xavier

Agree with Acadia. I loved my doc who did basically 1cc fills at a time and that was ok. But I ended up going to a doc closer (4hours) to home and her approach to fills is one I have never heard of...I call her the fill whisperer! She has you lie down and puts the needle in your port. Then she cranks up the table so you are in the sitting position with the needle still in your port and hands you a glass of water and tells you to chug. She starts injecting the saline very slowly as you drink and when you choke and nearly spew it in her face, she stops and in a lovely French accent says, "perfect!". The first time I went to her I had 5cc in a 10cc band and she said that is like not having a band...the choke and spew point came with her giving me 2.7 for a total of 7.7 cc I think. I lost about a pound a week with little or no effort after that for a few months. Then I plateaued out at about 157 or 158 for a few months and I just figured it was becuae I was so close to goal and everyone says it really slows down (goal of fist normal BMI is 145). But after consultation with a few wise friends I decided to go see her - exact same procedure but only 0.3cc added! It has been exactly 12 days since that fill and I have already lost 3 pounds...I am now 7 pounds from normal which for me is 90% of excess weight loss... Go elsewhere if you can...YOU are the consumer!

Thanks for all the compliments...i really do want to help and have have gotten great help from a couple of band rock stars who blazed the trail before me...one of them is Jachut, (Goddess above)who always talks straight with no bull! She is kind of an exerciser but I dont hold that against her! The other is band_groupie with her blog called the sweet spot. Shes lost 100 pounds and hasnt really dieted or exercised....I wish you all the best and would generally say, with the right level of fill (which can be hard to get to!) this is actually pretty easy. I have something I never had before ( a waist? Ha!) no the complete faith that I will never gain the weight back, which of course I did with every loss on a diet before I got my band! Good luck to all! Diane

The GI tract's lining has little protrusions (villi) all over it which are too small to see. They get sloughed off with any trauma as in diarrhea. These villi are what makes lactase and they need rest to grow back. I sometimes think the majority of lap band docs dont know very much about a lot of things...

Great to hear from you...I LOVE my band and if I could ever follow a diet and/or exercise regimen long term why would I need a lap band!? So many people on here are exercising like fiends and counting every calorie...and I just keep my band tight and eat less...I am too old and lazy for all that! Thanks for friending me...

Oh, and I do have some cute glass 1 cup bowls I use and some cocktail silverware!

Not sure what your fill situation is yet but I suspect you are not at your sweet spot. Thats fine for now as it can take a while to get there. One of my docs said if your band is half full or less, its like not having a band. Anyway I am at my sweet spot and a bAR FOR BREAKFAST WOULD CAUSE ME INTENSE PAIN. I AM TIGHTER IN THE MORNING AS I THINK MOST OF US ARE (MY WEDDING RING IS SNUG IN THE MORNING AND THEN VERY LOOSE AT NIGHT) sorry for the caps, I m not a good typist! Anyway I like my band pretty tight so I really can only have liquids in the morning and then the rest of the day I have to be careful and thoughtful. I can eat about a half a cup or maybe 3/4 at a meal and I focus on Protein (I think its better to think of what you must eat instead of what you shouldnt!) I love a Boca but can usually only eat about 3/4 of it. Even at midnight I can never eat a 6 inch sub...I think I could eat and inch or two of it. I lose about a pound a week when my band is how it is now. If I could eat two cups of food as some people said above, I would not lose weight and would want a fill. Good luck, this is a long (forever?) process!!

I might have already said this but I like Premier Protein drinks which they have in the chocolate flavor at Costco. They taste like sweet milk (not horrendous nasty stuff like most) and they are 30 gms of protein and 160 calories. I order the vanilla and the strawberry from the company and have had one every morning for a couple of years...

Just my opinion and many will disagree but... STOP dieting and get a fill!

I am always super cautious about swallowing pills but I do take a protonix which is pretty small. I chew a flintstones every day and it tastes ok but not great. Most vitamin pills are so big...I wonder if you could crush the centrum and just wash it down with water...

Yes, I think it is normal and temporary. Give your body a rest from all dairy for a month and your intestine's ability to produce lactase (enzyme which breaks down milk sugar or lactose)should return. If you take lactaid, your body will give up trying and you will be living with it forever. When you start back go very slow in re introducing dairy.Good luck...

