kimkimmie’s Posts
Thank you! Never heard that theory before but it really makes sense. I appreciate you taking the time to share.
Thank you!! I have an appointment towards the end of June to get some more info. I plan to try to do better with diet & adding in activity is a must that I have to start doing.
Hi everyone! I was banded April 10, 2008. I had a solid 5-6 years of success with my band. I lost 160 pounds & kept it off. At some point after losing almost all of the weight I wanted to lose, I started eating carbs again at first in controlled portions. Over time little by little I could eat more & more. Over the past 8 years I put back on 100-120 pounds. That is:9 hard to type. My understanding is that my band was tight & the volume of Food would stay above the band. All I know is my breaks were gone No more discomfort and no more sliming when I overate. I was having Night coughs & sometimes I'd wake up choking with acid or fluid in m lungs & chest.
in February we did a complete unfill. My appetite and ability & desire to eat large quantities is back to pre band levels.
im wondering if anyone else experienced this & waited 12 weeks to let things settle & got a re-fill. If so I'd love to hear your experience. Can my band work again like it did in the beginning?
I'm hoping that I get a do over. I wish I would have known then what I know now & started with vsg but I didn't. I just losty best friend of over 30 years to a blood clot becoming a pulmonary embolism at age 48, & now I'm afraid to get another surgery. Hers wasn't related to baristric surgery but it's very much in my head now. Also I know a revision to vsg can have more issues than that being the only surgery. Sometimes with deadly results. So that is how desperate I am to have my band work again & re-lose this weight regain. It's my best shot and I know me well enough to know I can do it but I absolutely need a tool to help me. If not the mountain is too high to climb all on my own.
thanks for your time.
Love,
Kim
The doc took the fluid out & it fixed the issue. My band was way way way too tight.
Thanks for your reply. They removed my fluid & what a relief to not have the night issues anymore. How did the fill go? Not sure how long I need to go till I get some added back. My pouch was stretched from the food piling up there & not going through well. I want to give it time to go back to normal.
My question is has anyone experienced a combination of being able to eat large quantities and experiencing hunger (common signs of being too loose) combined with aspiration & night cough (common sign of being too tight). I made an appointment for this Friday because I'm worried it is damaging my lungs. Sometimes when I exhale it sounds wheezy or like bubbles. I know I can sleep in a chair or stop eating 2-3 hours before bed and it might help some but I don't want a temporary fix, I want the night cough to go away.
Thoughts?
thanks in advance.
Thank you. I'm sorry this happened to you!! Did you check for a leak? Seems like the little connector on the tubing can get pulled loose with the type of surgery we had. If so did you get it straightened out? Wishing you well. It's extremely disheartening to pay so much for skin removal only to have the very surgery that was supposed to help send us right back to nearly starting over :(
Hello :) They said my insurance is covering it BUT I have a high deductible plan so depending on the cost there's a high probability I'll be paying it all so using a surgery center. I had several fills greater than capacity so it basically told us there had to be a leak. To confirm he objected dye into my port and on the ex ray machine he uses to do fills with flouro, we saw the dye go in and as it moved through the tubing slowly flow out from its path (like smoke almost). Wishing you he best!!
Thank you!! Ok, will do!! Thanks for taking the time to comment. Very kind. He's looked at it on flouro & with the injectable die & says the band is in the right place. It definitely has a leak but like you are saying, I'm praying that this is the only reason for the gain and that fixing it will help me get back on track. My appetite & hunger is as strong as it was pre-band so hoping all goes well.
Thanks,
Kim
Thanks so much Dejah!! Very sweet of you to comment with well wishes. A quick recovery would be great!! I'd like to get back to where I need to be or at least a lot closer :) Wishing you many blessings today!! :)
Thanks for sharing Kate. This is so encouraging!!! Hoping to get back to the way it was before the leak. We don't know fo sure how long it's been this way but it seems like it is probably the reason for the weight gain. I was thinking I just over-ate the band somehow and so I'm praying that this really was the issue all along and not something new in addition to (or because of) over eating the band. Praying that I can get this weight back off & keep it off. Thanks for taking time to reply. It means a lot to me.
Have a great day!!
Kim
Hello there!!
Wondering if anyone around this website has had this done? I had some skin removed a little over 3 years ago. Since then I slowly have been gaining. Probably gained about 60-70 pounds. I fought it tooth and nail at first. Taking phentermine and starving myself all day just eating dinner. I came to terms that I probably stretched my pouch because over time portions got bigger. Then I started wondering if my band could be the problem. I had tried getting 2 fills prior but both times were too much & ended up having some removed. My appetite & ability to eat large portions was not affected. I figured I failed the band. My surgeon moved a good distance away. I decided though to make an appointment with another surgeon. We tried fills. He looked at the flours and said my band looked ok. After 5 fills with no satiety, we were both wondering if there was a leak. He injected dye into my port and we watched under the X-ray machine. Some of the dye slowly escaped the tubing. It was coming out at the connector where the tubing from the port and band meet. He thinks that with all of the pulling and tugging the plastic surgeon did when she removed some of my skin it probably came a little loose. It makes sense now that I think about it because that was when I began to struggle with weight gain again. On 4/16 I'm scheduled to have it the connecting tubing repaired/replaced. I am hoping that this truly was the reason for my regaining some of what I worked so hard to lose. If so, maybe there is hope that things will turn back around. I will report back to let you know how it all goes.
