ParrotheadCathy

You might look to see if local WLS surgeons offer live support groups. I know that True Results does at all its locations. I find them to be very helpful. Just do an internet search of lap band surgeons [your city & state] and then look at their websites.

I was told to wait 30 minutes.

I usually just drink a Slim Fast Low Carb ... 20 grams of protein (the "High Protein" version has only 15 grams .... go figure). I'm starting to think I'd do better if I ate real food. I'm going to ask when I go for my second fill on Tuesday. We'll solve it eventually!

My surgeon says once you get to your sweet spot, you should be able to eat 1/2 to 3/4 cup of food at a meal, feel satieted, and not feel hungry again for at least 4 hours. Right now, I have 3.6cc in a 10cc band. Another fill on Tuesday. The worst time of day for me is between breakfast and lunch ..... about 10:30 I am sooooo hungry!! As a friend of mine inelegantly puts it I could "eat the hind end out of a rag doll", LOL. But Between lunch and dinner, not so much. I'm hungry by the time I get home but not starving. I can take the time to cook a meal and I'm good for the evening. Not sure why there is that much difference between the two times of day, but I'm hoping the next fill will help tame the midmorning growlings!

I've gathered that getting "stuck" doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with having good restriction. Some things just stick. And it seems like you have to find out for yourself what sticks for you because it might not be a problem for someone else. The one STUCK episode I had was enough. I really don't want to go through that again but I know it will happen, it's bound to. I just to be careful.

well, this is TMI for most people, but I had multiple greasy, loose BMs daily well before diagnosis even. That ended about 2 weeks after the surgery. So goodbye to that AND to the pain. I could not have been happier!

We are a microwave society ... we want gratification as quickly as the microwave can heat something up. It could take a couple of more fills before your reach your sweet spot ... and I could take more or less than you with the same exact band. It's just a fact of life. Each of us is different! If you can eat bread, I can only say WOW. One bite of bread post-surgery was all it took. I thought I would die from the pain of being so stuck. So while I can't eat bread, I'm not at my sweet spot but I can tell a difference and I expect my next fill on Tuesday to put me closer. It's something only your doctor can determine....whether or not they'd give you a third fill so soon.

"Protein and Salt" --- and the fat they fried them in. I imagine the fat would make the chewed skins into a sticky consistency that would then stick when you swallowed.

Remember that people will speak highly of the surgery they had if it's been successful for them. If someone had bypass and had no complications, of course it was a good choice. But overall, bypass has a 10% occurrence rate of complications -- including death, malnutrition (the bypass past of the surgery decreases the amount of intestine available for absorption of nutrients and it's really easy to screw up and skip vitamins and maybe not eat as good as you should and suddenly, your hair starts to fall out or something similar), etc. Lap band is not as hard on you at the time of surgery and the .01% chance of complications is limited to non-life threatening stuff. And, above all, IT'S YOUR CHOICE.

White rice can be a problem. Brown rice is easier. I know the sushi restaurant I like has in the past made various rolls for me with brown rice. But rice is a big carb so I have eaten only 5 pieces of sushi since my surgery and that was not all on one day .... more like one a day on my cruiset a time and I had to chew VERY, VERY well. White stuff sticks ... flour tortillas, white rice, white bread. Asparagus and other vegetables that have a lot of fiber are likely to block the stoma (exit from the new small pouch through the band to the larger part of your stomach). What doesn't stick now, may later. I can tell you I have eaten exactly ONE BITE of bread since my surgery and the pain from being stuck completely destroyed the desire to have another bite, LOL.

Heck, I'm impatient too! I was upset because I didn't lose anything in the weeks right after surgery. I knew I was healing but heck, I wanted instant results, LOL. Good luck!

Actually, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. My surgeon is Dr. Chris Hart (love him!). Surgery was on 2/10. I've lost a total of 36 pounds (includes what I lost on pre-op diet). If I said I was doing great, that wouldn't be adequate. I'm off ALL my meds (diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, depression), I've lost a full dress size and some of what I'm wearing now is getting loose, and I feel fantastic. Just came back from an 8 day cruise (about 2 pounds of water retention that went away within 36 hours of coming home and preparing my own food which I know has less salt in it). I even went on a 16-drop zip line in Roatan (something I would never have considered before)! This surgery is the best thing I've ever done for myself and hope you fly through as well as I have!

An unfill of as small an amount as .5cc could make all the difference in the world. It's worth discussing, and, honestly, if you do need an unfill, the alternative to not doing it is being miserable. If you can't take in enought protein, your hair can start to fall out and there are other problems that could arise as well.

Appointment was under an hour. Fill out the questionnaire pre-evaluation. It's just a basic evaluation. Not the eval. questionnaire I used when I was doing psych ward work as part of getting my psychology degree. They just want to make sure surgical candidates have reasonable expectations. Surgery will NOT fix huge life problems, but there are people who are constantly looking for a "microwave-fast fix". My girlfriend who has been a widow for just over a year was asked "you're an attractive woman. what are you going to do when men start to notice you?" She's one of those people who says exactly what she thinks and she said "I'm not doing this to snag a man. I had the best and I'm not interested in the rest. I just want to be healthier so I can watch my grandchildren grow up" She said it completely floored the doc, LOL. And it ended the interview.

