Yesterday I had my first follow up appointment since having my lap band placed. I have lost a total of 18 lbs since surgery, which is a grand total of 28 lbs (I lost 10 lbs prior to surgery). They were very please with the weight loss that I have achieved.
The psychologist said that most people lose 1/6 of their excess body weight from the time of surgery til their first follow up appointment and I have actually lost 1/5 of my excess body weight, so I am doing better than average.
After talking with the Nurse Practitioner about what I am able to eat at one sitting we made the decision that I needed a fill, which means that some additional saline needs to be added to my lap band to make my restriction tighter and therefore my intake would be less.
The doctor came in and talked with me after the NP got everything set up and then they proceeded to do my fill. The process for this is that they find your port which is attached to your abdominal wall then they insert a long needle into your abdomen where your largest incision is from your surgery where the port is located. Once they successfully get the needle into the port they pull out what saline you have in there so that they can measure what is already there and then they put that back in and add an additional amount to it. I already had 3 cc of saline in my lab band and they added 1.5 cc of saline so now I have a total of 4.5 cc of saline.
I know I made that sound pretty simple and most of the time I am sure that it is and I was reassured that the first time is the hardest. The NP and the Dr actually had a hard time getting the needle into my port because they couldn't find the exact location of it easily and that was most likely due to scar tissue build up and a little bit of swelling still left at the incision site. The Dr was actually getting ready to take me down to radiology to find the port when he found it! As far as being painful, it wasn't, when the NP told me she was sticking in the needle initially I didn't even feel it, but as they were moving the needle around to find the port occasionally I would feel a stinging sensation, but other than that it was painless.
Due to having a 'fill' I am on liquids for 2 days, then progress to soft/mushy food for 2 days and then back to regular food. They told me to go ahead and start a regular exercise regimen so that is in the works as well. I will post more pictures in 3-4 weeks.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I pray that you have a blessed day!
Lori
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment