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My thoughts before??? Well I was scheduled for 4 pm on the 23rd, then they called at 6pm on the 22nd and said to be there at 530 AM! I was like Cr@@! I had this whole list of things I was going to do around the house to keep me busy. I made lots of Jello before I went, and made sure I had Soups and oolong tea in the house. I slept suprising well the night before, got up and showered and headed to the hosptial. I think I stayed fairly detached from feelings as I was like ok lets get this done! The the doctor was late so I sat in the pre op bed playing with my phone in between things they came to do to me,,, ( iv, bp, weight,anesthesiologist) Then the doc finally showed up and he said see yo in about 20 minutes, then the nurses came and put 3 drugs in my IV,, I never seen the doc again I vaguely remember him waking me up enough to tell me that the surgery went a perfect as it could and then the next thing I remember is waking up in my regular room.

When I was pre-op I was completely obsessed, too. Couldn't come fast enough. Here are some things I did: Kicked up the exercise like crazy so I could get that habit going before surgery. I hired a personal trainer and in the 8 weeks leading up to surgery lost 4% body fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle (weight stayed the same because I was borderline and couldn't lose). Cleaned all the big off season clothes out of my closet. My surgery was June 9th, so I bagged up every big, oversized heavy sweater I owned. I kept the bags until after surgery just in case for some reason it got cancelled or something but donated them as soon as my surgery was over. I also made sure to keep myself busy with supportive friends. I reconnected with old friends I hadn't seen in a while and we started a walking group on Sunday afternoons. The time will pass and you'll be on the loser's bench before you know it.

I had my lapband surgery in November 2006. I lost seventeen pounds pre-surgery and then another fifteen pounds by January. I had a total of two fills. Things were going okay, but not perfect. I had regained a few pounds over the holidays and was struggling to get back on track. In February 2007, I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. I ended up with a total hysterectomy. Recovery, both physical and emotional was brutal. Several months later I lost my job along with my health insurance. I was unable to continue with visits with my bariatric surgeon. The band has since been "unfilled" and I have re-gained every single pound I lost. I am scared, depressed, and most of all ANGRY. How did this happen? Is there any hope for me with the lap band at this point? HELPPPP!!

I am about to be 23 and I can't help but think to myself, "How did I let myself get like this?" Of, course there are many people who ask themselves this question on a daily basis. And yes, I do know how I got like this - food and sedentary (sort of) lifestyle. Now that I have come to this realization I have the ability to choose change-which I have. I am very excited to go to the seminar about this procedure, even after the ridiculous amounts of research I have done about the Lap band. I also have this feeling of "Hurry up and get this done". But I need to realize that it will take time and I know I am doing the right thing because for the first time in my life I can talk about my weight and what I am going to do about it without crying. I believe that in order for me to get through this I need a support system. This, for me, is a select few I have told about this procedure. My best friend and my roommate are the two I can trust the most and feel great to have the ability to talk to them about my feelings and not be judged. These two are accompanying me to the seminar for support which I am so excited about. I know that this is a life changing procedure and I am more than ready for it. My aunt had gastric bypass a few years back and looks great. Obesity runs in my family - a.k.a we all love food and having a good time. Everything we do revolves food and drinks. I am also worried about diabetes because many of my overweight family members [not direct family but aunts/uncles] have diabetes which was basically caused by being overweight and I do not want that for myself. I am sick and tired of being yo-yo with my weight. I have gained 40 lbs in over 6 months and have been gaining and losing it for as long as I can remember. This weight is ready to leave for good! While talking to my roommate about the lap band I came to the realization that my whole entire life I have never experienced how it was to be "normal weight". I was telling her that I was an overweight 3 year old, 12 year old, 18 year old and now an over weight 23 year old. It will be something so new feeling "normal weight". I do not want to be "skinny" I want to be healthy. I want to be able to run half marathons (maybe even whole marathons since I live in Boston and the Boston marathon would be something to strive for), I want to not have to worry if I will be able to fit in the airplane seat and worry if my thigh is touching the person next to me. I want people to stop saying, "you have a pretty face" - I want to be beautiful all over. I want to be healthy for my family because I want to be a good role model for my "future children". I want to be able to walk up to my apartment and not be out of breath. I want to look forward to taking walks, be able to walk at a faster pace and not worry about the beads of sweat running down my body, feeling self conscious about my RED CHEEKS and be able to have a conversation while walking. I want to feel sexy is a t-shirt and jeans (because c'mon there isn't anything sexier than that). I want to walk into a store and not worry about if the clothes will fit and stop having the feeling like people are looking at you thinking, "nothing in here is going to fit her so why is she in here". Bottom line - I want to feel as beautiful and sexy on the outside as I do on the inside. She is in there - it now comes down to me making the effort to make sure she comes out!

