WHAT??? Stretching your pouch?

marathonmommy · June 16, 2009

OMG! What does "stretching your pouch" mean for lapband patients? I didn't know this was a possibility. I thought stretching your stomach was for bypass people. So, we can stretch our pouches? I thought fills are what gave us restriction! Crap! Now something new to worry about? I feel as if on two occasions I have eaten more than a cup of food and I am about 4 weeks out . . .could I have stretched my pouch and screwed this whole thing up already?

Jachut · June 16, 2009

Relax - it takes regular and consistent overeating to stretch out the pouch - but if you do regularly and consistently overeat (to the point of discomfort) the esophagus can baloon out to accommodate the bulk. It can be remedied by a complete unfill, but it does make you prone to slippage, so its not wise to think about it as something that can be fixed.

It does seem as if some people are very prone to it, I know a couple of people who swear they're not overeating but whose pouches seem to stretch out time and time again.

marathonmommy · June 16, 2009

Relax - it takes regular and consistent overeating to stretch out the pouch - but if you do regularly and consistently overeat (to the point of discomfort) the esophagus can baloon out to accommodate the bulk. It can be remedied by a complete unfill, but it does make you prone to slippage, so its not wise to think about it as something that can be fixed.
It does seem as if some people are very prone to it, I know a couple of people who swear they're not overeating but whose pouches seem to stretch out time and time again.

Thank you for calming me down. So, since I have not yet had a fill, is it unlikely I stretched it?

Timah85 · June 16, 2009

OMG! What does "stretching your pouch" mean for lapband patients? I didn't know this was a possibility. I thought stretching your stomach was for bypass people. So, we can stretch our pouches? I thought fills are what gave us restriction! Crap! Now something new to worry about? I feel as if on two occasions I have eaten more than a cup of food and I am about 4 weeks out . . .could I have stretched my pouch and screwed this whole thing up already?

If I'm thinking of the same thing...My mom has this issue...When I got my band, my doctor did the fluro for her because she was telling him how everything is stuck, whether her band is at full compacity, or empty...and in the X-Ray it shows the esophogus stretching and overlapping over the band, making you feel like your food is stuck and takes twice as long to go down, or it comes right back up...it's just a matter of slowing down and waitng for your *small* bites to go down and not eating too much at one time. She had to go on liquids for a month to two months, to see if it goes back to normal.

I hope this helps!

Jaffa · June 16, 2009

Of course you can stretch out your pouch. Adjustable, is simply a term used to mean that you get adjustments to slowly get you to the right restriction.

Yes, of course it can go back the other way in the rare case that you need to get more calories because of an illness.

But, this adjustable thing is purely being misused or misunderstood by people. It is for when you have a problem that you adjust to less restriction.

Otherwise adjustable is just a nice way of saying, it isn't going to do much until they get it just right to have the right amount of restriction. Now it doesn't seem like such a positive does it?