My adjustable lap band story so far.... 1 week post op
First post for me, i've been reading these forums and have gotten so much great info in making my decision, I thought it was time to contribute.
Just to sum up
male 36 6'2" 345 being treated for hypertension w/medication. Sore knees, back issues.
I am located in NYC and was referred to the NYU center for weight loss/Dr. George Fielding.
Went to his seminar in October.
I found him very dry and subdued. Which for me was a plus because he cut to the quick and never minced words. He is very direct and answers questions thoroughly.
Got psych eval on halloween.
Got nutritionist appt for Thanksgiving week.
Got my Dr.'s physical and reccomendation mid December
Met with Surgeon late December.
Submitted to insurance mid-January.
Insurance (Oxford is way fast! )approved 1/23 & given pre-op (2 weeks prior to surgery) appt for 2/8.
Surgery date 2/23.
My pre-op liquid/protein diet to de-fattify the liver was hell. I just couldn't do the Slimfast/Optima 5x a day. So instead I opted to just substitute with normal food and stayed within the 1000 calories/35g of fat daily the nutritionist laid out. I still had one or two Optima per day and substituted with soups & lean small meals. Usually the 6g fat/6inch subway sandwich fit right in.
I had one quibble with the pre-op nutrition diet, and that was I was given 4 bottles of Juice Plus pills. Right off the bat I was told to take these to "improve nutritional status". I asked her if they were fiber or vitamin pills and she had to look on the label herself to see, and still couldn't answer the question. After our session I researched it online and came to the conclusion that the pills haven't been proven to essential in any way, so I passed. Their claims of providing all the benefits of fruits and vegetables in a diet seemed dubious and without any scientific basis.
Check in on surgery date was flawless. I was very anxious to get the ball rolling more than afraid of being under the knife. In my gown the weigh in reflected a weight loss of 14lbs in the two week preop diet. Down to 330! 
I was wheeled in and before I knew it I was out like a light at 12:30 ish. I was awakened at about 1:50 -2pm or so. I had no hiatal hernia or gallstone issues and was told everything went smoothly. But my first feeling was that of having done 500 situps and was very sore. I was of course groggy but feeling fine.I was taken into the recovery area until about 6:30 where you are hooked up to beeping vital stats machine. The four hours zoomed on by. My girlfriend came by and said afterwards I was really out of it but looked fine. At about 4pm or so Dr. Fielding tapped my shoulder and woke me up to tell me everything went smooth and asked how was I feeling. Incindentally this was my first face to face with him since my consult in late January. (I was under and asleep before he entered the OR).
This is where it takes a turn for the worse. I was wheeled into my room around 7pm or so and asked for some ice chips because my mouth and throat was so so dry.
At around 9pm the nurse said I should walk around to prevent clots in the legs, I did and was feeling beat up but ok. But immediately I was feeling tightness and difficulty swallowing. I wasn't keeping down my saliva or the little water I ingested with the ice. I then noticed that I sort of spit up some saliva. I kinda squeezed a burp out and more saliva came out. The tightness was relieved a little bit. But for only 20 minutes or so, and then I spit a couple tablespoons of bubbly spit right back up.
I asked the nurse if this was normal and she said yes, so I chalked it to the nature of the game of post op lap band sugery. In my hourly zombie walks around the hall, I was continually regurgitating saliva into a napkin. In one of my zombie walks I ran into another guy who had the same dr., had the lap band done and was operated 2 hours before me. His name was Tom and when I asked him if he was spitting up saliva he said no. I asked the nurse again because I was now following a pattern of every 20 minutes I would get tight and then involuntarily spit up. Again she said it was normal.
Long story short and longest night of my life!, I didn't sleep a wink all night and never swallowed any spit that was produced in my mouth. Couldn't keep it down at all. And when I lied down the pain was worse. The night nurses gave me anti-nausea medicine, but that didn't help at all. Finally 12 hours after I was put in the room, Dr. Fielding's resident intern Julia came by @7:30am to see how I was doing. I told her what's been happening and she said she would tell Dr. Fielding and that he should be doing rounds @9am. He came by and it turns out he installed a larger model lap band that has a fill off the bat. So instead of getting the usual lap band sans fill/empty I got a fill to start.
So he procedes to conclude that the band has closed my stomach access shut. So that explains all that stuff that had nowhere to go but back up in the last 12+ hours. He then needs to remove the saline from the fill stat, but apparently they keep those special fill needles in the other building, so I think he improvises and does a MaGyver on me with a smaller needle. With the help of his intern he puts a needle in the middle of my belly and removes the liquid and as it turns out the !air! that was in the band. I immediately felt better and was sipping water in minutes.
I believe my band has no fill right now and is at the setting I would assume someone would have if they already have reached their goal and wanted the least restriction.
I'm again assuming thats the case, because now that I am on soups, slimfast and liquids I am ravenous with hunger. My stomach is grumbling constantly. I have my endoscopy and first post op visit next friday and kind of hope to get a fill to give me some more restriction.
My biggest worry and hope is that there wasn't any slippage of the band because of that first night of spitting up. I mean my appetite is nuts right now and am going bananas.
Otherwise the wounds are healing ok and I went back to work 5 days later.
I hope this helps anyone/someone. I'll be more than happy to clarify any questions that might arise from this jumbled first post.
I was wheeled in and before I knew it I was out like a light at 12:30 ish. I was awakened at about 1:50 -2pm or so. I had no hiatal hernia or gallstone issues and was told everything went smoothly. But my first feeling was that of having done 500 situps and was very sore. I was of course groggy but feeling fine.I was taken into the recovery area until about 6:30 where you are hooked up to beeping vital stats machine. The four hours zoomed on by. My girlfriend came by and said afterwards I was really out of it but looked fine. At about 4pm or so Dr. Fielding tapped my shoulder and woke me up to tell me everything went smooth and asked how was I feeling. Incindentally this was my first face to face with him since my consult in late January. (I was under and asleep before he entered the OR).
This is where it takes a turn for the worse. I was wheeled into my room around 7pm or so and asked for some ice chips because my mouth and throat was so so dry.
At around 9pm the nurse said I should walk around to prevent clots in the legs, I did and was feeling beat up but ok. But immediately I was feeling tightness and difficulty swallowing. I wasn't keeping down my saliva or the little water I ingested with the ice. I then noticed that I sort of spit up some saliva. I kinda squeezed a burp out and more saliva came out. The tightness was relieved a little bit. But for only 20 minutes or so, and then I spit a couple tablespoons of bubbly spit right back up.
I asked the nurse if this was normal and she said yes, so I chalked it to the nature of the game of post op lap band sugery. In my hourly zombie walks around the hall, I was continually regurgitating saliva into a napkin. In one of my zombie walks I ran into another guy who had the same dr., had the lap band done and was operated 2 hours before me. His name was Tom and when I asked him if he was spitting up saliva he said no. I asked the nurse again because I was now following a pattern of every 20 minutes I would get tight and then involuntarily spit up. Again she said it was normal.
Long story short and longest night of my life!, I didn't sleep a wink all night and never swallowed any spit that was produced in my mouth. Couldn't keep it down at all. And when I lied down the pain was worse. The night nurses gave me anti-nausea medicine, but that didn't help at all. Finally 12 hours after I was put in the room, Dr. Fielding's resident intern Julia came by @7:30am to see how I was doing. I told her what's been happening and she said she would tell Dr. Fielding and that he should be doing rounds @9am. He came by and it turns out he installed a larger model lap band that has a fill off the bat. So instead of getting the usual lap band sans fill/empty I got a fill to start.
So he procedes to conclude that the band has closed my stomach access shut. So that explains all that stuff that had nowhere to go but back up in the last 12+ hours. He then needs to remove the saline from the fill stat, but apparently they keep those special fill needles in the other building, so I think he improvises and does a MaGyver on me with a smaller needle. With the help of his intern he puts a needle in the middle of my belly and removes the liquid and as it turns out the !air! that was in the band. I immediately felt better and was sipping water in minutes.
I believe my band has no fill right now and is at the setting I would assume someone would have if they already have reached their goal and wanted the least restriction.
I'm again assuming thats the case, because now that I am on soups, slimfast and liquids I am ravenous with hunger. My stomach is grumbling constantly. I have my endoscopy and first post op visit next friday and kind of hope to get a fill to give me some more restriction.
My biggest worry and hope is that there wasn't any slippage of the band because of that first night of spitting up. I mean my appetite is nuts right now and am going bananas.
Otherwise the wounds are healing ok and I went back to work 5 days later.
I hope this helps anyone/someone. I'll be more than happy to clarify any questions that might arise from this jumbled first post. 
Wow, what an ordeal! Thanks for posting your experience. I am attending an info session at NYU on 3/6 and cannot wait until I too will be a fellow lap bander. One of the best things about this message board is being able to hear about everyone else's experience.
Do you know why Dr. Fielding chose to give you the larger model lap band?
