Cleo's Mom

I think what he did proves that it really is calories in vs calories out which is what all the popular diet programs do - like saying low carb is best. They ALL just reduce calories and get results. One is not better than the other. But speaking of making money - well that's where the big money is - diet programs, books, supplements, etc.. Some people cannot lower their cholesteral despite losing weight and dieting - it's genetic. They need medication. It has been shown to lower their risk of heart disease and stroke.

Since more than half the blue dog democrats were defeated those left tend to be more liberal democrats. So, between now and when the extremist republicans take control in January, the democratic majority has a golden opportunity to continue the tax cuts for the middle class and eliminate them for the top 2%. The blue dogs who were defeated can vote for this because they're already lame ducks. They don't have to worry about their constituents. Ditto with don't ask, don't tell and a few other things. We still have the power. Use it. Those who got defeated last Tuesday have nothing to lose by voting for these things. Just do it. And screw the republicans. They aren't the majority yet. Wait your turn. :thumbup:

Obama is the leader of the Democratic Party and he needs to more effectively get the message out. Quit allowing the republicans to define the agenda, message and outcome. But I think Obama is really careful not to project that angry black man stereotype. But he's most effective when he is on message and reducing the issues to one line. People remember those because most are too stupid to remember more. We need to get Tim Kaine out as DNC chair. He is the worst. Even worse than Michael Steele is at the RNC. Bring back Howard Dean. He is great at messaging. He got it done in 2008. Pelosi obviously got the message out to win the congress in 2006 and 2008. She is more soft spoken. I would prefer a Hillary Clinton style. She would kick ass, but that is not Pelosi's style.

I don't want Pelosi to step down. The republicans would Celebrate that as an additional victory - i.e.- they took Pelosi down. She did everything she was supposed to in the house. She got all of the agenda and bills passed with no republican support. She was tough. So what if they use her in 2012? She will no longer be speaker of the house. The democrats will need to use Mr. Tan Man Boehner as the focus of their ads. It will be a different voting public in a presidential election and I am hoping (but not hopeful) that the democrats who are left (more liberal - most blue dogs are gone) will grow a spine and get the democratic message of pro-middle class out there. It's Harry Reid who I would like to see replaced. I think he is wimpy and ineffective and can't keep those Senate democrats in line. He was embarassing in his debate with Angle. I could have debated her better and would have. And now that we really don't need Lieberman - I again suggest that he be relegated to a windowless basement room with a bare light bulb in the ceiling and stripped of his committee chair.

I have posted this elsewhere but my former surgeon and his partner took over a retiring bariatric surgeon's practice (they are general surgeon, too, in addition to getting into WLS) and I think they wanted to use up old inventory before it expired - and that included the old 4cc bands. They have a sterility expiration date. My current doctor said the same thing you did that the 4cc band is harder to fill - it can take micro amounts of fill. My idiot former surgeon gave me 2cc's and then 1cc for a total of 3cc's - and I couldn't imagine why I was having so many problems with 3cc's in a 10 cc band - because that is the size band he told me I had. Another of many reasons why I left him and found a competent doctor. Thanks, again.

Thanks for thinking of me. I see my doctor next week and am going to talk to him about it. I am not inclined to want a fill because even if I could be guaranteed to lose 30 lbs but the possibility of getting stuck increased I would say no. That stuck episode that took me to the ER is still fresh in my mind. That pain was beyond belief. I couldn't even speak to the intake nurse. I have never been in that much pain before. And I've had a lot of health problems. So, we'll see what he has to say. He didn't put this 4cc band in, he doesn't put the port where mine is, so he is dealing with another surgeon's work. I am not optimistic that the band will work for me like it has for others. But I do my part with healthy eating, food journal, counting calories and daily exercise. Thanks for asking. Very nice of you.

That was my first thought, too. I am apple-shaped and just like pear-shaped people, I just became a smaller version of an apple shape. Still larger on top and smaller on bottom. Clothes aren't made for apples. Especially pants. My weight is around the middle. Pear shapes have their weight in hips and thighs. Sounds like she's apple-shaped.

If you were losing weight with 5cc you shouldn't have been given another fill. Get a slight unfill.

To answer your question about the sweet spot. There is nothing magical that will happen if you happen to reach it except that those who do say it allows you to feel satisfied (not hungry) and stay that way for hours with less (healthy) food. So if your caloric intake goes down - so should your weight. But you are right - band or no band - it's calories in -vs- calories out. So getting a fill doesn't change this unless you are satisfied with fewer calories. Your body doesn't know you have a band when it processes calories. It seems like you are doing everything right. Sometimes our bodies adjust to our eating/exercising and it takes awhile for it to reset.

I don't know who this republican was but the republican leadership - Boehner and McConnell are saying they won't compromise. Funny how they repeatedly say they have to listen to the will of the people and repeal healthcare. Besides the fact that the majority of people don't want it repealed, maybe tweaked, but an equal number want to give it a chance or expand it - they aren't listening to the people, the majority of whom DON'T support extending the tax cut for the rich. They continue to say they want to cut spending and reduce the deficit but they want to borrow or spend billions of dollars to give $100,000 checks to millionaires and billionaires. They said now is not the time to cut taxes (on the rich) as it will affect job growth. Really? So where are all these jobs the rich are supposed to trickle down with the 10 year tax cut they've had??? Huh? Where are they? Also, they might say that they will find the money for the tax cut to the rich by cutting spending. Guess where that will come from? That's right - for the middle class, whether it's infrastructure, education, health, etc.. but not the military. Of course not. Additionally, I am sick of these republicans bashing the government. They talk about Washington being broke yet they, themselves are career politicians (many of the "newly" elected freshmen congressmen have a long prior history in the government). So here's what I say to them: If you hate the government - DON'T RUN FOR IT. Quit expecting us taxpayers to pay your salary and healthcare while you try to take our healthcare from us if you hate the government so much. :thumbup:

Contact the insurance commissioner of your state. I'm pretty sure that insurance companies are required to have an appeals process. Of course, they will tell you anything to get rid of you because it works with so many people. So, don't give up. That's what they're counting on.

Try posting this on lapband complications, life after band removal or other WLS forums for a complete look at this issue and to have more information with which to make up your mind. Your surgeon has some experience that makes him think that, due to your love of sweets, the gastric bypass would be better for you. Make sure you hear from both sides of the band vs gastic bypass issue and do your own research before you decide. Good luck.

Talk to the doctors who would be doing your surgery under Oxford. Maybe they can move your appointments up and get your surgery in before the change takes place. Even if they can't - don't take no for an answer. Appeal Cigna's denial. Ask for where in your policy it specifically does not pay for gastric banding surgery. Perhaps it will pay for it with co-morbidities. Weight loss programs are Weight Watchers, Dr. Dean Ornish, Jenny Craig, etc.. It is not surgery. Don't give up. They always say no at first knowing that most won't pursue it. Good luck.

Ariscus: I don't have time to search, but somewhere on here I posted that the republicans started their campaign to have Obama fail (and block his agenda) before he was even sworn in and you challenged me to find that information. You said you would vote for Obama (or something like that) if I found it. Well here it is from the New York Times: Published: November 3, 2010 The PowerPoint slides presented to House Republicans in January 2009 seemed incongruously optimistic at a time when the very word “hope” belonged to the newly ascendant Democrats and their incoming president, Barack Obama. “If the goal of the majority is to govern, what is the purpose of the minority?” one slide asked. “The purpose of the minority,” came the answer, “is to become the majority.” The presentation was the product of a strategy session held 11 days before Mr. Obama’s inauguration, when top Republican leaders in the House of Representatives began devising an early blueprint for what they would accomplish in Tuesday’s election: their comeback. So, there was no spirit of working together, of helping the economy on the brink of destruction, of working to help build America. None of that. Their first order of business was to find out how to unseat Obama and the democrats.

To answer my own question about who has made all the money (during this recession and at other times) - let me offer the following opinion piece that I just read: Bob Herbert: Seriously haywire Those with clout have eroded widely shared prosperity Wednesday, November 03, 2010 The clearest explanation yet of the forces that converged over the past three decades or so to undermine the economic well-being of ordinary Americans is contained in the new book, "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class." The authors, political scientists Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of the University of California, Berkeley, argue persuasively that the economic struggles of the middle and working classes in the United States since the late-1970s were not primarily the result of globalization and technological changes, but rather a long series of policy changes in government that overwhelmingly favored the very rich. Those changes were the result of increasingly sophisticated, well-financed and well-organized efforts by the corporate and financial sectors to tilt government policies in their favor, and thus in favor of the very wealthy. From tax laws to deregulation to corporate governance to safety net issues, government action was deliberately shaped to allow those who were already very wealthy to amass an ever-increasing share of the nation's economic benefits. "Over the last generation," the authors write, "more and more of the rewards of growth have gone to the rich and supperrich. The rest of America, from the poor through the upper middle class, has fallen further and further behind." As if to underscore this theme, it was revealed last week (by David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for The New York Times), that the incomes of the very highest earners in the United States, a small group of individuals hauling in more than $50 million annually (sometimes much more), increased fivefold from 2008 to 2009, even as the nation was being rocked by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Last year was a terrific year for those at the very top. Mr. Hacker and Mr. Pierson note in their book that investors and executives at the nation's 38 largest companies earned a stunning total of $140 billion -- a record. The investment firm Goldman Sachs paid its employees nearly $600,000 per person, its best year since it was founded in 1869. Something has gone seriously haywire in the distribution of the fruits of the American economy. This unfortunate shift away from a long period of more widely shared prosperity unfolded steadily, year after year since the late-'70s, whether Democrats or Republicans controlled the levers of power in Washington. "Winner-Take-All Politics" explores the vexing question of how this could have happened in a democracy in which -- in theory, at least -- the enormous number of voters who are not rich would serve as a check on policies that curtailed their own economic opportunities while at the same time supercharging the benefits of the runaway rich. The answer becomes clearer when one recognizes, as the book stresses, that politics is largely about organized combat. It's a form of warfare. "It's a contest," said Mr. Pierson, "between those who are organized, who can really monitor what government is doing in a very complicated world and bring pressure effectively to bear on politicians. Voters in that kind of system are at a disadvantage when there aren't reliable, organized groups representing them that have clout and can effectively communicate to them what is going on." The book describes an "organizational revolution" that took place over the past three decades in which big business mobilized on an enormous scale to become much more active in Washington, cultivating politicians in both parties and fighting fiercely to achieve shared political goals. This occurred at the same time that organized labor, the most effective force fighting on behalf of the middle class and other working Americans, was caught in a devastating spiral of decline. Thus, the counterweight of labor to the ever-increasing political clout of big business was effectively lost. "We're not arguing that globalization and technological change don't matter," said Mr. Hacker. "But they aren't by any means a sufficient explanation for this massive change in the distribution of wealth and income in the U.S. Much more important are the ways in which government has shaped the economy over this period through deregulation, through changes in industrial relations policies affecting labor unions, through corporate governance policies that have allowed CEOs to basically set their own pay, and so on." This hyperconcentration of wealth and income, and the overwhelming political clout it has put into the hands of the monied interests, has drastically eroded the capacity of government to respond to the needs of the middle class and others of modest income. Nothing better illustrates the enormous power that has accrued to this tiny sliver of the population than its continued ability to thrive and prosper despite the Great Recession that was largely the result of their winner-take-all policies, and that has had such a disastrous effect on so many other Americans. So, the american voters just put the republicans in whose first order of business is to borrow money from China? to give more tax money to the rich and put us further in debt. This spending and debt increase they are okay with. And the tea party will fight to loosen those wall street regulations that might reign in the greed on wall street whose CEO's like to play russian roulette with our money.

This is a fantastic post and sadly too true.

It took bush and company eight years to bring our country and our economy to almost complete destruction. In less than two years Obama and the democrats with no help from the republicans did the following: -turned a loss of 700,000 job loss per month to having a positive job growth the past nine months -in the last nine months - more private sector jobs were created than in all eight years of bush. -passed the successful stimulus that gave a tax cut to 95% of workers and saved 400,000 jobs in my state alone. -passed the Lily Ledbetter fair pay act so that those who are denied fair pay can sue for just compensation -passed historic healthcare that no other president of either party was able to do. It's not perfect but it's a start. (As an aside, thousands die from lack of healthcare - real people, real death. You are 52% more likely to die of a heart attack and 49% more likely to die from a stroke if you don't have health insurance - but I guess that's okay with those so-called pro-lifers who voted for republicans to repeal healthcare.) -passed Wall Street, financial and credit card reform. -passed reform to the student lending programs, cutting out the middleman, and saving billions -passed small business act to help them get loans -the stock market went from 6000 to 11,000 points -corporate American is sitting on 2 trillion dollars (where did that money come from in a recession?) And more that I can't think of. And all of this is somehow a bad thing to those white, male, middle aged+ tea partiers and those who voted against the democrats. People have voted against their own self interest and will get what they deserve, just like they did with the bush administration when the earning power of their wages went down and their homes, investments and retirement lost value. It was the decade of loss of about a trillion dollars to the middle class. But someone made money during this time. Want to guess who that was? They are the one who bought this election.

They can't answer it because they don't have an answer. They pledge to reduce spending and reduce the deficit while creating jobs and improving the economy. How does that work? No answers other than tax cuts for the rich. That's their answer to everything. And if Eric Cantor wants to get back to before 2008 spending - he needs to go back further than that and get back to pre-2001 spending - before there were two unfunded wars, two unfunded tax cuts for the rich and a big, unfunded give away to pharma with medicare part D - all courtesy of the big spending republicans under bush.

We live in a republic, not a democracy. I wish we did have a democracy because then Al Gore would have been elected president in 2000 and the country would be so much better off today.

Try sipping some warm tea. Cold things might cause it to constrict more. Something hot should cause it to relax. Try liquids for a day or so, too. Until the pain goes away. Maybe some liquid tylenol would help with the pain and possible swelling. Hope you feel better. I know the pain of being stuck. I went to the ER and spent the night in the hospital after being stuck. Getting shot in the stomach couldn't have been more painful.

Apparently the serious republican leaders are planning to stop Sarah Palin from becoming the republican nominee for president in 2012. I, on the other hand, am going to push for a Sarah Palin/Christine O'Donnell ticket for 2010 Caribou Barbie and Broomstick Barbie. Love it!!! :thumbup:

Hey, Leroyspuds. Welcome back. I've missed your posts. Yeah, I can't wait for things to get better. The tea party wants smaller government and less spending. How does that reconcile with their equal yapping about the government doing something about jobs? Wouldn't that be bigger government? More government intervention? Like I said, I'll give them to March 1st, 2011 to create the 8 million jobs that were lost due to their failed economic policies. I'm being more patient than they've been with Obama. And repeal/reform healthcare? Like they give a rat's patuty about healthcare. If they were serious, why didn't they do anything about it when they controlled congress from 1994-2006 much of the time under a republican president? Oh, that's right - they supported the bush healthcare plan: Go to the ER. BTW, the insurance companies got what they wanted with the health insurance mandate (lots of healthy people buying their product) but now are balking and giving tons of money to the republicans to repeal the healthcare regulation that requires insurance companies to spend 80% of their money on actual healthcare. On healthcare and not on big salaries, bonuses and "administrative" costs? Oh, perish the thought!! :thumbup: It will just be more tax cuts for the wealthy. That's all they ever talk about as a solution to everything. How's that trickle down working for ya?

I've been taking fish oil for years and while it helps with my triglycerides, it hasn't helped with cholesterol. The statins are actually fairly safe drugs and are an important part of care for those with high cholesterol, especially those with a family history of heart disease, like me. All drugs have side effects, just like high blood pressure, diabetic and anti-depression drugs many on here take. But you have to weight the benefits vs risk. If you have high cholesterol, lowering it with diet alone is usually not effective to get it to a normal level.

Despite all my weight loss and the fact that I have been on pravastatin for years, my HDL just will not go up to an acceptable (to me) level. My total cholesteral is okay, but that HDL level is more important. I have a family history of heart disease and stroke, so I am concerned. My doctor just doubled my dosage. I eat healthy and exercise but my numbers were slightly better before my weight loss. Go figure. I will get more blood work later this month and see if this helps.

I talked to someone in administration at AGH and they said Dr. Urbandt's office is staying where it is in the Cercone Bldg. in Bloomfield and he will continue to see patients there. She said he might see patients on a limited basis at AGH. Surgery will be done at AGH, too. So, that is a relief, at least for now.