StrawartS

Amidst all the fun, I have to say that we were the most pathetic group of eaters. Everyone had a cup of Soup or a salad, and the girl behind the counter thought I was nuts when I told her I didn't want Water. And then it took us over an hour to eat our sorry little meals! I had a blast, guys; can't wait to do it again!

Which is more likely the cause of PBing for you: food not chewed thoroughly? or The wrong type of food? Option 3 - eating too quickly, no matter how well I chew. I have to put my fork down between EVERY bite, for my entire meal. It usually takes me about 45 minutes to eat, which is really annoying if I'm out with people who don't know I'm banded. Also, not drinking hot tea before I eat will cause an instant golfball. How long until you know you have a problem? After a few bites? After the whole meal? Immediately. No, wait, more like yesterday. Once you know you are "stuck", can you gag yourself and expel the offender? When I know that it's going to come back up, I usually just stand over the sink or toilet. I'll start sliming pretty quickly, and I have to spit all that into the receptacle. I have a very sensitive gag reflex, so usually the action of spitting a few times helps it come up right away. The problem I have is NOT being able to stop gagging once it starts. Especially when I feel food on the back of my tongue - I had a rice PB a few days ago, and those little kernels would not come all the way up until I gagged for quite a while. And then I get to the point where I'm gagging so much that I'm crying and I can't breathe...someone remind me why I did this again? Has anyone tried the meat tenderizer and does it work? Does anything else help? Why is it a bad idea to take a sip of Water? It seems like that would help lubricate and move the food along. I usually take small sips of hot tea at the beginning of my meal to make sure the first few bites are moving along. There's some sort of physics explanation about how water on top of a blockage creates a plunger effect, but all I can tell you is that it HURTS. NewSho pointed out in another thread that we bandsters talk so much smack about RNYers and their dumping syndrome, but that PBing and golfballs are not any better. I thought that comment was really on point and deserves repeating.

Oh, only Spiegel would operate on a made-up day. He banded me on 12/19/05, and to answer your question about itchy scars, mine still itch 3 months out. BUT...I think that means they're healing well. Elizabeth from his office (make friends with her, she's MUCH better than Melisa) told me to break Vitamin E capsules over my scars after they dried up. However, I found this vitamin E stick at walmart for less than a dollar, and I used that for a while. Now I just put lotion on my scars. If I put lotion on in the morning and after my shower at night, I don't itch very much. Spiegel's a real asshole, but the man is an artist when it comes to the band. My scars will be completely unnoticeable in about a year. Good luck with your surgery, and keep up posted!

Jess, I do not believe that that is a real dog and not a stuffed toy. I want to put him in my pocket and eat him with spoon!

Thankfully, I have problems with cake. My baking specialty is cupcakes, but now if I want one, I have to eat it VERY slowly and in small bites. You probably won't have trouble with cake if you eat it with some tea or milk. But since drinking with the cake defeats the purpose of the band, I wouldn't use the cake as a meal replacement, just an occasional treat.

Janet, I'm a recent Houston transplant, and I'd love to meet you all tomorrow. Count me in!

Guilty as charged! I had a bad experience with Sonic onion rings...they're so thick and friedely delicious.

This is just my first impression opinion, and please also consider that I know nothing about your location or personal situation. But...I would think twice about saying that the people who didn't have success with their bands must be doing something wrong. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss these unsuccessful stories. It's great that you have support, but support only goes so far. You can convince yourself to the end of the earth and back that you will change your lifestyle with the band, but you will probably have moments of weakness, too. I was one of those people who swore I would be "different," but I'm not. I PB (just did five minutes ago), I crave foods I shouldn't be eating, and I'm not losing as quickly as I would like. I have doubts every day (minute?) about whether I'll be a success. And about every other day I wish I could get my band out. Anyway, I know I didn't address your questions, but your comments about the people who had revisions just stuck out to me. I also know that it's hard to convince someone of something until she has experienced it for herself, so just take my words with a grain of salt.

Flavored water is the same thing as diet soda. It contains water and aspartame. I'll count your flavored water as water if you count my diet Dr. Pepper.

Re: crunchy snack ideas...I don't like baby carrots because they're too fat and short. Our Randall's sells carrots cut up in sticks like they serve on veggie platters, and I like to eat those with blue cheese dip. I also like green beans the same way.

Breakfast (between 7 and 9) - cup of tea to open up, but can't eat anything or have cold drinks lunch (between 11 and 1) - leftovers, today I'm having half of an Emeril's chicken apple sausage, mashed potatoes, and green Beans (usually some sort of ground meat + vegetable) Snack - I get very grumpy and shaky without a snack between 3 and 4; I usually have wheat thins and cheese. Lately I've been into that Louis Kemp imitation crab (I know, I know, it's so lame), and I'll have that with sesame sticks. dinner (between 6 and 9) - either same as lunch, or my signature dish, which is one egg scrambled with onions sauteed in olive oil and goat cheese crumbles. I'll have that with wheat thins. I always need to get something crunchy in. Snack (9 or later) - don't always need another snack if I eat late enough, but I also like to have honey nut chex with vanilla yogurt instead of milk. I will NEVER drink my meals, as the idea is simply repugnant to me. I mean, a Protein shake has like 220 calories, which is about as much as an ice cream sandwich. I've never been into sweets, but I would much rather eat something that is filling and doesn't taste like aspartame flavored cardboard. Oh, and all that nonsense about Protein Drinks filling you up is complete bullshit if you ask me. You know what fills me up? food. See, don't get me started on protein drinks again. The other thing I've changed since I just got this fill of the century is that I really need to slow way down to eat. For example, I've been eating this lunch for about half an hour, and I'm not finished yet. I start every meal with hot tea, then I take my first few bites and keep drinking tea in between them to make sure everything is going down. I usually don't drink a lot with meals other than that. Oh, and soup is bullshit, too. That goes right through the band and I'm hungry ten minutes later. Ok, I'm finished cursing for the moment. I'll post more if I think of it.

