tilly

I totally agree, I have a friend whos weight problem was mainly caused by drinking wine each night (a bottle) then going onto the vodkas and lemonades before bed time. She had the band and at first lost well, but after a month or so she went back to her drinking and in a year hasnt lost an ounce, so now she blames the band and is going for the r n y hoping that will work, well it wont because she simply cant stop the drinking and taking in all those calories.

returning home off holiday, I was approaching a really big, buisy roundabout on a hot day last year, on the seat next to me was some shopping and sticking out of the top was an ice cold carton of orange juice. so as Im driving along I fiddle with the top and manage to get it off and, without thinking I took a massive few gulps of the juice, just like pre band gulps. Swallow swallow swallow I goes gets to the roundabout and as im looking left and right waiting to go on to it WHOOSH no warning no nothing --- up comes the orange juice, projectile, by now im going around the roundabout so cant do a thing about it WHOOSH and orange juice hits the wheel, the windscreen, the dash, down my navy blue shirt and trousers and onto the floor of the car. You would not believe how far a couple of gulps of orange juice could go.!! I had another 300 miles to drive so pulled into a motorway service area delved into my suitcase and changed between the two doors of the car!! I couldnt go into the rest rooms because I couldnt be seen in public the state I was in. It took me over half an hour to clean up that swig of orange juice in the car and I pray often that there wasnt any cctv cameras trained on me in the car park and one day I will appear on tv getting undressed with my mother standing holding a towel in front of me looking furtivly round whilst I changed my trousers.

the first surgeon I saw told me to go away and lose 80lbs before the op !! so the second surgeon I saw told me to "just eat sensibly two weeks before the op" my kind of guy, so I tried my best to eat sensibly and lost 7lbs a mere drop in an ocean of 420lbs, the night before the op I saw him, and intended to then go on an eating spree. but he told me "please dont eat a lot tonight" *sigh I knew, through research and speaking to successfull bandsters that the moment I woke up from the surgery I was going to be on a diet. I was terrifed, I wouldnt be able to do it, I would waste all that cash and Id be fat forever, after all, how many diets had I tried, and how many times had I failed. IF you diet when youve had the band it will work, and you wont be able to believe how much easier it is with the band than without it. You will have days when you eat chocolate and all the wrong stuff, but you will have many more days when you wont--- and wont even want them. you know those magazines that promise you you will lose 10lbs in a week if you stick to their diet? and it goes something like this Breakfast 1 0z of Cereal 1/4 pt of skim milk black coffee lunch 20z chicken breast skinned a tomato black coffee dinner 4 oz steamed fish 4 oz broccoli black coffee well, I used to look at those diets and think OMG I would never live on that I'd die of starvation. Nowadays I look at those magazines and their diets and I think OMG ALL THAT food IN ONE DAY !! HOW DISGUSTING IS THAT HA HA HA HA

mine goes right up against my neck! I kept pulling it down to the bit that goes around my waist and EUREKA mind you it only took 34 years of doing this for me to come up with the idea sooo it wasnt exactly Eureka lol

I found the opposite ---the bigger I got the more invisible I got !!!:phanvan

you wouldnt believe the difference 100lbs can make, even 30lbs makes a big big difference. I dont sweat anymore even when Im not moving around I dont get back ache I can stand for half an hour without leaning on something I can stand and prepare a meal I can reach all my cheeky bits in the shower. I can buy clothes all be it in a fat shop, but now Im within their size range. shoes are 2 size smaller even jewellry I can buy an 18" chain instead of a 24" chain I sleep right through the night instead of sleeping an hour wake for 2 hours etc I can get a bath instead of showering all the time, cos I fit now. I can get out of the bath and in the bath !! I can wrap a towel around myself I can dry all my important little parts ! I can kneel down to clean the hearth I can get up again !! I can fit comfortable in a plane seat and get the tray down (still need an extender though) I needed an emergency operation and was told if Id been the weight I was they would have just had to let me die !!! in otherwords ITS FANTASTIC

