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Remember to be patient. Everyone is different, everyone loses at a different rate. Just stick with the diet you have been told to follow , do your exercise and you will lose.

Well said Cheri, I couldn't have said that better myself.

I think your Dr refusing to fill you back to the level you are at currently is crazy. To say the rest should be done with exercise doesn't make sense, you are probably exercising anyway. The point of the fill is to keep the hunger at bay. If your fill is at a level where you can eat a healthy ,varied diet then I don't see why there is a problem. If you are too tight and surviving on liquids then yes you shouldn't get filled to that point. What a lot of people, Dr's included, seem to forget is that the less you weigh the less you need to eat. Having the band helps you to not get hungry on that reduced quantity of food. When you get unfilled from a level where you were comfortable the hunger soon returns and with it so do a lot of the "bad" habits. I cannot wait until my Dr's appointment on Friday when i hope that I will be getting refilled to close to the level I was at a couple of months ago when I had to have an unfill because I had a blockage. The time since then has been a nightmare, I am constantly hungry!

I quickly go to the bathroom. Sometimes repeatedly. People may think I am strange but that is their problem. plus I have always had to go to the little girls room more frequently than most people I know so they are probably quite used to it.

Very true Cheri. I don't like reading the religious posts but some of them can be quite entertaining. You are right that they are probably still preferable to some of the sexual ones. There is nothing wrong with sex and most people do it but I think a lot of us prefer to keep what we do in the bedroom in the bedroom. The problem with religious posts is that people that believe are all so zealous and all so convinced that they are right. Christians(born again and traditional) think they are the only ones that are right, ditto Jews, mormons, Scientologists, Wiccans etc. Well either some are right and some wrong or else they are all wrong. I don't actually think it matters. To me what you do and how you behave is far more important than what you believe in. I am not going to live my life worrying about what may or may not happen after I die, I would rather try to be the best that i can be whilst i am still alive.

If you are not prepared to do your part then the truth is that no, we cannot help you. The band is not a magic wand that makes the weight disappear all by itself, it is a tool that helps you by controlling your hunger so that you can do what you need to do to lose weight. It cannot make good food choices for you, it cannot force you to exercise.If you are not willing to do these things then the band will not help you and neither will any other kind of WLS. The info that you have given us about the fill in your band is a bit confusing. It sounds as though you may be too tight and as a result have been choosing easy to eat sliders such as Cookies,icecream , shakes instead of the recommended types of food that will enable your band to help satisfy your hunger solid Protein, veg, healthy carbs. You may find that having a small amount of fill out actually helps you to make better food choices which control your hunger more. But it also sounds as though you had your band a year ago and only went for your first aftercare visit 2 weeks ago which if it is true means you are unlikely to have that much fill in. So I am confused, I think you need to provide us with clearer info. You also need to focus on why you got the band, what your goals were and why you spent so much money on it. That would help to refocus me, I hope it does the same for you. You should look at why you are eating as well. Is it because you are bored, stressed, nervous, .................. Figuring out the reasons for non hungry eating and finding ways of addressing them are important. Maybe a visit to a psychologist would help. As to exercise find something you enjoy as then you are likely to stick to it. No one says that you have to sweat it out in a gym you simply need to be more active. Go swimming,cycling, walking, take a dance class, go roller skating, horse riding the list of options is endless. But the bottom line is that in order to achieve success YOU have to do something. The band is not going to do it for you.

Just be aware that reflux can be a problem with the sleeve too. All sleevers have to routinely take an acid reducer for the first couple of months after surgery , at least.

It is referred pain. It might feel like it is in your throat but it isn't. It's a bit like the way that people often get pain in arms or legs from a trapped nerve in their back. Pain is not always felt in the area that it originates from.

The problem is that so soon after surgery you should not be eating solid foods. You are not ready for them yet. The piece of meat is probably sitting in the stoma trying to go down. Hopefully it will pass through quickly. Remember to stick to your post op diet and when you do progress to solids make sure you take small bites and chew really well before swallowing.

Your band can slip from VOMITING not from coughing or regugitating up food. Vomiting comes from your stomach , below the band and is usually forceful, coughing up the food comes from above or at the band. Good luck with things such as pineapple juice, papaya enzymes etc. They may work for some but for most they have no effect. They are also most likely to work if the stuck is caused by something that is bitty e.g rice, ground beef rather than something that is solid e.g a piece of chicken or meat. If you are stuck then it is not normally possible to wait for the food to go down, that can cause hours or days of pain and discomfort. If it is a solid item it probably won't move anyway. The ONLY solution is to bring it back up.

