itschoice

http://www.lapbandtalk.com/topic/116176-given-up/page__p__1513819#entry1513819 I don't know if this link will work but if it does it is a similar situation and I have my story here. If it does not work I will copy and paste to here for you. You are not alone. I think there are many of us and we are shamed to keeping silent.

Thank you everyone for your input. I have had these problems since day one and the only structural issues I think it could be is the original placement of the band. In reality, I really think it is the spasm in my stoma. I just think my stoma is very sensitive and hates being bound up. I think thats why the nasal spray works so well and allows me so much relief. As for fills the last few times I went for fills most if not all of the last fill had been lost. The doctor had had a very hard time finding my port that I think he put a hole in the tube. I could feel the restriction going away and nothing staying between fills and it was a fast change in restriction. A very different feeling than you have when you swell up after a fill and the swelling then goes down. So I stopped having fills in January 2010. I feel no restriction and have none of the positive benefits associated from the band like less hunger. However, the way I have to eat to survive seems to have balanced that out and I'm not so hungry. I have not had any tests done but at some point I will. I was a self pay and am here almost 2 years later still paying the bill. I have been talking to my regular doctor and he knows I have had problems with this. He says that if I have an emergency type problem Kaiser will cover me to get the band out. He said he may send me for more test to check on things but wanted to see if some of the issues resolved themselves over time. I only have about 36 more pounds to loose to get me to a BMI of 24ish. Even if I only loose half that weight wise I'm in a much better place. I'm a very loose size 16 and could probably fit in a 14 but I hate tight pants and it makes my port hurt (Just another problem I have). So if I lose 15ish more I should be a size 12 and then when I am all paid off I need to chose if I want to switch or something else and hope that I don't hurt myself more than I have, get it removed and give up, or just keep it and try to make the best out of a bad situation. Its a quality of life issue and that is what is going to be the deciding factor.

Thank you for the advice. Yes you would think it would be that easy but its not. I went almost a year without eating solids or only eating solids one or two times a week and while I'm calling them solids they really were mushies. Now that I can eat mushy-solids 5 or 6 nights a week being on liquids all day long is okay. It really becomes a quality of life issue. To not be able to eat veggies because if there is one piece of cellulose the size of course ground pepper that gets by you are in trouble is a difficult thing. But you need to keep trying and maybe at some point your stoma will calm down.

I have the exact same problems and have given up too. I gave up about last xmass and have spent these last 9 months trying to live with and work with these issues. I will tell you there is hope. I spent most of my time with the lapband on liquids only getting to eat solid foods two or three NIGHTS a week. I did talk to many doctors and they have no clue as to what it is or why. My stoma lives in spasms. However, my regular doctor came up with something that has been a god send. He has me using a steroid spray that I take now every morning and every night to reduce the swelling in my nasal passages. AND STEROIDS HAVE THE ADDED BENEFIT THAT THEY STOP SPASMS. It drips down the back of my nasal passages and the back of my throat and I can taste it as it goes down (mucous going down the back of my throat has never been so pleasant). It makes all the difference in the world and its nothing more than Flonase. At first when I started taking it I would get sooo hungry so I would only take it at night and I tried to balance the swelling and spasms so I could still lose weight and feel the benefits the band is suppose to provide but the spasms and swelling were still to unpredictable to know if I could eat real food or not. And I was still not loosing weight. I think it was the lack of nutrition since all I ate was chicken noodle soup with cheese in it. Now I am able to eat 1 meal a day that is solid food. It makes dinner heaven and the scale has started moving again and I can go 2 weeks with out having a stuck episode. My period and heat affect it too along with many other things. You need to get the bleeding under control. Just do liquids until the Flonase kicks in which could be up to two weeks. You need to make sure you don't have any permanent damage or a slip. SO SEE YOUR DOCTOR. Good luck and report back here. I'm sure you and I are not the only ones that have this problem. I just think that the others who have never experienced this think they are better than us so they attack us. WE NEED TO STAND TOGETHER TO HELP THOSE THAT HAVE THIS PROBLEM!!!!!

I haven't been around for a while but after my band was put in they unbuckled it due to swelling. They left it that way for awhile and then went in a 3rd time and re-buckled it. It was a pain but no big deal other than the number of surgeries. Just like Jachut I too remember someone that had the same situation as you. Good luck.