I had my band placed 3/3/08. I spent 3 days in the hospital for complications of pain/vomiting. To date i have not lost one ounce. My daily calories are 800 to 1000 and I am getting in about 45-60 grams of Protein daily. I still have constant pain at the port site which at times is almost unbearable. (I have an extremely high pain tolerance so this concerns me, but my doctor has no thoughts.) Is there anyone else who has had no weight loss in the first 2 weeks? What am I doing wrong.

I was told it has a lot to do with the sodium intake as well. And that our bands don't begin its real journey until we have our 1st fill. Tinaf, I am with you ....I haven't gained but haven't got past the 16 lbs lost neither.

What you are experiencing is very common and completely normal. There is a pretty good chance that you will not lose any more weight (and may gain a little) until your first adjustment. Many doctors put the band in empty, so you are probably getting little to no restriction right now. Also, the first 6 post-op weeks are really for healing, not necessarily for optimal weight loss. Consider any weight loss a bonus. In the 2 weeks after my surgery, I lost 16 pounds. Then in the next 2 weeks (soft food stage), I lost nothing. Then when I added regular food, I gained 2 pounds! Finally, at the 6 week mark, I got my first adjustment, and within 4 days, I was down 3 pounds. Whew! This seems to be a pretty common pattern, so don't sweat it! Just eat as healthy as possible for now...lots of Protein for healing, and wait patiently for your first fill.

I am in the beginning stage of the process hoping to get the sleeve in mid December. I really want to shed this weight but am very nervous about the surgery, what to eat afterward and really the whole process. So tell me what you love love love or hate hate hate please.

Don't stress about it!!! I stressed the same way you are. You are approved and so just keep doing your liquid diet if its what the surgeon requires from you. If your just doing it to lose the 10 pounds and the surgeon didn't tell you to then don't do the liquid but eat sensible until you have to do one. I worried myself sick over this and once I was approved after my 6 months of weigh in my weigh ins really didn't effect anything. Now if you were to gain 20 pounds or so before surgery the surgeon might not think your ready yet and cancel till you are but don't stress you've got this now!!! Getting approved is the biggest hurdle

Well i got approved with some extra documentation. i ducked out of here because i had gone on the 2 shake diet, lost 14 lbs and then they told me I was going to have to do weight watchers for 6 months. So I compleatly wigged out because the surgery planner told me to just maintain that weight for six months. They said if; lost too much more, i wouldn't be covered. I have to be over 40 Bmi even with all my medical problems. I have never been a weight I needed to maintain...so no surprise, I now have 10 lbs to Lose again. Once my doc faxed over the proof of weigh once a month at his office, they approved it. Sooooo my pre-op class is Friday at 8 am. They are calling me back to schedule a surgery date. It could be this month, I will have to waiting and see....but I am approved. I am mad at myself for the weight gain...now I am back to shakes starting tonight since I already ate lunch. I am feeling very nervous now. I am worried I won't lose it in time...I am going to have to be close by Friday.....how am I going to lose 10 lbs by Friday? Any suggestions? I know it is my fault for reacting in this way and I know it is my responsibility to lose this weightl but I am seriouse about this...please help it you can.

I would class my band as a resounding success (because I lost 120% of my excess weight), yet I am one of the ones who can eat bread, can eat everything and eats quite a lot. I have 2.8cc in my 4cc band at the moment and its maintenance level for me becuase I can eat about 1800 calories a day, and eat things like sandwiches. Yet others would be puking up liquids and be very retricted at that level. You absolutely cannot compare yourself to other people, the right level of fill for you is the fill at which you lose weight at a reasonable pace of 1-2lb a week. Or the fill at which yoiu maintain effortlessly if you've gotten to goal. What someone else does or does not eat is absolutely irrelevant to you. After 3 years though - I've banded about that long too and I found after about 12 months I needed a tiny top up fill, I'd lost some Fluid through evaporation over that time. There's probably never a time when you wont ever again need a fill.

