KateP

I have no idea about your basic insurance question. But just wanted to say - don't leave this! Pain at the port site is often one of the only symptoms of erosion, which is much worse than a slip as the pain is the sign of an infection. Also, if your slip is a bad one, replacement may not be possible. And there is virtually no difference between the Realize and the Lapband. I rarely see people talking if the Realize band nowadays.

It is totally normal to not feel restriction once the op swelling has gone and before the saline has reached the appropriate level for you. I was lucky and my very first fill did the trick for me, some people need many fills. So, yes, this can be a very hard time. You seem to be hanging in there! Well done! Basically you have a choice. You say "I'll be OK later, so I'll not worry now " (the old "my diet will start tomorrow" approach) or you can tell yourself. "I just had major surgery to lose weight, I CAN and WILL do this". If you are still able to eat more than you hope to be eating later on, use the old pre-surgery tricks of bulky vegetables etc.. But do remember, your band should never physically stop you eating. All it should ever do is slow you down and so dim your hunger. I could eat an entire meze if I took my time over it!

It is down to what not when or how often. Personally I have always had Snacks. IMO, you do what works for you. I am not a fanatic counter of anything but it worked better for me to have a low cal Breakfast, say 200, then a medium lunch, say 300, then a bigger dinner, say 350. So then, if I needed them. I could have 2 X 100 snacks or, if I was particularly hungry, one of my snacks could be a small meal. As I said, I don't really count. But every few weeks I would do a careful check to make sure I was still on track. It always worked out under 1200.

If you have some restriction but are not losing, then the issue is with your intake. Your band seems to be doing its job. People who have slips seem to be more likely to have another (not science, just what I have observed) so you need to take that little bit more care If you are not losing, you are taking in too many calories. Have you tried keeping a journal to check?

My own way was never to have a fill unless I was 100% sure I needed it. I have seen too many people suffering serious problems from being overnight. How about postponing the appt for a couple of weeks?

Change your mindset. This is not a diet to bring about fast weight loss. It is a new way of eating. 12lbs since surgery may feel slow but it is not! Imagine 12lbs as a pile of sticks of butter! That's a LOT of fat. As we don't have malabsorption and the band does not physically prevent us eating, we don't lose fast. Oh, a lucky few do! But a loss of between one me two pounds a week is within the expected range. Previous diets probably failed because you got bored, discouraged etc. so you have to stop thinking of this as a diet. This is your life. eventually, you will eat more than you do now. So the current limitations are short term. But you must not get hung up on numbers- that LEDs you to feel a failure and that makes it so very hard to carry on.

So how many calories do you eat a day? As a post-menopausal female (I am too), the BMR does decline, however much exercise you do. I don't do gym work but I live in a very rural and hilly area and do lots of walking and even with that, I need to be under 1200 to lose. At 1500 I would not lose.

Yup! Nuts - oh so healthy! But oh so fattening!!!!

Quote Specifically, overweight people have higher tooth decay levels, more missing teeth and fewer required dental fillings. They also visit a dentist less frequently, have more difficulty accessing dental care on a regular basis and are likely to visit a dentist only when they have a problem. I am not in the U.S., but here in the UK, obesity has strong links with poverty. I therefore wonder whether this statement is based on causation or correlation. People in socially deprived groups see the dentist less, are less educated in dental hygiene, they are also more likely to be obese. This does not necessarily mean obesity causes tooth problems.

This sounds obvious but, although calories are not all equal in the way the body uses them or reacts, if you are gaining weight, you are eating more than you are burning. Muscle, inch per inch, does weigh more than fat but not that much! My daughter is an elite triathlete and is training for the World Champioships. She eats and burns enormous amounts. Much more than a "normal" exerciser. But as her muscle builds, her weight does not - In fact, despite a 3000 a day intake, it is decreasing as her fitness and muscles increase and she was, obviously, not over-weight to start with). I wouid suggest a week or so of rigorous measuring and counting every mouthful. It is very easy to slip into eating slightly more than we think.

If you are having problems with fill levels, that is the first thing to try to address. I find a fill as small as 0.1cc can make th difference between tight and just right! Something is clearly not working as it should. You say you are tired of not eating like your friends. Well. I do! If you at a meal with me, you would have no idea I have a band, you might be surprised how little I ate and you you might think I was sometimes a bit picky, but that is all. That is one of the difficult things about the band. If it is correctly adjusted, we CAN eat everything, or most things - most of us do have a few things we need to take care with. For the first year or even several years, motivation can be high enough to carry us through but after many years (almost nine for me) it is very hard work. We can't rely on our bands, all they do is give us a little bit of an edge by reducing our appetite so we don't think of food all the time. If I go out for a meal which is a social occasion and we all eat slowly over conversation, I could eat an enormous (in banded terms) amount. And I regret to say, some times I do. actually, I don't regret it as it gives me pleasure to do so SOMETIMES, for special occasions! What we need to learn, and remember, is to make healthy choices not of the time, eat the appropriate amount and then STOP? I reached normal BMI about 15 months after surgery. Keeping it off was easy for maybe four years. Now it isn't. I would like to be in control, but I'm not. What I have done over the last five years is gain weight, lose it, gain, lose. I have never gained anywhere near back to my old weight - my yo-yo style never takes me up more than about 25lbs at which point I panic and lose it again. I hate it when people at about six mo the out start posting"X pounds lost forever". Maintaining is harder than losing! It is hard and it gets harder. My own view is that the mind is the key. We have to want this more than we want too much food. If you can't get to that state on your own, maybe you could join a group, get counselling, even join something like WeightWatchers.

