Vikki

:smile:Wow...............that was really a great story!! I am 1year and 1/2 banded and have gone up and down on 50-65 pounds lost. I feel very discouraged at times but have to slap myself and remember why I got the band in the first place. Yes I like the new me and yes it is hard to not eat like I used too........but that is why I got the band. To be healthy and happy with me and to fight the eating disorder that I have and not let food rule my life anymore. To eat what my body needs not craves. To stop beating myself up inside and become confident again. It is a long journey to acomplish and stay on track. But I wanted to thank you for sharing your story. It was really inspiring.:thumbup:

I noticed that when I went to the mountains I was a lot tighter. I also noticed when I went on a 4 hours flight that I was tighter but just a little. I would just be careful and bring a protein shake and something safe with you in case the food on the plane is a no no. You will notice it the day you fly if you are tighter. Everyone is different but I would just be on the safe side and don't eat anything the day before that you might PB on and then be swollen inside in case you do get a tad tighter. The band has a mind of its own as one day you feel really tight the next you can eat no problem. You can eat one meal fine then heat it up the next day and it sticks. It is a mystery.

It is very sore for at least 6 months. You have to remember it is an object put in your body that was not there before. Your body has to get used to it. Make sure you keep a close eye on the port insition because that can get infected. I have a band friend that had her port replaced because the area would not heal correctly so the Dr. removed it and let it heal then replaced it with another one. Everyone's body is different but I have had my band for 1yr 1/2 now and I can push on it no problem with no discomfort. You just have to let your body heal in time but make sure the insition isn't oozing or bleeding. Be very careful and don't lift anything heavy for awhile. It will be tenter to touch for the first couple of months. Your body has to heal inside as well as the outside. Congrats on your band journey. I love my band and keep on this site for support. It really has been a lifesaver for me. I have also met band locals in my area threw this site.

Hello from OC. If anyone in OC would like to meet up with our group we have put together with locals send me an email. We have a really great group and we meet up at each others house or last time at the park. It is great to have local support so send me an email if your interested. vikki4mymail@yahoo.com I am also going down to get a fill this Sat. 26th in TJ with one other person so if anyone wants to join us for the drive let me know. We go down early so we can get back early. We walk across and my Dr. office picks us up then drives us to Los Angeles Hospital for the fill and then drops us back off to walk back across. So much easier then driving back which takes hours to sit and wait.

I would like to share my experience with you. I got my band on Nov 24, 2006 so have had it for 1yr 4mths now. I have lost a lot and it didn't really show on my till about the 8mth mark. I only told about 4 people my best friend a couple of family members that I even had it done. I had to hide the fact of when we went out to eat I could only have the Soup or hide the fact I wasn't eating......or even worse eat something wrong and have to go throw it up somewhere. No one at my work knew and I would come back from lunch sometimes having to run to the bathroom if something didn't go down. Once I started to really look like I had lost a lot of weight and people would compliment me and ask how I would say no carbs and portion control. It wasn't a lie......because that is what it was. EASY WAY OUT MY ASS!!!!!!!!!! It is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Tell your roomate to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner and smell all the WONDERFUL SMELLS OF food and only be able to get a couple of bites of mash potatoes down and maybe a couple of other bites and that is it!!!!! It is very frustrating to say the least but you get used to it after awhile that 5-6 bites is okay with your head. Your head is what you have to retrain when you used to eat those big Claim Jumper portions and now you can't. It isn't a matter of portion control because your on a diet and you know your suppose to eat less it is CANT!!! Because that one more bite could send you into so much pain that your body wants to throw it up and you have to keep running to throw up. You do it a few times and you start listening to your body say STOP you have had enough. That is when you really start thinking differently.......should I eat a cup of ice cream with zero nutricion or should I have that 5-6 bites of Protein and veggies or soft something that has Vitamins for my body. It takes awhile to retrain your head because that is what controls your cravings. I told my boss who is a man about my surgery but just recently because he kept asking me about my weight and I was sick of hiding if I was sick after lunch. He was very supportive about it. I have told more people in my circle of friends because I am ready to come out of the closet about it. I thought people would give me the easy way out remark too but i am honestly pleasantly surprised that I have gotten a lot of support. I love my band and have had issues of being too tight to where I couldn't even get liquids down for about a month and it was very painful and frustrating but I went to get an unfil and feel 100 times better now. I now have very little restriction with 2cc in my band and after gaining 8 back I am ready to go get just a small fill to feel the restriction again. It is the STOP factor that really makes you eat less and after awhile you are okay with eating less. You feel good about what you ate that day instead of going to bed beating yourself up that you had the supersize hamburger and fries you knew you weren't suppose too. You do what you feel is right and don't listen to anyone saying your taking the easy way out. It is not easy at all to not eat like you were used too. My best friend is skinny and blonde and beautiful and doesn't understand why I got the band when she has seen me go threw taking that one too many bites and having to deal with the pain. But she doesn't understand the voice in my head that kept beating me up inside that I was a looser for getting so heavy and letting myself get that way. I have lost a big part of the weight and feel good about myself again and haven't been happy with myself in a long time. The great thing about this tool is if you want the liquid out of your band you can eat fairly normal again then when you are feeling week like i am right now with eating bread and just snacking too much you go get a fill and the restriction is back to help you stay on track. Good luck with your journey!!!!!!!!!! You do what make YOU happy!!!!!!!!!!!!! :biggrin2:

I know exactly what your going threw as I just had an unfill from 4.5 to 2.0cc. I had the fill of 4.5 last Sept and then felt tight but not super tight for about a month then I would have weeks were nothing would go down and others eat everything in site no problem. Then by Feb I felt so tight and was PBing so much that I went threw a few weeks of not even barly getting water down and just couldn't take it anymore. As soon as he took out 2.5cc I felt a million times better. I have only 2cc right now and have very little restriction so already wanting to go get a small fill because when you haven't been able to eat bread for so long and now I can even eat a sandwich I feel like a kid in a candy store. Really having to rely on will power which is a struggle for me. I gained back 8 pounds since the unfil and I know it is from the EVIL carbs I have eaten. So I would wait it out but if you just keep PBing you will make your insides get really swollen and it will be very painful. Just read your body and everyone is completely different. I have a girlfriend that has 10cc in her 10cc band and can still eat and I had 4.5 in my 10cc band and was very very tight. My advice on those days your body just rejects everything go on liquids for a couple of days. I just kept trying to eat because I was so starving when I was just making matters worse. Good luck and if you want to send me a message we could chat.

There are lots of Doctors to choose from in Mexico that do fills. If you do not feel your getting good service then you might want to change. Your going to have this band for a long time or forever so you want a doctor that you feel a connection with and trust if any problems arise. If your interested in getting advice from others just send a message to individuals that have other doctors from Mexico. We are all honest if we didn't like them or love them. I totally trust my Dr. and have found patients that did not like their Doctor here in the US and now go to him in Mexico because he treats them so much better and of course is a lot less expensive. Thank goodness we have sites like this to help with support........AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck

I was also discouraged until I received my third fill and boy is it different. I could still gulp liquids down until I received a fill that really made a difference and it hurt if I tried to gulp. It was sip and chew chew at that point or I would really regret it. You first start to slime and then have to pb up the plug that is hurting. Then if you do it again the same day your really sore. So you learn quickly to take it slow and if after 4-5 bites you have to stop then you stop or you will hurt. Pain is a big deterant from your old habits to overeat and try to get that full feeling we used too which took a lot of food to get to that point. I had my third fill back in Sept. and felt really tight so now it is end of Feb and still have days I feel really tight. Other days it is just not an instant hurt when I start to eat. I am so used to just have very little now and it took me a long time to get to that point. 5 small meals a day is what I try to stick too and a Pure Protein Shake can be one meal that takes 15 - 20 min to sip down. Then a yogart is a meal and a small peice of fish with some soft veggies another. When I first got my band I was like 1200 cal a day are you kidding!!!!!! Now I have to fight to get to the 1200 a day. It is like a weight (literally) has been lifted and the obsession of food is not there anymore. It is just a science to get what I need to be healthy and keep my Metabilsm going instead of being at platue. Even though you don't eat like you used too it doesn't mean the weight will keep dropping. Your body is tricky and will platue so you have to keep up the Protein and exercise to really get the inches off. It takes awhile and it is hard to be patient but the slower you loose it the better your skin will tighten. With By pass patients they loose so fast they have skin that hangs. You have this tool for life or for a long time so remember that once you reach your goal we have to learn how to healthy maintain so that up and down weight roller coaster days are gone. Weight watchers is a great program for anyone because you learn how many points everything is and you look at it as do I need to add 10 points with those Cookies or 3 points for that yogart with granola...............GOOD LUCK my bandster buddies and hang in there. This tool is a gift and fills are the key!!!!!!!!!! Just don't do it fast like get a fill that is so tight Water won't go down. It is worth it to get little by little because everyone's body is different and reacts to fills different.

