jerryg

Mary I'm a little confused about your statement regarding PBing. Particularly damage to the esophagus, and slippage. Everything I've read has indicated that PBing involves the esophagus and does not involve any digestive fluids or any spasms from the stomach. As I understand it, damage to the esophagus occurs when you vomit too much and have digestive fluids entering the esophagus, and slippage can occur do to spasms in the stomach while vomiting. Whenever I've PBed, which is extremely rare, the food has been covered in saliva, and I do not feel any contractions in my stomach. Are you possibly confusing "throwing up" with PBing. Jerry

I've gone to several seminars on WLS where the surgeon presents all the types of WLS and basically outlines the pros and cons. What I've gleamed from the discussion is that a lot of people are attracted to the NEAR term rapid loss that the RNY provides. Others like the "take it slow and easy" approach of the lap band. Everything I've read indicates that the lap band patients will loose about the same as rny patients at about 18 months, then proceed to continue on a slow downward trend while the RNY patients begin to gradually regain. jerry

Congratulations on the weight loss. It looks like you are right on schedule. They say to expect 1 to 2 lbs per week, so 30 lbs over 12 weeks is excellent. Congratulations again Jerry

Linda One of the very nice things about the lap band is the recovery period. I think you will find that most people will only stay overnight in the hospital and will return to work in 4 to 5 days. In my case I went in on Thursday and returned to work on Tuesday. I probably could have gone in on Monday but I said "what the heck" and took another day. Congratulations and good luck Jerry

Thanks for the pointer. I use yahoo groups but didn't think to look in the mexican bandsters area since this post was the first one where I encountered the name Dr. Joya. I've spent the last 15 minutes reading posts over there. I've got quite a bit more reading to do, but thanks again for pointing me in the right direction Jerry

My wife is looking at having lap band surgery. She will NOT meet any of the insurance requirements so it will be self pay. Are there any more people out there that are familiar with Dr. Joya. Jerry

I read the article and have a few comments about it , and most of the articles I read in newsprint. They try to summarize the weight loss surgeries in 1000 words or less. This results in reporting such huge generalities that the articles are usually worthless. I find it difficult to read them knowing that most people on forums like this, and that included the rny forums, know more about the surgeries and the final outcomes than the reporters. Jerry

I had my surgery on Thursday, and went back to work on Tuesday. I was so restricted for the first 4 or 5 days after surgery that I struggled to get fluids down. I could have gone back to work on Monday but, for purely selfish reasons, I decided to take another day off work Jerry

Alex Of all the bulletin boards I have been looking at this is the best I've seen. Everything seems to be here. I was wondering how to send a personal email to somebody, and was going to ask you about it. Then I looked at profile underneath the post and there it was. Nice Job. Jerry

Alex I think this post is refering to people who need to get fills from doctors other than their surgeons. There are a lot of people who have had surgery in Mexico and are struggling to find doctors who will perform fills. I think many of the doctors believe they should only take care of patients that they performed the surgery on. Additionaly people move and need to locate doctors that will perform fills. At spotlight health people are always asking for the names of fill doctors near their location. Jerry

I have BCBS Traditional Insurance in Michigan. I also am salaried at General Motors, and am required to get a preapproval on all surgeries. They covered the operation minus any copays, and deductibles. The total cost of the surgery was about $15,500. I paid about $1,700 out of pocket. I only encountered two minimal, but annoying problems. First of all the psych eval had to be co-signed by a PhD, or a Medical Doctor. BCBS would not accept the psychologists' signature because she ONLY had a Masters degree. Secondly the communication between the insurance carrier and the doctors office was poor. They played phone tag with each other for two weeks. I finally took matters into my own hands and became the intermediary between them and got things done in two days. After that everything went smoothly. Jerry

My name is Jerry. I was banded on 3/20/03 by Dr Mark Pleatman at the North Oakland Medical Center in Pontiac Michigan. My highest weight was in January of 2001 and I weighed 390 lbs. At that time I went on a diet and lost about 50 lbs. Slowly but surely I was regaining. In January of 2003 , at a weight of 355 lbs, my PCP asked me to investigate a strange new device called an "Adjustable Gastric Band". I had always been opposed to the drastic internal changes required of other weight loss surgeries, and would never consider them. The minimaly invasive, and totally reversible nature of the lap band intrigued me, and I started my research. Well the rest is history. I was banded and am working on reaching my goal weight of 200 lbs. I am an Engineer and therefore like plans, targets, and tracking charts so I record and plot everything I eat or drink, and all my exercise. I am trying to eat a quantity of calories that would allow me to maintain a weight of 200 lbs. I figure if I can do that during the loosing phase then maybe my chances of maintaining 200 lbs is feasible. As of today(7/22/03) I have lost 66 lbs which is about 44% of my excess weight.

By the way. I am 57 years old and happily married to the same beautiful woman for 30 years. I have 3 children aged 27, 25, 23