Your not the only one. Here is a link to an old thread that has some others with the same problem. I am one of them. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f17/band-hell-85952/#post1123570 I kept mine and I suffer from swelling all the time. I don't know if I will be getting another fill. I am up about 4 lbs. from my lowest which is below. I wish I could lose 20 more but I don't know if I will get there. Was it worth it? I don't know. I guess only time will tell. I guess I was no help at all. Maybe contact the others on the thread and see what they have to say. Good luck and PM me if you want to talk. I will give you my number for support.

Thanks for sharing. I am sure it will help someone.

I am glad to hear that it is going so great. I am the same way. Either I can't eat or drink at 2.5 cc or I can eat as much as I want a 2.0 cc. Right now I am at 2.0 cc and I think I am maintaining. I seem to go up and down about 2 lbs. I was suppose to go back for another fill but I know they are going to want to give me .5 cc and I just dont want to have to have another unfill. I am going to give it another week and give it another try (Going away for a long weekend and just dont want to be throwing up). Maybe I can talk the doc into just give me .2 cc but you know how difficult that can be. All I can do is hope. I hope all continues to go well for you. Good luck and happy loosing.

Just wondering how it went. I hope it went well. I am thinking that eventually I am going to have to do the same thing.

I am so glad I am not alone. I even had one morning that as soon as I woke up I had to throw up. It did not stop until all the globs of mucus came up. I actually started doing it in a glass so I could see what was coming up. I once told one of the fill docs and he said it was impossible. I was thinking of giving up. I have 4 months left of fills but I dont know if I will really keep trying anymore (To get to my sweet spot and make the fill stick). However, a few weeks ago I was sick with a cold and my MD gave me a prescription for Fluisolide its a nasal spray that has steroids and I am starting to have better luck. I am not all plugged up in the morning. I can drink during the day if I do it slow. I am not closed shut in the am and wide open in the pm. So I will give it a bit longer and see what happens. I have gotten to my sweet spot a few times now. Its at 5.5 cc. Right now I am at 5 cc and I am not ready to give it another try...sigh...well luck to use all.

YES...buy a heating pad. I did not think it would do much of anything but it does help so much. I used it for my shoulder that hurt but that was not where I got the best results. Where it really helped me was when I could not go pop and therefore could not pass gas. It helped with the bloating so much.

See, I am always like this. It takes 2 or 3 weeks after a fill before I can start eating again. This is the period where I start losing weight. It seems that I only loose weight when I am eating real food. This lasts for about 2 weeks and then I start to gain back what I lost so I get another fill. At this point I really don't want to get another fill again, ever. I am just starting to be able to add some solids to my Soup so the scale has started moving ever so slowly this week. But I know that once the scale stops moving I will probably be picking up the phone and making a fill appointment. I thought I would have lost more than what I have lost in this amount of time. This has been very hard. My life never revolved around food but now it seems that just being able to get liquids and such in me makes my life revolve around food.

I am interested to see what others have to say. I am having the same problem. I can't eat or drink all day and then I have about a 2 hour window where I can get soft stuff in me. I try to get my liquids down and some food. Sometimes I feel like giving up.

The same thing happens to me after a fill. Sometimes the gas makes my stomach hurt--a heating pad fixes that--but it goes away after a week or two. It seems like some people don't have this happen at all. I think I am just extra sensitive. I also have the burping kick in more after a fill and then it lessens over time. I use to never burp. I thank my lucky stars that I live with all boys because they think the burping is cool, even the DH. I would take returning to solids very slow. I reintroduce soft foods one at a time and then solids over a week to two weeks also one at a time. When ever I don't follow this I have problems. If you are not getting stuck on liquids you should be fine. Just take it slow and good luck.

Glad you feel better today!

You can take Gas-X. I don't know about the Pepto. I think it has aspirin and I think that is a no-no. I think the rolaids is like Gas-X and should be okay. However, I have been filled with gas a few times and the only thing that worked for my was a heating pad. I know it is so painful. I would have never believed that a heating pad would work but it did. I hope you feel better. You may want to check with your Dr in the A.M. so if it happens again you have some choices. By the way its NSAIDS that you are not to take. So you should be okay.

