snowbird

I was banded 3 months ago. My largest scar is a red line about an inch long; the other scars are not much more than red dots. They are all visible and if I went around with my belly hanging out, you would know I had surgery, but they aren't horrible. I doubt if you would even think the smaller ones are incision scars; they just look like red dots.

How long do I have to wait to get a fill? Five or six weeks post-op :-?

Your doctor should talk to you about that. For most, it is 4-6 weeks, enough time to allow your band to heal in place and any swelling from surgery to go down.

After that, you can refill in shorter times, though usually two weeks is the shortest time between fills, again to let any swelling go down and to get used to the band adjustment. Some people only need one or two fills to reach the best spot for them; it also depends on what size band you have to determine how many fills you need, or how much fill you need each time.

Yes definatly be careful.. when I lived in San Diego I ran into the District Attourney of TJ and he even warned me do not go down alleys and always travel in 3's if possible in the dark.. best not to walk around at night except at the hotel I think..not to mention there are also some drug wars going on down there a bit away from the clinic but most stuff like that goes on at night so best to stay in incase it comes up that way.. I am excited about my trip and cant wait!!

Stacy

This is true of any major city I know of.

She was actually responding to a recent post - KBosco revived it.

Transportation doesn't always have to be expensive. From Atlanta to San Diego I found flights as low as $350. That's pretty inexpensive if you realize you're flying basically from one coast to another.

thanks, FurEllie, and sorry. With the thread title, I didn't realize she was just trying to revive the question. My bad.

For cheap airfare, if you live near a Southwest Airlines city, check out their DING! program, which alerts you to cheap flights to and from selected airports on a daily basis. You can often get a one way ticket from one coast to the other for under $100 i

f you act fast. Since OCC is usually so flexible with their scheduling it can work really well.

Yes, but unfortunately it doesn't cover our transportation there. If you are lucky enough to live close to TJ,it's not too financially draining. But it is worth it!

I don't quite understand why you are digging up a post that is almost 3 years old and responding to it.

Thanks Snowbird for the advise. I ate lunch this afternoon and took it very slow, and everything has stayed down so far. I have a question though. You were banded only about 2 1/2 weeks before me and you have lost a whooping 53 pounds. How in the heck have you done that? Any suggestions on that would be great.

Answer to your question, I am paying for my fills out of pocket, they are $200. per visit. I do not know if she will do adjustments free of charge, but I need to check on that. I am hoping I won't need another one, but we will just have to see.

Some docs will give a slight adjustment after a fill for a limited amount of time for free or at a reduced rate. Check with yours to see what they say.

Well, I've lost 34 since the surgery, which actually surprised me. I figured since my BMI wasn't that high to begin with, it would be slower going. My husband and I were banded together, and our kids are grown and (mostly) gone, so we don't have anyone tempting us with goodies around the house. He has always been a guy who fixes his own meals, too, so i don't get into the trap of cooking and sampling a lot. He's lost about the same as I have, and again I think the best thing we have going for us is THERE IS NOTHING GOOD TO EAT IN THE WHOLE @#$%^ HOUSE!! Plus, we live 15 miles from the closest grocery store, which cuts down on late night willpower failures. We knew we were going to banded in October by the beginning of the summer, so we went on a two month preop diet and each lost around 19 lb prior to surgery. I've had really good restriction with both of my fills and lost 5 or 6 lb within a week of each of them, then it slows down a bit for the next few weeks.

I've had a bad cold all week and really started coughing last night, so now i think everything is irritated and I'm back to being unable to eat much of anything. Luckily I've lost what appetite I had with it, so that doesn't bother me at the moment.

