moving your port site

[susieq321 31]

For anyone out there who has had their port site moved (in particular, by Dr. Yau) how has it worked out for you?? Mine is just left-of-centre upper abdomen, is flipped on it's side, and sticks out like a third boob! So I'm going to get it moved down to the groin area. Please let me know if you have had this done and how it has worked out for you. I'm a bit nervous...:teeth_smile::shades_smile:

i have an lower abdominal port and it is a simple procedure quick and easy to move it. I love the abdominal placement and refused the sternum placement too many people tell me sticks out like a boob...

IT can be a little harder to find for fills but anyone with experience should be able to find it fast. The only other thing I can say is it tends to move around a little more on an abdominal placement and might flip but again easiliy fixed and mine has stayed in place for years.

[susieq321 31]

Doddie,

That is horrid, I hope you wrote and complained about it. And next time you are here demand to see Dr Yau and don't leave till Nancy or whoever finds him. That is his decision not hers to make. Dr Yau is great and he will explain all his decisions to you and why he is making them. You paid the money and flew all the way back here you should have seen Dr Yau whether Nancy thought you needed surgery or not. I haven't met Nancy and I hope I never do.

[Doddie63 6]

Thanks. I found Nancy cold and arrogant in her dealings with me. I understand she has trained someone else now to do the fills. I hope this new nurse is a bit more sympathetic to the emotional side of getting a fill. Nancy sure wasn't. Just walking in a having a needle with saline takes seconds, but I know I wanted a bit more than that. I wanted to know how much and why. I had to be sure of what was happening as I was, at the time, with no local support. Nancy just brushed me off. She didn't even come out and check on me to see if the Water was going down OK. She left it up to me to decide.

Many banders think that ERs will automatically know what to do but they don't. If you go to an ER some will tell you to go home and contact your surgeon as they had no training. Others insist in taking all the saline out. Some are just plain rude and suggest the band was a private matter. As my support is the internet, these tales of ERs are posted and I have had one experience which was take an aspirin and call your surgeon in the morning. When a patient is coming from a long distance, more care should be taken in seeing to their needs including fears. Not the case for me. Doddie

[lizzie_07 0]

Doddie - I had an awful experience where I was way too tight (couldn't swollow my spit or else I would vomit, extreme pain in my chest) and my fill nurse went to work right after she did the fill. I called the ER and they said that I could come there and wait (which I knew would be a good 5 hour wait) but she said she couldn't guarantee anyone would do the defill for me because no one knows about the lap band. I decided it wasn't worth sitting in the ER for nothing, so I had to wait 12 hours until my fill nurse got off work. I don't know what I'd do if I had something major like a slip. No one would know what to do.

[susieq321 31]

Doddie - I had an awful experience where I was way too tight (couldn't swollow my spit or else I would vomit, extreme pain in my chest) and my fill nurse went to work right after she did the fill. I called the ER and they said that I could come there and wait (which I knew would be a good 5 hour wait) but she said she couldn't guarantee anyone would do the defill for me because no one knows about the lap band. I decided it wasn't worth sitting in the ER for nothing, so I had to wait 12 hours until my fill nurse got off work. I don't know what I'd do if I had something major like a slip. No one would know what to do.

Lizzie,

The only thing that really requires immediate attention for a lapband is being too tight and not being able to keep liquids down. Slips, erosions and most complications are things that happen over time you don't even know they are going on. Surgery doesn't have to be the same day it can wait. My first slip I was traveling and I knew something was wrong but I couldn't get to TO so it waited a few weeks to get looked at.

So don't stress over 90% of the complications they more than likely won't happen to you and won't be life threatening that is the nice thing about the band.

The worst you can experience is a band too tight to keep liquids down and that becomes dangerous in several ways, dehydration etc.

Heather

[Doddie63 6]

Susiequ: You probably are right, but what if you aren't. ERs should be able to relieve the pain and diagnose the problem. Our surgeons all give their after hour telephone numbers for the ERs to call but instead they choose to send the patient away. As I understand the problem PBing daily could cause the most serious problem of erosion everything else can be solved by a defill but when a person is doubled over in pain and probably seriously dehydrated, there could be issues with the shut down of organs, etc. I am not a nurse but I do know if you have a gall bladder attack ERs treat the person but not the band. The pain is just as severe. Doddie

[susieq321 31]

As someone who has every documented complication excepting erosion I know from experience that complications generally do not cause emergency situations including erosion. Erosion is something that happens gradually not over night, slips can happen immediately the only time a slip is an emergency situation is if it slips up and closes off the esophagus (one of my slips went up out of 4 but not an emergency situation) or if the band twists and closes of the opening from the upper part of your stoma to the lower part of your stoma. Or if you self tighten or have a too tight fill and can't keep any liquid down you may have an emergency situation.

I know hundred of bandsters and the true emergency situations are very rare. Too tight a band is very real and it does happen all too often whether it is too tight a fill or stress or other emotions causing a band to self tighten over time.

I can think of one bandster and one bandster only who had a true emergency situation not related to too tight a band, while she was preggers her band slipped and twisted and blocked the openings and she was hopistalised on IV's since she couldn't get liquids or food down, the iv's were her saving grave and she could have lived with that situation with medical intervention for as long as she needed too. It was a bad time to be sick as the Docs were on holidays and our of the country. She suffered the twisted band for a few days in the hospital as soon as the surgeon came back he took care of her, even though he was still on vacation he heard of her plight through the grapevine. The other true emergency I know of was similar food poisoning and with prolonged vomiting her band slipped up her stomach so she couldn't keep liquids down and the band had to come out.