Thanks for taking the time to reply :) overall much better now, thank goodness. Still a bit sore but I think it's just from tensing my muscles up so much prior the the fill. I am appreciative as your reply as it gives me hope I can get moving in a positive direction again & that I havent reached the end of my weight loss attempts :) regaining has been very disheartening but at least now I know the reason why. Continued success to you. Have a great weekend. :)
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond :)
I'm feeling much better today now that the bloating & swelling is down. I did take gas x and ibuprofen. It got worse in the night & I even got a low fever and sweaty and light headed with nausea as I tried to stand and walk to the restroom. Still very sore as I don't use my ab muscles a lot. I think I overused them as I tensed up with fear prior to the injection being that I was still sore in that area from my fill attempt 2 weeks earlier. Overall much better than last night. Thanks for the great advice. Have a wonderful weekend :)
And yes I do have a leak where the port side tubing meets the stainless steel connector to connect to the band side tubing. The band filled up with at least 4 cc's of the dye, some leaked, some went in the band & I could tell it was squeezing my tummy because I felt the need to burp feeling. He took the dye out and put it back in again. Ever since I have been very uncomfortable with gas & bloating. I took gas x twice but still feels very uncomfy. Similar to after surgery when my tummy was puffed up with co2 so they could do surgery. We expect the band leak started about 3 years ago after another unrelated surgery after the skin was all moved & shifted around while my abdomen was open. I've been banded since 4/10/08 and at first lost 165 but with my gain over the past 3 years, the loss is now only 98 lbs from my highest weight. Does anyone know what could be causing the gas & bloating? I've never experienced this after a fill & over the years & even in recent months had several. Thanks in advance :)
Hi Joey,
Wishing you success!!! You can do it. Where your greatest desire is, that is where your focus and efforts will be. 1 day at a time. 1 meal at a time. Planning will help. I am just now getting back to it too and I did pretty well last week and the weekend wasn't perfect but I did ok. Better than usual. MUCH better than usual, I stuck to my plan but had some alcohol which I know will slow it down, and some fried pickle chips. That was the worst... but back on track today and I may even do another liquid day to kind of make up for it.
Hope you have a great day!!!
It was a reminder of what I went though. It forced me to follow the band rules. It reminded me that eating the dryer protein part of a meal first followed by small amounts of veggies and whole grains is the key to success. It is what works with the band to allow me to not be hungry and not overeat. I little by little learned to eat foods that didn't feel uncomfortable which means I little by little started eating more since it was easy... just like life without a band. Life without a band for me was a life of being overweight. I got the band to get in control but the part I chose to forget was that the band does its part if I do my part. The food choices is my part. It is hard because I love delicious food, so I have to make a dedicated effort to eat the proper foods for band success. I have to re-learn to eat the foods I used to eat when I was first banded and go back and read my original posts on my blog to remind myself of that all out determination I felt in the first year. I think this 5 day pouch test has really helped me get started back on the road to weight loss. I don't know if it shrunk anything but I feel my pouch now because I am eating the foods that the band was designed to work with.
It's great the the band lifestyle has become a natural part of your life!! I think mine did that too... but last time I had a flouro (over a year ago) they said all looked fine. I think its a combo of that and I stopped eating the dryer protein things and learned the items that would go thru fast and comfortably over time and started allowing myself to indulge in things that didnt sit in my pouch which allowed my portions to get bigger and choices to become worse. When I started gaining a couple of years ago I basically got on Phentermine and starved myself during the day eating a pouch of tuna for lunch and nothing else, then going home and cooking and eating elaborate delicious dinners. I enjoy cooking and it was like a hobby. I got way of track but maintained my weight. After the breakup... I started eating like that a lot more and stopped dieting during the day... and here I am up 15-20 pounds. Getting back on track now and it is working!! :)
I just had lap band surgery 2 months ago. They just partially filled my band 10 days ago for the first time. I feel no difference. I don't know how it is that i can still eat a full meal and not feel full. I'm thinking about going back to the cottage cheese and fat free popsicles. Im not really losing anything. I don't feel the band is doing anything. I've yet to have that "full" feeling. Im stuck at the same weight teetering between losing 3 then gaining 3. Any advice. anyone