My Gastric Band Diary

[helen louise]

I am a firm believer that a lot of IBS is brought on by some sort of trauma to the body, either injury/childbirth/operations etc or emotional/stress, I used to spend a lot of time on the IBS forums & around 95% were woman although I dare say that is probably down to women able to talk more about IBS than men but more women are diagnosed with it than men are

[helen louise]

I started my pre op diet on sunday weight was 108.1KG

As of this morning (weds) I am now 107kg, considering how much I have eaten its a surprise!

I have eaten a cooked breakfast each morning until this morning & goodness me what a difference!
Cooked brekky was two slices of lean back bacon, scrambled eggs (2 eggs) 2 grilled toms, dry fried mushrooms, & 2 tbs beans
I ate this around 9am & didn't start to get hungry until 2/3pm in which I ate some crispbreads with cheese spread,

Today as I was busy I had a slimfast shake instead, drank that at 8.45am & was starving by 10am! how anyone survives on those I have no idea! won't be having anynore of those!

Lunch today will be a small chicken breast with some salad
Dinner will be a pheasant breast with a chilli/garlic/lime marinade! with some veggies

we have a lovely wild game stall at a local farmers market & as game tends to be very lean & treated myself to a selections of things inc venison steak, pheasant breasts & some wild boar cutlets, not a scrapping of fat on any of it

[ladybird64]

Helen, thanks for putting your diary here. I hope you don't mind if I ask some questions?

From what I know (which admittedly isn't much!) a gastric band op reduces the size of the tummy so you will be unable to have much food at all. I know that you have IBS and other issues but, and please don't think this is criticism, I assume that you eat more than you put out so to speak. Oh gawd, that sounds awful.. . Let me try again.

I am assuming that you eat more than you need and that is why you have problems with your weight. I know that most people that have weight problems have more difficulty with the psychological issues regarding food rather than the physical, ie eating when not really hungry, comfort eating etc. If I have got this wrong then please forgive me, it is not intended to offend at all.

If that is the case for you (as it is for me) how do you think you will manage with the psychological side of not being able to eat for comfort when you need to, has that been discussed with the doc?

I am genuinely curious. I am obese, very but have never considered surgery because I know that my weight is nothing to do with hunger but is completely connected to my mood, therefore for me I know surgery wouldn't solve the problem.

But I am also aware that for many, this type if surgery is extremely successful so I wondered how the psychological difficulties associated with overeating are tackled both prior to and after the surgery? It would be very interesting to hear from someone who is preparing to have the procedure!

Look forward to continued reading of your diary and good luck

[helen louise]

Hi

No offence caused whatsoever the reason I wanted to write the diary was to show people all the nitty gritty about the op,
sadly there are still a lot of people out there that think weightloss surgery is the easy option, far from it!

Eating large amounts can certainly trigger an IBS attack especially if they are trigger foods!

Having a band fitted gives you a small pouch at the top of the stomach, the stomach isn't cut like if you were having a bypass, the band depending on the surgeon is stitched into place & is not filled at the op, it is filled approx 6 weeks later, the capacity of the band varies, mine will be 10ml, on the first fill they inject a very small amount of fluid into the port which is located just below the ribcage under the skin, its joined to the band by a fine tube, each band fill will usually only be around 1ml at a time, the whole band isn't inflatable its only an inner part of the silicone band, basicly the outcome is to reduce the opening into the rest of the stomach so that the food stays in the pouch for a reasonable amount of time, its a very fine balance, too little & you will be eating too much & too much of a fill & you will not be able to keep anything down

I do comfort eat to a point but not alot, I don't think there are too many people who can truthfully say they have never turned to food when they have faced some sort of issue, 5yrs ago I weighed 125kgs & on diagnosis in feb this year I weighed 100kgs, I had basicly changed a few things along the way to help with the weightloss, I stopped drinking coffee as I used a lot of sugar in that & stopped drinking full sugar coke etc as a result I lost 25kgs,

Sadly it appears that since being put on glicizide I am always hungry! hence the 8kg weight gain! I just don't want to go back to that weight as I felt awful & bizarrely when I was diagnosed in feb with type2 I hadn't felt so good in years! was a bit of a body blow, since then after putting on these 8kgs I am feeling pretty bad again, if someone had asked me when I was 125kgs if I would have the band op I would have said no! but knowing how good I felt at the lower weight & now with the Diabetes thrown in I have decided that if I am going to do something I need to do it now, it might not put the diabetes into "remission" but whilst I do not have any complications I am acting now to delay/prevent them in the future,

The band is a tool to help you establish better eating patterns, if you eat too much or too quickly you will throw up, also it can cause the band to slip which will mean another op to remove it, hopefully that should cause people to think about what they are doing food wise!

