Humming Bird

Mine is in center and a little to the left, about 2 inches below the lowest part of my sternum.

When I took a quick trip to a valentines day wedding I took one of the nifty little airsick bags from the plane. I sure hope I never have to used it, but it is going to stay in my glovebox just in case.

Bob & Christie, you crack me up........ here's one for ya The first time I ate something I shouldn't have after being tight and it came back up was a big lesson. I take my grandson to school and pick him up every Friday. (It's my day off and saves on daycare costs. Plus good grandma time) So, one friday afternoon shortly after my last fill I realized it was almost time to go pick him up and all I had eaten that day was a protein shake for breakfast. I went through the drive-thru at McDonalds and ordered a coffee and a small french fry. :cursing: I knew I would not be able to eat many of the fries, but had a craving and figured it wouldn't put me over my calories. I took a few sips of coffee on the way to the school and got a good spot in the "flow lane" where many parents wait to pick up kids. I ate about 5 fries and made sure I chewed the heck out of them. I started to slime so bad! omg! Then I was in pain! :eek: I was STUCK BAD! MORE SLIME! OMG! I THINK I"M GONNA HURL!:puke: I only had a couple seconds to figure out what to do. I hunched down a little in the car because at that point there were parents standing in front of the school and lined up thick in the flow lane. I grabed the McDonalds bag and up came the coffee and french fries (and foamy slime). EEEWWWWW! :thumbup: I can tell you I have not had even one french fry, or even craved a french fry since that day.

The first time I went to weight watchers in the 1970s (yes, I was in the 5th grade) they told me to do 2 things while eating , 1) put your fork down between bites so it slows down eating and gives the full signal time to get from your stomach to your brain. 2) Always leave at least 1 or 2 bites on your plate to avoid going back for 2nds. Maybe we (bansters) should always leave 1 or 2 bites on our plate to avoid eating past our full point. If I eat that last bit after being full I slime, have a runny nose, or have a major sneezing fit.

I thought it was pretty good tonight, but I got all choked up twice.

WOW! Busy thread today. Lets see if I can do a little catching up. Welcome all you thread newbies! :scared2: It is hard to keep up sometimes, but just jump in. Betsy, Closet shopping is great!! I don't have a daughter to "borrow" stuff from, but I have been so many sizes myself over the past few years I have plenty of stock. I have many dressers and a big closet full of clothes that I have saved thinking, "I'll take off this weight someday and wear that again." Now I am wearing some of it! I have saved my scrubs and they have been a real life saver while I'm shrinking. I was in size 2X (tight), then wore the 1Xs for a bit, now the Larges are baggy! I can wear the mediums, but still a tad too tight for comfort. BT,Bob, Brian, Mike, & Felix, Congrats to all of you for moving to the "real food" ! Now you can tell us all about your slime! Don't feel bad, I can't claim the hormone thing either. Karen, The singing gig sounds like it was so good for you! I can't sing at all, but enjoy when I get the feeling about something like it sounds like you did from that. Liz, glad to see you back. If part of the "plumbing" issues is a regularity issue, a tip I got from another thread has helped me. Another banster wrote about vitafusion brand Fiber gummies from Target. Just eat one gummie a day and it is smooth sailing. They are very soft gummies that melt fast and don't stick to your teeth (pet peeve). They are sugar free and only 5 cal. They work great without "lax" in the name (pet peeve). Christie, I hope you will be at your sweet spot with this fill! I love it when patients notice! Since I see most every 6 months, many of them have been saying something lately. It's a nice feeling. Shrinking Boobs! Why?! Why do they have to shrink so much!? oh well, I guess it's worth it. My weather has been nice today. The sun shining, birds chirping, but all the snow turned my road into a big mud bog. I think we are getting more wet spring snow Friday....ugh!

Great attitude about it Bobbie! I think that sometimes just one bite or a little taste can satisfy when you miss something. It can also be a slippery slope. It depends. I have been to a couple of birthday parties since being banded and I know cake does the same thing to me as bread .... becomes a painful blob of dough feeling. But, one bite satisfies the craving and sometimes with just that one bite I realize it doesn't really taste as good as I thought.

