Amanda

One of the nurses that works with my surgeon just told me that people with auto-immune disease should not have the band placed because their body will reject it. I said, "But I have an autoimmune disease, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, and no one ever told me that meant I shouldn't have the surgery. Do you think that's why I had so much pain and swelling and had to have the band removed?" Nothing but silence so far from her and doc. Anyone else ever heard of auto-immune disease being a counter-indication for band placement? I'm sure feeling pissed if they let me go ahead with the surgery when they shouldn't have. I told them I had a thyroid condition, and I don't believe anyone ever asked what it was. Considering the two most common thyroid conditions are both auto-immune, this sure seems negligent to me. Any thoughts?

Well I had the band removed 4+ weeks ago and I'm still having problems. I think it's gastroparesis or delayed stomach emptying that is the problem. I remember Dr. Kuri mentioned this possibility once in passing as an explanation for all the pain and bloating I was having. Since the removal I can at least belch, so the build up of gas is not as bad or as painful, but have noticed that food just seems to sit there and feel very uncomfortable. In me this "knot in the stomach" seems to trigger severe anxiety, so I spend a lot of time arguing with my body that I'm not really anxious just overly full, I generally lose this argument around 3 in the morning when "anxiety" wakes me up. I seem to have a lot of the symptoms of gastroparesis (bloating, nausea, lead ball in stomach feeling), and what is supposed to help (liquid diet, gum chewing, ativan) helps and what is supposed to hurt (progesterone, fibrous foods) hurts. I am going to go on a liquid diet for a couple of more weeks and see if the condition improves before I ask for a gastroenterologist referral and a gastric emptying test. I'm beginning to think I should look into a malpractice suit against the surgeon and/or Inamed. I don't think vagus nerve damage was ever mentioned as a possibility, and this is SERIOUSLY unpleasant and perhaps irreversible, though I sure hope not. Anyone else have vagus nerve damage or gastroparesis?

I'm taking pepcid AC at 4X the usual dose to help heal the reflux. Also have the head of my bed up on two bricks and a prop up pillow. I'm going to wait until I have better insurance coverage before I get more tests done. If I do have esophageal narrowing, they can do a dilation by pushing a rod down your throat with local anaesthesia. Oh yeah, I can just imagine not totally freaking out with that treatment! My surgeon was Dr. Pedro Kuri in Tijuana.

Just a ray of sunshine for others who have had to have their bands removed. I've managed to keep off the 20 pounds I'd lost and am now losing more thanks to the Food Addicts Anonymous food plan. I think I had to get to be willing to try anything to get here. But after the excruciating pain and just as excruciating disappointment of the band fiasco, eating nothing but measured amounts of meat, fruit, and vegetables doesn't seem that bad. Better than reflux even on chicken broth! I'm glad my band is out and glad I'm healing. Still having panic attacks from all the body trauma in such a short amount of time, but these too are improving. My pitting and bruising are gone, and almost all my soreness inside and out. I'm 8 weeks after debanding. Good luck Jo Ann with whatever you decide to do. But no more WLS for me.

Teresah, This is indeed just the port pain. It should mostly go away in another couple of weeks, although some people get twinges for six months. Try putting a pillow against your body on that side for some support. It will keep the flesh from pulling so much.

Pain from throat to just under the ribcage that got steadily worse and woke me 4-5 times per night. Coughing up blood-tinged mucus and inability to tolerate solid food. That's why I got mine out.

The progestins in the birth control pills can cause the band to become tighter due to more swelling of tissue, and this can then cause discomfort, reflux, etc. This is not a normal symptom of bcps in the unbanded!! You might try switching to a bcp that is higher in estrogen, lower in progestins, like one of the ones they make for perimenopausal women. I think Yasmine is one brand name.

This is how my symptoms began as well. Turns out it can be reflux even if you don't feel a burning sensation. Try Pepcid a couple of times a day, before lunch and before bed and see if that helps. But your band may be placed too high, and if your surgeon is like mine, he'll say the fluoro shows no problem. Good luck.

Jo Ann, Isn't it so frustrating to be told nothing is wrong when our bodies are telling us in no uncertain terms that something is!! Pain and vomiting are our bodies' main ways of communicating. My surgeon just would not believe me that something was wrong, and now I find after the band is removed that I have GERD, and my esophagus is still not normal (can't swallow pills for example). I so hear you when you write that you feel the band "squeezing the daylights out of you." I felt like I was being slowly strangled from the inside. I am so glad to have the band out, although also so disappointed that I lost only 20 pounds, and that from not being able to do anything but clear liquids for days. For me, it's been a lesson that there are worse things than being overweight, but then I was fortunate enough to be on the low-end of the banding world to begin with. Now back to dealing with hunger when trying to eat 1200 no-carb calories a day.

