eadreel

I started burping about three or four days after surgery. At that point I would rather the trapped air came up instead of down! And when it just won't come out, walking around does help along with doing monkey arms. I know it looks silly, but it does help!

I have been having the same problem. I take a few deep breaths when I feel like I am breathing shallowly because of the discomfort. I do it purposely because I don't want to even chance pneumonia, which is exactly what it feels like to breathe with lungs full of Fluid, but it is just swelling and well, having something new in you. If you have trouble breathing and taking deep breaths and have a fever and congestion, go to the doc ASAP! Your body is NOT ready for getting sick yet. gas-x and covered ice packs worked wonders and that discomfort is minimal. Today I was out of breath singing at church too.

Ice packs with cloth covers (or wrapped in a tea towel). They helped with some of the abdominal internal swelling and discomfort. Personally I did my grocery shopping before surgery. I got some ice pops and fudge bars that were sugar free, only they had sugar alcohols in them and after surgery I got the side effect of ingesting those. So I am basically eating ice chips instead of popsicles. If you don't have it, a hand held shower head in case you have an accident and don't make it to a toilet (sometimes you just can't move fast enough). I also took off my bandages after 48 hours and one of the steri-strips was stuck to the bandage, so I had to have hubby go get butterfly bandages (the nurse OKed that) and the nurse told me to stay out of the shower for a few more days! So moral of the story, leave the bandages alone until you absolutely have to leave the house and HAVE to take a shower for decency's sake. I also was unable to do anything close to the floor for a few days. It hurt to crouch or bend over, so I couldn't feed the cats or clean the litter box or pick up anything (clothes, shoes, books) off the floor (that's what hubbies are for). Also, if you have pets that like to crawl on you, don't sleep where they can ambush you. It hurts like the dickens. And super loose clothing across the ab area. I wore denim for the first time 6 days after surgery and it hurt bad! (I got 7 incisions). And two or three boxes of gas-x strips. I went through the first box the first two days and had to send hubby for more. And BEFORE you leave the surgery ward, call where your prescription is and MAKE sure they can and will fill it for you. I was released after close of business and after a grueling hour ride on bad roads, the pharmacy wouldn't fill it because they needed more info from my doc, so my first night home was painful. I should have gotten the script a couple of days before surgery, so we wouldn't have had to go after the surgery. Out of EVERYTHING that was the WORST thing that has happened so far.

I am having a hard time drinking liquids, even a teaspoon at a time. I get a bad pressure/pain like I have to burp but the air can't come up. Also it hurts to breathe deeply and all the pain is in the same location just at the end of my breast bone. My doc thinks it might be swelling. Did anyone else go through this the first week after surgery?

I will be trying ice packs and pops today. Last night I did notice that since my incision pain has lessened that laying flat on my back makes all that pressure and pain disappear. I can breath without pain and effort. I am still going slow and steady on my liquids. I am grateful that I can get them down, it just hurts like the dickens to swallow anything and it takes an effort of courage to go ahead and take sips of anything. The great news is that I am down 8 pounds since Tuesday. My hydration levels are normal (according to my scale) and I am getting lots (75g or more a day) of Protein. I am not hungry and the smell of real food makes me a little nauseous still. I had decided to take a shower (48 hours after surgery) and as I was removing my bandages that were over my steri-strips, one of them came up. The nurse said to use some butterfly bandages and to stay out of the shower. I really want to shower! I was fine with the pain and discomfort until today. I expected pain and discomfort, but really expected to not be able to feel the band pressing on stuff inside me. I really want this sensation to go away. If I didn't feel this I would be sore, but very happy.

I got banded yesterday. Today I am not feeling so great. I didn't get any pain meds yesterday because of a snafu between the pharmacy and the surgery office. But did get it all straitened out this morning. I am drinking slow and steady, but every time I take a sip of liquid I get this pressure/pain just under my sternum, I am going with the assumption that this is fairly normal with the band and all the swelling. I can't wait to see how I will feel in a few more days.

Call TriWest and ask. Is that doc on your current provider list and is he taking new patients?

I got my surgery date today. I am getting banded on Sept. 7th and having my gallbladder removed by Dr. Jenkins in Auburn, CA. I didn't want to get my gallbladder removed, but because of the advice of those here I decided to go ahead and get it out. After the debate I paid attention to what happens to me if I eat a high fat meal. My gallbladder attacks are heartburn and some mild back pain below the shoulder blade on the right side. My attacks are not painful in the way other people described, but were enough to wake my up in the middle of the night. My surgeon's PA said that heartburn unrelieved by meds and back pain in that area is a gallstone attack. I hardly ever get heartburn. I am wicked excited. For a while I thought it would be another couple of months because my insurance tried to have me get an endoscopy in stead of a pre op barium swallow. And the wait for an endoscopy was a month for a consult and then another month for the procedure. The receptionist/nurse/insurance whiz who works there called me to talk about that silly appointment and got it all worked out for me. She is a Godsend. I am so excited. I don't have any fear or second thoughts yet.

My surgeon wants to remove my gallbladder. I don't want him to. The ultrasound showed that I had "a little bit of sludge" and a "slightly dilated common bile duct." I am on cholesterol lowering drugs, which can cause some sludge and sometimes small stones. I didn't feel myself passing a stone and I won't be losing more than 1-3 pounds a week and I chose the LapBand specifically because I could keep my stomach in one piece. I'm scared that he will turn me away if I tell him to leave my gallbladder alone. I don't think it is right to remove organs when they are operating as they should and there is a good chance that once I lose weight and my cholesterol goes down that it will function 100% again. So is it a good idea to say NO at this point?

Mimilou, Maybe you are right. I did make up my mind. I shouldn't have asked for advice. Maybe I shouldn't ask for moral support either. In the future please refrain from answering any of my posts. I don't particularly like being called stupid. My info wasn't wrong, just incomplete.

According to all the medical data I read, people who have asymptomatic gallstones have about a 25% lifetime chance of having symptomatic gallstone attacks. The treatment for the wait and see approach is a low fat diet, exercise and weight loss. My ultrasound showed NO gallstones. Just a whole lotta mights and maybes. AND the Murphy's sign test was negative. So there is no gallbladder tenderness. My surgeon has said that he wants to remove it to prevent possible gallstone attacks. Needless to say, I called my regular doc to get her opinion on the matter and am waiting for her to call me back. I believe that it is wrong to remove organs just because there might be a problem down the line. It is like saying that I am a higher risk for breast cancer so I might as well have a mastectomy to prevent cancer. Or a hysterectomy to prevent a multitude of reproductive organ cancers. I may not NEED my gallbladder, but once it is gone, it is gone for good. I will never get it back. Right now with the information I have, the risks outweigh the benefits of having it removed. Plus if I can avoid 50 years of possible side effects (diarrhea, intestinal ulcers, and higher risk of colon cancer) and pain associated with removal, I will do so. It is my choice to wait and see what happens with my gallbladder.

I just saw my doc's PA for final consult and the gal who gets the insurance approvals done for the office said that lately Tricare has been denying out of hand and she has had to "but heads" with them a few times.

When I saw my doc in November I weighed 271 pounds with a BMI of 46. I had already lost some weight. Back in November my doc said to me that I would have to prove to her that I couldn't lose weight before she would refer me. So over the next seven months she watched me as I struggled to lose 23 pounds. The nut math said I should have lost 70-80 pounds in that time. Must have been because she is on thin ice for failing PT tests. Needless to say I am at a very small base. I cried last night because I finally got that I didn't have to wait 9+ months for surgery. I could be nearly at my goal weight by now if I had gotten the referral back then. Then at month four when my H got orders for the sandbox she said that she couldn't in good conscience have me go through major surgery with no help at home. So it was another couple of months and two weeks before he was supposed to leave that he found out his job slot had been dropped from the list, so he wasn't going after all, then another month to get an appointment on base, then another month to get an appt with the surgeon and another month to get the appointments for pre op consultation. I got screwed

So basically I got a crappy PCM who decided that I had to meet her psycho requirements and I could have gotten surgery 6 or 7 MONTHS ago. I hate the military doctors sometimes. I have PCOS too, so I guess my crazy doc decided I had to go through a seven month diet and exercise eval to make me feel like an incompetent idiot with everyone looking at me like a liar because I was eating 1500 cals a day or less and expending about 3500 calories a day and I wasn't losing weight like the nut math says. I wish officers would stop playing God sometimes.