Everyone is so different when it comes to food. We all need to eat to stay alive, but sometimes there is an emotional attachment to food. I can only speak for myself and about my own experience. I don't think I have much of an emotional attachment. Yes, I did overeat during stressful times in life and out of boredom and such, but mostly I just over ate because food tasted so darn good and my stomach could hold a lot. Sometimes I do get "head hunger" when I can't eat something I think would taste good, but I know most of those things are not good for me and made me fat. I just accept the fact that I can no longer eat like that and go on about my life. If there is a strong emotional attachment I think it would help to talk to some sort of therapist about it.

I am really enjoying hearing what everyone is up to and learning a little about ya'll every day :wub:

I was self-pay ($10,000). The price included pretty much everything to a point. It included the pre-op and 3 months post-op nutritionist stuff. It included free fills for the first 3 months and after that the fills are $15-20. When you are Dr. searching ask what the price includes.

wow....unbelievable

I stayed weak for a very long time. I think everyone is different when it comes to stuff like that. As far as vits. my Dr. told me to take Centrum chewables. They taste pretty tangy/orange at first, but not too bad after a few.

I agree with the others. I think this all sounds very bad and not a normal lapband approach. one ounce? shot glass? That sounds like it could lead to nothing but complications. I would find a new surgeon if that is how this Dr. does things.

I suffered the left shoulder pain from pressure on my phrenic nerve for months. I had trouble sleeping because it was so bad. The one thing I found that helped was Equate brand menthol pain patches from Walmart. They are less than $4 a package and well worth the trip to walmart. I would put one on the tip of my shoulder in the afternoon or evening and leave it on all night. I guess there is another thing that helped.... the weightloss did finally take the pressure off the nerve and the shoulder pain stopped then. The pain was my "full signal" for months too.

The band has really helped me with hunger issues. After I eat a tiny meal my hunger stays at bay for long periods of time. Below is a post that a lapband Dr. wrote in another thread. I copied it because he really gives good info. The thread I got it from is http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f178/i-dont-understand-110373/ All weight loss comes from calorie deficit (burning more calories than you consume). Burning more and consuming less is what causes weight loss. The band will not force you to burn calories. The band helps with the consuming less part. It helps with this in three major ways: 1. Reduced appetite - some surgeons argue that the band is an appetite reduction operation. It has been shown to reduce appetite hormones. Patients say they don't feel hungry - they don't feel like they are on a diet. The band reduces true physical hunger. Some of us struggle with emotional hunger, phantom hunger which is not cured by the band but reducing physical hunger is very helpful at combatting head hunger. Emotional hunger comes from deep rooted emotional pain causing negative emotion that is unfortunately temporarily cured by food. 2. Fullness on small portions - the amount of stomach above the band is small. You will feel full on a much smaller portion of food if the band is properly adjusted. The fullness feeling is not a "pat your lower belly" kind of fullness. Band fullness is a very high sensation - in the chest - the feeling that the last bite of food is somewhere near the base of the tongue and another crumb will not be physically allowed. 3. The impossible nature of overeating - let's say you feel full and not hungry but you decide that you will overeat anyway. A properly adjusted band simply will not allow this. A point will be reached where the system will reject anything more. The esophagus (swallowing tube) is a transport organ; not a storage organ. The esophagus has two buttons: down and up. It will try down first. If that doesn't work, it switches to up and you get to see the food again. We've been banding for eight years and we see three groups of patients in our practice: Group 1 - gold medal superstar patients who lose easily and steadily after band surgery and send us Christmas cards that will bring tears to your eyes. Group 2 - patients who acheive the same ultimate results as Group 1 but it takes longer with more office visits and more education and slower weight loss but we still get there. The race car crosses the finish line but it's on fire and badly damaged. Group 3 - patients that will be three years out from band surgery and only down 20 or 30 pounds. The three biggest reasons patients are in this group are: 1.) unsolved emotional eating 2.) zero calorie burning 3.) Quit, give up, stop coming to the practice for band adjustments, education, etc One of the best books I've seen on emotional eating is: "Shrink Yourself" by Dr. Gould. Many patients have told me this helps. The secret to curing emotional eating is to identify the root cause of this negative emotional pain and work through it. This is the most difficult aspect of successful weight loss.

