FYI: you may Need to get unfill before surgery

[secondchancesally 43]

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up based on a bad surgical experience I just had. I had my band placed a year ago. Two weeks ago I went in for an elective pelvic procedure for incontinence. I wound up having to stay in the hospital for two weeks because I developed something called An ileus, which is when your bowel stops working. It's pretty common after abdominal surgery, but usually only last a day or so. It's why they have you start with Clear liquids. My surgeon suspected that mine may have lasted way longer because of my band pressing on my Vagus nerve.

Also, I did not know that we should probably have complete un fills before any surgery. When your bowel stops you need to vomit, and I couldn't because my band was full. When they finally deflated my band, oh boy, did I vomit for ages. But that's what my body needed to do and it couldn't because of my fill. So just a heads up, if you are having surgery of any kind, talk to your surgeon first. You may need an unfill before hand.

I'm now 14 days post op and finally able to eat something other than Clear Liquids. Lost 13 lbs in 2 weeks because I was just on in fluids. Lookin skinny but man, that's not the way to do it.

Also of note. During the worst of the emergency my family, my dr andi all called Dr Ren at NYU for info and NO ONE called us back. Imagine! A self pay 20k fellow physician patient has a surgical emergency and for a week no one from the bariatric team ever called us back despite paging in call dr repeatedly. This is appalling. Shame on you NYU.

[runt71 70]

Wow, glad your doing better. Thanks for teaching us after learning the hard way!!

[DELETE THIS ACCOUNT! 12,703]

I had to have my band unfilled for my gallbladder surgery, too. But, even with the band empty, I still couldn't vomit. I brought up a lot of bile and foam but apparently I cannot vomit since being banded.

I'm glad you're feeling better. Be sure to have your bariatric surgeon (or new one if you decide against your old one, which I couldn't blame you if you did) check your band after all that vomiting- it's always better safe than sorry.

Rest well and best wishes!

[gowalking 10,790]

I'm glad you are doing better and horrified that you did not receive a call back. Dr. Ren was my surgeon and I would hope and expect to receive a response to your phone calls. And if not a response from her, how about one of the other surgeons in the group. Yes, shame on them. One more thing. I am having surgery in two weeks. I saw Dr. Ren last week for a regular follow up. When I told her about the surgery, the first thing she said was that if I had Fluid in the band, she would remove it. So...something must have stuck related to your experience.

[ChicagoRose 650]

First of all, that sucks, I'm sorry that you were misinformed and had to pay the price for it. I have been told already that I would need an unfill if I would ever have another surgery. I also have a medical alert on my key chain and a Bracelet (that I don't wear often but I still have one) that says I have a gastric band just in case I were in a car accident or something. Good luck to you and hang in there!

[B-52 7,113]

Vomiting is the one thing I fear the most since having the Lap band Surgery.....fortunately it has not occurred, and that's been almost 3 years now.....

People are always talking about band Slippage, and just about everything is blamed for it...I'm not sure people stop and think about how that can happen....but if stop and think about what can happen to the band form vomiting...that can be very clearly understood....

Also people throw the term Vomiting around very loosely here. ANYONE who can say they are vomiting as a direct result of the band already have some serious problems and should see their surgeon ASAP....may take surgical intervention to correct.