I am one month post-banding and am going back to Mexico tomorrow to have it removed. The chest pressure, pain, coughing and gagging on my own mucus has just gotten unbearable. I KNOW something has to be wrong with this much pain even if the fluoro I had last week showed that everything was fine. I remember asking my patient facilitator what percent of Dr. Kuri's patients had their bands removed due to complications and was told it was almost none. When I googled lapband complications and went to the manufacturer's website it showed that 25% had complications severe enough that they chose to have the bands removed. I would not have had the surgery (self-paid, $9,000, not to mention travel and hotel expenses) if I had known that there were this many complications. I only wanted to lose 50-70 pounds, and frankly I think my health has been a lot more compromised by the band than by my weight. Does anyone have any hints for what to do about severe under the breastbone pain? Even water is sitting very heavy on my chest and it's a frightening feeling. I looked up cardiospasm after reading it on the Inamed site and it's basically esophageal spasming caused by the esophageal sphincter locking up, this seems clearly what is going on.