If you aren't really hungry I would just stick to softer foods for another week, then if you still can't eat anything i would be thinking about an unfill. Dr Romero at OCC gave me a 1.7 fill the first time, which was okay, and then filled me up to 2.1 the second time. I could tell just in the hour or so I was waiting for my husband to get out of the dentist that I was too tight (sliming with Gatorade), so I went back in and got stuck again for a slight unfill. First fill was a piece of cake, but with the second Dr R said I had lost so much weight my scar tissue had shifted over the port, and he practically had to use a nail gun to get through. Seriously, I was watching the needle bending into a U shape on the fluoroscope while he was trying to punch through, until he finally had to get a thicker needle. ouch!

So, my friend who got banded 2yrs ago this coming May has to go back in and get her band removed because it has eroded. Have any of you heard of this before? It's really scary to me because I just got my band.

Erosion is a complication where the band abrades the stomach and may eventually work through the stomach wall, even to the point of being visible from the inside of the stomach. It requires removal of the band.

I found this website that talks about slippage and erosion, their causes and symptoms. you might want to check it out.

http://www.laparoscopy.com/pleatman/Lapbandfaq.htm

I really hate to complain, but I have a questions that is really concerning me. I got a fill 2 weeks ago and now I am having a problem getting solid food down. I am drinking a protein shake in the morning, but it takes about 1 1/2 hours to drink it all. Lunch and dinner though I can't seem to hold it down. I am taking small bites, chewing like I am suppose to, but I know that I am not eating near to a cup of food. I am only able to take about 2-3 bites and then I PB. I have lost 7 pounds (yeah), but I am scared that I am going to make my band slip, or damage it in some way. Do you think that I need an unfill, or do I just need to deal with this until the band loosens a little. Thanks for your help.

jen,

I was feeling like you. Got my second fill Jan 10 and couldn't really eat anything more solid than chili, and sometimes not that. I stopped eating anything more solid than soup for a couple of days. Then all of a sudden yesterday I'm fine, hungry, and wondering if I need another fill! It's so hard to find just the right spot and keep it for any length of time.

i don't know what to say for you. I would probably work at it a little longer, maybe another week? If you still can't eat anything after three weeks, I might check back with the doctor. If you really feel like you are too tight even for fluids, though . . .

Side question: are you paying for your fills or are they included in the cost of your surgery? If you are paying, does your fill doctor have a time limit for small adjustments after the fill at no charge or a reduced rate? I'm money-driven enough that that issue would make a difference with me on whether I acted right away or not.

There are other things that can go wrong that are not emergencies- leaks, problems with tubing, etc. I know of a girl who developed a leak and was told to go back to TJ to get it fixed. These are valid concerns, and have nothing to do with the competence of any particular mexican doctor

You are right, this is a valid concern. I figure that even if I am in Washington state (my summer home) I can fly down to San Diego in 3 hours for about $100 each way, and that's good enough for me. If you are farther away then Tijuana may not work for you. Things like leaks are not "emergencies" and you don't have to have them taken care of at a moment's notice. I like to go back to Dr Ortiz's clinic for my fills because they always used fluoroscopy to check band and port position with each fill. For me, surgery in Tijuana was a great choice. You will have to figure out what works best for you.

I am planning on having the lap band. It will take six months before they do anything.

At this point I am having all these test done. I had the stomach one that you have to drink all of the crap. Now they want me to have the other stomach where the use the tube to go in your throat. They said I had inflammation in my stomach. Is this normal to have inflammation or do you think there is something else they are looking for. I am a nervous wreck. I am nervous about EVERYTHING. I recently quit smoking because that was one of the requirements, that you are not a smoker. I hope I can go through with this and if you have GERD or acid reflex or ulcers, can they still do the lap banding?

I had an upper g.i. endoscopy (tube down your throat) prior to my lap band surgery, although not because I was having the band surgery. I had GERD/reflux for several years, so my doctor wanted to check the state of my stomach and esophagus. When you have GERD for several years, the chance exists for a condition called Barrett's esophagus, where the body replaces the cells with intestinal cells because they are more resistant to stomach acid. This is something they want to watch because it MAY lead to esophageal cancer later on. They could also be looking for a hiatal hernia, where the top of the stomach protrudes upward through the diaphragm, or signs of an ulcer. Ulcers are often caused by a bacteria called h. pylori, which is treated with antibiotics. The doctors are trying to find the cause of your inflammation so they can treat it properly.