Mimi, You are probably right considering the 8 months of jumping through hoops I had to do for my PCM on base. My doc has done right by me by giving me the best possible chance that I will get approval. It is true that the "official" regulation is 100 pounds over healthy weight for height and bone structure plus one comorbidity OR 200% over ideal weight for height and bone structure OR having a take down done. That is exactly what the requirements ARE, BUT, to get the very best results for approval the first time from Tricare my doc had me do it the way she did. And Tricare Prime members have to use surgeon and hospital off her provider list or she can be stuck with the whole bill. And if a Tricare Prime member doesn't get prior authorization, but they use approved surgeon and hospital they may have to pay a copay or the whole amount. The way Tricare reads is that all services for Prime members has to be gotten though a Military Treatment Facility unless there is NOT an MTF or the specialists in her MTF. I was just sharing what I have been required to do by my PCM on base because she KNEW that if she put in the referral request back in November without the proper medical documentation of some kind of weight loss effort it would be denied out of hand by Tricare. Tricare is still run by people. And people don't always follow the rules. And people make mistakes.

You could try to get it all done in house at a base hospital, that way you don't have to get tricare's approval. I know that in my case my PCM required me to have six months of diet and exercise logs in my medical files for easier Tricare approval. I had to see the nutritionist at the Health and Wellness Center every couple of weeks and also see the person in charge of exercise stuff. The nut would take a week out of my food journal in put it in my medical file along with my weight and what I was doing for exercise. I do know that for Tricare to approve you have to have at least two months of documented food logs and exercise logs, plus be 200% over the high end of the Met life table's ideal weight or over a certain BMI PLUS two co-morbidities. AND you have to go with a surgeon and a hospital who takes Tricare. I started my process Nov 03, 2009 and I JUST finished my preop blood work, psych eval, EKG and ultra sound and am seeing the surgeon for the second time the end of this week. My stuff hasn't even gotten to getting approval for surgery yet. If you have done everything by the book, then call tricare and ask them why you weren't approved. I heard (hear say, rumors, baseless accusations) that sometimes they deny the first time out of hand then if it comes across again they actually look at the file. The big deal is you have to have TWO of the co-morbidities that are listed from tricare. The two listed on file for me are diabetes and high cholesterol uncontrolled by meds, diet and exercise. Plus I have an 11 year military medical record showing how I have lost and gained the same 30-50 pounds over and over again. Remember you gotta fight for yourself when you have Tricare.

My surgeon has only done 3 or 4 lap-band surgeries, but he has done hundreds of laproscopic procedures. That is the super dangerous part. If an artery is nicked or a major organ, then you are in serious trouble. I haven't had surgery yet, but I trust my surgeon, my husband trusts my surgeon, and I have met about 20 wls patients of his and they all trust him. I think trust is important. I trust that my doc wouldn't have begun offering Lap-Band unless he was trained and competent at performing the placement of the band and port.

For seven months I have been working doing the supervised diet and exercise for my PCM. She wouldn't refer me to a surgeon until I did this for her. Even though Tricare only wants three months of diet attempts. I finally saw my surgeon this week for my first consult and he says I am a good candidate for LAP-BAND®. Now all I have to do is see his dietitian, get my labs done, and get my psych eval done and wait for Tricare to approve the surgery! I am so happy. I have been thinking about wls for years and talking to different people and considering all the options out there. Diet and exercise alone have failed me. I guess my body uses fuzzy math when dealing with my metabolism. :frown: