celeste_

Hi, I am looking for any input on what might be wrong with me! I have no insurance (paid for the band myself - or will be paying it off for the next 4 years), and my recent problems have been really scaring me, and I'm not exactly sure what to do. To start off, I was banded in mid-October of 2007 at NWWLS in Everett, WA, which is a 4 hour drive from where I am in Portland, OR. My last (second) fill was about a month ago, and I am not over-filled. I'm not feeling that much restriction, and I saw the Fluid go through under flouro. However, after this fill, I was quite light-headed for a couple of days (even turned around and went back to Everett for the flouro and reassurance that everything was OK) but this eventually subsided, and everything was fine until a couple of weeks ago. Recently, I've been very fatigued and have random dizzy spells or periods of light-headedness and nausea. Usually when this happens and I try to throw up, nothing comes up but some foam. (I'm also quite foamy - more often than not, I could spit up some foam at any given time if I tried.) Sometimes these episodes are accompanied by heart palpitations, and since this is all kind of scary without insurance, I usually have a bit of an anxiety attack. And I always get very sensitive to cold. Other times, I feel just fine for the most part. I feel constantly tight in the chest and a little bit short of breath, and I do feel a sensation (wouldn't call it pain really, more like pressure or acute awareness of something) in my chest, just to the right of center, though I would say I notice it more in my back. And even when I'm not having one of these episodes, I feel a little cloudy-headed. About a week ago, something like this happened out of the blue, while we were on the couch watching TV. I had eaten a relatively unhealthy meal about 4 hours prior (Chinese, with fried wonton things, I know, bad idea) and while we were watching TV, my boyfriend gave me one of his potato chips that I had said that I wanted to taste. So I ate the potato chip (which I chewed completely) and then suddenly just a minute or two later my upper back started hurting a lot, and just got progressively worse. I got light-headed and nauseated. I had a little bit of diarrhea (nothing major), tried to throw up, but at this point all that would come up was foam and that one potato chip. I went back into the kitchen and was standing there telling my boyfriend about how I was feeling, and then WHAM I thought I was going to pass out. I kneeled on the floor and put my head on the floor, and then after a minute of completely freaking out, heart palpitations, truly AWFUL upper back pain, and chest pressure, I got more nauseated, crawled into the bathroom, threw up some more foam, had some more diarrhea, and then everything just started getting better as fast as it happened. In 10 minutes I was back on the couch again, feeling mostly OK. The next day, I went to an urgent care clinic, and told them what was going on, and they did bloodwork (a CBC, thyroid panel, and complete metabolic profile.) Everything came back mostly OK. They said I wasn't considered anemic, but that my red blood cells were a little bit small, and that I would benefit from more Iron in my diet or a Multivitamin with iron (which I already take, but OK I will increase my iron.) And they said it seemed like I was a little over-hydrated, and that I should limit my fluids to 64oz/day. I don't buy that second part at all, because I struggle to get in 40oz of fluids per day, and can't even remember the last time I had 64oz in one day. So basically I spent a ton of money doing this bloodwork and it is telling me absolutely nothing. That doctor said he thought that an EKG would be next if the bloodwork didn't show anything, but that's goingto be expensive, and heart disease of any kind does not run in my family. Plus this all started after the banding, so I can't help but think that it's related. If it was a problem with my gall bladder, would it show up in that kind of bloodwork? My mom had to have her gall bladder removed due to massive gall stones when she was about 45 years old. I don't know what to do at this point!! I'm so tired of feeling miserable, and terrified, and exhausted! Thank you so much if you read all of this! Please, any ideas of what could be wrong with me, or any advice on what I should do would be greatly appreciated!