So complications causing true emerg situations are rare ask your band surgeon, the most common is too tight a band, whether from fill or swollen stomach. I know dozens of people with slips none were emergency situations they do need to be fixed, same with erosions remember you don't feel these happening they may happen over weeks and months and only can be diagnosed by someone familiar with what they are looking at on an xray.

Emergencies do happen I am not saying they don't I am saying they are rare due to complications. Your best defense is an informed offense, knowing your body, knowing how you process food, knowing how your band reacts. Getting a fill dvd from your clinic if they don't have one ask them to make one for the patients. Know where your port is, understand that it is not a normal everyday needle they use to access it, they need a much longer gauge needle.

[Doddie63 6]

Can't argue with your common sense, but I do know this. DVD fill instructions in many provinces are being reviewed by the Colleges as not proper instructional tools. Now many doctors are refusing to do fills. Speaking from experience. Doddie

[susieq321 31]

Doddie,

I don't blame the surgeons who didn't do the insertion of the band i was thinking more for an emergency situation take it with you if you had to go the hospital and that might help them understand how to do a defill if they were willing to watch.

I can honestly say about 6 years of banding I don't travel with a band card or the fill dvd and I am on the road over 50% of the time. I take the risk and so far have been ok.

Heather

[lizzie_07 0]

Susie q - I'm curious, did TLBC cover the cost of fixing your slip? I've always wondered what is covered with all that money we paid and what isn't.

[susieq321 31]

Elizabeth,

When I was done there was no TLBC, and I was done at Grace the hospital so the bandsters like moi have an agreement with Grace to fix things. But TLBC fixes things for free part of the full coverage service you pay the money for.

Heather

[peaches9 3]

Lisa: The head nurse made the appointment with Dr. and the surgery was to follow. He gave me an interview and then referred me to Nancy to do a fill to see how she did. It took her a few tries but she did a 1 cc fill. Then dismissed me summarily as I didn't need surgery. She made the decision not Dr. Yau. Even though my surgeon in BC wanted it done. I went back the next day and asked for more fill and her arrogance was unbelievable. She told me that she would not do a fill because I had one yesterday. I told her that fill was just to decide if a fill could be put in the port not an actual fill. She told me bluntly she wouldn't do it and as I had eaten Breakfast turned away. I replied she gave me 1 cc the day before and no one had told me to fast. No reply so I went home - $1,000 spent on nothing. I had to demand that a telephone call be made to my surgeon in BC and explain why the surgery was not done. Angry, yes, frustrated,yes but at least I have a nice surgeon who is seeing me every two months. Wished he had been in business before Feb. 07. Doddie

My gosh, I can't beleive you went through that!! Flew all that way and they wouldn't fix it? Crap!

Had you booked your surgery with Kathy and had all your prelim. chest xray and blood work and EKG done ahead of time too???

I am scheduled for re-surgery FRIDAY 28th. My band&/or tubing is leaking and not holding a fill.... I'd better not get there and be dissappointed. I'll keep you posted.

(((hugs))) Peaches

[2bslimsherri 0]

Hi Doddie,

I can't believe they sent you home! I have read bad things about Nancy on this site before(dismissing concern's, not giving fluro fills, etc.). My port is flipped on it's side too.

My first fill was with Nancy and it took her 3 tries to get my port but my next fill with her she got it the first time. I had a fill with Daryl (the surgical nurse) since the other fill nurse was off sick. She was great and got it the first time. :thumbup:

On Wednesday I had a fill for the first time with the other fill nurse(can't remember her name) and she was awful. Athough I told her I had a flipped port and which direction to approach to hit the front she just kept stabbing me and digging and digging. She kept approaching from the back over and over even though I kept telling her the front of the port was on the other side. I am incredibly bruised and sore. The bruising is as bad as my original surgery.

I am now concerned since i will never let her come near me with a needle again. I guess nancy is my only option.

If you flew all the way from Vancouver to fix your port and they turned you away, I guess I have no hope of having mine fixed.

I wonder if they are getting too big for their own good and can't accomodate proper aftercare for all their bandsters?

Any thoughts?

Sherri

Sorry for the long windednesss.

[susieq321 31]

For anyone out there who has had their port site moved (in particular, by Dr. Yau) how has it worked out for you?? Mine is just left-of-centre upper abdomen, is flipped on it's side, and sticks out like a third boob! So I'm going to get it moved down to the groin area. Please let me know if you have had this done and how it has worked out for you. I'm a bit nervous...:sad::scared2:

Sherri,

It isn't that they are getting to big it is that the people at the clinic don't know about what the fill nurses do unless you tell them and you need to put it in writing.... email info@tlbc.ca and tell them about Nancy and the other nurse and your experience. If we don't tell them about our problems no one else is going to tell them for us. And if they don't know there are issues they think the nurses are doing a great job.... and the nurses stay on and do the same thing to more patients.. it is just like a store or bad food in a restaurant.... if you don't tell them it is bad they don't know how would they. Get your money's worth email them... info@tlbc.ca

Heather

[Doddie63 6]

Sheri: There is always hope. If I were you, I would contact the Head Nurse and request an appointment with Dr. Yau. I really like her. See what Dr. Yau says about putting the port properly. If he tells you, what he told me, I will get Nancy to check your port by doing a fill, let her do it. Then demand to see Dr. Yau again. Even if Nancy gets the fill the first time others won't in all probablity. My Dr. Woodhead blunts three needles and takes 25 minutes. He gets so upset and I have to calm him by saying it is OK, better than going to Toronto. He is very concerned about damaging the tubing. All I can hope for is if he thinks the tubing or port is damaged he will send me back to Toronto with a letter to Dr. Yau. Not much else I can say. Good luck. Doddie