I find the best way to get any kind of injection is to not watch the needle go in. So long as I do that I am fine. Normally they don't hurt, there is a small prick and that is it. It is a bit like getting blood taken or something. The anticipation of what it will be like is generally worse than the reality.

We are all human and we all make mistakes. So long as you recognise that and make sure you show better self control next time then not too much harm will have been done. As to the calorie counter, I would be very wary of believing their estimates of how many calories you use or need in a day, they are generally well over estimated.

If that is how you can do it then that is great. It is possible that your band was partially filled in surgery which may be giving you sufficient restriction. It is also possible that in the future you may need the help of a fill. What I don't like ( and I am sure this was unintentional) is that it makes it sound as though people who need the assistance of a fill are somehow inferior. We all have to remember that weight loss and being banded is a very individual journey and what works for 1 may not work for another. Congrats on doing so well.

What kind of alarms did you think you would set off???????

I would be careful with tandoori chicken as it can be very dry, you are better off trying a mild curry that has a lot of sauce. When I go out I worry about whether or not the food will go down rather than what is the healthiest, lowest calorie choice. After all this is a lifestyle change and nobody expects you to be perfect 100% of the time.

They probably just hit a small blood vessel. It happens sometimes, I wouldn't be worried.

You say self pay is not an option. It may have to be. If going to a Dr not covered by your insurance is the only way to get help then do it. If you don't get help then you will end up paying a lot more in the long run. Your health is more valuable than anything else.

Sounds like what used to be known as a Keloid scar.

I had the same thing happen. It culminated in me having to have Fluid taken out as I got stuck quite badly. I do not believe that I was too tight. Since being unfilled I have only had 1 episode of bad nightime choking/reflux. I sleep mainly on my side, sometimes on my back. I have not noticed a difference with sleeping position. If you do suffer with heartburn/reflux the best position to sleep in is supposedly on your left hand side. That is also the best side to put an unconcious person into the recovery position - it is all to do with the positioning of the organs. I do not understand why the reflux starts out of nowhere after a couple of years with no problems. I hope someone comes up with a definitive answer soon.

This was a well written article and it is something people struggle to grasp. Often restriction and the green zone is a lot more subtle than people expect but that is something they have to find out for them selves as no amount of telling them will convince them. They chase those fills like they do the holy grail! I didn't realise you had had your surgery already. Sorry to hear that there was a problem. Hope everything is able to go ahead soon.

It's normal to be tired after surgery. They have given you an anaesthetic, cut you open, moved bits around, inserted something that wasn't there before and then stitched you up again. On top of this because it was bariatric surgery you are on a restricted diet which also has an effect. So remember to be kind to yourself. Rest and don't try to run any marathons yet!

1500 is a lot if you are trying to lose. I would cut back to 1000 and see how that goes.

Agreed, you are way too tight. If you can't swallow and can't keep water down you have a major problem.

You will slow down when you find out why you have to. Until then it doesn't matter how hard you try it doesn't really sink in. When I have some restriction I eat slowly because if I don't it hurts or I get stuck. ATM I am struggling to eat slowly - I am in the process of having my fill slowly put back in and have no restriction. I eat just as fast as I did preband and it is not because I am trying to - it just happens.

My experience I went to the local hospitals ER dept about 2 months ago. You are all correct in thinking that most do not have experience with a band but that does not mean that they are not able to help you. OK I am in Australia so things may be slightly different but I would imagine they would be similar. I was admitted into emergency as I had a blockage and could not even swallow my own spit. They gave me some oral(liquid) painkillers and antiemetics. Pretty useless but I suppose they thought they should try. I could also taste them for hours afterwards as I kept spitting them back up.They put me onto a drip as I was obviously very dehydrated and this is one of the most important things that the ER needs to do. They also called in a Dr from my team. He himself was not a bariatric specialist but he knew in theory what to do. He discussed his plan of action with me as well to check what I thought. That might seem strange but obviously I have more experience with the band than he does. His first move was to try to take the Fluid out. He knew in theory what to do and where the port was but in practice could not hit the correct membrane. After trying twice he did not want to hurt me so he than arranged for it to be done under fluoro. It was a public holiday and they called a specialist radiologist in to do this for me.He also arranged for a CT to be done straight after the defill.I was then kept in until evening for obs to make sure everything was OK and that I was able to eat and drink before being allowed to go home. So he may not have been able to do the stuff himself but he was able to ensure that the hospital provided the correct treatment. I then got to see my Dr a couple of days later.