There are also the protein drinks that are not "milky." I ordered some of the Nectar powder "Roadside Lemonade". It's pretty good for when I get sick of the other kind.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you are eating all the wrong stuff. Pizza, breaded chicken, and tostadas would do the same thing to me. Now that you threw up you should do liquids for a day and then work your way slowly to more solid stuff. I keep my band pretty tight, so the things I eat may differ from others. Usually the most solid stuff I eat is fish or chili. Pizza and tostadas fall into the bread group for me and I just can not eat them during this weightloss phase. I eat things like yogurt, cottage cheese .......... You can not figure out if you are too tight eating that kind of stuff. after you do liquids for a day or so, then mushies, see if you can eat some chicken or tuna salad. If you can eat 1/2 cup, then you are not too tight.

I know and accept that I will always need the band so I don't re-gain the weight. I have it pretty tight right now. At 8 months post-op I am in the "overweight" BMI catagory. I know when I reach a "normal" BMI I will still need the band to stay there.

That is so great Scotty! Now you will be famous. goin' all multi-media :thumbup:

OMG ! I just had a heck of a time with the snow. I was going to take my grandson home because I didn't think my son's car could make it up my street on this heavy/wet snow. Then I was going to get gas and go to the store. I made it up my steep driveway and down part of the road when I noticed where it looked like several other cars had some trouble going into the ditch and digging themselves out. That is when I started to slide down the hill ! There was nothing I could do. I have brand new tires, was creeping along very slow, and was in 4 wheel drive. I just kept sliding, then started sliding sideways down the hill and ended up doing a 360 and finally stopped in the ditch along the side of the road. I got out of the ditch just fine and decided I did not want to go down the hill anymore because there is a little lake on the other side of the main road I was trying to get to and at the end of my road. So, I started to head back to the house. I knew speed would factor in to my ability to get up the hill, so I kept my speed up and headed back up .............started spinning the tires and dreaded the thought of stopping my efforts because I knew I would just slide back down the hill. Yep, back down and another 180 into the ditch on the other side of the damn road! I had to be "rescued" and my son came to pick up my grandson at the bottom of the road down by the mailboxes. I am back home now, but seriously considering calling my boss and telling him there is no way I can drive to work in the morning! It is 45mins.-1hour drive to another little mountain town that is at a higher elevation than I live. I have lived here 4 years and never had so much trouble on that damn hill. I have driven my jeep up it in 2 feet of snow several times. This stuff is just so wet and there is ice under it. Many of the other people that live on this road are now parked down the hill by the mailboxes.

Good point Leigha. I agree whith what you said. It's part of human nature. The "skinny one" may not even realize that is what she is doing, but I have seen it happen that way.

Let me start by saying I am not a lapband Dr./expert nor do I play one on T.V. I can only speak from my own personal experience. You just had some major surgery on your digestive system. You need time to heal. Do not try to drink up to the amount the rest of us are required to drink. At 48 hours post-op I could not drink a cup of anything. Tiny sips over a long period of time was all I could do. I was only allowed ice cold liqiuds for the first 7 days. I believe it really helped the swelling go down. As far as the feeling in your throat, I think that is very normal. For the first several months, that is where I also felt my full signal. At first feeling full is not a "belly fullness" it's a throat/chest thing.

I think it's just all part of being a mom to be overprotective and worry a little. My son (only child) is 27 and I still have that mom thing going on. We have always been very close. Last week I pulled something in the buttocks when bowling. This week I pulled something in the front of my right thigh. It is snowing again here. bummer. I made some chili yesterday, so it is a good lunch for this winter day. My grandson is even eating it, so it must be good! After I thought about it, that may not be a good indicator. I have never seen a kid eat as much as he does and stay so thin! He eats 24/7 ! I am proud to say he likes the healthy stuff too.

Can you put your shake in the blender with ice to make it thicker? just a thought

I can eat a couple crackers if I have a bread craving, but have to watch it with those too. WOW kimlay! You are so close to goal! I bet you feel great about that!