It has been such a long week! First, let me state clearly that stomach flu with the lap-band equals a whole new level of suck. Now, what are the lessons I learned?

First, although it’s scary and painful, probably the band is not going to slip while attempting to vomit with the lap-band. Sugarless gum may help to calm the stomach some and decrease episodes of vomiting. Maybe.

Stay hydrated. It’s hard to even get liquids down when you’re feeling sick and vomiting seems to swell the tissue around the band (I assume) and drinking is harder than normal. Keep drinking. Try sugar free popsicles. Try whatever you can get down.

When you feel better and get hungry and think you want to eat normal foods – don’t. It could just be me but I suspect it’s not. I do think this is at least in part a lap-band issue. My stomach has been extremely sensitive. Saturday was the first time I ate something without getting sick again. So, after having the stomach flu – think bland and soft foods.

I spent some time obsessing that I’d damaged the band. I felt like I had no restriction. Looking back, I was eating only soft foods. As soon as I tried something more solid again, it was clear I had restriction. I had to stick with soft – and bland – for several more days but I’m back to more or less normal now. Normal for me, that is.

So, that’s what I learned about coping with stomach flu with the lap-band. In a lot of ways, it’s not that different from anyone else. I think it just requires a little more thought and the recovery process was really slow because of increased sensitivity of my system. Could be that was just this particular flu or it could be a lap-band issue. Either way, I’ll be more ready to deal with this the next time.

Oh please let there be no next time.