If you have a hiatal hernia, which is likely if you are suffering from chronic GERD, your surgeon will probably repair it at the same time you have the band put in place. It is very common among obese/overweight people to have the hernia. Both my husband and I had it, and had it repaired.

Don't worry about the endoscopy. It's a piece of cake. They put you out and you don't even know when they do it.

So, the way you can tell what you can and can not eat is by trial and error? So, if your stomach does not agree with something will you know by the pbing? Thanks

If you are trying a food with a good chance of problems, like something very fibrous or bread-based, I would take a small bite, chew it well and take my time before having a second bite. Usually if I am going to have problems with something, it will happen right away, within a minute or two of eating it.

As I said, though, bread is the major killer. There are some bandsters who can eat it, but more who can't. Crisp carbs like crackers or hard shell tortillas aren't as much of a problem, but again, I would go slow.

If you have trouble with something, don't keep going. Stop, give your stomach a chance to recover, and go to something more liquid. otherwise you can inflame the stoma and continue to have difficulties all day.

You don't necessarily have to get all the way to pbing to know a food isn't going to work for you; sometimes it just hurts and takes quite a while to get through, but doesn't actually come back up. It's a process of paying attention to what your band and body are telling you, and not eating so fast that you miss the message.

I don't feel so alone now. This week end I went out and got items that are 100 calorie count or less. I also figured out that anything that is crunchy I can get, (like chips, crackers, salad) yesterday I tried homemade chicken salad sandwich on wheat bread. After 1 bite I knew it wasn't going to be right so I gave it to the dog. (he really loved it). My sister suggested that I toast the bread, (hence crunchy). I will try it again. today I brought in my bags of 100 calories stuff along with some progresso soup (100 calories). I postponed my doctors appt (which was set for tomorrow) until feb 6. I know we can conquer this.

I really think you are just going to have to come to the conclusion that you can't eat bread. Most of us can't. I have chicken salad on greens and it is okay. Bread--no way.

tcmkee, there is actually consistency in what you can and cannot eat. Bread is almost always a no-no for bandsters unless it is toasted to death. Why bother? It isn't good for you anyway and is full of empty calories. Cookies and crackers are crisp and don't mat down into a big glob in your stomach, so they will go through. I can eat crackers just fine, even when I'm too tight from a fill.

This is a learning experience. You can continue to try to eat what you ate before and feel miserable, or you can learn what works and become successful. A few pb episodes makes me remove a food from my yummy list and put it on the yucky list.

OK everyone, here I am, surgery scheduled for Feb 6. How strong will I feel on Saturday if my surgery is Wednesday? Any help? Thanks!

Do you have something planned for Saturday? You will feel okay but sore if you twist or turn. I've had the flu this week and I would trade 3 days post op in a heartbeat for this! You may be a bit tired, but we had a 10 hour trip home and were fatigued but not exhausted by the time we got home.

I only took one of the post op pain pills they gave us, and took that only because I was afraid it might hurt, not because it actually did hurt. I still have the other three. Some people have a lot more pain, but many do not.

Well, it just goes to show we are all different because I can eat yogurt with no problem but pudding just sits there and gets stuck!

Thank you so much for the insite. So, you can add the pototaoes to the chicken broth for substance? That's a great idea!!! This is all new to me so i am just making sure that I am doing the right things . Take care.

I would just shake some potato flakes into chicken or beef broth so it was still liquid (I could drink it from a mug) but it was thicker than just broth alone. The nutritionist says anything that will go through a straw is okay, so be creative!

Vasi,

How are you doing? Has the swelling gone down?

Chris

[Then everything sounds fine. It's natural as the swelling goes down to start feeling hungry again. Since the liquids don't stay in the pouch, there isn't much that is going to make you stay full for very long. However, what worked for me was staying away from sugar, because it just gives me hunger pangs like crazy. The fluctuation carbs cause in your blood sugar really brings on the hunger pains. Otherwise, it was just "head hunger" that I had to deal with.