Be very careful with any kind of meat until you are totally healed...

I have said this on another thread but apparently the band is different for everyone because for me... IT IS ALL ABOUT RESTRICTION!! I used to be able to eat a ton of food and appetite wasnt the reason for it...now I can barely eat a cup of almost anything... so I lose weight! I dont diet, I dont ever eat low fat or low sugar foods, I dont work out but I consistently lose weight because I eat less due to restriction. OK, yes, if I ate ice cream all day (it slides right thru the band I guess) I could probably gain 100 pounds but with regular food I just cant eat as much. When my fill is right I lose about a pound a week. I have had two very long plateaus (one was 8 months and the other 2 or 3 months) because I needed a fill and couldnt seem to get down to LA (5hours of hellacious traffic) to do it...no big deal, its not a race. I was bursting the seams of a size 18 and now I wear a Gap or Calvin Klein size 10 consistently. Got a fill a week and a half ago and have already lost three pounds...I got a fill doc closer to home...good luck to all.

I know its kind of silly but this site put asterisks in to censor when I used the term skinny b***h, which most of us know is a great compliment! Anyway I thought it was silly since I am kind of assuming we are all adults...am I wrong?

I have my band pretty tight right now which is right for me. If I eat about 3/4 c of food I feel like I ate a giant thanksgiving meal back in the pre-band days. I feel REALLY full. If I eat one more bite because I am not paying attention...I will get pain. If I have my band a little less filled I get the satisfied but not full feeling and I do tend to overeat. Oh, also I can be stuffed to the max and my stomach growls like a rampaging bear...I used to think the growling was a weird hunger (and I guess it was hunger before I got banded) but now I know its just food moving around or whatever but it is NOT hunger...weird!

I havent worked out and that is probably why my weight loss has been so slow (also I have to drive 5 hours for fills so I had plateaus which totalled nearly a year when put together!) but I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that I will never gain the weight back. I worry a little about people who do all this dieting and exercising being able to keep it up for many decades ahead. Maybe I am just rationalizing being lazy (LOL!) but I am just eating less because of the band and I know I will continue to do that...if I was any good at dieting and exercising long term, I wouldnt have had to get a device tied around my stomach! Best wishes!!!

The thing about a girtle or spanx is it might not open and close with velcro and it might be VERY hard to put it in and take it off when you are in pain. Hell, I have nearly gotten stuck in those spanx before! Also you can make it tighter or looser if you want..yes, check with your doc as I also woke up with one on!

Agree totally with Coco, my new fill doc also told me to drink something hot if stuck but i would rather just yak it up as I thing anything added would make it worse. I have had some luck with the papaya enzyme tabs. My band is sewed in place so it cant slip(my surgeon has had no slips in all his bands) but I am really focused on not getting stuck and not having to yak! Easier said than done...I'm a slow learner!

I have had this too and yes I had a work up which ruled out a heart attack. Anyway in the end I believe it to be one of two things. 1. Esophageal spasm related to throwing up. I am very careful but once in a while I have overeaten and had to yak and I wonder if that caused it. 2. Maybe an extreme version of heartburn because it seemed to get better when I sat up (it always occurred during my sleep) and better still with a Pepcid AC even tho I am already on daily Protonix and I thought I was well-controlled! Good luck to all!

I tell everyone to go to a drugstore and get an abdominal binder. It is white and stretchy and has velcro to close it. If you have any tummy at all and it schlumps around due to gravity (LOL!) this is very painful after abdominal surgery! I woke up with one on from my surgeon and it really kept the fat tummy in place! I like to sleep on my side and without the binder this would have been impossible! Good luck to all!

Sorry it hasnt worked out for you but if you believe as you state, "Some people can starve themselves and not lose weight" you are always doomed to fail. Take a look at people who are truly calorie-deficient (Africa, concentration camps etc - no fatties!) I always thought I was starving and not losing weight and then I got my band - when restriction was good and I could not eat as much I lost weight...simple as that. That's what the band does, but what I have to do is not eat the stuff that slides through like ice cream or chocolate. If I ate those all day I know my band would 'let me' gain 100 pounds!