you eat as much? Did you expect to be "stopped" automatically by the band - which is how it seems to work for some people and not others? Of course, I"m under 200lb and pretty tall, so restriction will be harder for me to attain, but I'm just not sure everyone defines it in the same way. If I cared to, I could quite easily gain weight with this band in, simply by food choice and not exercising, it gives me that much leeway. Perhaps its my individual experience, perhaps its that I dont have good restriction, I"m not sure. But I can definitely say that how and how much I eat is different to before, just not in the ways that I expected.

I hear you on the bust size Kat! Since I got myself fitted properly I've actually gone UP in cup size to an E, groan. But I've come down from a 22 to a 14 back.

My starting BMI was lower at 36 and I voted "dont have any" but that's not really true. I just dont have enough that I could ever in a million years get a tummy tuck covered by insurance. I have nothing that "hangs" but my belly is very doughy, its never going to be a real bikini belly, but at 40 I dont really care about that, lol. I have a slight bit of loose skin in my upper arms, again, not enough to do anything about, more to look my age. My boobs are a disaster, lol, but they were before hand, I've been a good dairy cow for 3 kids. For a few years pre band all I did exercise wise was walking, and not regularly. I was a gym member too and did that sporadically as well. But I have a history of being quite athletic behind me, I played state level softball and netball well into my 20's and have always been pretty fit until the last few years. Now I run 8km 5 times a week or so. I think some weight work would really help my body.

Sizes are different here, but basically I was a US 20 and am now a US 14 and would like to be a 12. I'd be more than happy with that at 5ft 10.

I cant help with the insurance stuff because I live in Australia, it gets covered here without any trouble. But I was about the same height/weight. For my first two normal pregnancies, I didnt experience a huge reduction in the amount of food I could eat because I'm so tall, I never got huge during pregnancy. I didnt gain much weight because I was very careful, but I have plenty of room in there to hide a 9lb baby without having my intestines coming out my nose and ears. But for my third pregnancy, Eliza was breach and for unknown reasons she sat really oddly, very very high in my abdomen. I didnt need maternity clothes at all till about 28 weeks. But I could barely eat a thing (I wont even go into how horrific the heartburn and reflux were). I'd eat 3 mouthfulls, be stuffed and feel full for hours. Banding early on felt VERY like that for me, when I had the swelling from surgery. After about 6 or 8 weeks, that disappeared and I've found my band more of a tool that requires quite a lot of my own willpower, as I really dont think Ive reached optimum restriction in almost a year - and that's only because I"m really fill shy, I want to live as normal a life as possible, I never want to PB and I have a strong feeling that being tight equates to higher risks of erosion and slippage. I just dont get that fullness that lasts for hours anymore, instead I feel full quickly, and find it easy to stop eating when I should but I can easily be hungry (well not hungry but interested in food) again an hour or so later. I have to just say "no, I dont eat between meals anymore".

that's pretty much how they do it all the time in Australia.