NO LAP BAND SURGERY

Please note : On some browsers I believe "ads" are popping up over my blog description for Lap Band Surgery . Or where to get lap band surgery , I IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM have ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS .. And I STRONGLY DISCOURAGE LAP BAND SURGERY .

About Me

My name is Mindy and I am a wife and mother of 2 boys, Ages 20 and 12. I recently started on the path of becoming a nurse something i have wanted to do since i was 11 !

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A Day in the life of my Lap Band


Many people ask me why I chose to " damage" my body even "More" and go on with the revision surgery .
This might help explain things .
So let me start by saying this , I got the lap band to improve my quality of life. Because I have PCOS ( Poly Cystic ovarian syndrome ) and migraines I am at greater risk of things like stroke, diabetes and high blood pressure as it is. Being over weight adds to that. So I wanted the band to reduce that risk BEFORE anything bad  happened to me. I am a mother of 2 boys who need me . After I first got  the band things were great, I could eat what i wanted, just smaller portions and occasionally threw up after eating too much , or so I thought .. I even changed the way I ate, what i ate , i felt better so I ate better. I was , as you can ask my doctor , the model patient, i did everything I was suppose to (with the expectation of working out and that lesson has been learned trust me ) Eventually what I ate seemed to come back up more often , But after losing 125 pounds I thought I was doing ok.
At a year out a slipped my band , that is where my stomach comes up through the band and can potentially be very serious. After it corrected it self I gained some weight ... It slipped again , more weight gain .
I was then told my band had scar tissue build up around it and I could no longer get the fills I needed to lose the weight  the opening to my stomach would be closed off it was filled again . That was around 2-3 yrs ago .
As time has gone on I have slowly gotten worse. You see because of where the scar tissue is I still have " restriction" Meaning , I am still limited on what i eat , so things like steak, pork, chicken , solid proteins  wont go down .  The food literally sits on top of my band until it gets either pushed through , which is very painful , or it comes back up . If I throw up too much, my stomach swells and eating any form of solid food is impossible for several days. So i have to go to liquids, milk shakes, protein shakes , mash potatoes things like that.  Those type of things are high in calorie and cause me to gain weight , but what other choices do i have ? Broth, water ? Yeah those fill you up ?? NOT !
So my day goes like this ...
Breakfast: Protein shake cause eating in the morning is nearly impossible. That's if I can get it to go down if I cant and anything comes back up then its liquids for me the entire rest of the day
Lunch: I try to eat something semi solid but I usually end up eating soup
Dinner: Some times a salad works but most evenings I throw up my dinner several times over and end up in pain from the swelling . By that time liquids hurt to go down ...

NOW that leads me to my "other issues"
Joint pain
Fatigue
body aches
head aches
My teeth are deteriorating because of how much I throw up 
Cold feet
cold hands
numb feet
cysts on my feet 
numb hands
You see they are finding out now that people who have had bands for several years are developing auto immune disorders like Fibromyalgia .. Problem ? Docs done believe it yet .. So no doc will help me out . With out insurance I cant get proper diagnoses . You can read more about that stuff here .
I am now 20 or so pounds away from my original start weight before surgery . That's right I have gained nearly ALL My weight back . And at the rate I am going by next month or so I will exceed the 250 pounds i was before my surgery .

I hope you can see this is not a simple " I want this surgery to be thin " yes i want to be at a healthy weight again . This has more to do with wanting a quality of life again than ANYTHING ELSE !
Thanks for reading !



2 comments:

  1. I had the exact same thing happened to me but mine did not stop there I finally had my band replaced 2 months after a gallbladder surgery.I spent several days in the hospital because of how bad my stomach was over top of my band I don't think the doctor believe me of how much pain I was in I would have people punch me in the back all day long because it helpsome of the painafter I have the surgery the swelling went down but they had to put a bigger band in because how big my stomach was from the swelling I started to put a little weight on through the fill process once I hit my sweet spot I started losing again.i almost got down to where I was before I started having pain again but it wasn't as bad so I just tried to deel with it because I knew this was my last shot I have lost enough where I knew I could not have another surgery then I found out I was pregnant and had to quit taking the pain meds I was on for my band pain. I finally told the doctor about the pain that I was having because I can no longer take anything he said it was the baby and I would have to have a little unfill because of the baby pushing on my band I wasn't thinkin then that this was what was going on but he was the dr. I did have a couple cc taken out. I wasn't so sure I ended up in the hospital at 5 months pregnant after almost passing out from how much pain I was in.about going I just gave up and let the doctor take out the fluid because I was in so much pain was affecting the babys heart rate. the doctor did an xray while I was pregnant and said it was not slipped I wasn't so sure but could not do you an upper GI till I had the baby.so I put 50 pounds on during the last four months of my pregnancy and after I had the baby I started getting pains again the pain was still there so we did an upper GI and it had slipped at this time I was big enough for a revision to another surgery I started the process and just recently had a gastric bypass. July2011 first lap band November 2010 gallbladder January 2012 revision January 2014 revision to bypass

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  2. Can you email me or find me on facebook , i would like to talk to you about your revision to bypass !! ( see my new update ) Email is mtolbert9201@gmail.com or Facebook name is Mindy James-Tolbert

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