Another question I have is was it your choosing for it to take about 4 months from your initial info session to your surgery date?? I'm finding it SO hard to wait - is it unrealistic for me to think that if I go to the info sesson on 3/6 that I could be banded in May?
The larger model that was used I was unaware of. My fellow hallway zombie also had that one installed. I don't know if it's a big man thing. I'll definitely find out on friday when I get my endoscopy and update the board.
As to the time frame-- at the seminar they said 6-10 weeks was a avg/reasonable time frame.
Believe you me , I was all jazzed and raring to go.
The seminar was in the middle of oct.
I made the psych eval and was given it 2 weeks later.
The nutritionist was about 3 weeks later, again due to their volume that was the earliest I could do. I was also trying my hardest not to burn off personal days @ work to go to these appts. So sometimes I had wait another week to get a better scheduled appt. to me**** with my daily schedule.
Also due to my misunderstanding of the things needed for approval I sheduled a full physical, blood work, reccomendation letter and xrays with my PCP, thinking this was needed like ASAP.
It wasn't , that part can come last.
December was the longest lull of all, after the nutritionist appt on the last day of november I made an appointment with the surgeon. Since he is way busy and the consecutive Monday holidays wwe had were approaching. So it was harder. I'm sure the few weeks delay I had would be inconsequential at this time of year.
I finally met him right before new years. Yet another appt for the insurance was needed. My PCP has etremely limited office hours which also I think affected things by about 2 weeks.
And then in late January I got my surgery approval date and insurance.
But between my work schedule, end of year holidays and their booming busy practice I guess it ended up being about 12 weeks from seminar to approval.
I'll look forward to hearing what you find out after your friday appointment. Thanks for explaining the time frame... that makes sense. I'm going to think positive thoughts and hope to be banded within two months 
Other than giving birth to 6 kids, I'm really not a person that goes to the doctor - thankfully, I'm in pretty good health, so I've been trying to document my previous weight loss efforts as best as I can remember. My most recent attempt was NutriSystem which worked out great in the beginning, but I've already put just about all 20 lbs. back on
Well, I hope you continue to recover nicely and don't give in to the hunger pangs!
Other than giving birth to 6 kids, I'm really not a person that goes to the doctor - thankfully, I'm in pretty good health, so I've been trying to document my previous weight loss efforts as best as I can remember. My most recent attempt was NutriSystem which worked out great in the beginning, but I've already put just about all 20 lbs. back on
Well, I hope you continue to recover nicely and don't give in to the hunger pangs! 
If your insurance requires pre op supervised weight loss attempts you may need to wait longer, so I hope that's not what you meant by documenting your previous weight loss efforts. That's my problem. I just completed four months supervised weight loss attempts and they wont let me schedule consult with surgeon till after I copmlete all six, so it will take me from info session in January, till about July before I get under the knife. 2 months sounds short, but hey, you never know. If you have a flexible personal schedule it should be easier, and if you have insurance like oxford that's the best and it may be possible. I would really love surgery in May too, but I can only schedule consult after May 1 (my 6 month appointment) and they told me it is currently taking 5-6 weeks to schedule appointments and then again to schedule surgery. Good luck getting the May date. Maybe I will too!
Hi Julie - thanks for your response... I actually didn't mean it as an insurance requirement. I don't believe that my insurance co is going to require the 6 months documented attempts. I have simply started to think back to all the many diets that I have tried and the list is longer than I'd like to admit! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for both of us on May 2007!!
Stavros, you and I both got banded by Dr. Fielding on 2/23/07.
I'm sorry you had such an ordeal, fortunately things went smoothly for me, other than a lot of nausea after the surgery and some really uncomfortable dry heaving.
I didn't sleep well that night, lot's of back pain due to gas and the IV monitor beeping for one reason or another, but other than that, good experience.
My process was much longer than yours, I first went to the seminar in July of 2005 but my BMI wasn't high enough at the time. I didn't gain weight specifically for the surgery but when I realized in November of 06 that I was at 40 BMI I decided to go for it, I had already had the psych appointment earlier in the year and spoken to my dr. just in case.
Doing well post op so far, down 15 pounds, so that's exciting, but I know some of that is water weight. With the amount of food I was eating pre op, (I really wanted to keep that BMI up) any decrease in what I was consuming should make a huge difference.
Going for my esophogram on Tuesday, hoping he'll tell me i can start on the pureed foods sooner than friday, I am kinda getting tired of liquids.
Good luck with everything, I'm sure I'll see you on line here.
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