julesni

Angie - i'm nearly sure that Wendy wont do fills less than 2 weeks apart - I cant remember where I read that though. You cud check with her. See it takes a few days to know what restriction you've got because you're on fluids and mushies for a while. I'm trying real food now on day 5 and after 2 mouthfuls I feel that pain coming on so I stop. Sounds like restriction - hooray lol. Jules

Angie Wendy is next in Belfast on Tues 9 Dec - I have appt booked for 11am - day before my Xmas dinner! lol.

Hi I emailed Joss on the WLSInfo site and got the same reply - no telephone number though. PM irish anna and see what she thought. It would be very handy for you and I though as it means you cud get fill when you choose and not waiting on appt all the time. It also solves the defill problem if it ever arises - something that has worried me coz I have heard of severe restriction coming on suddenly (various reasons) and not even being able to keep water down - and A&E Depts cant/dont know how to treat you!! Julie

Hi Angie I didn't know how much I had in the band - as far as I knew it was only 2ml put in bt Dr Kennedy but when she checked, I actually had 4.5 in there (2.5 put in a op stage). As there were some days when I got restriction, like all of last weekend (it comes and goes) she thought it wise to only put in a further 1ml as that brought me up to 5.5ml. I was ok about that. I didn't want to be overfilled and going back to Dr Kennedy with my tail between my legs!! LOL Restriction is pretty good at moment - its only been 3 days though so I hope it keeps up - but my problem is that when I cant eat, I treat myself to a few glasses of vino hence why I'm still not losing any weight. Hope there will be some weight loss this week though coz my food intake is pretty small. I'm making another appt for DEc anyway coz I know this restriction doesn't always last! Cheers Julie

Hi Angie Sorry I missed your message to tell you the time I was going but it was 4pm yesterday. She recommended me to make an appt for the next one in December though. It was at the start of the Lisburn Road, Belfast near the City Hospital. I had my first fill with Dr Kennedy and I had about 7 puncture marks with him trying to find the port and said that the port was at an angle. Wendy said yesterday that my post wasn't angled and that I could've had my tubing punctured with so many attampts - but it wasn't thankfully. Wendy was excellent, very caring and kind and does these fills day and daily so is excellent at her job. She takes all the Fluid out first to check what is there before she returns it and adds some more. I thought I only had 2mls in but she was able to bring out 4.5mls so I must have had 2.5mls added at the time of the op. She added a further 1ml so I now have a total of 5.5mls. This Robbie guy sounds interesting though because if you were overfilled you could at least get him 24/7 for a defill. I didn't get any email though - can you forward it to me? I go to a support group in Jurys Hotel first Saturday of every month between 2-4pm. It is run by wlsinfo (a charity and also a web site) but so far, I have only met 1 bandster there, most of them have had bypasses. It would be great to get a few more bandsters to go to share experiences and make contacts etc. I think I'll start a new thread to tell folks on this site from NI who may wish to go. I did notice some had mentioned in though in previous posts. Cheers Julie x PS - I have only lost 13-14lb so far and 11 of those were on pre-op diet!!

Hi Angie I'm a bit confused as to how much fill I have in my band as Dr Kennedy just put in 2ml and said its unlikely anything was put in at time of op but since then, I've heard that the 2 girls I met from NI who got op on same day as me got 4ml put in at time of op!! So I'm hoping Wendy who apparently always takes out all the fill first before refilling will enlighten me tomorrow night. If I had 4ml at op stage and another 2ml, I'm getting a bit worried. I lost 11lb pre-op and another 6lb in the week after op so it was a total of 17lb. Between then and first fill I put 3-4lb back on. In first week after fill, I went up another 3-4lb (was on holiday in Prague tho) and this 2nd week, I lost that again. So sitting today with total of about 15lb off. I do have some restriction, it comes and goes. One day I can hardly eat 2 bites and another I can eat everything! Hope Wendy sheds some light on situation tomorrow night. She comes here every 4 weeks on a Tuesday so I reckon her next date here will be 9 Dec. First visit is £125, then £85 and it goes down to £75 after that. She gets great reviews. I belong to the Anne Diamond site "fat happens" and she is talked about a lot on there. She works for WLS Group - look them up and read about them. Cheers and keep in touch. Julie

Hi Sorry I havent been on here for a while. Update - i got my first fill done by Dr Kennedy in Fitzwilliam Clinic, Belfast - paid privately of course £175 first visit and £150 for subsequent visits. He told me that some bureaucracy here prevents him from doing WLS on NHS in NI but that he hopes that sometime in the future he will be able to set up privately and do them in NI. Although I feel some restriction, I can still eat loads and I haven't lost no even 1lb since my op (did lose a few but put them back on). Dr Kennedy said not to come back for at least 6 weeks but I could be a stone heavier by then. So I'm going to go to Wendy WLS Group who comes here once a month and get my fills with her - 2nd fill booked for this Tues. Cheers Julie

Hi - I'm from NI and got my band fitted on 11 Sept privately in England - I paid £5k. As far as I am aware, there was a waiting list for about 150 persons on the NHS from a few years back - but they no longer do the surgery (band or bypass) here and are sending the patients over to England to clear the list. And again, I think, no new patients are being added to the list. It would be interesting to know if Dr Kennedy did private ops here because, I was told there was no way I could get my band done anywhere in Ireland! Julie