My favorite liquids have been a boxed soup from Imagine called Black Bean Bisque; also, good old tomato soup, broth with instant potato flakes in it to thicken it up and give it some body, and protein shakes with fruit and splenda. Like I said, it's a frustrating time but it doesn't last forever.

The weight just falls off the first week because of the liquid diet. You are losing fluid from your body as well as fat, because as you eat less and take in less salt you don't retain fluid like you did before. I can usually tell this is happening because my rings get so loose at the base on my fingers (not at the knuckle).

It sounds like you are doing really well so far. So many people come on this forum and others and are looking for justification of their anti-band behavior (the "I can't eat anything but ice cream, so can you blame me?" crowd) when you can always find something better for you than ice cream. The worst time for me was the third week of liquids, because I had my appetite back completely and felt fine, so why can't I just eat??!! The second bad time is around the fifth week after surgery, when you are eating solids but have no restriction so you feel like you can eat everything and anything. It's not unusual for people to gain weight after returning to solids but before the first fill. I didn't actually gain, but I sure didn't lose anything during that time either.

For me, I felt like I was in control of what I ate after the first fill, but for a lot of people it doesn't come until the third or fourth fill. Now I'm one week past the second fill and I'm usually so tight I can feel every bite. Eating is becoming more of a duty than a pleasure, which I guess is good.

So hang in there. It will get better!

So it sounds like you haven't really been keeping to the liquid diet? Well, remember that your stomach just had surgery. It had a foreign object sewn around it. Don't you think it is a good idea to let it heal? When you eat solids, your stomach has to move around and stretch here and there to accommodate the solid food. It has just had stitches put into it, so, obviously that isn't good.

Your danger isn't in stretching the band. The band itself is not going to stretch. What may happen is that the band, which hasn't had time to heal into place, may move and slip on your stomach. This can result in stretching out the amount of stomach above your band, which can damage the stomach and also make it much harder to lose weight after healing, because the pouch is too big to restrict your eating properly.

If you think I am trying to scare you, you are right. Fear was the only thing that kept me on the liquid diet for the full three weeks. Fear is good, sometimes; it keeps us from doing stupid and dangerous things.

The time up until your first fill is the hardest time of banding, because once you are feeling better you want to eat because you do not have the restriction that you will get later with the fills. Tough it out, find some good soups to eat, run the solid parts through your blender, and look forward to losing weight after your fill. There is an end to this part of banding, and it isn't that far away, so be patient and be good. We all go through it; you can make it through too.

I think those two replies illustrate what I was saying. I wouldn't feel satisfied going two months without weight loss, so I would run in and get a fill. However, Judy, you have done wonderfully, and if it feels right for you, then that is right for you. On the other hand, I've been feeling that second fill was a mistake, because I have been having trouble eating just about anything for the past couple of days. I've got relatives visiting and we have been eating out a lot, so I'm going to wait at least 10 more days and see if things settle down. Yesterday we were showing my cousins from Massachusetts around Arizona and stopped at a roadside stand for frybread. Big mistake.

I am in a real funk. I was banded on June 18. My last fill was Nov 6. Siince then eating is a pain. The healthy food that I should eat makes me sick and the food ( like chips and sweets) go down really easy. I can't handle meat at all and since Nov I have lost 1 pound. I have tried eating really slow. Another problem is that I am always hungary. My start weight was high and I was on the border line for the lapband proceedure. Did I select the wrong proceedure. I am so unhappy. To date I have lost 46 pounds. I tried to go to a liquid diet but the hungar is really bad. My doctor is from UCSF in San Francisco and he is really not a very nice man. Any suggestions would really help.

