Need help, Is my lapband wrong for me

[suefromca]

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

[snowbird]

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.

[kym828]

have you tried eating really juicy meat or switching to dark meat since it naturally has more juice? i have a very hard time with meat so i usually eat lean cusine casarole dinners or something like that... i count my calories and stay between 1200 and 1500. try switching to low cal potatoe chips and low cal ice cream bars, they will help alot so you dont feel deprived. just make sure to count your calories.

good luck!

p.s. 48 lbs is still really good - you are only 35 wks out so you are on average losing more than a 1 lb per week.

kym

[tmckee]

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

Your story is almost identical to mine. I was banded in July and have had two fills. The last one in October was probably too much because I get sick most of the time when I try to eat. I now have a whole new relationship with food....it scares me!

There is no consistency in when or what is going to make me sick. Bread and meat won't go down but cookies and chips do.

I'm 5'6" and have lost 46 lbs. too. The band does not make me feel full, it makes me feel sick and often have to induce vomiting for relief. This is not what I expected but since the scale is finally moving, I guess I shouldn't complain. I'm hungry alot and eat sugar free popcicles all the time. Slim Fast, soup and (surprisingly) salad, are all tolerated. Trust me when I tell you that I feel your pain....literally. I'm hoping that, in time, the band will relax a little and I won't get sick as often. Good Luck to you! 46 pounds is not bad....

[suefromca]

Your story is almost identical to mine. I was banded in July and have had two fills. The last one in October was probably too much because I get sick most of the time when I try to eat. I now have a whole new relationship with food....it scares me!

There is no consistency in when or what is going to make me sick. Bread and meat won't go down but cookies and chips do.

I'm 5'6" and have lost 46 lbs. too. The band does not make me feel full, it makes me feel sick and often have to induce vomiting for relief. This is not what I expected but since the scale is finally moving, I guess I shouldn't complain. I'm hungry alot and eat sugar free popcicles all the time. Slim Fast, soup and (surprisingly) salad, are all tolerated. Trust me when I tell you that I feel your pain....literally. I'm hoping that, in time, the band will relax a little and I won't get sick as often. Good Luck to you! 46 pounds is not bad....

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.

[snowbird]

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.

[clpascoe]

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

[snowbird]

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.

[kym828]

that was a very good suggestion about toasting the bread. i had forgotten to mention that is the only way i can eat bread and it has be thin slices. any thick bread, biscuits, pancakes, waffles are all no-no's for me. i love tuna salad on a slice of bread - you may find that you cant eat a full sandwhich but you can eat it like you would a cracker and tuna salad.

make sure if you are PB'ing alot (more than a couple times a day for a few days) to try and go to soups for at least 24 hours to give your stomach a chance to return to normal... all that PB'ing causes swelling and something you can eat today you may not be able to eat tomorrow. that is another reason if you recently got a fill to give it a good 3 wks to see if it is working as long as you can get down liquids and keep them down. (just my opinion of course)

Kym