jalomum

Hello Jackie, slow down honey!! go to the home page and check out the frequently asked questions in the post op section. It will give you the answers you are looking for and more.. So HOME then in the top panel headed BASICS FOR LAP-BAND SURGERY BEGINNERS click on FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS then just go with the flow and you will find every question you could wish for an answer for!! Reading that lot should keep you busy til it's time for your first fill at least :-D Good luck

I am assuming from the tone of your post that you have not been banded long, do not have good restriction and have never had anything stuck. Am I right? Once you get good restriction you will find that anything too big or insufficiently chewed will get stuck and reading other posts will show you what that is like. Getting to restriction slowly is to give you chance to adjust your habits and behaviours asssociated with food i.e. quantity, quality, method of eating. When were you told about the dime-sized thing? Before or after surgery? If you were banded fairly recently then size may not matter as much but you do want things to pass through your band and not over-load your pouch. As you get fills then size will become more important as I am sure you will find out :-) Good luck with your journey :-)

If you have only been working out with a trainer since you were banded then you could be losing but gaining muscle, which weighs more than fat....have you noticed any changes in your shape, not matter how small? I agree that you are paying them and a personal trainer and food counsellor by the sounds of it so you're not exactly waiting for it to happen on it's own. These guys are surgeons and fill doctors not experts in weightloss strategies. Most of them have only read the book on being overweight, it's causes and remedies and not actually been there. They are also making a packet out of the struggles we have so please don't let them treat you like giving you a fill is rewarding bad behaviour if you haven't lost weight...that is what you are going there for, not a lecture. Just tell them that you have little or no restriction and it is not being of any help and neither are they. Good luck with it

If you cannot eat enough food then your body will assume you are in a famine situation and slow all your systems down, dropping your metabolic rate, it will also burn muscle as fuel so it can conserve body fat as a stand-by to get you through the famine!! IMO: You need to have some fill out and re-establish your eating patterns to try to get your metabolic rate back to where it was before you were forced to stop eating. Eating good food often and regular gentle exercise should statr sending the signals to your body that the famine is over. Good restriction is good, too much restriction is very, very bad. Find the balance; then use the force :-) Best of luck....

Some folks believe that the tighter you have your band then the faster you loose the weight. This is not necessarily true as it stops you swallowing healthy food and makes you turn to junk food, high cal choc. shakes, ice cream etc. You need to find the balance where you can still eat small healthy meals but are not hungry most of the time. Please notice I use the words 'not hungry' rather than 'full' or 'satisfied'. In my opinion too many folks want to feel full all of the time rather than just not hungry and there is a big difference. I think there are more people that fail their bands than there are bands that've failed their people!!! Good luck on your journey.

How seasoned? I am 13 months out and I have no regrets. Not an easy journey but any means but definitely rewarding if you put in the thought and effort. It is the means to an end rather than a permanent surgical change.

I see you are now on the sharp bit of the learning curve... everytime you bring something back up it will cause some swelling so you need to be aware that if something did not go down the first time then it probably won't after either. If you wait until you feel full before you stop eating then you are probably eating too much. Stop when you no longer feel hungry. The pressure building is because the food you ate, after you should have stopped, is backed up and cannot get through into the main part of your stomach. Food is not meant to sit in your oesophagus and it is not designed to handle it. Try to eat just enough to fill your pouch but not to the point where there is a queue of food waiting to get in!! That queue of food brings pain and will also stretch your pouch.

A bit like an over-flow pipe dripping?? :thumbup:

Love every bit of your post Elcee. Couldn't have put it better myself :thumbup:

Hve you had any fills? Do you pb or does the food go down on it's own...never to return? Any sliming?

you need carbs. Good quality un-refined, low gi carbs. Ketosis is good for short periods but I believe the fact that it burns so much fat means it releases lots of toxins into your blood that your kidneys will struggle with.

You only believe most of these things to be really yummy because your taste buds are screwed. You pump yourself full of processed carbohydrates choc full with artificial additives and think there heavenly. If you stop eating this crap for 6 months you will realise how awful most of it really tastes. Good chocolate cake is very yummy I agree but not all the time and there are heaps of other yummy food flavours and textures out there if you take the time to taste while you eat instead of bolting it in order to head for the dessert trolley and soda bar. Put the effort in to re-align your taste buds and you will become like a reformed smoker...unable to tolerate the things you once believed you were unable to live happily without. Good luck with your journey and choices but I suspect from your attitude that you may be doomed:frown:.

Wow, I can only just remember writing that post :-) all true though. I am now down to 92kg. I have no idea which thyroid meds are available in liquids although I should think an internet search will tell you pretty fast. Just for the record...I was in the UK. I'm in Oz now and have been for 10 years :-) lovin it!! Good luck with your search and journey :-)

I was 138kg and now I am 92kg, that is a loss of 33.33% does that mean I am dead or that my body has shut down?? She's a stupid woman who does not know what she is on about. Maybe if you weren't over weight at all and then you lost 20% then you body would start shutting down, essential organs, functions etc...but not if you are heavily overweight to start with....tell her to go back and read the whole sentence and try to take it in context this time!! Just my opinion of course:tongue_smilie:

Did she tell you the one about Goldilocks and the 3 bears too??? Hehehehe

Everyone is different but here is what I would try first...pb'ing gets you all swollen up so everytime you bring something back it aggravates it and the swelling won't go down. I'd be drinking clear liquids for a few days, watering my shakes down to a thin consistency. I wouldn't try anything thick or mushy for a few days and see if it improved at all. If it didn't then I would be off to have an unfill. If it did improve at all then I would take it very slow to get back up to real food and next time I had a pb attack I would go on thin liquids straight away to limit the damage....besides, life for me is bearable as long as I can drink tea :-) Can you remember what it was that got stuck in the first place? Best of luck

Type 1 or 2?

Sounds like you made the right decision. Fills CAN cause temporary swelling, pbing CAN cause temporary swelling, being stuck will cause swelling and I've always found that the best course of action is to go on liquids for a couple of days and then avoid making the same mistake again.... Walking, stretching and generally moving around seems to help move stuck things. Also pineapple juice and Papaya Extract tablets seem to help it to move too. Good luck with your journey :-)