I think it may be the amount of restriction you need to have control over your eating. For me, I don't need to be very tight. My $2500 copay is enough of an incentive for me to be fairly strict on myself without having my band very tight. For me, it is more important for me to be happy with my band, and the foods I can eat, than to lose weight quickly. I keep losing around 2lbs per week and I am happy with that. I had almost half of a hamburger steak the other day, and my friend said she would never have been able to eat it. She has her band tighter than mine and prefers to be more restricted. It depends on what YOU need to make you and your band successful. It is a learning process and you will figure it out.

I am having the same problem as you, i started out at 387 and now have hit 315. I was banded 7/23. I have had 2 fills so far and seem to slow down the weight loss just a week before my next fill. I have a 10cc band and now have 8cc added as my fills. i have been walking but not too fast because of my knees and hip pain. i think if you are feeling well and your Doctor is not worried you should be ok. My doctor is not at all worried about my weight, in fact he will prob. not give me another fill until the weight slows down. Good luck with you weight loss and may you enjoy your band.

Ive been reading a lot of these threads and have read about people losing weight and there stomachs getting smaller and then needing a whole new smaller band! Does this happen often? Does it happen more to people that need to lose a ton of weight?Why use such a big band to begin with?

I made it to goal and had my band unfilled due to pregnancy. Banding made it easy in that I would eat and was quickly full and satisfied. I sometimes had to "remind" myself to eat and this got me to goal. Since I have been unfilled, I am hungry again and I now really understand that difference between being banded and not being banded. I can eat and an hour later be ravenous where food is definitely the top thing on my mind. I also started feeling deprived again where I had to force myself not to eat even though my body keeps telling me to do so. I have not gained much at all but I am struggling with food issues again on a daily basis. I need my band filled at least partially for hunger control. I follow the rules and do what I am supposed to do but if you are constantly hungry, it is a struggle. Banding with restriction made it feel like I had overcome my overeating issues . . . but I realize now that there was a definite physical component to my overeating . . . it wasn't all in my head afterall. If you feel overly tight, a very slight unfill may help to give you more variety in your diet. Just be careful not to undo all of your hard work but taking out too much Fluid. Also, with regular aftercare, you can always unfill a little, see how you do and get more as you need it.

Hi, I had my surgery 10/21 and I have lost 45 pounds! Which is great but over the last month I haven't lost any weight. I'm not sure if I need another fill or not but I struggle with my head a lot! I will eat and I feel satisfied but my head wants more and more. Sometimes I can eat and till I'm STUFFED....a feeling I haven't had in MONTHS. Sometimes I can't. I'm afraid of getting another fill because I'm not sure I need one because it's my head. I feel like I'm loosing control and motivation. I've been sneaking See's! I guess I'm putting this out there for accountability, I need to be accountable for this and I need to get my self in check.

Ok my name is Lisa, I have had my band since 12/31/2003. I lost 101 bls. Then got bad sick and couldn't keep anything down, so they loosened me up, well I gained back 40bls. I then went back and had it tightened after I got my body healthy again. Well, I haven't lost anything since the tightening. Ok, thing that gets me is that some days I can eat anything that isn't in someone elses mouth already. Other days like yesterday, I threw up. What is up with that?? Some days I can eat and some I can't. What would anyone advise me to do? I hate being this size again. Just the 40 bls has really knocked me back to that insecure person I has at 300 bls. I am just holding at 220 right now. I hate it. I feel bad and I just HATE IT!!!!!!!

So I've been reading about what happens to fat when it is used. Amazingly I never really knew where the fat went when I lost weight. My understanding is that the fat cell remains. When certain hormones are release the fat cell empties its contents of fatty acids into the blood stream to be used as energy. One of the byproducts of this is GAS. If this is correct, that explains why I feel like my doctor installed one of these.

It sounds like you dont have any restriction yet. It is possible for the fill to have not "kicked in" yet. Some people say they can't feel a difference until after a week. Until you get restriction, you won't have any real benefit from your band, and any weight loss you experience will come from a lot of work on your part. I am sorry you are hungry all of the time. That really sucks. If after a week, you still are starving, call your surgeon and see if he/she will agree to do another fill. Many people don't feel any real restriction until their third or fourth fill. :thumbdown: Also, ask if you are supposed to follow any certain guidelines after a fill. Many doctors require liquids after the fill for a day or two. Mine doesn't, but I always read people talking about the liquids after a fill.