Congratulations on having the band out. You will feel so much better. And good for you for continuing to insist that something was wrong until they finally did enough tests to validate your intuition. I am so tired of people telling me that because my fluoro looked fine there was "really" nothing wrong with me, and then now that the band is out to find I did have GERD, etc. Glad I didn't wait for the fluoroscope to show something wrong. I would have been dead by then :-)

Hmm Renee, Have you not read posts before about people needing esophageal dilatation after the band? The esophagus certainly CAN narrow due to band placement if you develop GERD as a result of the band, which according to my local doctor I did. The esophagus can thicken and narrow as a result of the acidity irritating it. I do not know for sure if this is what happened to me, I do know that my doctor here said the esophagus looked signficantly narrower in one spot just above the esophageal sphincter. I know before I was banded I did not want to hear anything negative about the band or specific doctors, but I now I feel it is my duty to let people know these complications can and do occur, and in my opinion, it is the responsibility of the banding surgeon to be alert to these possibilities and do the necessary testing to rule them out. Besides, I could not find a local band doctor who would even agree to see me with my symptoms. They all said, "This is very unusual. Obviously something has gone wrong. You must see your original surgeon." What is really annoying me is the suggestion that just because my experience was unusual, that it was all in my head or something. When your waist is swollen 5 inches, when you are so tight you can't burp or vomit, when you have constant pain at the location of the band, I'm sorry there is something wrong and it is the responsibility of the man who placed the band to find out what!!! The week before I had the band removed I stopped posting on the Kuri board because I didn't want to be "negative." Well keeping that disappointment, pain and anger inside has not helped my healing process. I have a right to be angry at the the lack of care I received, and I am. I am in the medical field myself, and I would never treat anyone the way I was treated. When something you've done has caused harm, it is your responsibilty to find out what has happened. One of Dr. Kuri's associates, the lovely Mrs. Dr. Peterson, suggested the night before the surgery that I was most likely having GERD, which is why I was having pain and also choking on my own spit whenever I lay down. Well why didn't Dr. Kuri ever suggest it? Why didn't he suggest I try Pepcid or Prilosec, both available over the counter? If someone had made the pain go away, I would have given the band a longer chance to work. Putting up with the undiagnosed GERD may now have done my esophagus permanent damage. Serious pain is a symptom that MUST be paid attention to, and I'm concerned about the bandsters who are putting up with theirs month after month because they are so desperate to lose weight. They are risking permanent damage to their digestive tracts.

I would not recommend him. No follow-up. Assembly line atmosphere. Doesn't listen to or seem to believe his patients. May be a good surgeon, but you need someone who will be there for you if there are problems, and Mexico is a long way to go when there are.

Would not recommend Dr. Kuri. I feel like he does not LISTEN to his patients, and when you have problems he thinks you're lying, and you're on your own to deal with them. He always returns calls and is very friendly, but doesn't do the testing necessary to find out what's going wrong. He does so many surgeries that there is a bit of an assembly line feeling about it all. And I didn't find his support staff did the job. I never got pre-op or post-op information until I asked for it. We were just dropped off at the hospital with no one to let us know what was going on. He's a nice man and may also be a good surgeon, but you need someone who will be with you post-surgery as well. It's $9,000 with him, and you can get it done in San Francisco for $12,000, and probably cheaper in other locations.

What are the doctor's recommendations as to how to reverse the reflux and esophageal narrowing? And who was your surgeon?

These symptoms were what caused me to have my band removed five weeks after it was put in. I believe my stomach and/or esophagus were damaged by even this short time. I now have GERD, and still can't swallow like before (especially dry things like pills) and have a lot of mucus in my throat and a feeling of constriction at times. I probably have an endoscopy in my future to find out what damage was done. Fluoroscopes always "looked fine" to Dr. Kuri, but both I and my regular doctor noticed that the esophagus was quite noticeably narrowed on the later fluoroscope compared to the immediate post-banding picture. Dr. Kuri was/is no help at all in this matter, and it was probably the undiagnosed GERD that caused the esophageal irritation and narrowing (if that's in fact what I have). I am so angry that the Kuri team keeps telling me that nothing is wrong, and that if something is it's surely a problem I had before the band. HA! I didn't have these problems before the band and I sure wish I had never had it put in. My medical insurance covers hospitalization only, so am looking at literally thousands of dollars of out of pocket expenses for diagnostic testing. Is anyone else ANGRY?

