Bad Lapband experience

[TinyTina 0]

:frown:Hi all out there!

I'm just hoping some of you might have some words of hope for me. I was banded in Mexico on June 5, 2009 by Dr. Huacuz. I almost shied out of it the night before I flew down there, but a friend coaxed me to go. My experience at Dr. Huacuz's clinic was good, but when I got home and off the morphine which made me almost giddy, and finally removed my bandages, I saw the road map of horrible scars all over my once smooth abdomen. I wanted to fall to the floor and ball. It's been a month and even though I've been relentless about applying polysporen and scar creams, I'm positive these scars will show loudly for the rest of my life. I'm SO depressed about this. But that is not all. I have had really bad shoulder pain since the surgery. It's slowing up a bit, but usually comes if I eat too much or too fast. On top of all this, I have not lost any weight (other than what I lost before the surgery on the liquids - which I'm starting to gain back).

I am SO depressed. I know I should go for a fill, but if I do, I'm afraid the shoulder pain will come back in full along with more vomitting. I've only vomitted a couple times when something got caught in my band opening, but I know I wouldn't want that to increase.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom or hope for me??

[elcee 3,341]

I believe it is quite common to not lose weight inbetween surgery and getting proper restriction.At the moment your focus should be on healing rather than weight loss.

I'm concerned that you have vomited a number of times already. Are you following your doctors recommended diet? If not then you really do need to follow it as it is to ensure that you heal correctly and help prevent future problems. Are you eating slowly and chewing properley? Remember it is not normal to vomit after this surgery. It is possible to PB but that should only happen later once you are starting to get restriction.

Is it possible that your band is prefilled?

How many scars do you have? I have 4 but I believe upto 5 is standard. 3 of mine are really small ,the port one is quite a bit larger. I am 5 weeks post op and already they are starting to fade. i am sure that yours will do the same and that eventually they will be hardly noticeable.

As to the shoulder pain it is normally from the gas they pump into you during surgery so it should not recur when you have a fill.

Wishing you all the best, hope you feel a bit more positive about the experience soon.

[TinyTina 0]

Hello Elcee,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your support. What is PB? Maybe that is what I experienced, and not so much "true" vommiting. I only had this about 3 times when something got caught going down. My surgeon gave me an initial fill day after surgery of 2.9, I beleive. I've always been a very slow eater and chew my food a lot more than the average person. I've tried to be conscious of this even moreso since the lapband on June 5th. I have 5 incisions in all: one is 1.5 inches long and located above and to the left of my belly button - VERY noticeable. I believe this is the one that is normally concealed in or close to the belly button, by more professional surgeons. Then I have a 1" scar between my breasts at bra line, and another 1" scar just below my left breast. Then I have 2 dark red "nodules" on either side of my abdomen. These stick out, like nipples. I don't think my surgeon was very well practiced in the art of sewing one up to keep scars to a minimum. Lucky me. :tongue_smilie:

I hope you're right about the shoulder pain. And I definitely need to be more careful about what I am eating. Depression and food is a very bad mix with me. I have booked my fill for this coming Friday. I'm praying it all works out.

Thanks again for your support!

TT:redface:

[ParrotheadCathy 0]

TinyTina, it sounds like you weren't given much (if any) of the information you needed to come through the immediate post-op period!

Pain in your shoulder: This is gas. Apparently you were not told that they would pump gas into your abdomen to make more room for the surgeon to work. This gas has to be absorbed by your body after surgery and it tends to "roam" around in your chest cavity and that is what caused that pain in your shoulder. Once all the gas is absorbed, that should end and not come back.

"Vomiting" .... you likely are not actually vomiting but, rather, PBing. If you eat too fast, don't chew well or take bites that are too big, they can get stuck (even before you ever get a fill). You should cut your food into bites about the size of a nickle, put your fork down between bites, AND CHEW REALLY WELL. If you don't, the bite (and any that follow) get stuck and can come back up. But it is not vomiting -- there is no heaving that empties the entire contents of your stomach and there is no stomach acid involved. Just that food.< /p>

Not losing? Well, you are in the time frame we call Bandster Hell. You have very little noticeable restriction (I know that some Mexican surgeons put a few ccs in the bands at surgery and you say you are at 2.9cc). 2.9ccs is a small start. I had .6 after surgery and my first fill was 3ccs on top of that....and I've had 4 more fills since then to take to to 6ccs and I am FINALLY at my sweet spot. You need to go for a fill. Get whomever does the fill to draw all the Fluid out before they add any so that you know absolutely 100% how much Fluid is in your band. A fill will NOT cause the gas pains you've experienced post-op. The fill goes into the port, which inflates the inner ring of your band. It is a closed system.

