xavier

These words from Jen75 are gold...live by them EVERY time you get stuck!!! "2. Definitely go back to liquids for 12-48 hours after a vomiting episode. Eating too quickly afterwards can inflame the esophagus and even though you may or may not be too tight. However, inflammation will make you tighter thus repeating the cycle over and over. (I've done this and finally realized what I was doing wrong) Then start all over introducing puréed and Mushie foods increasing to solids... EVERYTIME you vomit!!! "

This whole process is very emotional and I think a lot of people dont realize it...I think a fill is very stressful and can leave you exhausted. Not the procedure itself but all the hopes and dreams associated with it and the natural fear of failure...

I went from a D to what I now call a C- or B+...well worth it to be in a size 6 pants or dress!

There is a very thin (like deli sliced ham) muscle called your diaphragm that divides your body in half across the bottom part of your chest. It helps you breathe by moving up and down. Heart, lungs, and esophagus are above it and the liver, spleen, stomach, intestines are below it. There can be a hole in it (well there is a hole for your esophagus but it can stretch out)and it lets a little of your stomach sneak up into your chest which can give you heartburn or even shortness of breath, I had one and they stapled it up during my lap band surgery. Other hernias are holes in other places like a bump by your belly button can be a hole in the muscle wall that holds your intestines in.

If you are eating 800 cals a day you will lose weight and this amount of calories will take you to a normal BMI...you just have to be patient.

You are doing great...just keep ding what you are doing. Unless you are losing weight by white-knuckle dieting you are fine and prob dont ned a fill yet!

The slower you lose the more you wont have to change at goal. You will have already long been out of diet mode. At least that was true for me. I just do exactly as I did before I reached goal and my weight naturally levelled off at a normal BMI. The main adjustment now is getting used to not being fat and making myself pick up a size 6 in a store because I never think they will fit but they always do. My weight never changes by more than two pounds and I am finally not weighing myself every single day. I never dieted or worked out so I just let my band help me eat less and I gave some real thought to the choices I ate so for me the losing phase and the maintaining phase arent that different.

Start over and get the weight off if only for your child! For you too, of course! We do this to be healthy for ourselves but for those of us raising kids it is critical to be healthy and live a healthy lifestyle for them! Please put yourself first!!!

My doc is down in LA so a 4-5 hour drive...I never go since my last fill which is more than a year. He e emails me sometimes to see how I am doing.

I am almost three years out and I still have a Premier Protein shake from costco almost every morning. YOu really just have to lose weight before your surgery the shakes have nothing to do with it.

Water makes it worse but sometimes helps you get it back up...sounds gross but sometimes you need to put a finger in your throat to gag it up.

I dont do LOW anything...sounds too much like a diet! I do eat high protein and since I dont eat meat it is mostly fish and beans. Net carbs is where you see the carbs on the food label and subtract out the grams of fiber...

At the beginning I made all the hot cereals kind of runny and added a scoop of the unflavored protein powder. I love grits but oatmeal and cream of wheat is fine too.

yes, I agree...you probably didnt need that fill or maybe just a tiny part of a cc...my last fill was 0.3cc and it took off my last 15 pounds in a snap...

A quick poke much easier than a flu shot...the needle is very skinny but long. Some docs use lidocaine to numb the area but that hurts too so I just skip it. It really is a piece of cake!

Fluoro is no big deal. Its just white stuff that they have you swallow and they see it going down on an xray...if the stream looks too thin, you might be too tight, if it pours on through, you might need more fill. My doc never used it. Cheap on the fills is a whole other thing and it is very important. Some docs only give you a cc or a half at each fill and that is only every month or six weeks...this means you might have six months or even a year before your band starts working for you. My doc gave me three fills totalling 6cc in my 10cc band and for me that was green zone...I think some docs are cheap with the fills because after a certain period of time you have to pay for them! Best of luck!

I still have the urge but not as often, I am three years out. I still sometimes overeat, eat bad things, or eat when I know I am not hungry but I dont do it enough for my weigh to go up...sometimes I still cant believe it!

Weird! Most docs prefer self payers because the money is all up front and they dont have to deal with insurance! I self paid in LA and it was a piece of cake...

I'm not from that area but I would urge you to find out a couple of things. 1. Your doc's rate of complications is very important. My doc sews his bands down and has had zero slippages. He also sews the port onto a mesh and it scars down in the fat layer so he has had zero port flips...the next thing is how they do the fills...some docs will give you only 1cc or 0.5 cc every month in which case it can take 6 months to a year to get to the green zone which is very frustrating...best of luck!!

Mine has moved down as I have lost weight. These days it is sticking out like a golf ball but I am ok with it.

First, how many calories are you eating a day and then are you starving/dieting or are you full on less than a cup of food and satisfied for 3-4 hours after you eat? You need to eat 1200 a day or less, you need to be tight enough to be full on tiny meals.

I eat small portions of everything!

Thats a great story because your family obviously loves you and wants this big change for your health. Also you handled it like an adult (I know what you mean about feeling like a kid around your parents) and they respected you and saw you as an adult...that is a big deal and I thinkit means you will be very successful with this new life!

Mine is an Allergan and it holds 10ccs. i think my surgeon offered me either one but at the time said the Realize had a very slightly higher rate of leaks...but this was almost 3 years ago...

I eat about 1000 to1100 a day and maintain my weight easily without exercise or any diet foods or even counting calories. The only way I know how many calories I eat is I recently did a couple of days of logging my food because a lot of people have asked me.I would never subtract the calories burned during exercise , just do a moderate amount of exercise you can live with every day for the rest of your life and forget the calories! This whole band thing is for the rest of our lives and all the dieting and calorie counting and logging exercise and all that to me seems unlikely to be something most of us can do for life...this is not a race but a new lifestyle.