silastic ring removal

A few months back, I wrote telling of a total loss of appetite and revulsion to food. I am over seven years out, a smoker who has since recovered from ulcers.

I was given a lot of good eating advice and quitt smoking  advice  .It was suggested that I may be trying to hurt myself by not eating and smoking.  I checked with all my docs including my shrink.  A barium swallow revealed I couldn't even pass a barium pill through my stoma.  It was caused by the silastic ring placed on the outside of my stoma being to tight.  I had  lap surgey to remove it 8/20 and i am already getting a  healty appetite back.

Thanks every one who offered gentle advice and to those who also provided tough love.  It was taken in the spirit it was intended..               Thanks, Loris

Good for you Loris!  Believe me I am the most anti-smoking person on earth for a good reason, burying loved ones from a cause that could be prevented is heartbreaking.  I remember as a kid my mother sending me into the convenience store to buy cigarettes for her, I was mortified on every level, when I was old enough to take a stand I said NO and never would go again.  I remember when my grandmother was dying from all the strokes caused by cigarettes my mother and grandfather would still let her smoke, they said what more harm can it do, well just don't ask me to buy them.  The best part was so had so many strokes and was in such bad shape she forgot she was a smoker.  She "lived" like this for eight years, not really knowing what was going on, being unable to do any of the things she loved basically existed as a vegetable until the final series of strokes where they told us to pull the plug, take away her feeding tubes and water.  She would die within 48 hours.  Guess what she woke up.  We had starved and dehydrated her for 48 hours but she was alive, a living vegetable, but one my mother had to take home and play nursemaid to for 8 more months, changing her diapers, feeding her like a baby et****il she finally did die in her sleep.  My grandmother was robbed from me, her life ended 8 years before the end from smoking since she was a kid, she told stories of how her father smoked from the time he was 10 years old and died at 80 and that is was all propaganda that anti-smoking business.  Yeah Gram what do you think now.......

Loris I'm so glad to hear you found the cause. I'm nervous because I have a silastic ring also. but so glad you are on the mend!

So glad to hear you're able to eat better and I hope you're having success with quitting smoking.  I never thought I'd be able to quit, but it's been over 11 years now.  I don't miss it at all.