Lap band removal?

[GinaT228 9]

My surgery was performed by Dr. George Lynch at baptist metabolic surgery center in Nashville. I did have a stitch that was irritated. It was on the other side but it never looked like this and it finally came out and cleared up. Personally, Im just confused as to why my surgeon would say "it`s either going to eventually manifest as a full blown infection and you will wake up on day and its open and draining and the port will be visible and it will have started eroding through your stomach. Or you'll gimp along like this in hopes that it will one day clear up". I think when I heard these words from a credible physician I just kinda freaked. Internally i'm completely in shock and disbelief and wondering how anyone, let alone a physician think and say this? He told me that he'd like to see me make it another 4 months and maybe by then I will have dropped another 25lbs and then it would come out. Odd as it may sound, I sort of kinda understand why he says that because I was borderline eligible for surgery to begin with. I'm 5`2 and I'm currently 174lbs. When I started I was 200lbs with a bmi of 35 and 7 co-morbidities. My journey began before I realized it. My brother and sister had heart attacks last year on the same day just hours apart unbeknownst to each other! The very next day I'm scurrying between two hospitals 45 miles apart trying to be with both. Our father had his first heart attack at 27 and died at 51. My pcp is the one that recommended the surgery. I have done all the diets and would go from 144 on fen-phen up to 268 without. Then continue the yo-yo thing with all the other diets as well. My first consultation with my wls surgeon, he suggested the sleeve. I said are you kidding? I don't want to go that drastic, i don't have that much to lose. The band will do me just fine. Ugh!!! Hindsight..... So I'm thinking he wants me to get to as close to goal as possible and then completely remove it. He said he can't do a sleeve revision because my bmi and weight has dropped. Well hells bells! It was supposed to! I'm just completely frustrated at this point. I see my pcp next Thursday and I know he will make the call to my wls surgeon to get the ball rolling. Its not that I want to incur anymore issues and complications, I don't. I just keep hoping (blind faith?) that my little buddy will get better.

[Melissa@gail 1]

I think you have an internal stitch abcess and it should be opened and removed. I have an abcessed such and my doctor removed it and the redness, swelling and pain were gone by the next day.

[aubrey222 45]

Mine didn't look that bad even after surgery. How much Fluid is in your band?

[GinaT228 9]

Well peeps, I'm sooooooo very optimistic at this point! I went last Thursday and saw my pcp. He does not think my body is rejecting the port. He's seen it many times before. He says he could be wrong but truly doesn't believe that to be the case. What he feels is happening is a super sensitive nerve stimulation. Similar to diabetic neuropathy but not quite the same. He says that the scar was almost keloid in nature. He prescribed a lidoderm patch and said that by the end of this week it should almost be cleared up. It may never fully be pain free (it's sore and I sometimes have severe sharp electrical type pains with just the very slightest touch) but that this should pretty much take care of it. If not, then I will have to have an ultrasound to make sure there's no puss pocket under the port then he would go in and inject a steroid around the port but not in it to see if that would help. If that fails then he would agree with my surgeon and the rejection diagnosis. Well I'm here to tell ya, the patch is doin the trick! It has NEVER looked better! Yaaaaaay meeeeeeeeeee!