Lap Band Nightmare!

So this is my first blog. I am going to explain about my Lap Band Nightmare, once its out, its out and I can build a bridge and move forward.

Big Changes in the wind - joined the 12wbt. I am officially at my heaviest I have been... Ever.... 138kg.

Lap band nightmare, saga, fiasco, disaster... the list goes on.
2008 saw me at 134kg and under the knife to have lap band surgery. To my dismay the first of many. A few months after my surgery I got down to 128kg, starting to walk and become more active. I went in to get my first fill. When the Dr put the needle in, he found a large pocket of Hematoma (blood and fluid outside the blood vessels). He did not put a fill in, told me to come back in a few weeks when it had settled down. That night, my temperature went through the roof and pain in my wound was extreme. Hubby took me to hospital the next morning on advise from the Surgeons office. They admitted me and I was on drip fed antibiotics for a week, before the Dr decided that the port had to come out, Surgery 2.

Surgery 3 I had a new port put in, on the other side of my stomach, away from the infection site. At this stage, I was eating what ever I wanted and started putting the kg back on. I was 130kg for this surgery.

Slowly, as the Dr's were very cautious to fill me too soon, I was able to get resistance and see the band work for me. I had about 5mil in an 8mil band, and I was eating small portions, no bread, or other heavy foods, most food needed to be wet (sauce or gravy added)

For the next 6 months the weight was tracking downwards and I was feeling confident this would work. I got down to 115kg


One night after I hopped into bed, I felt a little weird around the port site, and looked down, only to watch it flip under my skin! Weirdest sensation!

So off to the surgeon I went, to be confirmed that it indeed had flipped and I needed more surgery to fix the problem Surgery 4.

Then the Dr put another mil of fluid in, to take me to 6 mil. I went home that night, and i was not able to keep my saliva down, let alone water! (sorry for the TMI) I was vomiting every hour as my band held back my saliva. Unfortunately, the vomiting was not good, and managed to slip the whole band.

Surgery 5 - remove and replace band this was done early 2011.

Then I moved from Ballarat to Adelaide,  and at that stage there was no fluid in my band. So I found another Drs offices that would look after me and my badluckband... I slowly started to get it filled. This band was a 12 mil capacity.  Slowly 1 mil at a time, my band got to 8.5mil, I came home from the drs, and felt a lot of resistance, thinking, yes, now we can get somewhere. By this time, my weight had gotten higher than it was pre surgery 136. I just could not find my mojo.

Then to my horror, I lost resistance, I was able to eat large amounts again and the alarm bells were ringing. I got into see the Dr again a few weeks later, and he said, I'm sure its nothing to worry about lets check how much fluid you have, he found 7 mil, and said, this isn't too bad perhaps a fill may have missed its mark. So he topped me back up to 8.5, the resistance was there and great for 2 days, before I could eat normally again. I just knew at this point, yep.... More surgery.

So my next appointment, which took about a month to come around the Dr checked again and found there to be only 4 mil in there. Confirmed!

Surgery 6 and hopefully the last one. Two weeks ago I had surgery to replace the port and the cord that runs to my band, when they opened me up, the Dr confirmed that indeed there was a leaky cord and replaced both. I weighed 138kg at surgery.

Today I have been back into see the Dr, and thankfully he was prepared to put in 5 mil, and I can feel resistance already!

So that is the long story of my Badluckband!

Now I am going to use it to my advantage with this 12 week challenge. I WILL be a fitter stronger smaller person than I am today.

In other good news. I have lost 800g in 4 days!

Thanks for reading.