[Mlacey]

Hi all just found this post and thought I'd say a little on the subject I am disgusted that the NHS will not always pay for weight loss surgery I have been type 2 diabetic since I was 17 I am now 25 I was told when I was diagnosed that it was because I was over weight that I had the condition. So I'll be honest I am 5ft 3 inches tall and I was 73 kg at the time I wouldn't say I was obese to say the least anyway I started on diet and exercise to try and control my diabetes which didn't work I was in metformin for 2 yrs before it failed to work an was put on novo mix 30 which worked for a little while and I was increasing it all the time till I was taking about 100 units twice a day so we tried the bolus mix of novo rapid and lantus solo star which worked fine apart from I piled on the pounds with it. I became pregnant with my son in 2010 and piled on more weight with being so insulin resistant that I have ended up now weighing 130kg! And taking more and more insulin each week after a lot of fighting I managed to get bydrueon which is the new weekly injection I am due to go on this on Wednesday I really hope this works. I asked to be referred for a gastric bypass as I was told they would give me one not until I had, had all the family I wanted first so I said I was prepared to have just the one child as my BMI is currently at 50!! And I was told they don't actually do so many now because funding has dried up. I think this is shocking as I would have thought that not having to give you medication to treat diabetes and all the complications along with it would save them a lot more money than giving someone a little operation to reduce weight and possibly reverse type 2 diabetes. I don't think anyone should have to spend money to get this privately.

[helen louise]

Its very very unfair, I have now known two people who have had a bypass on the NHS but haven't done anything to help themselves, one a man had it 2 yrs ago with a weight of 25st he now eighs 24st thats a weightloss of just 1st! the reason is that he spends all day eating chocolate/cakes/icecream he has made no changes to his diet at all, he has type 2 & although is went into remission for a few weeks it is now out of control, why!!!!!!!!!

[helen louise]

Had my pre op tests on friday & now the nerve racking wait to see if they are all ok!

Had blood taken for almost every test going (10 vials!) not so worried about the blood as I took my latest (june) blood test print out from my diabetes review to the consultant on 24th sept & he had a good look at them, it was liver/kidneys function that was the important ones, both those were fine but have to recheck them within 2 weeks of op, ECG/blood pressue was fine as they gave me those results straight away, I also had a chest xray that I am waiting for the results hopefully that will be fine as I have never smoked or suffered from chest problems, the most likely test to throw a spanner in the works is the MRSA swab as a lot of people can walk around with that without knowing, if its positive its anti b's & op put back a week or so

Been on the pre op diet since sunday 30th sept 108.4 & as of this morning (9th) I am 104.9 so thats a loss of 3.2kgs or 7.1 lbs

Will update as soon as I have the results but as it stands at the moment the surgery will be going ahead this friday

[Momblegoose]

Here's hoping everything comes back fine for Friday!

Momble

[Spaceage]

Hi,

Hope all is going well for you, I was diagnosed as type 2 in May 2011 after being referred by my sleep clinic to Bariatrics (Abnormal Sleep Apnoeia sufferer) weighed 126.6kg. Had Bypass surgery in Feb 2012 and currently weigh 94kg, was off Metformin before Feb ended and last blood test showed my HbA1c as 6.3! Am really pleased so far and losing the weight has been liberating!

Word of caution re band, my mother is a counseller and one of her clients has lost approx 15 stone with a band but it was removed while she had excess skin removed, in the 6 month interim waiting for a new one to be fitted she gained 5 stone! Don't want to alarm you but do want you to have your eyes wide open about the eventual removal.

Once again god luck and hope to see your regular diary updates.

Age

[helen louise]

Hi

Yes I've read a few stories about that, people who have had the band but then went for a bypass have done the same thing,

It might be the wrong way to look at it but I want to try & sort my eating habits out so that if the band fails/needs to be removed at a later date I won't "need" to fall back on the band to limit my eating, I don't know how I will do it yet, maybe seeing a counseller would help with that, I think a lot of people use the band as a sole weightloss answer rather than the "tool" that it is, so when it is removed for whatever reason people will just go back to how they were before,

Well done for the weightloss

Still not heard anything from the hospital so it looks like all systems go!

[xyzzy]

Good luck Helen wishing you all the best

[helen louise]

Getting really stressed out now!

Hospital rung to say my blood results were rejected because my name was spelt wrong! now I can understand mistakes happening but considering the bloods were taken last friday & they leave it until thursday lunchtime to tell me 6 Flipping days!

Now waiting for a call to confirm if its ok for me to go in tomorrow AM & have my bloods done again as they are done in house, trying to find out if blood was rejected before or after testing, if it was after at least they could check to see if anything major has cropped up & that would just mean me waiting an hour so for them to get the results in the morning before they take me down to surgery

[helen louise]

Well some better news! apparently the DR rejected the results not the lab which means they were done & no problems found but I need to have them redone in the morning so that all the paperwork matches up but unless something crops up that wasn't there last friday its all going ahead!

[catza]

Good luck Helen. I will have my fingers crossed for you tomorrow.

[Etty]

Hi Helen, good luck with your operation. I was wondering how you are getting on with your pre-op diet? Are you comfortable with it, and do you think you could do it for months or longer?