I was just wondering if anyone else has had trouble keeping food down?? I had my surgery last november and have had no problems until now! About 3 weeks ago i began throwing up almost everything I eat. Sometimes I can't even keep liquids down. I went to my doctor last week because I was worried, and thought my band may have slipped or something. He has assured me that it hasn't. I am afraid that I am going to get sick because I am not getting enough nutrients. He didn't seemed too worried about it, and I am frustrated!!! Would getting an unfill help?? I have only had 3 fills total.. my last one was over 2 months ago.. I am just worried about gaining weight back. I have worked so hard, and done so well. Any help would be awesome! Thanks

So I went to the doctor today.. I didn't realize that there were different sized bands..(I'm a dork) I have been seeing posts on here with people saying they have like 8cc in theirs I can't imagine because I only have like 3 in mine and I have been having problems since my last fill! I found out that I only have a 4cc band and it was too tight. My doctor took out 1cc and I was able to eat for the first time in weeks without getting sick! now I am just going to keep my fingers crossed that I still loose and don't gain!!!

I was on mushies for 6 weeks and it got EXTREMLY OLD eating the same damn thing. I was so sick of canned tuna and chicken with LOTS of mayo - AND cream of wheat, which used to be my favorite Breakfast food until now! But the motivation was the weight coming off. You are going through what I went through and I did the exact same thing as you when I went to Bbq's: chewed the solids until it got mushy in my mouth, but that was after 6 weeks. I did, infact, eat a hotdog and chips while I was in the mushy stage. I chewed the heck out of it and swallowed, but later was scared that I would mess up the band (regret maybe?); however, now that I have had two fills since my surgery, and the 2nd fill was an overfill (suffered 2 weeks unable to eat any solids and vomited alot, now totally unfilled), it was just a nice break/relief to eat all that stuff again - hotdogs and burgers, etc... BUT.... I have not gained any weight, nor lost anymore weight. I have been very careful in not eating that stuff alot during the last couple of weeks. I still have my Protein shakes (even bought unflavored protein to put in yogurts and hot cereals) during the day, but maybe a hot dog here and there because of all the summer BBQ's that were going on around here! (off the subjuct but just to share) I meet with my doctor next week to start all over with the fills. There is no set number of cc he goes by; fills are based on how much Water I drink and then he adjusts the band to release the water, determining the cc amount. I was scared before to drink the water, only taking sips to avoid vomiting, but now I know what stuck feels like, and that water drinking won't cause that other than it "hanging in my chest", I am fully prepared to do it right next week and hopefully get the right fill/"sweet spot". But getting back to the subject, I would think you would be able to eat other foods besides the mushies after 6 weeks. That's what was given to me post-op. I noticed Southern Miss responded to you. She and I communicated alot prior to our surgeries. I was a few weeks before she had hers and now she has lost 10 more pounds than me. I just can't believe it, yet, I am sooo proud of her! My lack of weightloss was due to my slight set back. Anyway, just hang in there! 8 weeks seems like a long time.

I'm at the plateau stage Now!! I'm so fustrated, like you i work out 5 times a week... I spoke with my personal trainer and she advised me to do interval cardio training now, in addition to weight training...instead of steady state cardioshe suggests...on the treadmill do 1 minute as fast as u can on an incline then a two minutes of recovery at your normal pace..repeat this about 8 times... my trainer has helped me alot i'm down 60 lbs and about 30 inches...

I am 5 weeks post-op and have lost 20 pounds. A couple of days ago, I began to notice that when I bend down and come back up, I can feel something moving in my belly. It kinda feels like maybe the tube that goes from the band to the port. It is not painful, just a funny feeling. I have also noticed that since I have lost a little weight, I can feel my port more. Has anyone had a similar experience?

I was banded on 9/22 and will go for my first fill tomorrow (couldn't go last week - I was working) and since I haven't had any restriction and am hungry all the time - I haven't lost weight. My last visit and weight was coming off 4 weeks of liquid only diet. Now I've been on pretty much the 6 month pre-op diet (maybe less food) - protein, veggie, fruit. I have actually been losing weight for 3 years (2 years before I started this banding odessey) and am down about 60 pounds. I am happy with this. But my doctor said at the last visit that he wanted me to lose 10-15 lbs. in 3 weeks. I am about 185 lbs. Not only is 10-15 lbs. in 3 weeks unreasonable for any diet, but even more so for where I am weight wise and with no fill or restriction. I don't feel like I need to starve myself to reach some artificial goal. My surgeon is a regular surgeon who also does bariatric surgery and I was only his 23rd banding case. Anyone have this experience?:thumbup: