Colourful food and other stories

Here's what I took to work with me this morning! Starting from the left, the pink stuff is a high protein strawberry shake. Next to it is a smoothie I made with strawberries and nectarine, together with some fresh orange juice for 'breakfast'. Further to the right is some 'green' homemade soup consisting of cauliflower, sprouts, spinach and butternut squash. There's also a low fat hot chocolate and some sugar-free summer fruits cordial. Although I intended consuming all of this, in practice, it didn't work out this way: I didn't quite finish the shake (explanation below), the smoothie was horrible so I left it (!), I didn't drink the hot chocolate or the cordial.

So why? Well, I have been really struggling to get anything down today. After taking about an hour to drink the shake this morning my mouth started to fill up with saliva! I did what most of us would have done - I simply swallowed it - but it just filled up again! In the end I had to rush down to the toilets to spit it out. Since I have been home this evening this has happened twice more. I spent about five minutes solid leaning over the kitchen sink simply letting saliva pour out of my mouth. How weird - it wasn't vomiting - there were no stomach contractions or anything, it just kept pouring out! I have also been suffering quite a lot with indigestion-like feelings in the back of my throat and upper oesophagus. It's actually been quite an unpleasant day and there seems to be no clear pattern to it. I still feel, as yesterday, that it's more difficult to get down 'thin' drinks like water, tea, LemSip (I have a cold and cough!) and Ribena. After my first episode of saliva-pouring I took courage and ate a bowl of freshly-made fish soup. The soup was quite thick (and lovely) - and by going very slowly I ate it all. It went down much easier than thinner drinks. Later, I tried a low-fat fromage frais (I ate one last night without any problem) and it brought on another episode of saliva-pouring!

Some people on the UKGastricBand forum suggested that these experiences are not that uncommon after a fill and that after a week or two my stomach should settle down. I will try to progress onto purees on Sunday morning (that will be three days) and see what happens, but to be honest, I'm far from optimistic. If I cannot get down any purees by the middle of next week I will contact the nurse and see what she advises.