Lastly, scars. You KNEW you would be cut; I mean, it's surgery after all. Maybe you've never had any surgery before? Scars take time to heal and fade. Technically speaking, what they call "scar modeling" can occur anytime in the first year post-op. The stuff you buy at the pharmacy isn't bad, but not anywhere near the best product out there. Cicacare is supposed to be the best professional product and is quite expensive -- you can buy it online and a 5" X 6" piece will cost close to $60 if you can find single sheets; a box will cost $500 or more. Even if you do nothing to the scars, in a year's time, they won't be red any more, those two nodules will flatten out in another month or two. My advice is RELAX and let your body do its job.

Now, make that appointment for your first fill and put your band to work.

[TinyTina 0]

Thank you, Cathy.

I get my first local fill this Friday. I guess I should brace myself for some more "PB's" afterwards (?)

I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Thanks for all the info. And BTW: congratulations! I looks like you've done really well yourself.

I hope I can start seeing results like that soon too!

TT

[ParrotheadCathy 0]

PBs are not a given. 95% of them are completely what I call "operator error" .... So, remember: You should cut your food into bites about the size of a nickle, put your fork down between bites, AND CHEW REALLY WELL. This will be a given for the rest of your life. I only PB when I slip up and I've learned pretty darned quickly that I can prevent it from happening.

My weight loss hangs in at around 2 pounds per week. I'm down 70 pounds now. Am I thrilled? You betcha! It will happen for you. You're getting that first fill and you should truly be on your way.

GOOD LUCK

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Hello Elcee,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciate your support. What is PB? Maybe that is what I experienced, and not so much "true" vommiting. I only had this about 3 times when something got caught going down. My surgeon gave me an initial fill day after surgery of 2.9, I beleive. I've always been a very slow eater and chew my food a lot more than the average person. I've tried to be conscious of this even moreso since the lapband on June 5th. I have 5 incisions in all: one is 1.5 inches long and located above and to the left of my belly button - VERY noticeable. I believe this is the one that is normally concealed in or close to the belly button, by more professional surgeons. Then I have a 1" scar between my breasts at bra line, and another 1" scar just below my left breast. Then I have 2 dark red "nodules" on either side of my abdomen. These stick out, like nipples. I don't think my surgeon was very well practiced in the art of sewing one up to keep scars to a minimum. Lucky me.

I hope you're right about the shoulder pain. And I definitely need to be more careful about what I am eating. Depression and food is a very bad mix with me. I have booked my fill for this coming Friday. I'm praying it all works out.

Thanks again for your support!

TT:redface:

I'm sorry about the scars. There is a doctor in Monterrey that swears he can spot a Huacuz patient just by the scars. He said that it looks like he sews people up with his foot, and his left foot at that. They will fade to some degree over time. You know what is spooky? Huacuz does plastic surgery as well. He's not certified to do it but if it will earn him a buck... Can you imagine what that looks like? ;o)

You really do have to chew well, small bites, and eat slowly. You risk a slip if you do not.

Pain in your shoulder: This is gas. Apparently you were not told that they would pump gas into your abdomen to make more room for the surgeon to work. This gas has to be absorbed by your body after surgery and it tends to "roam" around in your chest cavity and that is what caused that pain in your shoulder. Once all the gas is absorbed, that should end and not come back.

Not true. Many banded people have shoulder pain as a soft stop. Some have shoulder pain when they are hungry.

As for gas pains it is a matter of the gas pushing on the diaphragm and that irritates a nerve that causes referred pain in the shoulder. It's not that gas is "roaming" around the chest.

2.9ccs is a small start. I had .6 after surgery and my first fill was 3ccs on top of that....and I've had 4 more fills since then to take to to 6ccs and I am FINALLY at my sweet spot.

How do you know it's a small start? Do you know what size band she received? Do you know how thick her stomach wall is? For some people 2.9cc would not even be close for restriction and for others 0.6 would cause them to be obstructed. You do not know if she has a 4cc band or a 10cc band. So how can you suggest that 2.9 is a small fill?

You need to go for a fill. Get whomever does the fill to draw all the Fluid out before they add any so that you know absolutely 100% how much Fluid is in your band. A fill will NOT cause the gas pains you've experienced post-op. The fill goes into the port, which inflates the inner ring of your band. It is a closed system.

There are two ways to look at this. If you draw out all the fluid from the band and reinject it, it causes more swelling than if you just added saline to good restriction. Many doctors will not remove the saline unless they have reason to believe there is a leak.

Lastly, scars. You KNEW you would be cut; I mean, it's surgery after all.

No, you don't understand. Huacuz leaves horrific scars. Somewhere there is a thread on scar stages. Check out his incisions, then you will understand what the OP is talking about.

[Headhunter 6]

....just another reason I pound on people to check out their surgeon . And this applies with scarring as well.

Personally, I don't care a bit about scarring. for guys, it's a little different, so it doesn't bother me. For women, I can see the impact might be a little different.

In this day and age (read: internet) there is no reason not to know a WHOLE lot about your surgeon before he sticks that sharp thingy in you. As Wasa said, that particular Dr has a reputation for turning otherwise pristine tummies into a Rand McNally Road Atlas. These are ALL things that need to be looked into BEFORE knife-time.

