Anyone ever have upper abdomen get big

Also, was told that it's not an " emergency " unless I begin vomiting and it doesn't get better ! HA! Wow

I think most of them were sick and had pain and vomitting before hand and had been in and out of the ER several times before they finally got them out. Some already had parts of their stomach and/or intestines that were necrotic (had died off). Some of the bands had attatched to the liver and other organs with scar tissue. They are just very grateful to be alive, it is a shame but very few ERs know how to treat bariatric patients even when they do bariatric surgery at them.

Docs are getting very leery of treating band patients because they are afraid of law suits and they want no part of working on the bands, very few surgeons do them any more. I read a recent study that said only 6% of bariatric surgeries are bands now, the majority are RNY and VSG with a few DS, but 6% is a pretty small amount for the whole country!!

That is another major issue finding anyone to treat you when so few are doing them now. They are much easier to put in than take out especially if they have a lot of scar tissue to deal with. I think that is why I still can only eat small amounts of food, I think my surgeon left scar tissue in (he said he didn't but it sure feels like he did) and that makes it feel like the band is still there. Even if they do remove all the scar tissue it can still come back since that is how the body protects itself after any kind of surgery. That scar tissue or adhesions as it is also sometimes referred to, can cause a lot of pains and pulling feelings in your stomach afterwards. So you can see why so few docs want to deal with this. Many aren't trained in removing the bands just in putting them in, since back when I got mine they figured it was a life long device but they have since changed that.