That is so sweet!!! My daughter is 9 and she too has made comments about how I look good and did the same thing to me like wow mom your waist is really smaller when she hugged me. I just had a smile from ear to ear. I had the same type of experience with my last fill and for a couple of weeks could barely get anything down. I didn't get any removed but probably should have. The last few months have been one day super tight the other no PB's at all. The band has a mind of its own that is for sure!!! BUT I LOVE MY BAND as I feel better then I have in years and I am feeling the peace of not being controlled by my eating disorder. I control it now and not going to bed feeling guilty for overeating that day is soooooo GREAT!!!!! I can be happy with me now and how strong I am for the help of my BAND!!!!!!!!! It is the best thing I have ever done for myself and getting healthy and happy.:eek:

It really is up to you to tell your kids or not. I was very open with my kids and told them why I felt I needed to get a lapband and that it was a life change for the better. I didn't feel comfterable telling everyone though. It took me a year before I started to feel like what the heck when people go wow you have lost so much weight I just respond now ya I got a lapband and they start asking me questions. I was really worried at first what people would say but now I don't care. It has brought that light back that I so missed and I feel great!!!!!!! I want to tell everyone that I know that struggles with food and overweight problems but I don't because it is a very personal decision. My daughter is 9 and has made a comment before about that she doesn't like that I got the band because she sometimes sees me in pain. But I just explain to her that is part of having the band to learn when to stop and what you can and can't eat. That it is not easy to live with the band but it has made mommy so much happier with myself and that is worth it!!!

I am too experiencing gas pains and live on gax x chewables too. I actually stopped taking the gas x a couple of weeks ago because I felt it was making it worse. I actually feel better since stopping and have not had as much gas. Plus I was eating beans a lot to get protein but stopped that too. I know your frustration because after my last fill I have been dealing with a lot of issues too but have only dropped 12 pounds since Sept. There are those days were you just ask yourself WHY DID I DO THIS to myself but overall I am happy I can't binge eat anymore. That is how I gained my weight and now I don't want to do that because of the pain I experience. I would go to liquids for a couple of days really mild type like chix broth no dairy. See if that helps settle your stomach. I think that with myself my stomach is very sensative so after a fill it is hard to get anything down but if I let it heal and settle by just taking it easy and not forcing my stomach to digest for a couple of days I feel better and can gradually start on foods again. I try to drink hot tea a couple of times a day because that helps push the air bubbles out more. I am sorry your having frustration but we are all in this together and your not alone. We have to sometimes refect on why we got the band and I love my band but there are days when I wish I could just take it out for a week. But we can't so it is patients and detective work to figure out how to feel better. Keep you chin up my bandster buddie!!!!!!!!

