*susan*

I just had my surgery at 7:30 a.m. on Friday morning. My doctor kept me overnight and didn't release me until noon the following day. Personally, I believe when one has surgery, they should spend the night in the hospital in case any complications arise. I ended up having my blood pressure drop to a dangerously low level, and was glad I was in the hospital where they were able to manage everything and keep it under control. Plus, I was in paid and really appreciated how quickly pain medicine injected directly into my IV went to work.

I'm with Miper, mine is from the other end.:faint: I just had my surgery on Friday and am still full of gas from it.

Hi Everyone! I'm a bandster !:eek: I had my surgey yesterday morning at 7:30. They kept me overnight. The first thing I did when they woke me up in recovery was ask if my liver was ok and did I get the band. Obviously, they said everything went great and I got the band. The only problem I had was my blood pressure was way to low and they kept waking me every thirty minutes to check it. But, it finally went back to normal this morning. I think the only incision that actually hurts is the one where my port is. I am also having a lot of feelings like cramps in my tummy. I hope this isin't to much info., but the Dr. told me that is probably gas pains and that I need to walk and try and let out the gas. I have been walking, but I have failed to poof so far. But, at least, so far, I am not having the shoulder pain that a lot of you mentioned having. Were any of you super tired? I can hardly seem to keep my eyes open. I woke up at the hospital at 6:30 and went back to sleep by 7:00 and slept most of the morning at the hospital. We got home at noon and I plopped down on the couch and slept for four more hours. I have been up for about 1 1/2 hours and feel exhausted and am ready to sleep some more. Is this normal? Over all though, it wasn't too bad. I am having pain, which the doctor gave me a liquid pain killer, Loratab Elixor, which seems to help. I also hate going from laying down or sitting down to standing up. It really hurts when I do that. Well, I will let you know how the next few days go. Thanks for all the advice.

I agree with NewSho. I am no longer going to think of myself as dieting. If I do, I will be setting myself up for failure. I do plan to make better food choices and eat much less by listening to my band. But, as long as my band will tolerate it, I do not plan on giving up anything. I am a former member of weight watchers. Their whole plan is set up around eating a specific amount of points each day. I am only 2 days into banding, but from reading other posts from more experienced banders, I think we would have trouble meeting WW daily point requirements. Other than that, I do believe WW's is a great program and people can be successful with it. I was all 7 times I tried. But, that was the problem, I always fell off the wagon. With my band there to constantly remind me, I think I will do much better.

Thanks for all the support guys. I think the weirdest thing is that I think I am actually feeling my liquids flow from my pouch into my stomach. I have never had that sensation before. Does anyone else feel it? Seminole, lol, I am not sitting in a chair. I am lieing on the couch with a pillow on my lap and my laptop computer on top of it. I don't think I could sit in a chair for too long.

There have been lots of interesting replies to this thread, chastising, lecturing, etc. I personally believe that you need to follow the directions your physician provided you. I did the liquid pre-op diet for 19 days prior to getting my band on Friday. I followed the rules for the pre-op diet and I plan to follow the rules for my post-op diet. My doctor explained very clearly that I had to allow my stomach time to heal. He said I need to give the stitches time to heal and the band time to adhere to my stomach. If I eat solid foods too soon, that makes my stomach churn and work hard and could potentially cause the stitches to come loose and my band to slip. I spent a lot of time talking to the psychologist, nutritionist and my doctor about this surgery prior to having it. I understood what was involved. I knew I would be looking at liquids for close to a month between the pre and post-op diets. I didn't go into this blindly. If I were not going to follow the rules and do what my doctor suggested, then I should have not been banded. I am sure each and every one of us that has had this done knew what to expect in advance. I am also sure we have all gone through what you are going through with being so hungry. That is not something that is exclusive to just a few bandsters. You, along with everyone else that is getting banded can do whatever you want. However, if you do have a slippage due to failure to follow physicain's orders, then you have no one to turn to except yourself. Basically, I had to go private pay. It cost me $16,500.00 to have this done, I refinanced my house for it. I want and need this to work. I am not a person of wealth, so this was a large chunk of money for us. Therefore, I am not willing to do anything that my doctor does not say is ok. To me, that would be just plain silly and a waste of our hard earned money to risk slipping my band because I couldn't follow the rules for just a few weeks.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I am feeling ok. I had some real bouts with nausea last night and this morning. Took all I had to work through it and not vomit. Fortunately, one of the prescriptions my doctor sent home with me was specifically for nausea and vomiting. I am still having a lot of pain. I also noticed I have 5 incision points instead of 4, not sure why. I am going to ask when I go to my post-op appointment. So, just curious, did any of you gain weight right after the surgery? I got on the scales this morning and it showed a 3 pound gain! Could that be from all the iv's or something? I sure haven't ate anything. Oh, 3loves, my favorite driver is Tony Stewart. Did you see his bad wreck in the busch race? Scared the you-know-what out of me watching him flip like that.

