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It is so good to have a computer at home once again! I have missed so much not being on here the past few months that there is no way I can ever catch up. So, I am going to give you a little update on myself and hope that you all will do the same for me. From here on out I swear I will check in a few days each week, providing the mother board doesn't go out on this computer. I know I need to update my pictures and such as well and I vow to get that done in the next week or so. Against my wishes I had 2 cc's removed in mid-March. The issue was caused by one bite of cold, leftover chicken that I had eaten 6 weeks previously in an attempt to take the edge off one morning about 10 am. It hurt like no other and I ended up leaving work to go home and lay down, which finally allowed it to reposition itself and go down. I evidently irritated things more than I knew and 6 weeks later it took me 2 to 3 hours to get breakfast to go down a couple of days in a row, so in I went. The person who did my unfill was the one that had bought me that chicken for lunch one day so I made sure to give him a little bit of a hard time about it. He had already told me that he wanted me to have a partial unfill before my gallbladder was taken out, but I had no intention of having it done. In the end he got his way. I did have my gallbladder out on Apr. 22nd. Everything has gone well with that and I was back at work 2 days and a weekend later. Wasn't supposed to lift anything over 15 pounds for 4 weeks, but I may have forgotten that rule a few times. I was hoping to have my port relocated at the same time, but I could not afford to have it done, so needless to say it is in the same place as always, which means it is kind of in the way. Now it is your turn to update me on yourself and if you are a newbie please introduce yourself. Andrea I have gained about 3 pounds in the last couple of months. This unfill is starting to get to me as I have become a Starvin' Marvin. I e-mailed the fill guy and he is supposed to be checking with my surgeon to see if it has been long enough since the surgery for me to get refilled. I hope so b/c my fingers are getting pretty sore from trying to hold on. Other than scrambled eggs cooked in the microwave, and the stupid bite of chicken, I have always been able to eat pretty much anything which is still true and not in a good way.

Shelby is right, when the extra fat is gone the port continues to be an issue. I was hoping to have my port relocated about a month ago, but in the end it did not happen. There is a slightly raised spot about the diameter of a tennis ball in the area where my port is located. My cat has excellent aim when she jumps on my lap because one of her paws always seems to land on the port. I have also noticed that when I stand up against the front desk, receptionist window, kitchen sink or anything else high like that it always hits my port. As someone else said however, none of this is worth not being banded.

I had an embarrassing moment that embarrassed me and my plastic surgeon the other day. He was taking my one year follow up pics and the paper panties that were taped to me started to fall off. I'm not sure which one of us was redder which was odd b/c I will always remember the day I had my first surgery and stood before him in my b'day suit while he marked me with Sharpies. I am just glad he is a professional and I prayed the whole time that he had tunnel vision.

Has anyone on here had their port relocated? I have pretty much lost all of my weight and had a TT almost a year ago. In the past 5 months or so all of my swelling has gone down to the point that my tummy is where it will remain for life (I hope). My port is definitely creating a bump on my tummy and in certain clothes I wear it is noticeable. I am scheduled to have it relocated from my belly button area to just below my sternum on Apr. 22nd. It is just under the skin so there is no fat between it and my skin which kind of makes fills and unfills painful. Besides that it hurts when I get pounced on by my kitten and my nephews know better than to even come close to touching my tummy when we wrestle.

If by KC you mean Kansas City, welcome! I am also a KC girl. I went to a local doctor so my after surgery diet was different, but the 21 days of liquid are totally doable. Even though you won't really have anything to chew, there are a lot of good liquid foods out there. When you consider things like yogurt and creamy soups it really isn't that bad.

I eat a FiberOne bar and a banana a lot of mornings for breakfast as well as adding Benefiber to my milk each morning. The FiberOne bar really works, sometimes too well.

You say you have good restriction, but is it maybe too good? Are you sure you are eating enough? Not eating enough can have a negative effect on weight loss as well because your body feels like it needs to hold on to everything to survive.

I claimed it on my 2008 taxes. I paid $17,500 for my surgery and it got me an extra $4,000 or so back. If you had your surgery in Dec. 2009 you should be able to claim it on your 2009 taxes. It isn't based on when you paid for it but rather when you incurred the expense, because I am still paying for mine. Please note that you can only claim medical costs in excess of 7.5% of your salary. Also, make sure you check out the laws for yourself or speak to your accountant about it, I am in no way a tax advisor.

I don't know the time lapse in between your fill and your post, but when I get a fill I have to change my diet for 72 hours. The first 24 hours is clear liquids only, the next 24 is full liquids only and the final 24 is mushy foods. After that I can resume my normal eating. This give my stomach time to adjust to the new band size and it forces me to pay attention as what I can and cannot eat may have changed.

Do not blow the money you spent on this or the exciting new future that awaits you. Do not prove your husband correct either. What happened happened, put it in the past and don't do it again. It sounds like you need to get some protein in even though it appears you are still in the liquid stage. I would suggest K2O protein water by Kellogg's. On another site someone mention Nectar protein powder that mixes up like a lemonade. Don't stick with just broth, there are other things allowed on the liquid diet that will keep you from getting bored with one taste such as apple juice or white grape juice and all the mixes that you can add to a bottle of water. Mix things up and that in additon to the protein should help you stay with it until you can have normal food again. You are worth this!