Don't you just love it when you can go to the bathroom without unbuckling your pants?

It happens to me. As a matter of fact if I drink Water sitting in my sons car the water gets stuck. I have to drink it very slow. I think it is the angle of the seat. I though for a while that it would always be that way but it has gotten better. I think it just depends how sensitive your stomach is. I found if I ate a spoon full as I was walking around heating my food I could then, after about 5 minutes, go sit at the table and eat if I sat on the edge of my chair and kept my back very straight. Now your a year out so I'm not sure. Good luck and I hope it gets better.

Yes, I would say to enjoy my time 4 to 5 weeks.

Do you mean to go on vacation and enjoy yourself? If that is the case I would say a month. I would want to be off of liquids and know what soft foods my body can take. If it is traveling just to get from point "a" to point "b" then 2 weeks. Like going home for the holidays and I am spending time at the family home then 2 weeks. At the 2 week point I was still tired and could not do much after work.

If his pain meds say take every 4 hours he has to be in the kitchen with his spoon in his hand a 3 hours and 55 minutes. He needs to set the alarm and make sure he takes it and does not let it ware off. I found that I would start hurting about a half hour before the next dose and it would take an hour for the current dose to take affect. If it went past the dose time I paid for it.

I'm not a FA but I did fly this summer. I drank 3 bottles of Water before getting on the plane and 1 bottle during the first half of the flight. I had to stop because I felt tight and was worried. Not to mention the fact that I had to go to the bathroom 4 times during a 2 hour flight. However, I was very tight after the flight and continued tight for days. I slimed and PB on liquid the days following the flight and I think I caused myself swelling. On the return flight I did not drink as much because I did not want to have to go to the bathroom as much. I did get tight but It was not as bad and I was back to normal after a day or so. I have asked my doctor and he says that flying should have no effect. However, I think it is just a line that the manufactures put out because if you know anything about science the atmosphere exerts about 2 lb of pressure on every square centimeter of our bodies at sea level. This pressure dose not crush us because the fluids in our bodies exert pressure back. Now while the cabin of an airplane is pressurized I wonder if it is a constant pressure or if there are variations in the pressure as it ascends and descends and our bodies don't react to exactly match the pressure changes moment by moment. Or, more precisely the fluids in our bodies expand with the possible variations in airpressure, expanding our cells and tissue which mimics swelling/blotting reducing the size of the opening of the stoma. Then because of the increased restriction around the stomach caused by the band it irritates the stoma which does in fact swell and then you have a problem. Anyway, just my two cents.

Aren't Realize and LapBand from 2 different companies???? Why would Realize combine its name with LapBand???

Let us know how you are doing. I have swelling issues and every time I had a fill and did not take children's Motrin I wake up swollen shut. I just take a dose the night of the fill and that is it. However, this week everyone around me has been sick and yesterday I woke up and could not keep anything down all day. It felt like it was swollen shut. I thought I was going to have to go for another unfill but instead I just stopped trying to eat or drink for a few hours and then late in the evening I was able to drink. Earlier in the morning when I kept trying to get Water down it would come up with mucus. I had had problems the morning before also so last night I drank some liquid Tylenol for colds and this morning I was not so tight or blocked and have been able to get liquids down. I think that the reason I was having problems is my body is fighting off the cold that my kids have and that while I slept mucus built up in there (Post nasal drip). In the morning I felt fine but felt congested. My nose was just a bit stuffy and I have been coughing. Anyway, just give you band a break and if its not better in the morning you should go see your doctor. Let him know how what he said made you feel. He is there to work with you. Good luck.

What I was told was that Dr. Sal was working out of another office. They have 11 of them I think. They told me I could see Dr. T or go to one of the offices that Dr. Sal is at. The offices that Dr. Sal is working out of were far so I figured I would try Dr. T and he is great. He is a nice guy. Now this is what they told me a few months ago the week before the change of doctors was going to happen in Antelope Valley and Valencia. Also, at my appointment this week there was a patient that was one of Dr. Sal's and Dr. T told her that Dr. Sal had talked to him about her situation. She was there for a slight unfill. Anyway, he is around. I think. Having him not listed makes me wonder. Guine: Let us know if anything happened to him.