Anyone have a LOT of trouble with food getting stuck?!

[CallieOzgirl 2]

I was banded 8/09 and now have 5.3ml's in my band. I still don't get full quick at all. I do however have a big problem with food going down. Yesterday I had scrambled eggs and it took me about a half hour to get them down, today I ate Cereal (soggy now) and it is hard to get down. There are some things I don't eat because they really get stuck but lots of other things just feel uncomfortable. Morning does seem to be the worst. Does this get any easier?!? The more fills you get does it make that worse?! Please help, this is very frustrating!!!

Cheers, Laurie

[Fanny Adams 7]

Laurie, once you have started to PB on any given day, stop all food/fluid intake for a couple of hours and then stick to liquids ONLY for the rest of the day (Soups are good - nutritious and low fat). Your stomach swells every time you throw up and it needs time to heal. If you keep trying to force food down, it will get worse and worse over time.

If you have done this but when you try to go back to solid food the next day you are still having problems no matter how finely you chew your food, then you are actually too tight and it will only get worse if you get more fills.

The band works to curb your appetite, it will never reduce it to zero. When you get so tight that you have trouble with most solid foods, you tend to switch to easy "slider" foods that go right through it. They don't make you throw up but they don't stick in the pouch either, so you get hungry again quickly and can eat a lot of them. They also tend to be creamy/fatty foods (icecream and chocolates are classics) and you won't lose weight when that is what you are eating.

Get a small amount of fill taken out - 0.25mm - and try to eat more solid foods. You'll find that if you can eat lean meat and vegetables without getting stuck or throwing up, those foods will satisfy the hunger cravings far more and you will be able to resist the temptation to eat high calorie junk. If you can't eat the good food, your body doesn't get the nutrients it needs and it will keep sending out "feed me!! feed me!!" sensations even when your stomach can't tolerate anything more than liquids. That's a terrible place to be in - frustrating and dangerous for your health.

Try the liquids only for 24 hours and then see how you go with solid food. If you can't tolerate it, get a small amount of fill out! You will feel SO much better when you can eat properly and will feel much less hungry.

[Angela72 0]

I too am really tight in the mornings....then again late afternoon! Some nights I have acid coming up in my throat and that is just gross! I wasn't too tight but in last week or so it seems to have tightened on it's own...weird!:eek:

[CallieOzgirl 2]

Thanks for the replies. I don't ever throw-up but it just feels awful for anywhere from a minute up to 10 if real bad. I take my time to chew the food real good, sometimes I probably eat a bit too fast. Sometimes it is worse than others. I just wonder if that part gets any better with time. I understand about breads or some meats getting stuck but eggs, soggy cereal?! This is a lot tougher than I thought it would be!!

[Fanny Adams 7]

It can be odd what gets stuck but eggs are pretty common, as is dry chicken. Cereal is a grain and you may have trouble with a lot of grains. It's not the chewing texture so much with them, but that they glug together afterwards in your stomach and turn into glue which plugs up the stoma (think of making glue when you were a kid, with flour and water). With grains, the finer the grain is milled, the more likely it is to turn into glue and cause problems (i.e. white breads more than wholegrains, rice bubbles more than muesli).

Good choices for Breakfast that are less likely to give trouble are yogurts, jellies, baked Beans, soft poached eggs rather than scrambled, boiled or fried, really lean bacon (I love the deli shortcut of bacon), mushrooms (the ones canned in butter are actually REALLY low in calories and fat - the butter is a misnomer). Porridge is an iffy one - I can handle it more easily than processed cereals but it can still give me troubles if I'm tight.

Edited December 11, 2009 by Fanny Adams

[Retta1983 0]

wow - I am so glad to have stumbled upon this thread. I am having so much trouble eating in the morning . . for a while there all I could manage was a Multivitamin and even that was really hard. Then I'd scramble eggs or even try an omelette and one bite of either left me uncomfortable and almost upset with the pain in my throat or high in my chest.

The last three or four days I have vomited so much, at times I think that I made bad food choices (out of frustration and being so sick of trying all the time and still ending up with trouble), but I think I need to slow down and take tiny steps and start on sloppy foods again until I feel my body is handling it ok.

I was so mad at myself today, feeling irritable and grumpy with everyone around me because my body was so tired and hungry.

[Fanny Adams 7]

Retta, it can be frustrating but we get the hang of things eventually :thumbdown:. If you've been vomiting and/or getting really bad pain from getting stuck, go back to liquids just for the day and let your stomach rest. Over the next couple of days, work your way through the post-op phases again, i.e. Clear Liquids on the day of problems, thick liquids/soups the next day, mushies on the day after that and then back to solids. At each stage, assess yourself. If you are having trouble with mushies after 1 & half to 2 days on clear/thick liquids, you may well be too tight and need some Fluid taken out. The "sweet spot" is when you can eat small solid meals and not feel out of control with hunger; it doesn't eliminate hunger altogether.

By the way, my doctor says that if you are too tight to eat in the morning, take advantage of that and skip Breakfast. He says that even though the nutritionists don't like that idea, they are thinking more about people who are not carrying a lot of excess weight. As obese people, we are in no danger of malnutrition from skipping one meal in the morning and should save the calories up for later in the day when we are hungry again.

[suzie76 0]

I still have problems with over filling! I eat slow, chew chew chew etc but it always seems to happen... seems to be last 2 mouthfuls that come back up! It is becoming frustrating...