HeatherO

I think 30 off by August will be no problem at all as long as you follow the recommendations with eating and exercise. I am going overseas to Turkey this summer as well. It is awesome to travel overseas and find that you can buy clothes off the shelf that fit and know that you look your best. It is also wonderful to be able to travel and not worry about weight anymore. I used to think, I am going away in so many months, I need to lose xxx pounds and then I would be depressed if I didn't make it. Now, it is not even a worry. I hope you have a marvelous time in Prague and good luck with everything. Have you started the liquid diet yet?

I am not really active on this board anymore. I think once I got the hang of banding and it became a way of life, I didn't really have to think about food or dieting so much so I stopped posting frequently. However, I do get emails from threads I have posted on. I have been banded since January of 2008, got to goal the first year and am maintaining goal weight. I was up to a size 18-20 XL when I got banded and have stayed in a size 8 or so and Medium for years now (except for pregnancy). I have actually met three people who were banded in Cleveland through here in the past. If you have any questions about the process, just let me know.

Lol, I remember your comments from years back on this post during my earlier days of banding. I just thought you were very passionate about it and not afraid to speak your mind. I miss your posts as I have not really been on here in forever and I am not sure if you are still really active as well. You were my all time favorite poster back when I first started with this forum. I hope things are still going great with you. :0)

I just wanted to say that I have been there and done that. The second surgery was a piece of cake and very easy. I didn't have hardly any pain and didn't even take pain meds. I was up and about almost immediately. I think it was because they are just replacing something that was already there that the recovery was almost nothing. I actually felt better immediately after surgery because dealing with the slip was a thousand times worse than dealing with the second surgery. Good luck and I hope your experience is very similar to mine.

I posted before but it has been a while. I have now surpassed my 4 year anniversary. I did have a complication with a slip at 1.5 years and had to have a new band installed but it has been fine ever since. I went below goal and stayed there for the longest but I was unfilled for my last pregnancy and still have about 15 pounds to go back to goal. My baby is 4 months old now, so I think I am not doing too bad. My goal is normal BMI . . . and eventhough I hover at the top of the limit for normal and occasionally drift into overweight, that is fine with me. I wear medium sized clothes, I can buy whatever I want off the rack, and food doesn't rule my life. For me it has been a win-win. One thing I want to mention is that sometimes I feel like the band has changed my relationship with food and I could probably get by without it . . . and I am wrong. I had a slip and had to start over and also had two babies. That means over the 4 years I had 3 times I had to get completely unfilled and start from scratch. The moment I am unfilled, the obsessive, extreme, bottomless pit of hunger comes back with a vengeance. I realize that for me (and I am only speaking for myself, other people have different reasons for being obese) that my insatiable appetite led to obesity more than behavioral issues. Why is my appetite out of control when I am unfilled/not banded . . . I don't know but all I can say is thank God for my band.

I wouldn't bother mentioning it at all early on because it is not really important in the early stages of a relationship. It is just one piece of your health history and you typically wouldn't discuss those kinds of things with someone casually right after you meet them. Once you get to know a person better and feel comfortable discussing this it makes more sense to share.

I started Nuvaring because I was getting nauseous with birth control and it is working great. No weight gain and all of the benefits of being on BC (greatly minimized TOM issues). I highly recommend it. I should have gone with this option years ago.

It can definitely happen. Mine slipped at the end of my first lapband pregnancy when I was in the hospital for the delivery. My band was empty at the time but I had some vomiting while in the hospital and evidently that was enough. I had to get a band replacement afterwards.

My slip was first diagnosed with a flouroscopy (you drink the barium solution as you are x-rayed to see the flow of liquid. It was then confirmed with an endoscopy (you are put to sleep and a camera on a tube goes down your throat to view the condition of your stomach). I am happy the lactonex works for you and solved your issues with milk products.

I had that experience and unfortunately I did have a slip. My band was completely empty when it happened but it felt like it was so full it was closed. Anything I ate or drank just came back up eventually. I had to have a band replacement surgery to fix it. You posted a while ago. Did you go to your band doctor and do you know what is going on? I hope everything is OK with you.

I kept my older fat clothes with the thoughts of using them as maternity . . . but it didn't work out. First of all, they are just unflattering. The necklines are too big and they are just poochy in the wrong places (think belly is bigger but arms and legs and everywhere else stayed relatively skinny). These clothes fit when you are bigger everywhere, not just in the mid-section. They looked, and more importantly I felt, very frumpy. After losing a lot of weight and being able to wear what I wanted, I just didn't want to go back to frump any longer. As an alternative, i just bought some clothes that worked both as normal and maternity such as tops that gathered below the bustline but above the belly . . . they look great both before and after pregnancy. Also, I bought a bella band which is just like a halter top for your belly and I wore it over my pants, unbuttoned and unzipped the pants and used a hairband to loop through button holes to the button. This worked perfect, gave my belly plenty of space and comfort and it looked smooth over my belly. It was on the cheap but it looked good, my belly lines were clean and round and I didn't need a new wardrobe. I am now 30 weeks along and it is working great this pregnancy as well.

I had a lot of stretch marks and 80 pound weight gain with my first child prior to banding. I had 1 band baby and found that after losing the weight with the band baby, the small excess of skin was enough to allow me to grow with pregnancy without getting bigger or any stretchmarks. I am now 30 weeks pregnant with the second baby and I still have not had one stretch-mark or extra skin. It seems like the extra skin from weight loss allows pregnancy to occur without additional impact in my case.

I think part of it might be the mind set. If you cry because of thinking about the deprivation again, it doesn't sound like you had a good experience prior to pregnancy. Eating less and feeling full shouldn't feel like deprivation. Your band should be tight enough to have restriction yet loose enough that you can eat healthy foods that support breastfeeding while still being able to be completely hydrated. I would just focus on the positive aspects of having a little more restriction, make sure you get in plenty of hydration. Also, a fill is not the end-all of the situation. If you get a fill and it seems too tight or seems like you are milk supply is beginning to diminish, you can always get a slight unfill. Try not to think about it in terms of feast or famine, all or none . . . it is a balance. I know that for me personally, I thought this way for years and years prior to banding and at any given point in time I was yo-yoing somewhere between overeating consistently or being on an extreme diet. Getting a little fill is just tipping the balance more in your favor. If you can continue to breastfeed successfully while slowing losing a few pounds and feeling more satisfied with your meals, it sounds like a win-win situation to me.