Good for you Ridgefire! We had a lot of guys in our classes when I was doing all the stuff for the band!! You're doing great!
Cjean.... It's not that it's hard to swallow it. I don't know with a gastric bypass so can not speak on that... A lapband is a band put at the top of your stoma. When it's in place, you start to get what's called a fill. What that means is they are putting saline solution inside of a sort of balloon that's on the inside of the band. As that is inflated with solution, your passage way for food to get down to the rest of your stomach becomes smaller. If you don't chew chew chew, you get food stuck in that space sometimes. It can be very painful. The food is supposed to stay above that band and then slowly move through. That's another reason why you can only eat 4 oz. at a time. That's all the more space there is above the band, when the band is working at it's optimum... meaning it's at the perfect tightness for the person. Mine isn't quite there yet and I still get a lot of food stuck. When that happens, I find a trashcan, get the food back up and start over. You're not really SUPPOSED to do that, but when you're in pain..... ?? You go in for fills in your lapband every 6 weeks or so, till it's perfect for you. It changes though and you have to go back to get more saline solution added sometimes as you lose weight. One time I got overfilled and had to go in on a Sat. and have them remove some of the saline. I couldn't swallow even my own spit and I started to panic a bit.
Tiki, I can still eat veggies..it takes me a massive amount of time (I ate some salad last night, which the Dr. said why bother?) and it took me about two hours to eat a cups' worth. I eat the other veggies especially in a good stew, well cooked! I love 'em!!! Fruit's a kinda no no as it's got so much sugar in it, but I eat about one piece a day, I'm going to say. Mostly bananas. Tried to eat some of the strawberries we picked yesterday, but whew... I don't think I'll try it again! LOL!!
Stacy