Sue

Sue,

You've probably heard this before, but eating sweets is going to make you hungry. You have to break the addiction to carbs before the hunger pangs are going to go away. The sweets cause a swing in your blood glucose levels, first way up, then way down which will make you hungry. When you get hungry, have some peanut butter or some other high protein food, and stay away from high carbs and sweets like they're poison, because for you, they are.

Go through the house right now and get rid of the temptations. I try not to keep any sugar, sugared sweets, potatoes, bread, pasta, or rice in the house. Once in a while I will buy a treat like a cookie, but not a whole package of cookies.

I just had my second fill and I'm a bit too tight. Many foods just come right back up, after several minutes of extreme discomfort. Still, if I have ice cream it's a sugar free fudgcicle, not a quart of Haagen Dazs. You can control this, with the help of the band.

The band is an aid but it isn't anything automatic, that's for sure. But it does help. Try to figure out what you can eat and buy some of it. Plan out your meals a bit. Try some good soups until your stomach settles down.

2bthin,

Every doctor is different. Dr Ortiz's nutritionist provides several presurgery diet options, depending on how much time you have before surgery. If you just have a short amount of time, she wants a liquid diet, but if you have longer, you can do an Atkins induction diet, which is under 20 grams of carbs a day. Mostly she just wants you to lose 5% of your body weight prior to surgery, so whatever will get you there is acceptable.

By the way, I forgot you were a newbie, and clynn really is my daughter. I was teasing her, not you! Welcome to the board.

One of the goals of the pre-op diet is to shrink your liver for the surgery. When you loose weight you loose fat on the inside around the organs as well as what is visible on the outside. The liver being smaller makes it easier for the doctor to work around in there and makes for fewer possible complications.

From what I understand, you aren't actually shrinking the liver, but losing the fat around it, if that makes it any easier to understand.

PS "If I lose weight my clothes will be loose."

Clynn's nagging mother

You definately need to talk to your parents. I would have loved to had this done when I was 15. I wa 32 when I had it and I feel better today than I have in 20 years. When I had surgery 7/10/07 I had a 15 year old girl their having it done at the same time as me. I had Dr. Ortiz as a doctor. Mexico was the best thing I have ever done it was clean and very professional. You do have to be commited to the diet and plan this for life. I hope your parents have open minds and think obout this. I would get Dr. Ortiz's book it has tons of information so they can learn about the surgery more. Good Luck!!! Any question e-mail me. Life is hard enough as a teenage but weight can make it even harder. I still deal with my past...

Debra

KO,

The thing you have to realize--the thing everyone needs to realize-- is that the band won't do it all by itself. It's at least 50% you, maybe more, that determines whether you are successful or not. I have friends and family who were banded and they didn't lose weight at all. You have to commit to a life where you are very aware of every bite you eat.

This doesn't mean I think you are too young; there are plenty of people a lot older than you who couldn't understand what they needed to do or just couldn't do it. The band gives you that extra push to eat well and eat less, but you can work around it and abuse it if you don't commit to doing it right.

That said, I would have loved to have this opportunity to change my life when I was your age. Hope you have family and doctors who can talk to you about this and help you decide what is best for you. Good luck!

Hi, are you the girl from Indiana we met in the waiting room? I'm the one who was getting a fill with my husband. Glad to hear everything went well. Are you back home now?

I got my first fill November 29, seven weeks after surgery. Yesterday I had my second fill. I'm a little tight now, but I can eat if I take it slow. First fill was 1.7 in a 4 cc band; second one brought me up to 1.9. The doctor put in a total of 2.1 at first yesterday, but I started sliming on gatorade and went back in to get a bit taken out.

I think it's personal preference on scheduling your fills. Some people like to be tight, and others feel that they have enough self-discipline or are satisfied with a slower rate of weight loss to spread them out more. Whatever works for you. As long as your weight is going down but you are not so tight you cannot get the nutrients you need, it's a matter of choice.

I didn't eat the morning of my fills. For the first one, the doctor said full liquids for three days. But for my second fill he wanted me to eat right away because I was headed out of town and he wanted to be sure I wasn't too tight.