Speaking of being a Water snob, does anybody else drink Ozarka? I've always sworn that if I ever moved out of Texas I would have it shipped to me. I have also found that if I don't sip water between meals my band tightens up to almost completely shut. I think the stoma really needs to stay lubricated to keep things moving through. This is also my theory for why we are so tight in the mornings.

This is a very loaded question, because how many calories you can eat depends on what you are eating. If I only ate protein, I would probably have a hard time getting to 1,000. But who wants to eat only chicken breasts all damn day? Then again, if I only ate ice cream, I would never be full, and I could probably go over 10,000. Where's Susan to get on her protein soapbox?

Exactly what I was thinking! Positive Atheism is one of my favorite websites.

The day of my fills, I have almost zero restriction. I always play it safe and try to eat just soup, but by evening I can eat a regular meal. I don't start to tighten up until about the next day.

NewSho, were you banded by Dr. Spivak? I understand that you were recently rebanded. Did the same physician do both surgeries?

Dear Wheetsin the Fabulous, I can eat everyone on your list...on a good day. Yesterday at lunch I had about a half pound of ground meat and then a piece of pizza. But later I woke up from a nap, couldn't get down Water, and PBed on mashed potatoes. I have no explanation for my finicky band. Who the hell knows? As far as lettuce, the reason you don't have to chew it so well is that it is almost 100% water. I think it just shrinks down when it gets inside your stomach and all the water is absorbed. I also have no problems with any raw vegetables.

Magic, I'm not going to give you a lecture, because I understand that doctors give different post-op instructions. Just because my doctor said to drink liquids for a week does not mean that those instructions apply to you. I will not come to this discussion chastising you and accusing you of cheating. So to answer your original question, no, you will not feel any restriction until you get a fill. I was eating just like you are 5 days after banding, and I'm still here with no complications. My doctor said that if I was healed up enough to eat meat and bread, my body just healed faster (my doc has done over 3,000 bands). In my experience, I chose not to diet with my band. I eat what I want because I refuse to go through the torture of counting calories and obsessing over portion sizes. I eat until I am full, and until I got proper restriction, I did not lose weight. Most doctors will not tell that you will still be hungry until you get a fill. Please don't feel like you are the only person this is happening to. Remember, your stomach was not cut or rerouted. There is no reason to be eating liquids or pureed foods after a month. I see nothing wrong with eating meat and bread, as long as you are not in pain. When you are restricted, the weight will come off. Until then, you can either diet and lose weight the hard way, or eat like you want and be patient.

I flew from DFW to Seattle on Friday. I have a very good fill right now, and I am fairly restricted in the mornings, which I had never been before. I was afraid that the plane ride would cause more restriction, but it didn't. However, I woke up at 5 AM to go to the airport and had about two gulps of Water. During the drive, I was in excrutiating pain and finally had to pull over to throw up. After that first episode, I think I irritated my stoma, and I could not keep down anything, including my saliva. After I got to the airport, I had to go to the bathroom every five minutes to throw up my saliva, which was now nice and foamy, like bubble bath. I was terrified of getting on the plane, but I knew this was just temporary, and an unfill would set me back AGES. And I can always go to Walgreen's and get a syringe and do a self-unfill, right? So I sucked it up and got on the plane. For the first hour of the flight, I knew I couldn't get up because of the seatbelt sign, so I kept spitting into paper towels and stuffing them in the airsickness bag. Then, right when the beverage cart was coming, the pain went away, and I could swallow again. I haven't had a single problem since then, so I am chalking the whole thing up to being up at the ass crack of dawn. I now don't put anything in my mouth for at least an hour after I wake up, and then it's only hot tea. BUT THIS IS WHY I HATE THE BAND! This bizarre, three hour experience of not being able to swallow my spit, and then NOTHING! This may have also been something I gave myself, since Kim and I spent a good portion of the previous evening discussing her weird throat gurgling symptoms, and I was convinced that I was getting the same problem. Oh, LapBand, when will we ever get along?

Ok, this is nuts. Now you have me timing how long I can wait before I need to swallow. I think I am now getting spit bubbles by proxy. Can we get someone with normal swallowing function to please time herself? I think we need a third opinion. I say, as long as you can swallow and get down hot liquids, you sound safe for now. When you start back on solids, I would still drink tea or broth before you eat to loosen up. After my last fill, I don't dare try to eat without a hot drink first.

So does it get so bad that you have to spit out your saliva? Or can you still swallow and you just get bubbly sometimes?

Ok, I think I'm having a conversation with myself. I could have sworn that someone above asked about Dr. Ferrari, but now I can't find that post! So there's your unsolicited advice of the day.

Dr. Ferrari did an RNY on my good friend 3 years ago. At that time, he wasn't doing the band. She had a great experience and really liked him, but doesn't do any follow up because RNYers don't really need it.

Nykee, I just saw that you are down 80 lbs in one year! Congratulations, I am so proud of you!

Kim, This is what my doctor calls being so tight that you can't swallow your own spit. Liquids are much thinner than saliva, so it makes sense that those go down. It may seem like a talent now, but the spit bubbles are NOT fun when they come out in the form of a PB. However, I hate the idea of filling and unfilling, especially if you have to pay for your fills. Maybe you can try drinking hot liquids to clear out your spit and open your stoma a little.