band problems

well this is my first post and I will lay it all out there.

on August 8th 2011 I had lap band surgery at a plump weight of 390.went to the lap band Dr. three times for fills 2cc,2cc and 2cc for a total of 8 with 2cc in place after the surgery.well weight fell off fast and i adjusted to my new way of life and was enjoying life again. I couldnt believe how young and energetic i felt after a hundred pounds had been lifted. I kinda hit a  plateau at 225 lbs and have been there for about eight months now. I had had lots of getting stuck incidents but always chalked it up to not chewing good enough and it was a very noticeable feeling when the food would go on through, pretty painfull really. sometimes i would vomit up just what was above the band but most of the time I would just deal with the pain until it went through. well all hell broke loose oct 10th 2012, I allowed my sister in-law to have her wedding at my house. the catered bbq and I had my typical hour long meal to eat a coffee plate full of food (meat only)... well the next morning I woke up and it hurt bad to even drink water?? I felt like I was stuck. I tried to force what ever was in there down but the water just came back up. If i dont rush things the water will go down after 30 minutes to an hour. since that morning I have been to the lap band Dr. four times getting fills takin out . each time he would pull fluid out i would feel half way normal for a day or two and then right back to water,tea,solid food and soft food getting stuck. Finally i had all the fluid pulled from the band and the Dr said i probably have other problems and that I need to see a gastro Dr. So I went to one and paid 1,500 bucks to have an upper GI done. The Gastro Dr said everything looks normal and that he dilated everything he could but the hole going to my stomach was non existent like i still had allot of fluid in the band, if the problem persists to go have the lap band removed. I asked him if I could have a drink of water to wash my mouth out after the procedure so he brought me a dixie cup full. when I drank the water it hung up just like always so the dilation did not work. that dr did the procedure in an out of network clinic so I got a nice bill. Anyhow I went for a second opinion and found a very good Dr with tons of good reviews. This new Dr wanted to do an upper GI within five days of me just having one. lol I finally refused to do another one and had to tell him he should just get the video from the dr I had just had one with last week. well at least the new dr is trying to figure things out. He sent me in to have a cat scan and he said the lap band looks extremely tight and asked if all the fluid had really been pulled out??? It has. I guess at this point The new gastro Dr has a few more tests to see if it is my esophagus or not. but with two gastro Dr.s telling me the band looks too tight i guess I need to have it removed. My lap band Dr always made a comment about the bad has not slipped at all and is in the proper placement and that i simply needed to chew better.

I will try to post some pictures from inside my esophagus of where the band is... basically it looks like a donut with no visible hole just wrinkles where I think a hole should be. 

Sounds like you have scare tissue building up under your band.  If you check out the failed band group, you will see many people, myself included, have scare tissue build up under the band.  This tightens the band as though there is fluid in it.  I had fluid removed almost every month for the last nine months.  They would take fluid out and I could eat and lose weight, than it would tighten back up.  After all the fluid was removed, for the third time in 3.5 years, it was determined the band would come out.  I heard here and from the center I needed to chew better, I knew I was following the rules and still had issues for almost three of the 3.5 years.

I fought my insurance's once in a lifetime WLS policy and now have the sleeve.  Good Luck. 

I am so sorry.  I hope it all works out for you.

You're not alone with this... so many people have had tests that show the band is in the correct placement and still have tremendous complications with it. The tests don't really mean anything because it's nearly impossible to see the true story until the band is removed. (I went through this myself... turned out that I had incredible amounts of damage that didn't show up in a CTscan.)

Something is causing your body to be inflamed. Chewing better isn't going to help the situation if your stoma is so small that not even water can comfortably pass through.

Consider joining the group in  my signature line. There is information that might help you. We've all gone through the same or similar experiences.

Best of luck to you. I'm sorry you're going through this.