Alexandra

Any doctor is prepared to treat a patient based on the information the patient gives him. TELL the doctor your history! It's none of his concern why you sought out a new doctor, and all you need to share is why you want treatment for your weight problem.

Hi Jeff, You've asked a huge question. Your best bet is to read the posts on this site, particularly the weight-loss tally at the top of the General Discussion section. You'll see that it CAN and DOES work for people who are committed and for whom behavior modification is an effective form of weight control. Think about what you need help with, and then ask whether the band can help with those things. Feel free to post questions here and I know you will get lots of responses. Good luck with your researches!!

Oh my god. That is appalling. I honestly gasped out loud!!!

If your PCP is not supportive you should find a new one. On the other hand, if all you need is a referral for an H. Pylori test, that shouldn't be any problem. The doctor can't get in the way of you seeking medical care, that's YOUR right and prerogative.

Wow, Wheetsin, that's really interesting! My scars healed up very quickly and I never feel them, so if anything like that were to happen I'd have been very concerned. Thanks for the enlightening information!

Tiffany, you've lost 23 lbs in the first month. If you don't lose another ounce for the next four months you will STILL be in the realm of normal bandster weight loss. You're doing great!! Relax!!

We all deal with self-sabotage, but as with everything else, we deal with it differently. Kathy likes the diet mind-set, while for me that is the #1 sure way to set myself up for failure. I once started a thread called "other people set goals, I set traps" because that's exactly what any self-imposed goal or challenge is for me. That's just the way my mind works. What's important to ME is self-acceptance. And that means accepting the fact that I just can't eat as much as I used to. I have to ALLOW the band the control my intake, because I have proven in the past that I cannot. Relinquishing control to this other force (a higher power, if you will) helps me stop fighting, stop trying to beat the band at its own game, and lets me be calm and realize that it is on MY team. If I let it do what it wants, I am letting it win FOR me. All it asks of me is acceptance.

I was banded more than two years ago, but at the time my doctor's instructions were pretty much what your doc's are now. Most doctors do say at LEAST several days on liquids, more like two weeks, followed by another several days to two weeks on very soft mushy food. The important thing is to not eat anything that is at ALL uncomfortable, and stay away from anything that does not pulverize completely in your mouth. At four weeks out it's time to start eating solid food, but before that you want to go very gently. Congratulations and welcome to bandlandia!

Congratulations!! :)

That was probably for his own information. All bariatric surgeons want to be confident their patients aren't coming to them as a FIRST resort.

Obviously different carriers have different levels of required information. I had Aetna, and they did indeed have that 6-mo diet proof requirement. I satisfied it by having my doctor show that I'd sought help with my weight more than a year before, and that on every visit since then the subject of my weight had come up. It didn't start out as a formal attempt at creating a paper trail, but it showed a sincere attempt to deal with my weight issues as a medical condition. I ended up being diagnosed hypothyroid as a result of my initial visits, and at the end of the year I'd come to the conclusion that banding was a realistic option for me. (I'd not even heard of it when I first went to my doctor about my weight and the way I was feeling. I originally wanted to know if there were any new drugs I might take.) Weight has been an issue for me my entire adult life, so any doctor's notes from any point will show some discussion/concern about my weight. It wasn't at all hard to show that it'd been on my agenda for six months.

When I investigated, about two years ago, the initial fee was close to $100 ($79? $89?) and there was a hefty monthly charge on top of that. It didn't seem like the best way to spend my money, when for close to the same amount I could get a whole-family membership at the Y.

Bubba, what happens after the $1500 is used up? That doesn't buy what it used to, particularly if you're going out of network for medical care.

Sounds lovely.

Also, be aware that if you DON'T go through the insurance carrier for this stage of the process, it's less likely that they will agree to pay for the surgery when the time comes. Most carriers require some evidence that you have been seeking medical treatment for this condition, and it's a lot easier to show that if your providers have been filing claims all along.

Hi there, If your insurance will be covering the surgery, or even if not, it's definitely worthwhile to have them cover the initial appointments and testing. The only problem with this would be if your carrier absolutely excludes any and all costs related to the treatment of morbid obesity. That's the first thing you have to find out. If they do not--and MANY carriers have an exclusion for "obesity treatment, UNLESS in the presence of a diagnosis of Morbid Obesity--then all your appointments should be covered in accordance with your plan details. Your physical, evaluation testing, initial consult with the surgeon, etc., etc. are all by way of being treatment for a covered condition. When the time comes for your surgeon to submit a request for precertification, that's when you'll find out whether your carrier covers banding, and whether they agree it's medically necessary for you. I faced three denials from my carrier (they excluded the band altogether at the time), but since they covered RNY they paid for all my pre-op testing and evaluation. It's all the same thing--treatment and evaluation for treatment of a covered condition: Morbid Obesity. Get that diagnosis in your file.

We certainly CAN all relate to the frustration of being forced to eat less when we want to eat more, no question. It's probably the single hardest thing about banding. Coming here and posting about the emotions can help, and there are lots of other tricks people use to get through those hard times. Good luck, and we're all here for you!

Normal, normal, normal, normal, normal. Normal. Most people lose relatively quickly on the liquid postop diet and then stop when they reintroduce solid food. A bit of regain before the first fill is also very common. Not to worry--this will not mean a whit in the long run. As for the ticker, there are a couple of different sites where you can set one up. Click on anyone's ticker and it should take you there. Once you've created your ticker, copy the UBB code you get into your signature here (done through Control Panel).

OK BFL, you've got your answer--of course the doctor will remove your saline if you want them to. We're all curious as to why you're "sick" of your band, though. Or maybe it was a momentary emotion? I'm sure we can all relate to that. Please come back and share more information. We're very interested!

And it may indeed be true, but I've never heard any reason why it should be so.

Evidently a little nick in the stomach tissue can lead to erosion at that site if it is in a place where the band makes contact. I'm not speaking from any particular knowledge, just rumor of this sort of thing happening in the past.

"Erosion" refers to the wearing away of the stomach tissue where it is in contact with the band. The band is what's doing the erosion, not eroding itself. The usual figure cited is, as DeLarla said, 1-3% of patients. There are many things that have been blamed for it, but the most commonly cited causes seem to be doctor error, or overuse of NSAIDS or irritating meds like antibiotics. Each case is different. Symptoms can be present, or not, and in some cases people just have no idea it's happening until it's discovered in a routine exam. Maybe the most common indicators are a mysterious lack of restriction or an infection at the port site. I've never heard--except here--that port infections can lead to erosion; what I have heard is that erosion can be indicated by a port infection. (Reflux and indigestion is more likely, I think, to be a symptom of slippage than erosion.) Treatment for erosion is band removal, in almost every case I've ever heard of.

This is me, exactly. I long ago came to terms with being called "overweight," "obese," "zaftig," "Amazon" or however the hell else the world wants to label me. Labels and statistics mean nothing to me. If losing more weight were my priority right now, the band would provide the means and ability for me to do so, and that is a SEA change from prior attempts at weight loss.

Wow, that's an unusual symptom I've never heard before. I don't know what if any effect banding will have on that. Is there any explanation for your feeling that way? Usually when you hear bandsters saying their stomachs are sick or they have thrown up, it's a different kind of thing than actually feeling nauseated. I know for me anyway it's two completely separate sensations. But then, I almost never get nauseated, pre- or post-banding.

There are lots of chewable calcium products out there these days, including Viactiv. The nutritionist at my doctors' practice says any calcium is better than no calcium, so they're not picky about the specific type. Go with what you can and will take, in other words.