Don't stop eating completely, but do stick to liquids for a few days to give your body time to recover. I am sorry you had to go thru that experience, but now you know what it feels like to have something stuck, maybe more so than the rest of us do as I have never heard of anyone else having a 14 hour bout with it. In regards to leftovers, microwaves are evil all by themselves as they tend to dry food out. I still use the microwave, but I sprinkle some water on my plate and on the food before I cook it. By doing this you are kind of steaming the food as you reheat it and are adding helping to keep it moist. This still doesn't excuse us from chewing well, but it does help with the chewing and it helps to not waste food, especially if you are single like me and tend to eat the same thing for at least a week at a time.

You don't suck, you just gotta role with the punches. Yes, maybe you have been hit and knocked out for a little bit, but you have regained consciousness and as painful as it maybe you are fixin' to stand back up on your own two feet. I didn't get knocked unconscious this week, but I was knocked down a time or two and made the decision this morning to go ahead and get back up before the pain got any worse. If I can do it, so can you, so get to gettin'.

Don't be afraid to take iron pills. They are really pretty small, not much bigger than a birth control pill, at least the ones I took weren't. Other ways to boost your iron are to cook in cast iron skillets and eat lots of raw spinach. I started using the raw spinach instead of lettuce and really liked it. A trick I have learned to taking pills is to "bury" them in a spoonful of yogurt or fat free pudding and just swallow. This seemed to help the larger B12 vitamin I was taking go down easier.

You go girl!!! It really isn't that bad. My incision didn't hurt because I was numb all around the incision, and still am to a degree. You will do great and will be ready to shop shop shop for that spring wardrobe. Just be aware that what you wear this summer will probably be too big by next summer b/c of the swelling - I keep telling myself that it is a wonderful problem to have.

Yep, this is how all of my fills are done. The barium swallow helps take a lot of guesswork out of it plus they can see if anything is stretched or if there is erosion. It is what we call a standing fill and I would suggest it to everyone, it is what made the difference for me.

Here is a tidbit of information that I learned at my support group meeting on Saturday. Research is showing that many people develop heartburn after lapband surgery as a result of taking medication. Initially we are told to crush meds or go for the liquid kind, but as we start experimenting and realize that we can take a large pill without it getting stuck, we do so. Many medications are acidic, especially multi-vitamins and should they get turned sideways and sit on top of the band, not stuck, just turned wrong, they will begin to dissolve and the acid in the medication can cause heartburn. I had no idea this could happen and boy did I get busted. I have always been able to swallow the large pills and when I finished my last bottle of gummy vitamins I decided to finish the bottle of regular multi-vitamins I had at home. Thinking back, this was about the same time my heartburn started, even though the pill never got stuck as I have known other things to. I will be donating the rest of the bottle to my mother and I high tailed it to Wal-Mart and bought some more gummies. I went ahead and took a Prilosec on Monday (I take one every other day), but have no plans to take one tomorrow as I am now on the gummies. I want to see if stopping the regular multi-vitamin pill will alleviate my heart burn problem - boy do I hope so.

I don't think the band is your problem, I think the place you get your fills is your problem. Let us know where you live and maybe someone can suggest a reputable fill doctor. I live in KC and a patient who wasn't getting anywhere with her fill doctor in Detroit came to my doctor here and within 2 visits he had her up and working perfectly. I think she had spent 5 or 6 months getting no where with the people in Detroit. Don't give up on the band until you are 100% sure it is the band and not your medical care.

I have never heard of anyone doing a single incision, but boy my tummy would look less like I got in a knife fight if I had only one incision. Thankfully 3 of them were very small and the biggest one was remove by the tummy tuck, even though that itself left a big one from hip to hip, but at least it can't be seen should my shirt slip up.

Yikes! Didn't know about that, obviously I have not checked for updates recently. Thanks for shareing.

I would do it before the trip as well. Granted, I was still in the states, but I did a trip to CA 6 weeks after I was banded and everything was fine, I had even had a fill at this point. Although, if I were your wife I probably would not have a fill prior to the trip to Italy. If she has some weight to lose before her surgery, the trip to Italy could potentially set her back in the weight loss arena, I know it would me.

Google Malley Surgical, or something like that. There is a video blog on his web-site of a patient who got pregnant just a few months after she was banded.

Not that I know of, but living on the MO/KS state line, it is different from state to state. There was talk around here a couple of years ago about how many doctor's were choosing to practice in MO as opposed to KS because of the malpractice insurance.

Are you with Weight Loss Surgical Center in Omaha?

Drinking while you eat not only has he potential to wash the food thru faster, it also has the potential to overfill the pouch and cause it to stretch or the esophagaus to dilate which is not good. I was told to wait about 30 minutes after I eat before I start drinking. I typically wait longer because I am at the point that I forget to pay attention to how much I drink plus I just really don't want to drink anything these days.

Don't be ashamed or feel bad, I think this is normal. Why did we all fail on so many diets before, because we got tired of them and bored. Why is this different, because we have people standing behind us this time and while we can make bad food choices, we cannot ignore the fact that we have a band. You are so blessed to have someone right under your own roof going thru this time with you. It is wonderful to hear that you are both determined to succeed and are already starting to figue out a way to combat this "food bug" that has snuck up on you. Pat yourself on the back that you are nipping this at the 5 lb. mark instead of the 50 lb. mark as is so often people's experiences on a diet. I am not saying to pat yourself on the back about this, but sometimes our bodies need a jump start and your little "errors" may help that occur when you get your next fill. Next Friday is still a good ways off and I bet that if you get back in the gym you could take 3 lbs. off between now and then. My experience has always been the sooner you take off what you just gained the easier it comes off. If I were closer I would not come slap you, but I might clean out your cabinets and fridge and take away your debit card or cash so that you couldn't hit the drive thru.