Follow Ups are Important

[rbca314 0]

I had my lap band in February 2009. I had a total of four fills over the next 9 months with the last one in Oct 2009. I live 5 hours from my clinic so it wasn't easy to get to follow up appointments. After my October fill, I always felt like something wasn't quite right. I had reguritation almost daily and at least four times a week, but I thought - oh well, should lose more weight. I lost weight very slowly, but started eating all the wrong foods because it was all I was comfortable eating - frozen yogurt, dark chocolate, lots of zero calorie Vitamin Water. I would try and eat meat and vegetables, but fruits were almost out of the question. Things were never consistant. I could eat something one day and not the next. I had alot of "first bite syndrome" as I call it. Where the first bite food creates a huge ball of mucous and it would have to come back up immediately. Anyway, after a year, I decided that maybe I needed to go back for a check up. I made appointments, but would have to cancel because of travel for work or some other work related reason. Finally I went today and discovered that for the past 14 months, my band was so tight that it was about the size of a pin hole. They were shocked that I hadn't lost all my hair because of lack of Protein (ate alot of sunflower seeds) and would get about four bites of meat down at a time. I also ate frozen yogurt with milk every day. It was the only thing that felt truly comfortable eating.

They removed a very small amount of Fluid from my band and I feel like a new person already. I actually ate part of an orange tonight and it went down great.

The point of my topic is to say - be sure and go back even if you feel like everything is wonderful. I just thought this was going to be the lap band way and if it kept me from eating then it was OK.

Follow up and if you stop losing weight, feel discomfort eating, cough at night, and regurgitate alot, your band is probably too tight.