kbinaz

Hello, I am new here. I am scheduled for revision from Lapband to RNY on November 4th also. Nervous and excited. I went to my pre-op class yesterday and it calmed me down a lot!! Lots of good information. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with all I learned but I remember feeling the same way before the band surgery and it worked out fine. I'd love to keep in touch with all of you during the process! Was glad I hear I don't have to o a pre-op liquid diet. That was making me more nervous than anything!

Haven't been on this forum for about two months, and am glad to be back! I have currently lost 54 pounds. (started at 233, am currently 179) Even more exciting was that my personal trainer redid my body composition test. My body fat percentage went from 47% (OMG It's hard to even write that - darn near half fat!!!) to....drumroll...26%!!!!! Yeah!!! My trainer says I should try to get to about 21%. Not too far to go! It also showed that I gained 20 pounds of muscle! So it's basically like I have lost 73 pounds- because muscle weighs more than fat. Working out has really made a difference for me (even though I hate it with everything that is in me!) I am very firm and have little sagging. I'm enjoying reading all the posts of other October '07 bandsters! Keep up the good work, ladies!

Yeah for you! That sounds like an awful experience! I can't imagine PB'ing just with your own spit - yuk~

Happy Birthday! I feel exactly the same way you do ~ My surgery date is when I was really born!

I needed 5 fills to get the restriction I needed. Once I got that restriction I could only eat small amounts of food, and started losing weight. Remember that this is normal for the lap band. It can take a while to get it working right. You are doing just fine and I promise you, if you are diligent about getting the fills you need, you will start losing soon!

It concerns me that you can't eat until that late in the day. That is what doesn't sound normal to me. Are you feeling okay? Are you losing weight? I don't know how you could be getting enough nutrients in to be healthy if you can't eat until 7 pm. and only after drinking a hot drink.

You should never get a fill if you are losing weight steadily. My point in my post was that if you need one to lose weight, you should get one! It would be just plain silly to get a fill if you didn't need one.

Just after surgery and before any fills I could eat just about as much as I could have before surgery. It wasn't until my 5th fill that I had enough restriction to limit my intake. Now I am lucky if I can eat a cup of food, it varies from day to day and really from hour to hour. Remember, the band isn't really the band until it is giving you restriction. It was designed to be filled. I have heard the analogy that it is like tires. If you don't put air in your tires, you can't drive with them. If you don't fill your band, you aren't really getting the benefit of it.

I have the same problem - I get really loose just before my period, then once my period hits I get really tight, so it kind of makes up for it! There are certain times of day and certain times of the month that our tightness varies, this is a normal part of being banded. It is kind of frustrating, because it makes it hard to know what to eat! But it is totally normal.

Jorge, you are NOT a failure! Go get your fill!!! The band is designed to work when filled enough to give you restriction. If you haven't even had a fill you are basically struggling with exactly the same issues as you were before you had the band. You can't expect weight loss success if the band isn't even doing it's job!! I promise you, if you get the right level of restriction you will have a much easier time controlling what you put in your mouth. It isn't going to miraculously just happen, you are going to need to cooperate, but it will be waaaaay easier. GET AS MANY FILLS AS YOU NEED TO GET THE RESTRICTION YOU NEED. Don't be afraid to go to your doctor for your fill. They will work with you. Get on track ASAP - don't waste another day feeling like a failure. Get on the stick and fix this!!! If you ever need to talk you can send me a private message and I will answer. I live in Chandler, so we are kind of neighbors! Feel free to send a message if you need to vent. I am happy to available for a pep talk any time. Where did you have your surgery??? I used Scottsdale Bariatric with Dr. Robin Blackstone.

OOPS! Sorry, I posted above and just reread your post and realized I messed up. I was thinking your surgery was in '08! Now your post makes more sense...You, like me, are also a kind of slow loser. Sorry I made it sound like you weren't!!! Like I said in my post, where would you be if you hadn't had surgery? That is what really keeps me going. I just know that without the band I would have gained weight. The other thing I am relieved about is that I don't have to constantly worry about gaining weight back. I may be losing slowly, but I also don't get on the scale and have huge gains, either. There are a lot of "slow losers" out here - and to be honest with you I think we are more the norm than the fast losers! Don't forget there are a lot of factors in play - age, size, body type - lets celebrate our successes and not worry so much about how long it is taking us. (I am talking to myself when I say that too, because I have as much trouble being impatient as anyone!) I have been overweight for 30 years. I can't expect instant results in fixing it!