HH

[elcee 3,341]

that particular Dr has a reputation for turning otherwise pristine tummies into a Rand McNally Road Atlas. These are ALL things that need to be looked into BEFORE knife-time.

Yes this is true.Some people research more thoroughly than others.

Being as it is too late for the OP to do this now do you have any practical advice on what she can do now?

[debbylynn 0]

Where abouts are you from?? I would go and see another Dr.

So Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience. Im booked in a few weeks, but in Ontario.

Good Luck

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Yes this is true.Some people research more thoroughly than others.

Being as it is too late for the OP to do this now do you have any practical advice on what she can do now?

There is nothing to be done. The scars are forever.

She's lucky to be alive, quite frankly. Huacuz is probably one of the worst surgeons in Mexico, if not the worst surgeon. He's nothing short of dangerous.

People need to do more research as HeadHunter writes.

[TinyTina 0]

Ok, before this turns into a full out "witch hunt", can you please just keep your advice to the stuff that will actually help me going forward?? As opposed to mocking and belittling "the poor sap" who DUH! supposedly didn't do any research before "that sharp thingy went in"!!? No need for the nastiness. Please. I've already had enough just with the experience alone.

Gee, not only did I stumble upon the "worst surgeon in all of Mexico, nay the world", but somehow I must have got stuck with the worlds worst search engine too because NONE of this stuff about Huacuz came up all those nights I spent at my computer trying to Google him or his clinic PRIOR to my surgery. In all that time all I found was one negative thread on him, which was actually berating not him but his first partner from some 15-20 years ago. And in same thread, several bandsters came to Huacuz' defense so vehemently that I was left with the impression that he was genuinely and generally liked. My bad. All I could find on my surgeon were positive testimonials. I must be a complete idiot!!

FYI: my surgery of choice would have been Ontario, but being a single mom I couldn't afford to pay 3X what I paid in Mexico. As for scarring info, all the articles, websites, doctors, and doctor's assistants I researched and spoke to PRIOR to even deciding on the surgery, talked about only THREE incision sites, with the main port incision tucked neetly away in/near your belly button. I assumed that since this prodedure had been around for over a decade that the technique had been pretty much perfected and standardized. It never occured to me that a practicing surgeon would just go ahead an cut you right smack in the middle of your abdomen.

Well, what's done is done, and I have to live with these scars now. Thanks for all the sympathy, but if anyone has information for me that will actually cheer me up, or support me, as opposed to making me feel like this website's biggest loser (and I'm NOT talking pounds), I would appreciate it!

BTW: if anyone's interested, I know ALL about the gas introduced into our abdomen cavity during lapband surgery, and it's ill effects post-op. In fact a fine surgeon/researcher from Calgary wrote an entire article following an in-depth study on the post-op effects of said gas. He found that at least 20% of patients still suffered the shoulder pain as long as 5 weeks and beyond surgery. He also found methods in which these negative effects could be curbed or lessened by surgeons. Such as a) using less of the gas, :smile2: warming the gas prior to insertion, or c) removing as much as the gas as possible before suture. Unfortunately none of this can help me now, but I did send the entire article to Huacuz (in the hopes that he might consider reading it before performing any more surgeries).

Now if I could just find an article on proper surgical suture techniques for him...:biggrin:

[akfmurphy 0]

I am sorry to hear about your difficulties. Hopefully things will improve from this point on.

I have had luck with Mederma (sp?) for other scars and I have seen advertisements for Bio-Oil, which is supposed to be good as well. Since I am only 1 week out of surgery, I cannot use them on my surgery incisions, but I plan to use them once I am healed!

Good luck to you and don't let the negative postings get you down. :biggrin:

[MrsShannonDennis 10]

TinyTina- I am so sorry!! I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better. I am sorry people's words have discouraged you so much, thats not right. Whats done is done. I understand what a dificult choice it is when money is involved, I was a cash patient.

I agree that you should use Maderma (scar cream). Its great! Ive been using it and have already seen a change in my scar appearance. Hang in there girl! I know its rough!

[gone 4 ever 6]

Hey sweetie, I wish you luck on your journey. After a fill go on liquids for 24 hrs after. You have some swelling after a fill and to keep from PBing just do the liquids like I said and then do 24 hrs of mushies. As far as the gas goes get some Gas-X strips and walk. I lived off of Gas-X for the first 3 months. I just wished it would of helped with the other ahem...gas:blushing::biggrin: As far as the scarring everyone definitley has thier own thing. I use mederma and Vitamin E oil. I would rub the E oil in really well and then the mederma. I have 5 scars. My port is the worst one. The others are pretty much all faded. Not all research shows all the bad on Dr.s A lot of times it isn't reported. So It doesn't always help. Just be patient about losing. You are in bandster hell right now. There will be a day when you realize you are losing. Your clothes fit differently, you have more energy. Then you will be jubilant! :smile2: