Wheetsin

So is those only open to people with Lap-Band brand bands, or is it open to people with all types of adjustable gastric bands, regardless of whether it's the Lap-Band brand?

I've yet to get to a point where that theory makes any sense to me. In my mind, if there's enough gas build up that my organs are at risk for being permanently enlarged, or being forced up through a surgically installed device... well, let's put it this way. I think we'd just burp before our organs became deformed. This would be an interesting conversation to have with a band surgeon.

Your surgeon should provide you a list of acceptable foods, different surgeons classify different foods as "mushy". If you didn't receive a list, request one right away. My mushies included soft eggs, meat salads as long as they had lots of mayo or some other moistener, refried beans, mashed potatoes or other vegetables that weren't stringy, etc. I ate hummus and refried beans, mostly, mashed sweet potatoes, etc.

I've never heard that carbonated drinks would make the band erode. Is that something your surgeon told you? Maybe whomever said it was referring to erosion, rather than the band eroding. "Erosion" refers to the band wearing through the organ, so that it is basically cutting in to you. It does not refer to the band itself eroding away. The only connection I can even think of between the two -- carbonation maybe expands your organs -> expansion maybe increases the pressure where the band is placed -> increased pressure maybe contributes to erosion... ?? Dunno, never heard that before, and too many "maybe"s to be very concerned about it.

They don't let the band out. The band has a fixed size. Inside the band there is a "balloon" that is filled, and it's some of the fill they can let out (just want to make sure you get the mechanics). Letting fill out is very easy, poke, withdraw, you're done. I'm on my second trimester and so far have been able to keep my pre-pregnancy fill. I've lost some weight, due to a lack of appetite, not any factors with my restriction. This is my first pregnancy, but other than the fact that I'm a lot less fat, I can't see how my band - to this point - has made any impact. It hasn't on my pregnancy itself. I plan on keeping my fill the entire time, potentially considering a full unfill for delivery, will depend on how my delivery anesthesiologist answers my questions. :cool2:

Some people lose hair, some don't. It's 99% chance and 1% what you do or do not put in your mouth, supplement-wise. Liquid gas-x will only help with intestinal gas. It will not help remove the gas they use to inflate your abdomen during surgery, which is where most of the discomfort comes from. We have a very robust shopping list, have you looked at it yet? I can't imagine there's much missing as long as it has been around/added to. You may just want to pull it up and chop it down accordingly.

I use Dove deodorant under my pannus, have for years, but I don't think I'll be putting it in my belly button anytime soon. :cool2:

2 fills says jack about your level of restriction. Are you restricted? Doesn't sound like it, but do you have any indications of it?

The idea behind not drinking before you eat is so that you avoid, by drinking, reaching the point that you feel full before you have the chance to actually eat anything. Many bandsters, when they get good restriction, find they get the sense of satisfaction off basic liquids. Recommending that someone doesn't drink, say, 30 minutes before eating ensures that the liquid has a chance to drain fully and any sensations of being full have a chance to reside before the actual meal. I didn't say that very clearly, hope it makes sense. Likewise, even with "good" restricion (not too tight), it's possible that there are times when you will get the full sensation from a liquid and the liquid may remain in your pouch for an extended time. The waiting period also gives the liquid a chance to drain, so that you don't reach discomfort on your first bite of food. Eating around the band - you've gotten good answers. Basically it's finding a way, through your eating habits, to keep from losing weight even though you're banded.

Lots of possibilities here. For one, having a band doesn't mean you eat less, or eat better. We all know it's entirely possible to have the band and gain weight. Sometimes people are aware that what they're doing can cause this, and sometimes they are not - and can be attributing their own unrecognized bad behaviors to "stall" or "nothing I do works". The band is kind of like a lawnmower. With effort, dedication, and comittment your lawnmower can help you have a beautiful lawn, BUT not unless you're doing your part to keep it watered, fertilized, etc. You can't put a lawnmower in the garage, and then wonder why your lawn isn't fantastic. The band is the same way. It can help you (I call it artificial willpower) achieve your weightloss goals, but without you doing your share, it will not do anything but sit there. Another - most of us will find along our journey a period of time where the weightloss does stop, or at least slow. This should be expected. Sometimes the body just needs to re-adjust, sometimes we will be able to lose fat mass without a significant yield on the scale, etc. (Ask how many have lost sizes without losing pounds and you'll get a large number of hands going up). This is not a "band" problem. EVERY weightloss effort I gave an honest try to, regardless of the gimmick behind it, came with significant plateaus. Another suggestion - realize that this is a support board. It's not a "generic day to day life" board. Most people come here because they have problems and want help. What you see posted here should not be taken as an anecdote of the average band experience. Maybe 2/50 people experience some kind of extra challenge or hardship. You're only seeing those 2, you aren't seeing the 48 behind them. Another possibility, there's a lot of unspoken story on messageboards. In our case, let's say someone posts that they've been banded, lost weight initially, but it has been a year since they lost anything. They can't, for the life of them, figure out why, can we help? And maybe 20 posts into trying to help them, they suddenly share that they had all their fill removed, or that they have a thyroid disorder, or that they didn't like yakking food up so they've switched their diet to ice cream and orange juice. You always have to take things with a chunky grain of salt, especially mystery situations. The best you can get to is possibilities, and that means that reality can be changing minute by minute. In other words, you will rarely know the full story behind what's going on, so -- how much sense does it make to invest it in emotionally? Good luck. :smile:

My surgeon does the shots, but mainly for bypass patients, and usually only when they complain of lethargy. I never needed them, guess I could get it enough to take care of energy.

I don't have a sweet tooth, but I had my share of cravings. How I handle it? When I crave something, I have it. My personal belief is that it's better to satisfy a craving with a reasonable amount of the food, than to deny the craving, have it grow into an obsession, and then end up eating the whole container.

What if you explained it from a health perspective, but in terms a child would understand, so that the thoughts of self-worth weren't necessarily associated? "Mommy has <illness> and this is going to help her feel better"? or "Mommy has a hard time breathing when she goes up the stairs" or "Mommy can't run around with you as much as she would like to"? I don't have kids yet, so I'm just pulling this out of my butt, no idea how kids would actually respond. :thumbup:

More than two years out I still slime. It's an unavoidable occurence when our bodies are trying to get something down, or preparing to bring something up. Think of it as lubrication. :thumbup: I suspect this is something I will have until I die, or lose my band, whichever may come first.

Oh just saw capsule, for some reason I read it as caplet, and assumed you meant tablet. You can't crush a capsule, but (sometimes with a large degree of effort) you can poke them open. If they're soft it's much easier than if they're the hard ones. Again, you'll want to check with your doctor on your ability to do this. There's one thing in capsule form I will break open, then mix with juice and drink, and it still burns my mouth/throat for a good 5 hours. This is "ok", because of what I'm taking, but some things can cause damage (hence they're inside protective coating). Do check. :thumbup:

If it's not enteric coated, you can just crush it. Doesn't always taste the best, but there are things you can do to help, eg. don't mix it with something like applesauce you have to chew, sprinkle it into drinkable yogurt and spoon it down your throat. You won't want to crush enteric coated meds, so be sure to check with your pharmacist or doctor on this one. If it is enteric, maybe it's small enough to get down anyway, or you could be a situation where the size of mandatory medication determines the amount of fill you're able to get. I've tried something the size of a Tylenol, cut into quarters, and couldn't pass it. But others share stories of taking full size vitamins with no problems. Like most things band, it's a matter of personal tolerance levels.

This soon after surgery, I'd say do the best you can and don't sweat it. It was a good 4 - 5 days after surgery before I could come close to getting recommended food, supplements, water, etc. I was doing good to down half a bottle of water and half a little lunchbox cup of Jello in an entire day.