Unless there was some sort of damage, couid you not have done saline replaced?

Just to reassure those having RNY or VSG who will be probably be eating around 600 calories at first and then (many of them) 800 calories for a long time, your brain will still work!

You are so close to surgery that it may well be just be swelling/ irritation. Further down the line, a persistent cough is a danger signal. As you say, it can be a sign of reflux, even whenwe are not aware of the reflux itself, it is even referred to as "hidden" or "silent" reflux as there is no other symptom. Not only can reflux be a sign we are too tight and so at risk of harm because of that, the reflux itself can also cause oesophageal problems or even aspiration pneumonia. So it needs to be taken very seriously. But it is always worth a call to your medical team if you have concerns.

Yes and no! I certainly agree we should Celebrate success and that success Is not a number. And this is indeed a life change not a diet. But for me, that worked for four or five years. What I find now is that the scale is more important than it was when I was losing. I have a great many online friends who, like me, have been in maintenance for years,and we all, every one of us, rely on very regular weighing, daily or weekly to monitor our weight, those who post to say they have regained significant amounts are almost always those who don't monitor their weight. I have had three episodes of regain in nine years, and each time it was when I stopped weighing,

I tend to avoid frozen meals, even the ones which are not over-full of salt, simply because they tend to lack texture. Even meat is soft. So I can eat too much and they don't fill me. Couid you just make up a salad bowl of chopped veggies and chicken etc?

You have to decide which lifestyle suits you. Do you need malabsorption to help you? Do you need to take NSAIDs? Please bear in mind that I am a very happy and very successful bandit now 9 years post-op. I do not regret my band, would do it all over again and if I ever have to have it removed, I would hope to have a replacement. When I was banded in 2006, it was a miracle surgery. And for some people, who accept that they will still have to work hard, it is just that. It was and still is for me. But over the years it has become clear that serious complications necessitating further surgery are much more common than originally thought, some of these are avoidable by careful eating and by not keeping the band tight; unfortunately others are beyond our control. We used to be warned about band slips, leaks and about ( very rare) erosion into the stomach tissue but it turns out that a build up of scar tissue round the band (causing it to tighten) is quite common. It can be very difficult to get the right level of restriction and some people are tempted to keep it tight enough to physically limit food, in fact it was once thought this was how it should be. But this causes food to back up into the oesophagus and that risks problems such as oesophageal dysmotility which may be irreversible. It can also damage the vagus nerve. Quite a number of doctors have stopped implanting bands as they found the removal rate was unacceptably high and it was too easy not to lose enough weight. Revision from band to sleeve is not uncommon! We still need lots of will power. The band makes it easier by dimming hunger, but it does nothing for head hunger and, contrary to popular opinion, it does not and should not physically stop us eating. If it does it is too tight! Having said all that, I love my band, I know many successful long term bandits in real life. My own experience has been good and so has that of almost all those I actually know and have met. Equally, I know people who have had major successes AND serious complications with both sleeve and rny. But I haven't had those surgeries myself so will not speak for them!

I am banded and my recovery was very quick. At the time my Job we phaycially demanding ( I worked with teenagers with special needs and needed to be physically able to deal with emergencies like keeping up with boys trying to run away or attack people! ) I had a full week off work and then when I returned avoided strenuous activities. In a job such as you describe, a week would have been plenty. In fact maybe even less although I did still have a few extra sleeps!

@@terrydumont46 Yes, it's crazy. I can actually eat all foods but I avoid lamb as unless it is incredibly tender, lamb is the one of the few foods i find can be difficult. I am too old a hand at this to get stuck but I often end up spitting it out (discreetly!!!) rather than swallowing.

Your recipes look lovely but it is your nutritionist's advice I find awful!! How very unhelpful of her/him!! I have never eaten anything other than "real" food and my NUT specifically warned me off junk food, over-processed food, artificial sweeteners etc.. I think you must have been very unlucky! Most people I know we're given advice similar to that which I received.

It's too long ago for me to remember timings but I am pretty sure I had problems with them early on. I remember trying to eat an apple while on a walk and having to sort of scrape the peel off with my teeth. But certainly after a while, all fruit and veg became a major part of my daily food again. One thing I do know is that FOR ME soft fruits like banana, mango, melon are still ones which need care. This sounds odd but I think it is because they are soft and so it is harder to really chew them. Like scrambled egg which many find difficult.

Adding (can't add by editing in my Ioad) Like B52, I wouid then return to the table as if nothing had happened. But I wouldn't eat any more meat, but wouid eat any soft, slider foods.

I have never had an episode as bad as that but if I do feel something is not going to go down, I get somewhere private and then I do have a drink. As there is nowhere for the Water to go, it will come back up, bringing the food with it. If I don't have access to a drink I suck my cheeks to build up saliva, hold it in my mouth until I can hold no more and then swallow that in one gulp! After an episode as dramatic as yours, liquids for the rest of the day might e a good idea. I almost never bring food back and have never had anything which made me actually vomit in public! But even now, after almost nine years, social eating is when I can get careless. As you say, you swallow quickly to join in the conversation!

I always kept a chart on the wall above my scales and noted my weight every week. I couid fit about 10 weeks on one sheet and do even if one week had no loss, the graph showed a clear trend.

Think Kate Moss. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.