Sidd

I had my first fill today after 6 weeks, and I feel as though it is too tight. The doc put in 6ml, but I couldn't even take 3 sips of water without pain, so he took some of that 6ml back out again, however I am still very tight. I'm wondering if I need this much fill? Since I got home today at 2pm (it's now after 9pm), I have choked down a half cup of milk (at about 4pm), a few sips (literally) of tomato soup (at 7pm, when I was *hungry*) and just now half a frozen fruitjuice stick, and I feel like I have a golf ball in the back of my throat and another one sitting on my diaphragm. Did anyone else experience this after their first fill? I am inches away from calling the doc and asking him to take more out tomorrow. Is having "restriction" supposed to mean pain after a few sips of liquid? If so, I want out!! :wink2:

Just a little update, I had a very bad moment on Friday afternoon with a bite of tinned pear and called my doc's office in tears because I was so uncomfortable (pain from my stomach to my throat and all the muscles in my jaw and tongue spasming which is a really strange and miserable sensation) and he called me straight back saying I needed to be careful and drink liquids for the weekend and if I was still feeling it by Monday to go in and he would take out some more Fluid. Anyway, I was careful all day Saturday and had mostly liquids, and then today everything has calmed right down, I was able to have a scrambled egg and half a bacon rasher for Breakfast, and a few bites of ravioli for dinner with a couple of Snacks in between and I no longer feel like I am drowning when I drink something. So I think it must have been all stirred up from Wednesday and just needed a couple of days to settle. :biggrin: Very happy with the restriction I have now, I'll see how it goes. Thanks everyone for your advice, I don't know what I would do without this forum!!

wow, nice to know that I am completely normal! I am 7 weeks post op, and I get that shoulder pain something chronic, when I get hungry, and when I eat too fast. It's pretty intense. I'm hoping it will ease off a little, but since I know what it is, it's not too hard to deal with. I find a heat pack on the tummy (between the boobs especially) seems to help with that pain, and with the spasm of the oesophagus if something is not sitting right in the pouch.

Thanks Kitty, I will call them tomorrow. I do suffer from reflux, which hasn't eased like I hoped it would after having the band put in, so I am still on regular medication for it, but I've never had it interrupt my sleep so badly before. I will call the doc's office tomorrow just to make sure everything is going ok. I am getting food and drink down ok, in very small, slow doses. I've had 2 crackers with tuna, a piece of chorizo (chewed very well!!) and a corner crust piece of pizza (about a square inch worth) and about a third of my proten shake, so I feel a lot better. Baby steps!

Funny you should say that lorib, I had terrible heartburn this morning, so I chewed on some Rennie, and then took one of my reflux tablets and started to feel immediately better. I'm not having issues with taking pills, since I took some painkillers earlier, but I am still struggling with the tightness when I drink anything. If I take it slow, it's bearable. I am supposed to eat a normal meal tonight! I doubt that will happen :confused_smile: Neeley, I hope you are feeling better soon!

Thanks you for your answer realmccoy, I will definitely seek some assistance if it hasn't calmed down, I am supposed to be on 2 more liquid meals (sipping on half a cup of milk now) and then I am supposed to go back to normal food, but I had *terrible* acid backwash all last night, which is something I have never experienced in all my years of suffering from reflux, and that worried me a little, if the tightness was forcing acid back up into my oesophagus. Anyway I'll see how it goes today, but I certainly won't put up with it for too long, thanks to your advice

Thanks for the reply :smile: It seems that you are doing a little better than me in the weight loss journey. I'll see how I go with a heatpack on my tummy tonight and then in the morning if liquids are still uncomfortable. I'm going back. I have no idea how much fluid he took out, but it doesn't feel as though he took any out at all, this is exactly the same as I felt doing the water test. :wink2:

I have problems with my neck and back, and something in the Operating Theatre really stirred up my neck to the point that the muscles in the sides of my neck were so weak that they couldn't support my head, and every time I lay down flat, I came up with a blinding headache. I used to suffer from migraines so I knew it wasn't that. The only way I could take any pain meds in that first few days was with Mersyndol Daystrength, half a tablet at a time sipped with a little Water. But that doesn't help those of you who are sensitive to codeine. I have never had any issue taking pain tablets, if I snap them in half they go down fine. One thing I will note is that the pain meds I was prescribed (they contain 50mg of Tramadol Hydrochloride incase you want to check your box) made me very nauseus. My grandmother took 2 doses of the same pill once and vomited for a week. They are bad news for sensitive people. Better to take paracetamol.

I have had pretty bad gas for the last couple of weeks. They do inflate your belly and from what I've read, the gas in your abdomen makes it's way into your digestive system to be expelled. I had both pain in my back and shoulder and stomach, and discomfort in my intestines from about day 3 after my surgery to just after the 2 week mark. I am almost at the end of 3 weeks now, and I still get a bit of air buildup in my digestive tract, but I think it's from the normal movements of eating and digesting. I only get pain in my shoulder now if I hiccup, or eat too fast. So it does get better, thank goodness!! :biggrin2:

I have 3 scars about a centimetre long, one that is about an inch long and one that is about 3 inches long. They are all very clean, I have taken care not to pull them apart and I am expecting that when they have fully healed, that they will be flat, thin white lines. That is how I scar. Also, I have a bit of a thing about scars. They are evidence of life's battles, and every scar tells a little story of who you are. So I am not worried about them. When I am showing off my flat tummy, my scars will be the least of my concerns :tongue_smilie:

