Confirmed band slippage

[jclue 0]

I went to the hospital today for an upper GI to figure out what has been happening. I have had a terrible time the last few months with vomiting/pbing/sliming/acid reflux etc. etc. and the Dr. confirmed I have a slip and I am the 1st patient he has had slip-he stitches the stomach around the band to prevent this from happening. I thought I would post my series of events in case it may help someone else. I had a too tight fill with some vomiting/reflux problems back in May and had a complete unfill and everything looked great on the upper GI-no pouch dilation, no slip, etc. I was just too tight and within about 2 hours I starting feeling better and slept with no acid reflux. I was unfilled for about 5 weeks and went in for I believe two more fills-1cc the first time (I have the 4cc band) and about .5cc the next 5-6 week appointment. The 2nd fill seemed to start causing me problems, I was clogging a lot and started going through the cycle of liquid diet for a few days and then I could slowly start eating again and would feel fine and then horrible acid reflux keeping me up at night started coming. I went in and got completely unfilled in September. I started to feel better and was fine for a few weeks, however the acid reflux did not go away at night-fine during the day-evening came around and the acid started flowing. I was on Prevacid and Carafate and on occasion they helped, but I usually still had the acid reflux at some point. I would eat normal (band standard normal) for 2-3 days and feel great and then I would clog or something 2-3 days of vomiting. I continued to loss weight but had no energy to exercise. The past 2 weeks I was fine during the day, eating and then around 9-10pm I would throw up whatever I ate for the day-even if I had eaten it 5-6 hours beforehand and even if I had been on liquids for the day. I still felt like I had restriction - however I may have confused this with the fact that I have sincerely changed my eating habits. I started waking up just about every hour coughing from the acid and then throwing up-I slept sleeping up as well and it still didn't help-couldn't keep the carafate or the prevacid down and sometimes not water-sometimes I could though (confused me) . The exhaustion from lack of sleep and then not being able to eat was horrible. I got ahold of my surgeon last Friday and he asked me to go on Clear Liquids (1 ounce every 15 minutes) for the weekend ( I threw up every night and finally slept almost through the night last night-but it may have just been exhaustion as I had some acid on my pillow when I woke up) and call him today, which I did and had my test. He wanted to make sure all the fill was in fact out and he was able to pull an additional 1cc of Fluid from my band-not sure where this came from, but hopefully it will help things. I need to have revision surgery and unfortunately he is on vacation until next Thursday-he will be replacing my 4cc band with a new 10cc band and until then, it is liquids for me-he actually said try to gain 10 pounds before the surgery-I asked if he was joking-never in my life did I think I would here that. I will try not to tackle anyone at Thanksgiving-I did just ask my husband if I could lick his chicken-that really sounded good didn't it. I hope this helps someone-I of course wish I would have gone in sooner, but kept thinking it would get better especially after feeling okay and being able to eat for a few days at a time-including an occasional pasta/bread-which I have been able to eat on occasion through the process-just depends.

Presurgery 250/current 140/goal 150

5'6"

[amillerjones 0]

Yeah; same exact thing happened to me. Just found out my band slipped today and I will have to have my band replaced

[nomadem 1]

I went thru a similar thing with and had my 4cc band replaced with the 14cc band (stomach was too swollen at the time of surgery). The only weight I gained was after I healed from the second surgery and trying to get back to the green zone.

I havent pb'd or slimed in over 3 months and I feel great now

[lindata 1]

I'm going through similar things now. Sorry for the dumb question, but what exactly is an upper GI? Like, what is the process involved?

[lindata 1]

What is happening to me is a lot of acid reflux, but no vomiting or nausea, no PBing or sliming. I got a partial unfill today so I hope it's just that it was too tight. I'm also burping quite a lot.

[jclue 0]

An upper GI is just basically an x-ray while you swallow barium Fluid to see how your liquids are going down, etc. I had just the reflux back in May and was just too tight then, I was completely unfilled and had a GI back then and everything was fine, and the reflux went away within 2 hours, so hopefully that is all it is for you. I did speak with my surgeon today and since I did not vomit/slime or otherwise lose anything yesterday and I had no acid reflux, he is going to let me try liquids for a couple weeks and see if this thing will fix itself, I'm crossing my fingers but worried about repeat offenses in the future even if it does slip back into place.....

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Keep in mind that if you slip once you are verrry likely to slip again. There are pros and cons to the 4cc and 10cc bands. There is no perfect band.

All surgeons stitch the band in place, they slip anyway. In the US slip stats are over 7% now according to Inamed.

Think long and hard about what you want to do and how you want to do it.

[jclue 0]

Well, I was alright until last Sunday and I started vomiting Water and couldn't keep anything done and therefore couldn't function so I finally said enough is enough and went to the ER on Tuesday night with severe dehydration, they admitted me and I spoke with another gastric bypass surgeon who watched me in the hospital until Wed afternoon and decided we better get the band out of there so I had surgery and removed the band Wed. night-no replacement as I was too swollen and he wants me to be able to heal. I'm now debating if I even want to have another put in, this has been so tough to deal with, I don't want to deal with it again, but I also don't want to gain the weight back. Dealing with everyone else's opinion too, which is collectively, you have lost the weight, you can keep it off, well we all know, if it was only that easy...there are no guarantees and I thought I wouldn't have to go through this decision again, I made it last year and was content and now I'm all stirred up again. Any advise or words of wisdom from those who have been here would be appreciated. I'm afraid of either decision, do I just go with the one I fear the least?