If you've been banded for a year+ and having complications...Please share!

 Thanks for sharing your experience Maria :)

 This is only a "problem" because I'm sick of it...but there could be worse things that's for sure.

Contrary to some small minds on here, even if you take a half cup of dense protein (moist, not dry) and take tiny bites and chew until it's mush you can still get stuck. If that happens at almost every meal for a week and you get fluid taken out and you're ok for a bit and then it starts happening again and you get more fluid out you begin to get sick of it.

The body has natural inflammation in it.  I'm very familiar to it as I have a disease that tries to kill me with inflammation. But, even a healthy normal person has a ton of inflammation and weather changes, stress, allergies, illness, happiness, sadness etc etc can change your inflammation levels at any given moment.

Having said that....the band is NOT a good tool as it is not consistent in terms of restriction.  I'm happy I have a tool, I was doing well with it when there wasn't a lot of fluid in it, but as time went on it doesn't seem to matter how much or how little fluid I have in it...it's so damn tight one minute and a half hour later it could be just fine.  

I've lost the last 26 pounds by eating protein shakes and ground meat (and even the ground meat can be a pain sometimes).  There is nothing wrong with my band (so far) other than thi**** or miss restriction.

I would have never had this if I had known just how bad the changes would be.  BUT, it has helped me lose a lot of weight, but I'm not keen on eating mushies and protein shakes for eternity.  I'm doing it now to get more weight off.  I would LOVE for my band to work properly, as advertised, as told by a few people that crap rainbows and unicorns.  But I've written MY truth.  

So, onward and downward (in weight) I go.  If I can get a sleeve I will. If not I will continue to lose my weight, but I eventually want this out of my body since it scares me so much with daily fluctuations now that I'm 2.5 years post op.

 Love the new Nomer...

 ;)  Time to get rid of the old...yeah, I'm still on F'ing pred LOL, but it doesn't define me.

 Prednisone is the devil for me, makes me crazy!   The docs say I'm allergic???

 OMG, how do you deal with that?  allergic yet you still have to take it? 

If you are doses higher than say 25mg you WILL go crazy.  That's a side effect.  No joke.  Neurotic, emotional, highs and lows...sucks!

 No, I don't take it any longer.  I was treated with it 3 times in my life; once for a severe poison oak reaction (3 weeks), summer of 2002 for severe asthma (10 weeks pills + inhaled) and in 2007 had epidural injections for spinal stenosis.  Hope I never have to take it again, cause it messes me up and made me very carb sensitive.

 SO glad you don't have to take it all the time. It's freakin' harsh, but then again it kept me alive.  Sooo...I guess I'm on the fence with it.  I still say an angry man invented the damn stuff...to make women that have to take it suffer! lol

I am 3 years post op and as of right now I have not had any problems. My only issue was during my recent pregnancy (I'm 11 weeks post op) I had NO restriction at all.  3 years ago the sleeve was not performed in my area and I had seen too many people gain their weight back after BYPASS. I researched for 2 years before having my surgery. There was only one hospital in the area that performed Lap Band, now there are 4 hospitals within a 75 mile radius that offer WLS.

I believe a lot of the problems is NOT the patient or the band... It's the lack of experienced doctors trying to earn a quick dollar. A weekend seminar does not give a general surgeon enough training to perform WLS.

Too many band-mills out there!!!!!!!

For the first thee years I did very well with my band, and lost nearly 100 pounds from a high of 270 to my lowest weight of 177.  I began to have problems with being too restricted, leading to a cycle of fills and unfills over the past two years, with a gradual weight gain of nearly 30 pounds.

I've been having significant pain lately- I feel like I am bruised inside, with episodes of sliming and PBing in addition to outright vomiting.  The nighttime GERD has been horrible. In fact last month I had aspiration pneumonia.
 
I saw my surgeon yesterday and am scheduled for xrays next week and an EGD in two weeks. The unofficial diagnosis is "slipped band".

I hope he finds something that is fixable. if not I am going to begin saving for a revision to something else.  Doc took out 2.6 CC and I feel so much better already, although still feeling bruised inside.

I am certainly not the victim of a band mill, nor of wildly deviant behavior.  I am beginning to believe that the band may have a limited life cycle for many of us and is not a permanent solution. As of now this is MY OPIONION only, and I am waiting to see what the scientific community says as more long term data becomes available.
And of course I am now up to 205. Big sigh.