I hear you, that sounds very much like the last 2 weeks for me. The first week was especially bad, with pain, nausea and dry heaving from the pain meds I was prescribed (which I cottoned on to very fast and switched to Mersyndol - no nausea since) and a LOT of pain from gas both in my intestines and my shoulder and back. Not being able to drink much at all, and pain with swallowing, and hiccups and burping that hurt like hell. I had some serious regrets on the worst days as well. Then I figured out that I was swallowing a lot of air with my drinks and have made a conscious effort to stop doing that. That was inflating my poor tummy and the air had nowhere to go, because it couldn't come up. What helped for me was having someone pound me on the back (around the base of my ribcage on either side of my spine - not directly on the spine) until I felt the gas in my stomach move, and tiger balm all over my back (or some kind of deep heat ointment, the kind athletes used for strained muscles). I love the Tiger Balm, I found that the heat on my skin both worked to break up the gas, and took my mind off the pain enough for me to get to sleep. I think I'll use it every night I'm at the start of week 3, and the only time I have pain now is in the late afternoons/evenings if I have been at my PC for too long, and/or let myself get hungry. I am eating something (mushy or liquid) now every hour to hour and a half. Don't forget that as well as the wounds you have on your belly, you also have wounds inside, on either side of your stomach where the band goes around. Those need some time to heal, but once they are, I think you will feel a lot better.

I have been having very occasional icecream since a few days after my surgery. No harm will come to your band from it, but as some have said above, the calories is what you want to look out for. Personally, in the weeks while I am recovering from the surgery I couldn't care less about losing weight, I just want to heal, and recover and worry about the diet after I go onto solid foods. Not damaging my stomach, or my surgery wounds is more important to me for long term weight loss than worrying about eating a bit of icecream. Anyway, this band is supposed to let me have a normal diet, of small sized portions. And normal people eat icecream occasionally. The worst thing to do with a craving is deny and deny it, because that will inevitably lead to a binge, which is something I've battled. It's better to have one bite of what you are craving than to deprive yourself and then binge when you can't stand it any longer. Perhaps you could try low fat frozen yoghurt instead of icecream if you are really worried about it.

I didn't drive until a week and a half after my surgery, because I had a fair amount of pain from the wounds and from gas, so mum has been driving for me. It's really up to how you are feeling.

4 weeks of liquids is very long and you will probably find that after 2 weeks or so you can comfortably move onto something with a little more substance like scrambled eggs or puree veggies or fruit. I would check with your surgeon, but the rules are so different with every surgeon that I have been thinking of them more like guidelines, and am trying to be more aware of what my body is telling me in terms of hunger and thirst, rather than what my head tells me, which is "EAT A pizza NOW!!!!" :thumbup: One major problem I'm having with liquids is now that the swelling has gone down, the liquid goes straight through and I am hungry again in a very short time. For me, this means severe pain across my back and ribcage that's very hard to relieve, food, painkillers, hotpack and laying down seem to be the only things that work. I had my first scrambled egg at the week and a half mark and it was SO great to get something in my tummy that stayed for a little while. Today is my first official day of mushies, but I've been having them quite comfortably for a couple of days now. Approach with caution, but listen to your body, and your band. As I said above, I'm at the beginning of my third week and feeling heaps better now that my surgery wounds are healing and most of the gas has cleared up. In a year when I am lying on a beach in a bikini, the last 2 weeks will be TOTALLY worth it.

2 kilos a week is FANTASTIC weight loss!!! I hope that when I start eating solid foods again that I will lose 2 a week, it's certainly not something to worry about. One of my banded acquaintences told me that a few weeks after her operation she experienced pretty bad mood swings and attributed it to the anaesthetic hangover. I've been a little teary but I'm only on my third week and am dealing with some unrelated stress as well. It will get better. Chins up :thumbup:

May I suggest that you do some reading about the Famine Reaction and get to know how much you really do need to eat in order to lose weight? If you do not eat enough calories, your body thinks there is a famine, and hangs onto everything you give it, as well as shutting down your metabolism, libido, and reproductive system, among other things. It's worth reading up on. :biggrin:

Hiya all, this is my first post on this board but I've lurked here for some months now soaking up all the fantastic information here! I'm hoping to get some responses from those a little further into their banding experience than I am. I was banded on the 7th of April, 8 days ago, and I've been on liquids (and am supposed to be for 2 weeks). My issue is that I seem to have a lot of air building up in my stomach below the band during the day that causes me a huge amount of discomfort. The gas pain in my shoulder is quite bad as it is, but the air in my tummy has caused me to rethink my decision to have this band on more than one occasion. It's like a hunger growl, it builds up more and more pressure until I get a huge growl, and then a moment of relief. And the cycle continues throughout the day. It's tolerable just after I have eaten, it's weird! Someone pounding me on the back seems to move it, after aaages, but neither degas tablets, nor peppermint tea, seems to help. Walking doesn't move it, lying down, sitting up, nothing. My belly gets quite distended and I have pain around my ribcage. Does it get better once you go onto more normal food? Try as I am, I seem to be swallowing a lot of air, and right now I can't imagine how this can possibly get better.:confused2:

Ah thanks so much for the replies, it's nice to think that perhaps the air will be able to come back up through the band!! I was starting to worry about that :thumbup: @Hastings, yes April 7th :thumbup: I've been off work for other reasons since the 17th of March and my brain has turned to mush! @Mel, I'll try not using a straw, I have noticed that I swallow a lot of air when I use a straw and sip, I have been able to handle larger mouthfuls so I'll give the straw the flick. One day at a time. On an up note, since I started the Optifast diet to now I've lost 7 kilograms. I think that's about 15 pounds in imperial terms :thumbup: This is the lightest I've been in about 3 years!