Hi SallyJo, I don't really have any advice, but I wanted to say hi and see how things are going. I just got home this morning from getting my band. I told the doctor I was having a lot of stomach cramping and he said it is probably the gas and I need to walk as much as possible to help induce my body to poof. So far, no poof. I can sure feel things rocking and rolling though. Anyway's hope you get to feeling better soon.

Congrats on being an official bandster. It sound like you are doing fantastic.

Hi Everyone! Tomorrow morning is my big day. My surgery is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. and I am not even nervous, just excited. Although, I think my hubby is more than nervous enough for the both of us. I just wanted to take a moment to post and say that although I have never met any of you, I am so thankful for each and everyone of you. I have learned more about the band, what to expect, how to handle different things that may happen, etc. from you wonderful people on this board than I am sure any doctor could have ever told me. It is through your support and advice that I am able to feel so confident in my decision to get banded. I only hope I can be as helpful to future bandsters as each of you have been to me. Thank you so much. :grouphug:

Hi Danie, I am also self-pay, but wanted to welcome you as well. I am sure it may be different if you are going through insurance, but I had my psych. and nutritional evals done, then saw the surgeon for my consult three days later. He requires a 2-3 pre-op liquid diet, which I started just a few days after seeing him and now my surgery is tomorrow. So, for me it was about 3 1/2 weeks.

I think as you read through the posts you will see that just about every doctor has a different pre-op plan. Mine has had me on a purely liquid diet from Physcian's Weight Loss for almost 3 weeks now. Others allow a small meal for dinner. Others have no pre-op diet. I would suggest checking with your doctor to see if there is anything special you should be doing. I definitely made sure to get all my favorite foods in before I started my pre-op. Fortunately, I couldn't binge too much because I had my consult with my doctor and had to start the diet 3 days later. But I had pizza, wings, japanese, and a few other things because I am not sure how long it will be until I can have them again. I think that is really just normal for us.

Hi Heather, I hope you are doing well. I have been checking on and off all day to see if you are online. I am anxious to here how everything went. I, too, have been thinking about you a lot. I can't wait to join you in bandland tomorrow morning.

Hi Joyce and :welcome2:. You have definitely found the right place for support, advice and encouragement. There isn't a better site out there. You will love it. When are you getting banded? I am tomorrow and can't wait. By the way, "Dirty Dancing" is one of my alltime favorite movies, lol.

Well, right now I think my family is having to put the fridge under lock and key. I have been on my liquid diet since the 10th and just want to CHEW something, anything! :hungry: But, I do like your idea about doing crafts and such to keep your hands busy. We just had a Hobby Lobby open up the street. I have never done any crafts, but maybe now is a good time to take one up. I might do that after I recover, my surgery is tomorrow, WOO HOO!

Oh, Heather, thank you so much for posting these photos. I don't think there is anything more inspiring to us soon-to-be bandsters than seeing success photos of beautiful people such as yourself. And girl, you are definitely hot and have so much to be proud of. Your daughter is absolutely beautiful, and she looks just like her pretty mother.