yes, I had a fill in dec and it made no difference, so went back in feb and it made not much difference. this past week so -about 3 weeks later-the band has tightened a LOT and I can hardly eat a thing and the weight is moving brilliantly. Im happy with that, as I dont want to be able to eat allsorts at the moment, im happy with Soup and mush while the weight is coming off, I know I cant have it all ways, I have a slimfast milk shake every day to keep the Vitamin etc levels up while im living on not a lot

the other night I was watching TV and my husband came into the room and stood in front of me and said "ive never seen you do that before" I said "what?" he pointed at my legs and I realised I HAD THEM CROSSED !!!!!!!!!! Its been years and years since I had done that and I did it without even thinking about it then I thought about all what I could do that I couldnt do a year ago like prepare the dinner without sitting down at the worktop stand and wash the dishes without leaning on the sink and doing them with one hand. walk to the bottom of our small garden without worrying how I was going to make it back breathe easier walk up stairs and not have to plonk myself down on the bed to get my breath back go upstairs for something without thinking about it and psyching myself up for the journey reach all parts of myself in the shower without using a long handled brush wearing shoes two sizes smaller so much more choice clothes 7 sizes smaller again much more choice the list is endless I think. wonderful isnt it three cheers for my band my true and trusted friend :clap2: :clap2:

all I had the first night was a probe on my finger and I went to sleep. next night I had the tiny two pronged thing that they give you when you hve oxygen that just fit against the bottom of each nostril cant feel them at all when you have your cpap machine you can request those instead of the mask

your liver holds about 4lbs of glycogen this is the "spender" of energy and its saved for the likes of marathon runners for when they hit that wall, out comes your glycogen and gives you a second wind. so the first thing you lose when you starve and need a lot more energy than your taking in is your glycogen deposit, as soon as you eat carbs again it comes back though natrurally if you lose the 4lbs of glycogen your liver gets a lot smaller and its easier for the surgeon to work in there.

they inflate your abdomen and chest cavity with air so they can move around a bit easier in there, so a lot of people suffer with gas afterwards, I didnt so I was lucky, also for quite a while after banding your bowels are a bit off to say the least, your eating soft food and not a lot of fiber so you get quite windy as well

I painted my daughter's bedroom the other day - something I would have never tried before (I wasn't going to put my 355 lb body on a latter with a 250 lb weight limit!!!). That made me stop and think, wow! this is really working for me! whaddaya mean you couldnt decorate when you were 355lbs !! I could have built a house as long as I was sitting down and you didnt want it more than my arms reach high lol I got to be a dab hand at everything providing I was sitting down or my back ached and my legs turned to Jello after 2 minutes oh and providing I didnt have to reach down to the floor its amazing how you cope when you think about it isnt it

yes your fill can get tighter, but its more likely that after the PBs your tum is swollen and needs to cool down whenever I pb I go onto soup for a couple of days to give it a chance, or I just keep on pb ing good luck awwww

the benefits Ive had from my band so far are so good that I would have it removed and replaced in a heart beat, the pain after surgery, the messing about with the fills, all worth it. I hope this is permanent but if it goes wrong I would do it again and again and again. most prosthesis, like heart valves and hip replacements arnt permanant but it wouldnt stop me having them if I needed them.

yes I would definately wait until you reach your goal or near it I was a 54dd bra one year later I am a 46 B and getting smaller by the day when I was my right weight for one brief shining moment I was between an a cup and a b so had to buy b cups and take them in by sewing along the cup a small seam. !! a lot of your bust might be simply fat, so wait and see what happens--you might be wanting to have them made bigger by then ha ha good luck

well, I had given up, sleeep apnea and over 400lbs I thought well, ive been on a diet all my life and weigh more than 200lbs than when I started!! so I gave up, resigned myself to an early death and was in the supermarket, there was a tap on my shoulder and there was a friend of a friend whom, last time I saw her was 400lbs ish and there she was thin as a pole !! we went for a coffee and she told me she had had the band and I thought Ill have some of that !! and here I am thank god I met that lady or I would be on the way to my grave now.