My weight loss has averaged 5 pounds a month in the 9 months since my surgery. You are losing way more than average so it is hard to feel too sorry for you! Enjoy it and try to think about where you would be today if you hadn't had surgery. You are doing great.

There are people who report losing great amounts of weight without any fills but they are few and far between. The band is designed to work when filled, so anyone who can lose weight without fills is unusual. As far as wanting to be one of the people who don't need fills - why? Are you afraid of them hurting? They really aren't that bad. If you can make it through surgery you can certainly make it through a fill! It basically feels just like any other injection. There seems to be a mentality that the fewer fills you need the better person you are and that is simply not the case. Fills are not evil! They are what makes the band work the way it was designed to work. If I could have lost weight without the band I would not have had major surgery. I know there are people who think I copped out and did the 'easy' thing, but I know that I had to do what was necessary to lose weight and that I could not succeed without this drastic step. The same thing goes for fills. We have to do what it takes to get the job done. I started feeling hungry five days after surgery and continued to feel hungry until my 4th or 5th fill. Once I got the restriction I needed, I was able to lose weight. Remember we are all different. There is no right or wrong. We all require different fill levels to get restriction and we all lose weight at different rates. The point is, we have this awesome tool and we need to use it correctly. If it means we need five, six or more fills to get there, it would be kind of silly to go without them.

Has anyone needed to have surgery (not related to the band) after being banded? I was just told I am going to need a hysterectomy (laparoscopic) and am wondering how having the band will effect this surgery. I am 10 months post-op. Anyone have any input? I will be asking my lap band surgeon too, of course.

I FINALLY weigh less than my husband!!!

Don't give up! Take a deep breath! It's going to be okay. I could have written that post right after my surgery - I went through the exact same thing. But you are NOT a failure. As you said, you haven't had a fill yet. You are exactly the same person you were before your surgery, except for this bizarre piece of hardware that was installed. It isn't working yet! So don't worry. Yes, you can eat a lot, just like you could before surgery. Why would you expect to be miraculously healed from overeating when you don't have restriction yet???!!! This takes time. There is a learning curve. Do what the doctor tells you to do and schedule your fills as often as you can get them. I assure you, when you get the proper restriction you will eat a lot less. Hang in there!!

One of the main reasons people choose the band over G.B. is for exactly that reason. It is healthier to lose weight slowly. Lots of people, by the way, do lose more than 1-2 pounds a week. I am not one of them and I kind of wish I was but in the overall scheme of things it doesn't really matter how long it takes me to get to goal, what matters is that I am moving in the right direction and getting there! And believe it or not, 1-2 pounds a week really does add up pretty quickly.

I don't think the issue is so much what country you have your surgery in, it is who does your surgery. There are excellent doctors who do lap band surgery in Mexico and there are bad ones. The same goes for the U.S. Do your research, ask a lot of questions, and don't be in a hurry. Spend time on this sight, because you will see a lot of recurring themes - (one of which is from people who have problems but can't get them fixed because it is too much of a pain to go back to Mexico to be checked out and nobody in the U.S. wants to treat you for complications with a band someone else put in.) For me, once you figure out if a program is doing a good job, you have to ask yourself if Mexico is the right choice for you because you are going to need several fills in the first year and it could be a pain in the neck, not to mention expensive, to go to Mexico for each of them. So you need to have a plan in place BEFORE you have surgery. Where will you get your fills? How much will fills cost if you get them in the U.S? Where will you go if you have complications after you get home after surgery? Where will you go if you have complications later on down the road? These are important things to figure out, and the time to do it is before surgery not when you are in the middle of a crisis! Hopefully you won't have a crisis, but every once in a while someone does and you need to be prepared.