It was news to me too that Hashimoto's was a contraindication for the band. One of Dr. Kuri's patient facilitators said that people and with auto-immune disease have trouble with the band and shouldn't get it. I asked her if she thought that was my trouble. Never heard back. They seem to stand on their "it's all in your head Amanda" or alternatively, "you have an undiagnosed serious illness that caused your symptoms and it's nothing to do with the band." Well, I know it had everything to do with the band, as I had none of these problems before it. But now I finally have an idea what went wrong. A doctor in the ER put me on Pepcid (4X the OTC dose) and my chest/gastric pain is gone and so is my anxiety and choking, and I am generally feeling 95% better. I don't know whether the band has given me a permanent case of GERD (which I never had before) but it feels so good to feel good. I continue to be darn p.o.ed at the [lack of] care I received from Dr. Kuri and his team, and wonder how I would have fared if they had suggested Pepcid two months ago. Maybe I would have been able to keep the band? On the dieting front, had grains for the first time since the band, and all my cravings came right back along with some weight. For some folks I know it's sugar, but grains are really my addictive foods. Planning to try the Food Addicts plan. If I can just get below 200 I will be happy. Really God. I promise. :confused:

If I knew then what I know now, I would never have this operation done unless my life was actually threatened by my obesity. For anything less, it can create more problems than it solves. Why did I think it would be a good idea to put a band around my stomach that was so tight that an aspirin could not pass through the opening? This is not natural and the body doesn't like it.

I am really sorry you had to go through this! Makes my trip look like a picnic. It's good to know that "abdominal wounds just take longer." I'm waiting on doing any GI testing for at least a couple of more months. My insurance won't pay until I'm $3,500 out of pocket, and I don't have anything life threatening. Re. "does anything work," I'm on liquids again to deal with the pain/digestion issues, and I find I'm losing weight. About 7 cups per day: 4 of soup, 1 of milk, 2 of milk with some ice cream and frozen fruit. Liquids seem to fill me up more than solids and also keep me hydrated. I also go to Overeaters Anonymous which has helped me a lot. I haven't regained any of the 20# I lost since having the band out 6 weeks ago. Hope this helps.

Donali, I'd be very interested to know how your removal surgeon would answer your questions. I do wonder why we still "feel" the band. Phantom sensations are a function of damaged or severed nerves in the case of phantom limb pain. The nerve keeps on sending signals. In the case of missing limbs, the feedback loop is interrupted because the muscles are no longer there to respond. Since our stomachs ARE still there (thank God) eventually I would think the nerves would calm down and/or repair themselves.

Erin, You really went through it didn't you. Two questions: What is a wound vac and did you have to pay for the three additional surgeries?

Thanks Sue. It's good to know this CAN heal. I'm still bruised on the outside, so quite possibly things are still not really normal on the inside either. I felt much better yesterday on mainly liquids, so I plan to do that for a while longer. So much for my boyfriend's prime rib birthday dinner this friday. I'll be the one with a bowl of soup. Ron, I don't have diabetes, and did not have digestive problems before the surgery, in fact could swallow a handful of vitamins at a time. Now I have to pulverize any medications (thyroid and estrogen) I'm on, and wouldn't dare try to swallow a capsule.

Deb, You are certainly braver than I to be trying any WLS again. I was 235 at 5'8" before banding, now 215 and holding steady. I've discovered that for me there are worse things than being overweight, and constant pain and messed up digestion are two of them! I hope and pray these symptoms go away and I learn to accept this body I'm stuck with.

Two nights, one before, one after. Recovery has been slower because I was soooo bruised and swollen. Retraumatizing the same tissue just five weeks after the original surgery was brutal. I was black and blue for weeks, and my body was so traumatized after the five weeks of constant pain and pressure that I burst into tears when they had trouble putting in the IV. Oh yeah, both arms were black and blue too!

Still have discomfort from eating, but no more choking sensation unless I swallow something hard like a medication. Tried that ONCE, never again, back to chewing all pills and emptying all capsules. My digestion is definitely not back to normal though.

I had these symptoms without ever getting filled, just from the band itself. Had the band removed, and stomach/nerve is still irritated. I think some people just can't tolerate this device. I would try to go with no fill at all for a while to let your stomach calm down and also go back to liquids, then start with a TINY film. Also, IMHO, barium swallows don't show much. You can have liquids go through fine and still be overly filled and not able to eat food, even purees.