yes sorry gas, lol no you can get wind anytime band or no band and at the moment your tum is particularly delicate or your eating a lot of gas causing mushy stuff lol or perhaps your bowels arent working right yet, under the heart is a prime site for wind the back and shoulders are also prime sites aww I feel for you as it can be very painful cant it Gas Pain Gas Pain is usually a sharp persistent pain under the left breast and sometimes up to the shoulder, associated with pain in the upper left abdomen and often with belching. http://www.byu.edu/shc/library/common/chst_pn.html

yes sorry gas, lol no you can get wind anytime band or no band and at the moment your tum is particularly delicate or your eating a lot of gas causing mushy stuff lol under the heart is a prime site for wind the back and shoulders are also prime sites aww I feel for you as it can be very painful cant it

sounds like wind, maybe try some wind pills see what happens I had the same until someone suggested wind and I thought they were wrong but they were right lol good luck

ordinary water or drinks dont work they make the pb worse, it has to be fizzy but beware its darned painful

Photonut, no you shuoldnt be hungry every three hours if your filled right, in fact Ive found once Im filled right, I never ever get hungry, peckish yes, head hunger yes, you know when you fancy a steak and all the trimmings but know darned well you cant have one lol but as for being hungry every three hours the only time ive been like that was when I needed a fill and could eat faster, eat more and wanted more food more often. but if your only eating 800 cals a day and are losing 2lbs a week steadily, your doing fine - marvellous in fact. its sometimes difficult to stay at 800 cals even with tight restriction as the rubbish goes down a treat doesnt it. like Cookies and candy and chocolate. you sound like your doing ok but you still shuoldnt be hungry --are you hungry?, tum growling etc. that could well be because your eating AND drinking at the same time, so your pouch isnt staying full, your washing away the food much faster than without a drink

nooo you wont be sealed at all, lol, dont worry, most of us experience the tighter band in the morning than the evening, I drink an ice cold glass of Water, that seems to tighten it up, once you have proper restriction you will learn what you can and cannot eat, unfornunately this is a trial and error process but if you stick to only eating what you can break with the side of your fork till you get used to it. I asked my surgeon what this tighter band in the morning meant and he didnt have a clue, he said its just a quirk of the band. so hey ho !! you will also find that you have good restriction one day and not so much the next so bear with it for a few days or even a couple of weeks after your fill and it will kick in properly. you will know about it if your ever "sealed" it happened to my friend, she thought the water had gone down that they gave her to drink and off we went. 100 miles later she was burping and couldnt swallow her own saliva without bringing it back up, so turned around and went back by which time she was extremely distressed and de-hydrated as it was about 6 hrs since her fill and couldnt even swallow a tiny drop. she tried coffee and PBd badly. the look of releif on her face when he did a quick un-fill was a sight to behold. so no, you are never sealed unless it is a complete seal and you need some taken out. always make sure the water has gone away before you leave the doctors office and make sure it isnt running away too fast either. it sounds complicated but you soon get the hang of it lol good luck

Ihad severe sleep apnoea and my surgeon insisted I bring my cpap machine to the hospital. that night I wore it and every hour on the hour a nurse checked I was breathing ok. Its just encase your "wake up and breathe" instict doesnt kick in after the anasthetic other than that I had no probs whatsoever after the anasthetic or during it and I was super obese and a smoker and old, very very old *sigh

ive lost 128 lbs after weighing today

you know what they say, if you want to look thin, find a fat friend. shes not a friend shes a jealous catty **** and someone who cant bear for her husband to notice someone. sounds like a very insecure "friend" to me. I have been through something similar and that friendship just drifted away, I cant help wondering when I see her with her new found friend who is as big as i was pre banding and someone the old "friend" used to laugh at behind her back.