I know exactly how you feel my dear!!!! It is really frustrating and at this point your probably thinking what the hell have I done!!!! I got my third fill at 4.5cc and it really was very tight and I couldn't even get liquids down with out discomfort for a couple of weeks. Yes hot liquids do go down easier so start your day with a cup of hot coffee or hot tea. Everyone is different because I have girls in my support group with 8cc and they still don't feel super tight. I am at 4.5 and since Sept I still feel super tight. I would just wait it out unless you are feeling light headed because your body is not getting enough nutrience. At this stage you have to think of chewable multivitamins......Baratricadvantage.com has great quickly diasolvable ones that don't hurt at all. You also need to buy watery protein drinks. I could blend mine at this stage because it would come out too thick to go down. Make sure your sipping water all day long because it is easy to forget about the water. If your sick of protein drinks then sip chix broth to get another taste going. Your body will feel super hungry but by sipping drinks all day you will get a full feeling. The band has a mind of its own and you can feel super tight for two weeks after a fill then you open up and you notice that you can again start getting more and more in with out the PB feeling. Right now it is the test of patients. The biggest thing I have had to deal with was the really bad habit of eating very fast. You now take a spoon full of watery soup and then put the spoon down for a min or so. IF no pain you take another spoon full. You will learn to read your body and the pain is the saliva creating that yucky goowy plug that builds up and you have to throw it up or the pain gets worse. You will feel instand relief when that gets out. Your new with the band and it takes a long time to read the signs your body gives you to STOP and put it down so the pain does not get worse. Some that have shared in my support group PB a lot some never do. Everyones body is different so you just have to do what is going to help get the nutrients down. When I have days where I am just so frustrated and think why did I do this to myself I have to reflect on why I did this. The tool was to NOT get things in because I was a binger that ate everything in site but did it secretly so I was beating myself up inside feeling like a complete looser.....to myself....no one was saying this to me but the voice in my head. I am now finally starting to love myself again and the voice is going away because this tool has done exactly what I wanted it to do. I can only get a little in so at the end of the day I don't beat myself up about eating way to much all day and the wrong things like fast food comfort food. If the pain is just too much after a couple of weeks you might need to get some removed but if it costs a lot of money which in my case I have to travel to my Dr. in Mexico and it is an all day trip so I don't want to do it unless I have too. I had my fill in Sept and it helped me be so good threw the Holidays and I didn't loose any weight in Dec but I also didn't gain...............Good luck!! You can send me a personal message if you want to chat.

I was banded in Mexico. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Dr. and he is GREAT!! He truely cares about his patients and is not in it JUST for the money. When I go to get my fill and I try to hand him money he tells me no. He wants to help people loose weight and be healthy and SOOOO different to the Dr.'s here in the US. My husband had knee surgery and maybe saw his DR. for 10 min after the surgery a year ago. Never calls to see how he is doing. Very sad how aragant the doctors are now and how they went into medical field with good intentions and now it is just money and we humans are just the money tree to them. I love my band and I love my Dr. who is a great surgeon!!!!!!

I love this thread because boy can I relate. I didn't have much air before my band but now it is either burps or farts all day long. My daughter doesn't even want to be next to me at night because I am just farting and farting. It has been quite painful too. So I started chewing gas x all day but honestly it seems to make it worse. So I stopped for a couple of weeks. It seems that after a couple of hours after I eat the air just gets pushed out and it is so embarrassing. I know that I do love to eat chili since I am so tight I am at the soup addiction stage and that will definitely give me gas. Do you guys have any suggestions on products that work to help the air go away? I am hating this air thing. I sit at my desk and try to be discrete but sometimes it slips and soooo embarrassing!!!! BY THE WAY WELCOME TO BAND WORLD to all you newbies!!!! You are in the honeymoon stage of excitement and it is really nice. You will hit many platues so just don't give up and I always tell people to journal your food intake it really helps change those bad habits that we all have that got us overweight in the first place. Thanks everyone for any advice.

I have a question you guys. I have a very tight fill right now and I am trying to get more then just soups down but having difficulty. I am really having a lot of gas that is very painful. I chew gas x all day long to try to prevent it but it isn't helping very much. I never had gas like this before. I am not using a straw anymore to drink liquids. Have you guys come across this issue and what did you do to prevent the extra gas bubble in your stomach. I had a ultrasound done last night because I am having pains such as gallbladder stones and the lady told me I had a lot of gas in me. Thank goodness there was no sight of any stones. Any advice would be sooo grateful!!!

YAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is so great!!! I am at my year anniversary too and the only time I get frustrated is after a bad PB but it is 99% of the time something my body doesn't need to have.........like fries or bread!!!!! Do I still love my band..........HELL YES it is the best thing I have ever done!!!!!!!!!!! Banded for life and down 3/4 of the weight to my goal. I can't wait to reach my goal!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD JOB TO ALL YOU BANDSTERS OUT THERE!!!!! WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER!!!!!!!!:whoo:

3 more days to my Anniversary. I can't believe it has already been a year. I am down two pants sizes and feeling good. I am going to get down the last 25 this year and then maintain a normal weight. My advice to you guys that are struggling is to keep a food journal and count calories. It really does help to figure out on paper how much your eating everyday. Your body gets used to it and will platue so you need to boost it up 200 calories for two weeks which seems weird but it will jump start your metabilism. That is what works for me. If you have a proper fill it will be a lot more difficult to over eat as it is more of a pain in the butt and not worth the hassle after awhile. Just don't give up and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you guys. It is going to be hard to get threw the day when food will be everywhere. Lots of walking this weekend to work off the extra calories!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you still only go to Ortiz? I would really like to find a local that will help me with my fills. I hate having to spend 6hours of driving and crossing the border to get a 3 min unfil. Do you know of any socal locals that will cost around 100 to do an unfil for me? I am curious when you say you slipped was it from PB'ing a lot? How did you know it slipped? What did it do when it slipped? How did Ortiz fix it? Thanks and I know I am struggling right now. I don't want it to slip. I am just reaching my year anniversary on Nov 24th.

I too am feeling my fill might be too tight. I am having a lot of pain right now and can hardly get anything down. I tried to have hot and sour soup last night and after three bites I was in pain for 30 min. I am just scared right now since the holiday season is here to get my fill removed and pack on the typical 15 holiday pounds. I thought at first it was from a bad PB that I was sore and hurting and then felt better but am now feeling like I am hurting again. I am having heart burn feeling also which is very odd. I gurgle when drinking anything. It is just a pain to go all the way down to Mexico to get an unfill. I think I am going to have to go to the store that has powdered nutrients for me to get what I need every day. I can't live off of soup every day. Too much salt and not enough vitamins or protein.

Congrats you guys to newly banded. I will be celebrating my 1 year anniversary on Nov 24th!!! I am 30 pounds away from my goal and love the band. It is a life changing experience and it has been a very positive year. I have good days and bad days. I have a very tight fill right now and that is when you will truely feel the difference of your band. You think you can eat something fine until you start feeling a tight feeling in your chest and it hurts like heck.......you either wait it out with bulging eyes or go throw it up. It isn't technically like when you used to throw up it is a slimmy type of plug that is sitting on top of your band and not going down. The reason it is slimmy is because your fluids are trying to break it down but it doesn't always happen and to get it out you feel much better. This is what is called a PB progressive Burp.....sometimes you just burp it up sometimes you help it come up. I tried to eat fries yesterday and BAD IDEA!!! I had to come back to work and my co workers do not know I have the band and tried to just walk around and sip hot tea. It was a bad day but my own fault. The best thing about this band is before I ate a super size fry no problem then beat myself up inside that I should not have done that. Yesterday tried to do my old habit of having a bad day so eat comfert food............band made it so after three fries I had to stop and ended up throwing the fries in the trash...........Thank you band!!!!!!!!! Good luck to you guys and keep on the support pages because they are so much help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I SOOOO FEEL YOU Sandra!!!! The thing that I am most dissapointed about with my band is I thought the hunger was going to go from 100% to 10% and it has not. I was told by my brother that had bypass that hunger is a head thing not a body thing and didn't understand him until I realized how much of an emotional eater I was. The thing we have now with our great tool is that even though we feel we could eat a house WE CAN'T!!! This was me last night. I was craving chips so bad so thought to myself I will just make some. So heated up the oil and threw in some corn tortilla slices and made a batch of chips. We then I started to shovel them into my mouth and after about 5 started to hurt. I then ended up in the bathroom and had to PB the chips and salsa up......NOT FUN> So then my brain shut off the hunger monitor and felt like crap so wasn't hungry anymore. I still want to eat a house but cannot and forget I cannot until I am in pain from trying. That is the best thing about our tool as when you have the correct fill you can't be your old self and overeat........emotional eat............you have to stick to your rules and it makes the difference to pack the weight back on or stop the weight loss. My girlfriend that had turned me onto the band had told me she never felt hungry and had to force herself to eat. There is a lot of us that still have the stomach rumble but if you snack on a south beach granola bar high in protein it will help your brain shift your thoughts to something else. Keeping busy is the key. I notice I still get the munchies when I am bored so directing your energy to something else really does help. We know what your feeling!!!!!! DARN HUNGER!!! But we have this tool to help us not revert back to our old habits!!! LOVE THE BAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:whoo:

