orea15

I had an IBS attack the other night which helped me drop a few pounds. Not a comfortable way to lose it. I still have abdominal tenderness and slight queasiness. But yes, it looks like I'll make it to the 200's by Christmas! :rolleyes2: My face and my bust are showing the loss at the moment. :cursing:

{{{Kimaly!}}} Great news. :-D I'm so happy for you. Orea

You'll get better results if you base your meals on 3 oz. lean Protein and 1/2 cup of veggies, with a couple of low fat dairy servings for your Calcium and a little low glycemic carb like whole grain or Beans if you have room. Try it for a few weeks and see. :-) Just because you can eat more, doesn't mean you should. It is your responsibility to protect your pouch by not overeating. (I'm not saying this is easy!) Good luck!

I am so sorry. That was an expensive lesson to learn, but a valuable one. I'm crossing my fingers that it's just a leak in the port (did he use the right kind of needle?) or in the tubing, and not in the band itself. If he used a needle that was not non-coring, he could have taken a chunk out of the self sealing portion of your port. This would be much easier to fix. I'd call this malpractice. Grounds for a lawsuit? Keep us posted, please. We care.

Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding: Achieving Permanent Weight Loss with Minimally Invasive Surgery (Paperback) by [ame=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Jessie%20H.%20Ahroni%20Ph.D.%20A.%20R.%20N.%20P.]Jessie H. Ahroni Ph.D. A. R. N. P.[/ame] (Author) If you go to groups.yahoo.com and sign up for the smartbandsters group. you'll find her active there. She is wonderful about answering questions and getting us on the right track. I ws super well prepared for my surgery and my band because of the months I spent there beforehand. It's a very active list, but a warm and supportive one. I recommend you get the digest as the mail volume is high! Orea

You can put in much more than the advertised amount in any given band.

Sip, sip, sip. Keep that Water bottle with you and try to sip every few minutes. Ideally when you are filled to your "green zone" you will be able to eat your bandster meal (3 oz. lean Protein, 1/2 cup vegetables) and feel satisfied for 3-4 hours. I'm not quite there yet, three fills out. I get a soft "stop" sensation that tells me I have eaten enough, but the hunger comes back in 1-2 hours. Almost there:thumbup:! Another sign that you need a fill is if you find yourself trolling for Snacks and wanting to graze.

Oh, and my mom would have said to beat up a pillow or kick the crap out of a cardboard box to let out some of that anger.

There is no doubt that this is a really stressful thing to go through. We work like the dickens to get our surgery, we get it, woohoo, and then we have to adjust. Everything is a little -or a lot! - different. We used to be able to eat without giving it much thought (which may be why we got so fat), and now we have to think about it, work at tiny bites, good choices, small portions and eating slowly. This is challenging! And those of us for whom food was an important emotional crutch have to deal with stuff coming up that we have smothered with food. Not to mention that we are healing from major jurgery and don't feel top notch for a while. So...let yourself cry. It's a good outlet. You might try meditation or something to help you relax and re-center. I'm several months out now and I find I am definitely bitchier than ever before. I get ticked off much more easily. I hope this stage passes before I alienate somebody I care about! So I will take my own advice and resume my qigong practice. It really helped me in the past. Good luck! You will find a 'new normal' with time. Orea

A leak or a slip. To put that much into a band when you have so much Fluid in there already is just plain crazy. This person does not know what he is doing. I'd rather drive the extra 90 minutes for a responsible and experienced fill.

I was told no liquids for 30 minutes before and after eating. This makes no sense to me. I mean the 30 minutes before part. I have heard that some people believe that drinking right before eating lubricates you inside and the food slides through faster. But for heaven's sake, we are lined inside with mucus membranes, and we all know how slippery mucus can be! Anyhow, the person I consider my mentor, Jessie Ahroni, a nurse (now a fill nurse in Seattle) who wrote a book on banding, and has been a bandster for 10 years now, drinks up to the time she eats, and she has been at her goal weight for over 9 years. I call that the voice of experience and success. Also, I tend to wait an hour or more after eating to drink my water. It's easier to do this if I am well hydrated and drinking that last half hour helps. Naturally, everyone should ideally do what their doctor says, but logic should prevail IMHO. Try it and see if it works for you... (I wouldn't say this about potentially dangerous things like drinking carbonated beverages.) YMMV Orea

