IVIozartsGhost

I feel your frustrations. But I figure that I've decided to make this enormous change in my life and part of it entails this month of less then ideal food consumption. I'm shooting for May 2nd (four week mark) to have lost a tremendous amount of weight to really jump start my journey to being "normal-sized." Hang in there and know that great changes await ya. --MG

I'm at the end of day 6 post-op and I've been having a good amount of pain right behind my shoulder. While I didn't have much post-op pain which is probably due to the nice lortab elix, I've just started having this pain today. I stopped taking my pain meds on Sunday and hadn't had any pain. I took some Advil and I'm hoping it helps, but is it reasonable to have gas pain this long after surgery? (On a happier note though, I did just spend 40 minutes walking on the treadmill while watching Biggest Loser...I had the pain before I started and I was kinda hoping exercise would help) Thanks you guys,

My doctor has the option of performing the surgery at a surgical center or at a hospital. While I didn't have a choice because of my weight, I still would have chosen the hospital just due to the potential problems I could have faced due to my health. I'm a bit of a worry-wort so I felt better knowing that if something went wrong, I could get immediate emergency care.

Welcome welcome Dito. I too am a new band-chatter here and I was recently banded myself. I feel similar to how you feel about having to make this decision to start the change on life-long habits. So far (day 6 for me) I've certainly experienced how drastic this change is going to be but I know it will be worth it. Good luck on Monday.

A good friend of mine recommended this site to me for some good support and conversation with fellow Lap Bandees. I'm 24 years old and have always been a "big guy." However, in the last few years, I've become more and more sedentary and thus gained a lot of weight. So around a year ago I started looking into bariatric surgery to get me on track and help me improve my health. Well, on April 3rd, 2008 I was banded by Dr. Darrin Hansen of the South Valley Surgical Center in Sandy, Utah. So far I'm feeling really good and haven't had too much pain. I'm excited to get to a place where I can get exercising and resume a (quasi) normal life. I'm a student and I work full-time for a law firm so this downtime is hard for me to accept. I'm glad to have learned about this site and I feel I will frequent it with questions and for general support. I have a blogsite I've set up for any and everyone to check out and follow my progress. You all are welcome to comment on it. Becoming Half the "Mozart" I Am (My nickname has been Mozart since I was 8 years old...)

It looks like we are all in the same boat here. I was banded on April 3rd but I'm not sure how much weight I've lost because I don't have a scale just yet. Fortunately for me I've not had the gas pains from the surgery but I have noticed that if I don't drink a fair amount of liquids every hour I get lightheaded. I'm also weening off my pain meds which I take is a good sign. Does anyone know about how many calories a day we are expected to consume in the first week? I don't want to go into starvation mode but at the same time, if I'm not hungry, I'm not going to eat.

I was banded on 4/3 and I too am starting to feel the hunger bites in my stomach. I've had no appetite up until last night when I started having those irritating grumblings. All its taken for me is a quick drink of water or gatorade and it goes away for about an hour, but then is back. I guess I just anticipate that this is the way I'm supposed to feel considering that I've not really felt hungry for 24 years so a couple of days of feeling hungry can't be all that bad right?