Wow Tom you are so lucky to have lost all of the weight before your year mark. That is the great thing about our band is that maintaining is at our control of getting the fill if we are letting the evil get back into our eating habits to stop it in its tracks. Before all we had to rely on was will power and if we had that mastered we wouldn't have needed to band. Now we have to tool to help cut out the over eating that wants to control us at times. I didn't realize I was such an emotional eater until I couldn't get the food down and had to face my demons. A lot of times you go from one demon to another like boose or cig's but I have been trying to work threw my bad choices to be healthy not unhealthy. I am very proud of all of you with such great results. I am still working on the last 30 pounds but feel I look good compared to my size a year ago. It is hard to get the weight off and maintain but very much well worth the fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy Anniversary to all of you!!!!!!!:whoo:

That is great. It is a journey that will be a big life change. I am almost at a year anniversary and down almost 50 pounds. It has been a life changing experience and it can be frustrating at times but this support site really helps you not feel alone with all the struggles of loosing weight and having the band. Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your very welcome. I instant message others on the threads sometimes asking how the have gotten 100 off and kept it off. What has worked for them. This whole year since my band has been like a re birth of me. It is like you reach rock bottom and getting the band is hope to get better. That is the way I felt anyway. It is not the quick easy answer to loose the weight and keep it off at all. You can eat ice cream and chocolates all day and still gain the weight. It is a matter of figuring out what works for your body and everyone has there own suggestions but it might now work for you. The thing people don't understand is it is not easy by any means to get the band then loose weight and poof you look just like Pamela Anderson..............NOT!!! You still struggle everyday to stay on track with calories and exercise. You just can't eat and eat and eat so easily that you used too. When something is a hassle it really makes you rethink it. Train yourself to just skip it completely and be okay with it. That is the great thing about the band when it comes to becoming a better you is finding that inner peace to be rid of the food addiction. I started off with overeater annonomous and that helped too. I struggle with being bitter about why others can eat a whale everyday and be a size 2 and I struggle just to be around my weight range on eating very little. I know I am from an obese family so that is not in my favor but when you have to work so hard at something that others don't even think twice about can make you a tad bitter. I live in So Cal so there are sticks all over the place and I just look at them in their size 2 jeans and think to myself........WHY ME!! But I have gotten a lot better and that is part of the inner peace with being happy with ME!! Have a great day!!!!!!

Thank you for the compliment. I feel good too. Being off of carbs I think is the biggest thing that has helped me shrink. It took awhile to not crave them anymore. I do crave chips and that is my reward when I am doing so good to have some chips. Now that I have a tight fill it is hard to eat too many so I just eat some and then that is good enough. Before I would down the whole bag no problem. It is too hard to over eat anymore so now I am finally coming to my at peace place of letting the band be the great tool that it is. Eat what your body needs not what you crave. Which was usually a double cheeseburger for me. I have to be very careful what I try to eat so I check all the labels now to make sure it has some health value to it. I am in Orange County and the airports are not closed so you should be fine. It smells like smoke outside and it has a weird tan haze outside. Good luck with your fill. It makes a big difference with cheating and eating too much. This tool is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I just want to go up to everyone I know that has eating problems and weight struggles and share my story. I don't but wish I could. You have to be careful because they could actually take it the wrong way. I have kept mine a secret to my circle of friends but want to come out of the closet soon.