So Cal Kurt

It is a crap shoot with UHC. I sailed right through approval as did my co-worker. My wife had to jump through hoops but finally did get approved 9 months later. The strange thing is she had great documentation and years documented tries at weight loss. Hopefully you are one of the lucky ones. Worse case scenario, you play the game for a few months and re-submit. Good luck!

Any thoughts about getting together in November?

I have some before and after pics in my gallery. I am a little smaller now but only by a few lbs. They aren't in order but you can tell which ones are which.

It has been a really long time since I took anything my mother says to heart. Unfortunately, I blame a lot of my problems with food on my family and my upbringing. My dad passed away at a fairly early age for these day (71). He was morbidly obese most of his life and had all of the obesity related issues that went along with it. In the end he died of unrelated lung issues but I can't help but think if he had 100lbs less of a body to oxygenate, he would have been around for a little more time. I can't help but wonder how his life would have been different if he had access to this procedure. I haven't been ashamed to tell anyone that asks even though I don't broadcast it. Perhaps it is my age or my place in life. I don't live my life for anyone but myself at this point. Accept it or not I really don't care. I have gotten that second chance at life that so few get, I am taking full advantage. When I was rolling around on the floor with my 6 month old grand daughter least night, it really shows me the gift I have received.

Nothing better for a man's ego than an extra 3 or 4 inches of penis. Even if you are in great shape. Just saying. Let your brother try to argue with that!

here is the link to the group. http://www.verticalsleevetalk.com/groups/show/2-socal-vsg-support-group/ we are meeting in Eastvale (north of corona ) on Aug 13.

My wife and I are both sleevers and live in Ontario. There is an IE group that tries to meet once a month. Welcome.

I myself was beyond hair loss way prior to my surgery. When I was at a support group 2 months ago, they were talking about hair loss and were saying the pre-natal vitamins helped. My wife was with me, she was just under 2 months post op, started the pre-natal vitamins and hasn't really had any hair loss at 3 and a half months out. She is taking the Gummi pre-natals from Target.

I was driving 4 days post op and returned to work in 2 weeks. My wife returned to work in 6 days. 6 weeks is a really long time. I did however have a no heavy lifting restriction for 8 weeks and that seems to be the norm. In 2 weeks, aside from being tired, I was pretty much feeling normal.

I took a 2800 mile motorcycle trip 9 weeks post op. Had over 900 miles in the saddle the first day out. No physical problems whatsoever. Make sure you plan out your food and have stuff on hand or a plan on how and where to eat. For me the problems at that point were still trying to figure out the diet and how to do it while not at home.

I don't think the calorie count is high but 180G of carbs is ridiculous. A 60-80 g of protein daily is really good. 1 cup of cooked Penne past is 63g of carbs. you would have to eat 3 cups in a day. the average slice of bread is between 14 and 21g of carbs, 12 oz can of coca cola classic, 39g. I think she is a little off base.

No problem, when I was on Protein liquids right after surgery, I used Tabasco heavily in my bean soup. Love spicy always have.

I think the skin issue all depends on the individual. My weight has been as high as over 320. Prior to my sleeve, I was at 300. I am presently at 187 and have very little excess skin and it seems to be continually getting better. I don't think it does any good to worry about the" What ifs". The surgery will improve your health and change you life. Good luck!

Congrats! You should have a great recovery. I was in the same spot walking the halls the evening of my surgery, it really helped dissipate the gas. Walk as often as you can as soon as you can. I was doing 2+ miles by my 5th day post op. Not power walking by any means, just strolling part of my normal daily route. I think that more than anything helped my recovery. Expect to be tired, especially in the afternoon for the first couple of weeks. Welcome to the losing team!

My vitamin D was also a little on the low side. I am a shift worker and that is one of the side effects. I take 5000iu a day now. Vitamin D is also key in sugar being absorbed by the cells from the blood. More effective than Metformin. I wish my Dr had put me on that prior to all of the other diabetes drugs. Water under the bridge now. No meds at all and A1C is now 5.6

My biggest question is how can surrounding yourself with supportive people that are going through lots of the same things, sharing their problems and celebrating their success a bad thing? Where else can we find a group of this size and diversity with one common problem? Face it, we all have a mental problem with food or we wouldn't have to opt for such a procedure. This forum has been a wonderful support since I have found it. I only wish I could have found it prior to my surgery so I could have been more prepared for the obstacles of the first few months post op.

Don't allow your success to be measured by the scale and only the scale. We all have stalls and even slight gains. You are doing all of the right things. Your intake is right on track and you will start losing again. We tend t get caught up in the number on the scale because it is really the only measure we have to see our success on a daily basis. Your lifestyle is your success. People that follow the plan succeed.

I hadn't kept it a secret and told anyone that asked. I can however understand you not wanting to share. Maybe because of my age(49), I really don't care what people think. My coworkers all know, my close friends all know and the truth is. At almost 50, a lot of my friends are having the same weight related health problems and are considering WLS as they have seen my success and currently my wife's progress. I don't quite understand the stigma attached to WLS. I can however understand your apprehension. At first I told people I was going to have a hernia repair(not a lie) but realized that it wasn't a big deal. When I dropped 80+lbs in 3 months, I had no choice because I got a lot of "are you sick?' type questions. One way or another, you will love the results. Good Luck!

It all depends on the individual. I never had a drain. I had my surgery Wenesday, was walking about 2.5 miles by Sunday was back to work the Friday 2 weeks after. I wouldn't have had a problem with the beach but the whitewater rafting might be an issue. I had a really bad rafting experience, thought I was going to drown and don't know if I could have fought that kind of struggle 10 weeks out. On the other hand, I did ride my Harley to Sturgis 9 weeks post op and did over 900 miles the first day of the trip. I was told full activity 8 weeks post op, I felt better before but I think they want to be cautious.

I think I watched food network for 2 weeks straight following my surgery. Don't know why, it was kind of strange. It didn't last long. The fixation on food does diminish, at least for me it did. I think once I was able to start soft foods, that was the turning point. Being able to chew and swallow kind of put things back to normal. Good luck!

WLS is a really good return on an insurance companies investment. I had read that the average diabetic costs an insurance company 14k a year. It makes no sense not to cover it. I was a lucky one, I was covered as well was my wife. The billed out was in the area of 45k each when all was said and done, the negotiated rate was around 25k. deduct co-pays and everything else, it is a sub 2 year return. I have had zero billed expense from diabetes or complications since my surgery a year ago. Not to mention the heart attack, stroke(from the high BP) or amputation around the corner. It seems it should be universally covered

First of all, Congrats on taking the steps at your age to avoid a lot of problems later in life. I wish I hd this as an option when I was your age. I am 5'11, have been as high as 320+. I am also 49 years old so my skin has a lot less elasticity. I have very little issues with saggin/ skin, much to my surprise. I am presently at 187 and took some before and after pics a month or so ago. My neck and thighs were really bad after say 4 or 5 months but as the loss slowed, it snapped back. Here is the URL to the post with shirtless pics. so you can get an idea. http://www.verticalsleevetalk.com/topic/17584-before-and-after-pics-caution-naked-man-boobs/

My wife had a small hernia repaired at the time of her sleeve. I was scheduled to have it done but when they got in, they decided that mine wasn't bad enough to worry about. I am 1 year post op and my wife is less than 3 months. Neither of us would have opted for a different procedure, even if we could go back and re do it. Good luck to her.

You might find this trivial but the worse thing about the surgery was the sore throat from the tube and not being able to drink anything to soothe it. They finally ht my throat with some kind of aerosol spray that took care of it.The post op pain was far less and much more manageable than I ever expected. The recovery was also un-eventful. Good luck!

Congrats!. UHC is a patient bt patient thing but I think they relaxed their requirement this year. Last year, my wife and I started out togther to get the procedure, I sailed right through because of my co-morbidities. She on the other hand was denied 3 times even though she had a higher BMI. The Dr resubmitted in January, nothing had changed and they approved her. Insurance companies can be a real pain to deal with. In the end, she is 9 months behind me, it really would have been nice to go through this together. There was a lot of guilt on my part for having it done without her and I can't speak for her but she was really disappointed because she wasn't doing it with me and was still stuck in a morbidly obese body. I suppose that in the end it really doesn't matter.Good luck on your upcoming surgery.