Hehe, I tried to Google some pics for you but kept just getting Jachut's avatar. I'm 15 weeks but not noticeably showing yet, maybe I would be if I had a flat stomach to begin with, but with this mass of loose skin, who knowns when I'll look preggo. I'm fairly normal in the upper torso where my port is and not a sign of it so far. The degree to which it shows will probably depend a lot on where the port was placed. Mine is up high, just an inch or two lower than my bra band, so we'll see.

My husband won't look at my scars, and when I still had my staples in he'd literally turn his head. He won't feel my port, etc. For him, it's creepy to feel something foreign in the body, which I can kind of relate to - I don't like to feel it on other people. Another side of it for him is that the scars remind him that I was hurt, the port reminds him that someone cut me open, and any thoughts of someone doing something to me bugs the crap out of him. ETA: I have a large scar on my leg from when I was about 12. I'm pale, and it's faded, so it's not terribly obvious. He just the other day asked me what it was from. We've been married 10 yrs. I asked him how he just now saw it, yes it's hard to see but living together for 11 yrs... he was like "I thought I saw a scar so I just quit looking and thinking about it."

I'm in Missouri. We only have one Ethiopian restaurant that I know of, but tons of Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, even a Polynesian.

Hint - don't do the numbing shot. It hurts much more than the tiny poke from the fill needle. Many of us found that right around the "50 left" mark we hit a sort of involuntary complacency, where we weren't done, but we were so much better, and maybe even semi-normal... I started at nearly 400, we're the same height, so my journey to "50 left" took a while, but I still hit it. Now I'm like "35 left" and trust me, it doesn't get any better!

Velcro three-panel folder (flap, front, back). I had so many of those... hehe.

This may help:

I don't sleep on my stomach so I don't have that pain, but there is an area called the xyphoid process that people often confuse with the band because of where it's located and its prominence as weight is lost. When you lay on your back, it's the big "bump" kind of where your ribs come together.. the "tail" on the sternum. Is that about where you're hurting? A lot of people don't know it exists, lose weight, see it poking out, and absolutely swear they can see/feel their bands. It's made of softer stuff, so I'd think it would be entirely possible to have it be a pressure point when sleeping on your stomach. Just one thought...

Just my thoughts: Slippery slope at best. Unless you require DNA testing, and then have a bank with EVERY potential donor's DNA in it, which isn't going to happen, we can't even get thumbprints let alone someone's genetic code. Even then there's not necessarily a way to know who the father is. A woman could easily say "product of a one night stand, didn't get his name." I don't think you can safely DNA type a fetus, so there's no proof of paternity. So a man comes forth and volunteers that he's the father, you have to: 1) assume she went to a clinic he would know about, skipping cities would be an easy way around that, as would not telling him you're pg 2) mandate DNA matching, and who pays for that? Not to mention the difficulty in mandating it 3) have some way to prove it was the product of consentual sex, unless you'd advocate for forced term in incest/rape cases, and it's be really easy to say "he raped me, I just didn't report it" 4) need contingency for an impasse or 5) plan in place for an impasse, if either is against does it become an auto yes or no? If an auto no, and the woman is "forced" to carry, does the man share liability for extreme circumstances she may opt to take? Does the man have to assume full financial/custodial liability because of the mother's good faith effort to end the pregnancy? If delivery results in death, does the man become liable for civil or criminal punishment? etc. 6) I see a lot of spiteful men, and/or women, saying "no" just to make sure the other doesn't get their way, which doesn't necessarily put anyone in a better position 7) unwanted baby is born, power struggle continues, strain on social systems, etc. 8) you'd need a way for all of this to happen by X time, X being whatever term was considered allowable for the abortion, or it becomes automatic prolife legislation if it cannot possibly happen before, let's say, viability - and if DNA tests became mandatory, and someone had to privately fund them, this could be a very real scenario (the time factor was one of many significant glitches in Adams' bill).