Welcome! I live in Northern Va. so we are neighbors of sorts. The thing you need to remember is that the first six weeks are mainly about healing, not losing weight. If you do lose weight, it is a bonus, so enjoy! Yes, your initial rate of loss will not last as you go to mushies. Set your expectations to a healthy rate of weight loss in the area of one to two pounds a week. That may not sound like much, but that equates to 50-100 pounds in a year. :-)

I had fill number three yesterday. The NP checked my Fluid level (it was good) and added 1 cc. He said one day of fluids and half portions the next day. I'm definitely a little tighter, but have only tried raisin bran and milk so far. DH got a call to come in for an interview, and also was contacted by a headhunter with a few companies in mind. Fingers crossed. I'd like him to have a choice of jobs, ideally, but anything reasonable that will continue our oh so important health care coverage, would be nice.

Joann, it is good to see you back. Welcome to Bandlandia!

I just had my third fill this morning. The NP added another cc. I'm on liquids today, "half portions" tomorrow. I assured him I would be cautious! 299 here I come!

Death is an extremely rare occurrence with the band. The odds are very much on your side, particularly since you now know to be cautious should you feel anything out of the ordinary. It is much more dangerous for us to remain morbidly obese. Yes, it s scary and I think we all felt that way as surgery approached. But it really is much easier than I thought it would be. (I never had surgery of any kind before.)

The machine is Respironics REMstar M Series AUTO CPAP with A-Flex, SmartCard and Humidifier. I researched machines at cpap.com among other places, but found a superior price at DirectHomeMedical.com. You can't just buy a machine, you have to send them a copy of your prescription. My prescription was for a single setting, so they were supposed to set it to that, but they agreed to leave it at the factory settings. Which is where getting the clinician's instructions from Ebay came in. I had just left Kaiser Permanente early last year, and didn't want to try to contact a new sleep doctor, as the closest one under my new plan was a good drive away. I figured I was responsible enough and smart enught to change my settings myself in a responsible way, and I did. My other recommendation is the Breeze mask with masal pillows by Puritan Bennett. Sometimes I wake up and have to feel if it is still on, it is so comfortable.

I invested in a CPAP machine that senses how I am breathing and adjusts itself to the lowest necessary pressure to keep me breathing properly. I figured either I'd have to suffer through regular sleep studies as I reduced or shell out for the machine and have the exact right pressure every darn night. It also has a flex feature that senses when I am about to exhale and reduces the pressure so I don't have to push against it. I went to Ebay and purchased the cliinician's instructions so I can go in and monitor what's going on. My original prescription (done a year ago) was for a setting of 16, now it is down to 13-13.5 with only two apnea hypopnea episodes per hour. Without the machine, I had 127 episodes in an hour! I'm pretty darn pleased. I love my machine, and never want to sleep without it. I even have it on battery backup in case of a power outage.

Hydrate well beforehand so you aren't so thirsty as you eat. Then, keep your darn glass off the table! You will get used to it, but you have to keep working at following those rules. (This one was easy for me compared to eating slower! LOL)

Welcome! Glad to have you join us. We'll help all we can.

We are working on cleaning out the freezer, so the meatballs were part of that effort. You would be amazed at how well the French green beans work as a pasta substitute. I also sometimes use the Fiber Gourmet pasta in small quantity. Great stuff, and I have not yet had a problem with it. FiberGourmet: low calorie, high fiber pasta

Welcome! The fills are just a poke with a needle. Two pokes, if they numb you first. Not bad at all.

Woohooo, Donna! Yup, soup isn't going to satisfy like solid food will. For lunch today, I had five Schwan's Italian meatballs with 1/2 cup of french cut canned green beans for my pasta substitute and a little spaghetti sauce, sprinkled liberally with Parmesan cheese. Tasty and very filling. Well under 300 calories. It was a very satisfying meal with lots of flavor. I'm about to start drinking again nearly two hours later. I want all the full feeling I can get!

Hi, Melissa. That is one heckuva lot of butter!

I remember well how hard it was to haul those 80 pounds up the basement stairs! LOL