Don't worry about it. He's looking for people who have unreasonably expectations about weight loss and stuff like that. He might ask you direct questions about why you want this surgery, or what your expectations are regarding the life changes it will cause. We're all a little nuts, LOL, but there aren't any trick questions to worry about. Just talk openly about where you've been and why you are where you are now.

I was given a prescription prior to surgery for an antinausea (can't remember the name at the moment), but it dissolves under your tongue -- they give it to chemo patients alot. I had to take one a few weeks after surgery and it stopped the nausea cold that I had for some mysterious reason. The main thing is to not panic. Use hand sanitizer, don't kiss your kids or even hug them for a few days. You should be fine!

More than 25 years ago, I was diagnosed with gallstones. I pretty much ignored the whole thing. The whole head-in-the-sand thing. Well, one day, there was this TERRIBLE pain like hot fire that started in my belly and went straight up through my chest and into my jaw. I thought I was having a heart attack. I went immediately to my doctor, who sent me straight upstairs in his building to a surgeon who put me in the hospital that afternoon and removed my gallbladder (and 4 very large stones) the next morning. Please don't wait until it's that bad. The stones won't go away. You'll have good days and bad days and the bad will quickly start to outweight the good. It's laprascopic surgery these days (not like what I had). The surgery will end all those problems and you'll only be out of commission for a very few days. Good luck!

Actually, that's a pretty normal reaction -- "what in the world am I doing?" A lot of people experience that. But you'll be fine. You wouldn't have even gone to a surgeon if you'd been successful at losing weight (and, more importantly, keeping it off) on your own. You're just a little nervous about surgery and making the adjustments you anticipate you will need to make. If there's something specific worrying you, ASK. Ask here. Ask your surgeon. But the main thing is ASK!

I've heard from more than one person that their bands are tighter in the morning than the rest of the day. Their solution is to drink hot tea or coffee and have a hot breakfast, like oatmeal. I just have a SlimFast Low Carb (20 grams of protein vs. the 15 grams in the "High Protein" version -- go figure) for breakfast and it goes down just fine.

Your band is connected to a port (about as big around as a quarter) by a thin tube. They add saline in small amounts to the band to tighten it until you eventually really that point they call the "green zone" -- where you eat, feel full for 4-5 hours before you want to eat again. That could take several "fills" but each time puts you closer to the zone. My fills haven't hurt at all, just a tiny quick pinch. I was offered a numbing shot at the first fill, which I took, but on the second did without it and, truthfully, the numbing shot was as big a stick as the actual fill shot so what did I avoid with the numbing shot?

I first contemplated bypass surgery. In the end, the decision maker for me was the complications rate. Bypass surgery has a 10% complications rate that includes some serious complications like malnutrition and death. The lap band has only .01% complication rate and those complications are usually fairly minor (slippage, which can sometimes be corrected by going back to a liquid diet, for example). Then, the recovery rate for bypass is a couple of weeks at best and can take longer. Lap band is nothing near that. While you may be tender, experience gas, etc., you can return to your normal life within days. I had surgery on Tuesday and went back to work on Friday -- yes, I have a sit-down job, but I'm betting you probably do too. With bypass, eating sweets can trigger dumping syndrome, which I hear can be pretty awful. I ate a bite of birthday cake yesterday, frosting and all, and it didn't make a bit of difference. And one other thing is that lap band is aiming for 1-2 pounds per week weight loss, which isn't crzy fast and is less likely to leave you with a lot of loose skin; not so for bypass surgery. So now you know what helped me make my decision.

Don't discount the value of showing up "live and in person" on Tuesday morning and insisting on speaking to the person. Offer to help in any way you can to move it forward, but insist that the paperwork be submitted ASAP since it was promised it would be done two weeks ago and still has not! You have rights as a CONSUMER to have reasonable expectations that they will do as they say/promise. Don't ever forget that. Yes, you are a patient seeking medical care, but you are a CONSUMER of their services and they need you to be satisfied because word of mouth is invaluable to them to get more patients. Follow up with your insurance company to make sure they receive the paperwork, that everything is there and ask for a time frame in which to expect to hear their decision, too!

I had my surgery through True Results in Atlanta, Georgia. They have several offices in Texas. You could go to www.trueresults.com and there is information on the location of all offices. I'm not that familiar with Texas geography, but one of the offices might be near you. Good Luck!

I live in Atlanta, GA. Down here in the South, most BBQ places serve Brunswick Stew. If you've never eaten that, it's beef, pork and chicken finely pulled, mixed with diced tomatoes, a bit of corn, a bit of BBQ sauce and cooked to mush. If you ordered a bowl of that, you wouldn't be the first person to make a meal off Brunswick Stew. It would be high in protein, not enough corn to count as a carb, and you could simply say that you've heard so much about Brunswick Stew that you want to have that instead of a plate of meat (not that hungry or whatever.....). I make it at home and have learned to serve it as a meal instead of a side dish because people come out of the woodwork wanting it. I would even call the restaurant and ask if they serve it. Forewarned is forearmed! Their menu may even be online.

Gas-X and a heating pad!!! Gas-X comes in strips that dissolve in your mouth (cinnamon or mint flavor). Walking helps but a heating pad can help too! Sometimes, moving your arms above your head for a minute or two, or just moving your body some will move the gas, too! I mostly felt it in my shoulders and into my neck. Gas-X helped a lot and the heating pad did make a difference.