HI, I'm the original poster. It's been a while since I wrote that. My problem was most definitely my gall bladder. I had it removed last year and was instantly better, but I ended up in the ER 3 or 4 times before they finally decided to take it out. The ultrasounds showed that my gallbladder had a few stones, but they couldn't see any huge ones and my gallbladder wasn't enlarged. And my liver enzymes were never elevated in blood work either. Finally after another trip to the ER and probably my 6th or 7th ultrasound, they saw that (while it still didn't look too bad) they decided to remove it. The surgeon looked at it after it was removed and it was FULL of stones, and one of them was quite large. I don't know how they missed all this on the ultrasound, but... they did. The GB attacks I had were terrifying. I felt like a 300-pound man was sitting on my chest, I was dizzy and sweaty, my heart was racing, I'd have diarrhea and sometimes vomit during all of this... awful. I'd usually end up kneeling, with my head on the floor. All this would go on for 1-4 hours. I am SO GLAD that they finally took that thing out. I haven't had anything like that happen since the surgery. It's very astute of you to notice the similarities between drug addiction and eating disorders/obesity. I didn't notice this myself until I was watching a TV show about drug and alcohol addiction and I realized that I was acting just like the addicts, but with food and not drugs. That really helped me to understand my own behavior better. (Some of the things I have done for food are just flat out embarrassing.) I wish that more people would understand that maybe not all, but at least some obese people have a real problem and can't just "eat less" like everyone tells them to, any more than an alcoholic can just "drink less" or a drug addict can just "use less."

Basically, I've been trying to learn more about hypoglycemia, because I'm wondering if that might be what's wrong with me. I keep reading on here about how people stopped having problems when they got their band. But I was wondering if anyone out there only developed hypoglycemia AFTER having the band surgery? I recently found out that I have two small gall stones, and I have a surgical consult on Tuesday for that. But besides the (relatively mild - they caught it early) pain from that, about 3 hours after I eat, I get very light-headed, nauseated, cold, and panicky. I never had problems like this before my band surgery, and I can't find anything about dizzy spells being related to gall stones. At this point, I'm afraid to eat anything! On Friday, I had a little bag of pretzels, which seemed to go OK, so for dinner I had a tiny little chef salad, which had half an egg, a pinch of cheese, 4 little cubes of ham, 2 tomato slices, and 1/3 of a packet of light italian dressing. Almost *exactly* three hours later, I suddenly got a huge dizzy spell, and had to lean back in my chair and sit there for a bit. Felt a little bit better for about 20 minutes, and then everything went to hell and I was freezing, dizzy, nauseated, and in a total panic on my couch. I even yelled at my boyfriend who was just trying to take care of me, and I felt awful about it. Like I said, I never had this kind of problem before the lapband, so I don't know what's going on. I guess I should just wait until the gall bladder thing gets taken care of, and then worry about the dizziness, but frankly, the dizzy spells worry me more, and I'm at the point where I feel like I can't eat anything at all. And I don't have insurance, so all these doctor's visits are totally killing me financially. So. Hypoglycemia? Other ideas? :smile:

I can't believe it, but this seems to be the cause of almost all of my health problems for the last month. I have been miserable! And now, I sip on orange juice here and there throughout the day, and I feel just fine, better than I have in weeks. Part of me is ecstatic, and the other part is frustrated that I felt so awful for a month, and the answer was something so tiny! Thanks, Jack :tt1:

QTkidsmom: I used to have horrible acid reflux before my surgery, but I haven't been having it since. Actually, I think I had it once, a month or so ago, but I was lying in some strange position and I blamed it on that. But no, no recent reflux or the coughing. Tomorrow I am going to the doctor again, and hopefully he can get me in somewhere for an ultrasound also tomorrow. I want to get this taken care of asap - I can't take much more of this.

I called my doctor's office and talked to one of the nurses there, and she didn't offer much info. She said that the amount of weight I've lost (about 45 pounds) was about when gall bladder symptoms usually start presenting. She also said that even if I were to come in to the office, there was nothing they could do, they'd have to send me to a hospital for an ultrasound because they don't have one there. But she said it did sound like gall bladder symptoms and that I should get to a doctor soon. Since I don't have insurance, I guess I will wait until tomorrow and then go back to the urgent care clinic and they can write me an order for an ultrasound, and then I can go to a hospital and have one done and find out what is going on with me. It's either that, or go to the ER, which is going to cost so much with no insurance. Though it's still an option, I suppose. This is so frustrating.