Alexandra

Hi Bermy, and welcome! You look terrific and it's great to have a Bermudian Bandster among us. I'm jealous...I LOVE Bermuda! (Would you like me to edit out all that extraneous code from your posts?)

Wow, that is so cool!! What did she do to win? What grade is she in? We want details! What a proud mommy you must be!! :bounce:

Increased odor can be a problem with various of the bypass surgeries, indeed. I'm not clear on the specifics, but I know there's a whole raft of things people try to minimize their gas odor. This is NOT a side effect of banding surgery, I'm happy to say. All systems are normal. :couch2:

Congratulations, Lasonyadj!! Cigna is one of the more difficult carriers to wangle an approval from, but it sounds like you knew exactly what to do and managed beautifully. Way to go!! :bounce:

Welcome back, Sunta! I hope your doctor will set your mind at ease with everything you have to do. Rest up and heal quickly! Congratulations and best wishes for a completely uneventful return to full health. :biggrin1:

YA-HOO. Thanks, Jill. :clap2: :clap2:

This thread is being locked. There is absolutely nothing productive that can come out of it.

Sorry the rest of us aren't as entertaining, y'all. DeLarla needs to open a separate site for her fan club, methinks.

Hi Niki! Welcome to LBT. Do you know what kind of band you have? If you have the VG Inamed band I know that many people have filled that to more than 6cc to get good restriction. Have you tried to get more fill? Nice to meet you!

Hi Rosemary's Baby! There are lots of us who are taking meds for hypothyroidism who have successfully lost weight post-banding. As long as your condition is well-controlled it shouldn't get in the way.

Scales are different from one another, that's just a fact of life. If you really want to track your weight, do it on ONE SCALE ONLY. The differential between your scale and that at your doc's office doesn't matter--only the difference between your scale on Monday and your scale the following Monday. Don't worry at all about the different numbers on different scales, especially if they're consistently different. Then you know it's just the scale.

This is totally profound--I completely agree!!! Thanks TommyO. I love it!!

I was denied by Aetna back in 2002 because at that time they still considered the band experimental. It took 9 months of appeals and finally a third-party review to have that decision overturned. Aetna no longer considers the band experimental, but they still prefer RNY over banding as a surgical treatment for morbid obesity. However, that's a lot easier to fight than a total exclusion. Your policy is likely a large-group plan where it's the group that calls the shots about what's covered and what isn't, so if your HR person comes back to you with good news that's all that matters. Good luck!!

Yep, in the same way that you can add people to a Buddy list, you can add them to an Ignore list. Click on their name to go to their public profile and you'll see the options there.

IMO there are several very strong reasons to get insurance to cover it locally if you can. Financial reasons, of course, take a higher or lower place on your list, but if you do have insurance cover your surgery then you'll also be covered down the line for adjustments or complications. That may or may not be important to you, but it sure was for me. Access to medical followup is probably the biggest plus to having it done locally. Even if money is not an object, U.S. doctors simply may not want to treat someone with a band installed in Mexico. I think this could set someone up for serious trouble down the road in unexpected ways. Getting Aetna to cover my banding wasn't easy--it took months of appeals but I finally prevailed. If your big-company policy covers it you'll be way better off than I was. Waiting until July to have it done seems (to me) a very small price to pay compared to shelling out thousands of dollars now and investing untold amounts of future money and time to have surgery in another country.

Erosion doesn't necessarily cause any pain or discomfort. But I agree there's no real reason to leap to the conclusion of erosion just because there is a lessening of restriction. There are many reasons that might be happening. An endoscopy can confirm or rule out erosion, and if there's any reason to be concerned it's a good test to have. But the first step should be a fluoroscopy to see if there are other obvious reasons for a loss of restriction.

I agree with Jill. There is no ONE person who ever responsible for any change in the tenor of the board. What is MUCH more influential is the way people respond to more-vocal posters. And many are the times I have wished more people utilized the ignore feature when there are other posters they know will get under the skin.

CoffeeWench is the ONLY reason I miss Spotlight. I would LOVE for her to come here and post. We need more real long-termers to show us all what life is like years on!

I've ordered several batches of cards from VistaPrint. They're great, if you don't mind the little ad across the bottom of the back of the card.

Hi Emilee, welcome to LBT!! I'm in maintenance mode too, and it's giving me every bit as much joy as losing did. It's such a miracle to step on the scale every.single.morning and have the numbers be very close to the same. It must almost be what normal people experience! :mad:

Hi, and welcome to LBT!! Congratulations on your success!! :mad:

I have only one thing to say about "why people are leaving." Message boards such as this one revolve around the subject matter, and in this case it's Laparascopic Adjustable Gastric Banding. That is the ONLY thing that we all have in common. There are an unlimited number of tangential topics related to weight--as we all know--and each of us has different issues, concerns, histories, priorities, approaches, goals, etc., etc. People come, they go, they do what they want to do, and nothing anyone does/says here has any power over anyone else unless the reader chooses to believe it does. The board reflects the diverse nature of the banding community and will continue to do so no matter who comes or goes. No one is more important than anyone else, and LBT can't possibly be all things to all people at all times. It's no more or less than a thriving message board that helps people share information about banding, and is bound to have changes from time to time. Business as usual, really. And that's the way it should be.

Crystal, that is AWESOME! I have never considered getting a tattoo, really, but if I were going to it would be something original (and Dh would get a matching one). Your design is really lovely and I'm sure it will only get more so with time. Congratulations! And Donali--HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, TOO!! Sorry I missed it, sistah. I was away and just haven't been up on everything. I'll bet the eyebrows are something! :mad:

Congratulations, Jill!! If it's meant to be it's meant to be and WILL happen, delays or no. Fingers crossed that everything worls out for you!

Hiya Darcy and Rebeccalee!! Welcome back!! :biggrin1: How are your bands treating you?