Fills?

hstella · May 29, 2008

I had a lap band surgery one month ago and I'd like to know how many fills/unfills can someone have in his life. Is there a limit? Because someone told me that you can do it only 8 times because this is how many times the band can stand. But is it true? 8 times for a whole lifetime?

DaveM · May 29, 2008

I'm not banded yet, but I have been doing a lot of research.

The Lap Band port is designed to handle up to 200 needle punctures.

Hope that helps.

HeatherO · May 29, 2008

My doctor said 200 punctures. I don't think it is possible to ever get up to that amount of punctures to be honest with you.

I have already lost half my excess weight and I am only up to 2 punctures. Even those that need a lot of fills to find the sweet spot, I have never heard of anyone going past 20 punctures.

Once you get to maintenance mode and the weight is gone, you may only need to go in yearly . . . and you may or may not need a fill. So basically it seems as though the puncture life is significantly greater than what you could ever expect to use.

areellady · May 29, 2008

You have to ask yourself where you are getting your information from? Is it someone who knows? Is it someone who doesn't know?

Sounds to me like it is the latter.

MrsFlipFlops · May 29, 2008

Wow, I had never even thought to ask that, or even thought that there might be some kind of limit! Though, the research I've done since state it's a couple hundred punctures.

DaveM · May 29, 2008

You have to ask yourself where you are getting your information from? Is it someone who knows? Is it someone who doesn't know?
Sounds to me like it is the latter.

For my answer, you're rght, I really don't know how many fills/defills the entire system can handle. I was just looking at Allergan's published specs for the port:

"High-compression septum tested to over 200 punctures

with a 20 gauge non-coring needle."

hstella · May 30, 2008

Thanks everyone for your answers! I feel a relief now. Well, actually it was my doctor's wife that told me that, so I kinda believed her, but then I started to have doubts because it didn't seem logical to me. Thanks again.:thumbup: