Deannaintx

This happen to anyone else? :confused: The full story is in my bio, but yes, one morning I woke up and I could see my port sticking halfway out of my abdomen. (shades of Alien, lol)! Long Story Short: I no longer have a port, nor half the tube, but since it decided to give back, after it finally closed up & let me have 1 month of normal living, I came down with a major infection and no way to fix it. This short story has been going on for over 6 months now. My original dr is 1300 miles from here and not practicing. I do know another doc in Mexico who might be able to remove it for 3-4 k, but I no longer have any place to stay there and don't have 3-4 k either, lol. I'm not working, but my roommate does and we'd have to count her income as mine, so I can't qualify for any medical help. Anyone have creative ideas?

Thanks, but there were no fill centers within 100 miles of my area. My lap band is now gone and without insurance, or even with it, no one here will touch me. If I have any complications, I'll just go back down to Mexico where they treated me very well and at an extremely reasonable cost. The airline ticket is less than what it would cost me to see a surgeon here since I have no insurance. Besides, I was told in a walk in clinic that no surgeon would touch the work of another surgeon because of 'liability issues'. I was a lot sicker than I thought and the trip to Mexico saved my life. The county hospital here was happy to give me a scrip for antiobiotics and send me home to die. I most definitely would have died had I not taken that flight. I only wish I'd done it 7 months ago instead of waiting because during that time the infection from the port went up the fill tube to the band and they found half the band inside my stomach. I now have a gastrostomy that will have to be in my belly, along with the horrid tube for six weeks. The doctor there showed me how to remove it myself because no one here will remove it for me. It's a 2 minute procedure, but I asked the doctor at the walkin clinic and he said that he wouldn't do it. I hate Texas, hate it hate it hate it.

Sorry that I've been MIA for so long, but I had a rough road there for a few months. Turns out that the reason the port worked its way out is because I had bumped up against a piece of furniture and the port scratched my intestine and eventually caused a fistula which made the skin open up and the port came through that opening. The fistula then stayed open for months. During that time, the infection worked its way up the saline tube to the band itself and caused the band to migrate into my stomach. When I finally got down to Mexico after exhausting every attempt at medical care here, they took an xray and saw the perforated intestine and the band inside my stomach. They did an endoscopy and found that half of the band was now inside my stomach. I was rushed into surgery and the fistula track was repaired, the band was removed from my stomach and a gastrostomy was inserted to allow the stomach to heal. That will remain in place for six weeks. It's quite painful. The doc in Mexico told me that if the ER docs here had done a simple xray it would have been quite obvious what was wrong, which is exactly why they didn't do one. They were sending me home to die. It will be a long, long time before I ever trust another American doctor. They play the defensive medicine game and give substandard care to the indigent and uninsured. The ER doc covered his butt from a malpractice claim by referring me to a surgeon, even though I told him that that surgeon had refused to see me previously and that I had no insurance and no money to pay him. He deliberately avoided doing even the most basic tests so that the county wouldn't have to treat me. They didn't care if I died or not, treating my condition would have cost them money and that's all they care about. I strongly suspect that the doctor in that ER knew that I was in very bad shape and he wanted nothing to do with it. I'm so sorry that I didn't go down to Mexico when the port first started giving me trouble. It would have been a much simpler surgery and I wouldn't have had a perforated stomach. I would have been in and out in about 3 days. I spent a total of 10 days in the hospital and I really should have stayed longer, but the bill was getting too high and I had to get home. 10 days in the hospital, two surgies, an endoscopy, xrays, labs, two visits a day from my surgeon and a goodly amount of pain medications cost a total of almost 5k dollars. Here it would have been around 30K. That lap band is the biggest regret of my life. It robbed me of my health for almost a year and it's not over yet. I had finally lost weight, I was in a size 8 and exercising when this all happened. In the 7 months I sat on my butt deaing with this problem, I gained back 50 pounds. As soon as the gastrostomy is out of me in January, I'm going right back to my no simple carbs way of eating and I'll lose it again. Having the band gone is good, at least now I don't have the pain of food getting 'stuck' or waiting for it to pass the band. The band did nothing for me, nothing good at least. I wish I could tell my story to anyone considering this surgery. I hope you get your band complications worked out. I would suggest that you have it removed, but it doesn't seem that you want that option. I'm so glad mine's gone and maybe by mid-January I'll be pretty much back to normal, just with a new 4 inch long scar on my belly, along with the scar from the penrose drain and the gastrosmy tube. Scars are no big deal. The pain from the surgery was, but at least I was in Mexico, so I got strong enough pain meds to make it bearable. Here they would have given me Ibuprofen and watched me cry from the pain. Can you tell that I resent American doctors? The one who removed a hernia last year gave me tylenol after surgery. I gritted my teeth and cried silently until the nurse anestetist took pity on me and gave me a shot of dilaudid. My surgeon would have left me suffering. And back then, I did have insurance. Doctors here just let people suffer for no reason at all. As IF I would have become an addict from one pain shot. What creeps.

Tonya, I had my surgery in Mexico 7 years ago. If you want to talk about it, send me your # or an email and I'll send you mine. No doctors will touch you, that much is for sure.

I flew probably 20 times after my surgery and never had a single problem, I guess I dodged that bullet!!

I had to have mine out 4 years after my lap band. Rapid weight loss is reputed to be the cause of it. It's very common to have the gall bladder go bad due to the changes in diet. Follow the diet to the letter until you have surgery to avoid awful pain. Mine was more complicated than most because 1/2 my gallbladder was gone and the rest was fused to my liver. I never felt pain like that ever before or after. It was hideous. My case was very unusual. Since you're not having that awful pain, yours should go easily. Just stay away from ALL fats, flours, seeds, etc. until you've had your surgery. The doctor told me NO FAT, he meant NO FAT. I found that out the hard way having a 2nd attack from eating half a lean cuisine pizza with 3 grams of fat in it. Woops.