I needed 7.5 ccs in my 10 cc band to feel restriction. There is no right or wrong - you need to have as much fluid in your band as you need to get restriction and nobody can determine how much that is. Needing more fills doesn't make you a bad person - trust me, I know! And I can assure you, when you get restriction you will know it! I honestly didn't think I was ever going to feel it, I thought maybe I was immune to it! I thought it might be a rumor! Then....voila!!! There is was! And it was a very good day! That's when I finally started losing weight. Oh, and FYI - as you get closer to having restriction, very small fills can have very big results so don't be surprised if they only give you .5 ccs or less for your next one - you are likely very close to your sweet spot so be careful. You don't want to be overfilled. That is miserable.

I am so sorry for your loss ~ Don't beat yourself up for not losing "enough" weight - weight loss with the band varies a lot. I am one of the slowest losers in lap band history- or at least that is how it seems to me. I was banded October 26th, 2007 and have lost 38 pounds. My doctor is thrilled and says I am well within the normal range. You have been through a very traumatic experience, emotionally and physically. Give yourself a break. Heal from the miscarriage and then get on track. You will lose weight. It doesn't matter how quickly you lose it, you will lose it. It is easy for me to say this, and I don't always do such a good job of it, but try not to compare yourself to others on this sight because it can be very discouraging. I do it - I focus on all the people who lose 20 pounds a month and ignore the ones like me who are losing 5 pounds a month! Just do what you know you are supposed to do and the weight is going to come off.

I just returned from a cruise and came home 1/2 pound lighter than when I left! It was a little frustrating at times - cruises are known for their good food, in abundance! The good thing about it is that the portions are not huge so you can order a few courses and eat a bit of each and not overdo it. I'd order salad and an entree at dinner (when everyone else ordered appetizers and soup besides) and only eat a few bites of each (I'm really tight, had a fill just before I left - I wanted to be tight, I know that's weird but I couldn't bear the thought of gaining anything) I ordered dessert almost every night at dinner and still lost that 1/2 pound. Some tips: I took the stairs instead of the elevator whenever possible. I walked a lot on shore excursions (I tried to choose ones that I knew involved lots of activity) I didn't drink calories - I know that's really hard for some people, but I'm not a huge drinker so not having alcohol wasn't that huge a deal for me - I'd rather have ice cream than a margarita. I drank water. I didn't eat anything between meals (that wasn't that hard - I ate enough at meals that I wasn't hungry between meals, half the time I wasn't hungry when I sat down to a meal either!) Have fun on your cruise!

I don't know when your surgery was, but if it makes you feel any better I was allowed to eat pinto beans after day four post- surgery. I went on 'soft proteins' on day four - eggs, nonfat yogurt, beans,cottage cheese and chicken and fish. I would imagine mac and cheese, while not the healthiest choice, is soft enough that you didn't do any damage. But the discomfort you are having is probably due to eating too much or too quickly. That is the bigger concern as you are supposed to be healing after surgery. Don't risk ruining your band by over doing it. Take this experience as a warning and commit to only doing what your doctor told you to do! You will be able to eat soon enough, I know it seems like forever but the time really does go quickly.

It's probably not right under it - mine is just above it and to the right. I was worried about the same thing but it didn't really come into play. Don't stress out too much about fills - they really aren't that big a deal!

My doctor has us go on clear liquids (that means no creamy soups - only chicken broth and tea and water...) for 3 (THREE!!!) days! I have honestly tried to do it the whole time and have never succeeded past two days. I finally came to the conclusion that they are being overly strict to scare you, figuring nobody is really going to go that long but will be extra careful since they are 'cheating'! Anyway, I do clear liquids the rest of the day after my fill, then switch to soft foods and am just really careful. I have never had any problems.

Hi - I have had many times of discouragement in the almost 8 months since my surgery. (Mine was October 2007) I am a very slow loser, and there have been several meltdowns where I just cried, convinced I was a total failure at this. But, all things considered, I am going in the right direction and that is what really matters. I could not get the number on the scale to go down before surgery no matter what I did, and here I am down almost 40 pounds. And my doctor assures me that my weight loss is quite normal - I average 5 pounds a month and that is within normal range. As was said before, just keep doing what you know you need to do and you will continue to lose. Don't get too discouraged and go crazy (I can have a tendency to get depressed and start eating the wrong things out of frustration) and eventually the weight will start dropping again.