Wow, that is outstanding. Congrats!

Kristin, I agree with you 100%. I am not banded yet, but will be this Friday. I do intend to not drink with my meals as that is what my doctor has recommended and he states it will defeat the purpose of my band because it will flush the food right through. However, he told me that as long as my system can tolerate it, I can eat anything I want. I will just need to listen to the band and know when to stop. That is why I am getting the band, to have a tool to tell me "hey, it was good, but you have had enough, time to put down the fork." If I put myself in the diet frame of mind, then I will fail with the band. I do not feel I should be deprived of the foods I enjoy and that others around me will continue enjoying. Do I need to eat them in the quantities I ate them before? No! Do I plan on making some changes in my diet and making healtheir choices? Yes! But, that in no way means that I will say something is a no-no food and I may never eat it again. For me, that would only lead to binging on it.

My goal is to be able to walk into Victoria's Secret, find something sexy that fits me and then do so modeling for my hubby when the kids are away for the weekend at their dad's.

:dance:Fabulous NSV! Congrats!

I have been on my liquid diet for two weeks now and I have to say that right now, my dog's rawhide bone is looking pretty good. :dog::heh:

Ok, I need help here. My surgery is coming up on Friday. I have been so confident that this is what I want to do, that this is right for me. I don't know if it is because I have been on the liquid diet for two weeks now or what, but I am literally starting to panick. Food is something I find great pleasure in. I didn't eat because of emotional reasons, stress, etc. I genuinely love the taste of food. All of a sudden I am sitting here panicking thinking, what if I can't eat pizza? What if I can't enjoy Japanese food anymore? My favorite food is filet mignon, will I still be able to eat and enjoy it? I am sitting here craving all these foods right now. I want to blow the liquid diet and go eat something right now, anything, just in case I can't eat it after banding. What is wrong with me??? HELP!!!

Hope, One thing I have noticed from reading all the posts is that it seems every doctor requires something different. A few, such as mine, require 2-3 weeks of a prescribed liquid diet such as Physician's Weight Loss or Optifast. Others require either 1 or 2 weeks of liquid diet, but you choose the liquids, such as soups, yogurt, etc. Others allow people to have a light meal, protein, or a salad for dinner. And still others require liquids only the day before the surgery. It makes no sense to me at all as there seems to be no standard. I am not sure if that is because the procedure is still relatively new here or what. I just know I have actually found myself angry at my doctor at times for not at least allowing us the occassional vege or chicken breast or something. But, it will all be worth it in the long run. If you are not sure though, call your surgeon and ask him/her.

Good Morning Heather (actually, I doubt it is morning in Portugal now, oh well), Saw your IM yesterday, but it went to my phone, I was still sound asleep:notagree. Sorry you are having such problems. I wish I could offer some advice, but like you, I am starting to have problems too. The past three mornings, (also probably TMI) I have woke up and dry-heaved. There is nothing to actually come up. But, I feel pretty weak too. Aren't you glad we only have to do this for a short time? I have an aunt who weighed 400 pounds and decided she did not want to "turn 40 and be fat". So, she was working for a physician's office and they had brought in some new liquid diet program. They told her if she agreed to allow them to use her as a success story, they would let her do the diet for free. She did it religiously for 18 months and lost 220 pounds during that time (no, I am not kidding!). I don't know how anyone could do that for that long. I am barely surviving my pre-op. Oh, and by the way, on Thanksgiving, my aunt decided she was going to eat real food. She literally went crazy and ate everything on the table and had seconds of everthing. She ate one of every kind of dessert. From there on out, she completely went off the diet and gained all of her weight back in about a year and a half. I felt so bad for her. Hang in there, remember, only 3 days till banding. A couple of weeks of liquid dieting afterwards and this will all be past. You can do this. I truly hope you get to feeling better.

Hi and welcome! This forum is absolutely awesome, you won't find a better place for advice and support throughout all stages of banding.