Clynn

Can you eat or drink anything, or does it come back up? That's usually the first indicator that there's a problem.

Unless you've been getting stuck or feeling otherwise sick you're probably fine. The people who slip their bands KNOW there's a problem. One woman felt things go wrong immediately after eating chicken while on liquids. Learn from your mistake and adjust your habits accordingly. It's also common not to feel restriction until the first or even the second fill. Before your first fill your focus should be on healing. Once the fills kick in then restriction will happen and the band can do its job.

To my knowledge, no one who has been banned from the forum has had their account reinstated. They can however make a new account and start fresh. Stormy, if you're being harassed by other members, let us know about. We're a bit limited with PM's however due to the Private in Private Message. Since there's no way for us to peek into that system it's easy for things to turn into a he said/she said situation with us caught in the middle trying to do the right thing. For this reason we had toyed with the idea of disabling the PM system, but this idea proved exceedingly unpopular. If you look in your inbox you will see next to the sender name an option to block. Don't bother arguing or appealing to their sense of decency - those types of people have none. Block & move on.

You can drink as much water as you can comfortably get down except for the hour after eating. If you drink too much, you will get uncomfortable so wait a few minutes before taking another drink. Listen to your body and it will tell you what it needs on this.

Bingo! I'll throw a third into that ring. He lost his band because he was too tight and within six months gained back all the weight he'd lost. Statistically those who lose their bands have a much diminished chance of success the second time around. Alternatively - look around the forum for the girl who had to have the majority of her stomach surgically removed because she was too tight. OCC has also done plenty of emergency surgeries from people whose lives were in danger. There was a news story posted on the forum a few months ago about a woman who had died because she ignored the signs her body was giving her that something wasn't right. You'll find plenty more horror stories around from people who were too tight and exhibited the same attitude of "Hey, what's the harm? I'm losing weight" right before reality came crashing in on them in dangerous and expensive ways.

Your doctor can prescribe some anti-nausea medications. They are cheap and can sit in your fridge for some months in case you need them. Many band patients keep them around as a precaution whether anyone is sick or not.

If your doctor had you under flouroscopy and didn't mention pouch enlargement than that's not what it is. Pouch enlargement or a stretched pouch are pretty easy to see under flouro. Most likely it was water retention, stress, or irritation which caused a little swelling and caused you to experience more restriction which in turn caused you to become dehydrated.

There's many things that could be and it may or may not be band related. Talk to a doctor.

My first solid food was salmon.

Obviously what is happening is that you are slowly deflating where you are poking the holes. People are like balloons right? Ok maybe not. But yeah, I have no doubt now that the diet is essential to making this work. Doubling my meat portion didn't cause any problems but adding some fat or sugar sure brought things to a halt right quick. I read on some websites that coconut oil is the only acceptable fat. I bought a jar at the supermarket yesterday and it is some weird stuff. It doesn't smell overpoweringly of coconuts and is almost the consistency of wax. I had to melt it before I was able to use it but after a week of not cooking with any oils it sure made my shrimp and onions taste delicious. I have to go easy on it though because it is a bit spendy.

Today marks a week of the low calorie phase and I'm down 8 pounds. Sometimes the diet is easy and sometimes it is very very hard, not because I am hungry necessarily but because there's very little variety of foods. I went to the grocery store yesterday and that was TOUGH being surrounded by all those foods that were off limits. When I got back I just couldn't stand it anymore and had a cup of cheerios. Then at weigh in this morning, guess what, no weight loss for the day. I'll just have to keep myself out of those situations where I'm tempted because it really takes very little to bring things to a halt. However, at this point I certainly feel it's all been worth it. I've lost more in the last week than I have in the last year. On another note, I've fallen in love with Stevia. It tastes and feels like real sugar which is something Splenda just couldn't quite accomplish. I'm allowed the juice of 1 lemon per day and bought a bag of them from Costco so every night I make fresh squeezed lemonade out of lemon juice & Stevia and it is very refreshing. I'll check back in in another week.

Most often when people are losing their hair it's because they're not getting enough protein. How many grams are you getting per day?

You may want to just hold off on the surgery until after the run. Since you'll be on liquids for a month you may find yourself getting winded easier and not as up to training. You'll certainly be out of training 1-3 weeks if you want to heal properly. Besides, why let all that exercise only fulfill one function? If you get the surgery soon after the run it will count as part of your pre-op preparation.

The BMI charts are bollocks. They call NFL linebackers morbidly obese. As you get older, your ideal BMI goes up so it is not a one size fits all situation. Also if you've been heavy your entire life, your bone structure has adjusted for that and bulked itself up a bit. More accurate than BMI is body fat percentage. Since it's more difficult to calculate the flawed BMI model is often used for on the fly weight assessment. I forget exactly what percentage of fat is ideal but when I had a body fat test done I was told 170 was my ideal weight.

One more thought: if you feel your stomach is irritated and maybe the thumping is throbbing, try putting an icepack on your belly for a bit. I've found that always helps me when I'm too tight.