Got stuck

[elcee 3,341]

Put you under and pushed it through? Weird! Surely all your Dr needed to do was an unfill. Makes one wonder how experienced the Dr is if that is how he resolves things.

All sounds rather strange to me.

[aeromech 202]

Put you under and pushed it through? Weird! Surely all your Dr needed to do was an unfill. Makes one wonder how experienced the Dr is if that is how he resolves things.

All sounds rather strange to me.

It's not the experience level of the doctor really as much as who trained them. Everyone does things different, and there isn't a real industry standard on what to do.

[Jean McMillan 2,973]

It's not the experience level of the doctor really as much as who trained them. Everyone does things different, and there isn't a real industry standard on what to do.

You are absolutely right that surgeons' protocols vary widely, but anesthetizing a patient in order to perform an expensive, risky, surgical "rescue" that could more easily and safely accomplished with an inexpensive, safe, non-surgical approach (upper GI study & complete unfill) sounds like bad medicine to me. Sometimes I hate the way the insurance industry manipulates the American medical system, but there's a lot to be said for their "choose the conservative option first" approach. If nothing else, it's more consistent with the Hippocratic Oath which bids doctors to "do no harm."

[elcee 3,341]

Thankyou.

The risks from anaesthesia are high.

The risks of perforating the stomach at the junction where the item is stuck are high.

The risks of a recurrence are high as no Fluid has been removed.

This is why I find it hard to believe that an experienced surgeon would solve the problem this way. In fact the only benefit I can see here is that the surgeon would be able to charge a lot more for the procedure than he would by doing a simple unfill.

[aeromech 202]

All I was saying was that he is the "professional" and that is what he was trained to do. In no way was I approving that action.

A few weeks back a friend from work had to have the same procedure done. He doesn't have a lap band, he has a naturally narrow esophagus and gets food stuck just like we can. In his case the procedure is routine because he has no lap band.

Like I said before, every dr has different practices and they hugely depend on how they were trained. It is up to the patient to put other ideas out there, like... "I don't want to be put under, can we try to remove Fluid from my band first?" common sense will prevail in most cases, but the dr may have valid reasoning for what they want to do.

The good thing is that Hudgie is ok.

[blondegal_ 1,028]

Put you under and pushed it through? Weird! Surely all your Dr needed to do was an unfill. Makes one wonder how experienced the Dr is if that is how he resolves things.

All sounds rather strange to me.

OP is newly banded. Does he even have a fill?

[aeromech 202]

OP is newly banded. Does he even have a fill?

Good point

[mrsto 2,925]

On my post-op diet progression, ground turkey and beef (if tolerated) are allowed three weeks out. However, a slab of any type of meat isn't allowed for 12 months. They do this to avoid the exact problem you just had. Unless the bite of meat is tiny, and chewed into a pulverized pudding, it can be a huge issue.

I understand how frustrated you are, and I feel terrible just thinking about how that must have been for you. But this experience by NO means makes you a failure. You learned a valuable lesson on a limitation of the band. It doesn't mean that it won't work for you. But if steak, pork chops, etc. is something that you don't want to give up (for the time being), then you will make the choice based on what you can and can't live with. As balbuquerque so eloquently put it, you are not a failure. You were courageous enough to try it, which doesn't guarantee that it was the right thing for you long term. But it's probably best not to make any major decisions about the band, until you're far enough past this unfortunate episode.