GeezerSue

I think there are only two of us on this board who were "switched" after--actually at the time of--dis-banding.

My problem will start today. We don't celebrate holidays, so yesterday was easy. But all that unsold candy will be on clearance at the stores starting today...half-price Cadbury eggs are a REAL temptation!

Hmmm...I dunno. I hope someone does.

NO~I don't. I want my surgery to help me get to a "NORMAL" BMI. I did not have surgery to get down to the low end of MO...or the high end of Obesity. Some people are happy with that, which is good for them. But, MY honest answer to your question is: NO. "Any weight loss" just isn't enough for me. I hope you have a better journey than I did...good luck with your surgery.

The "How long have you believed..." or "What lead you to believe..." opener is called for. How long have you believed that perfect strangers were interested in your opinion? OR How long have you believed that what you have to say would be of interest to anyone?

Any debanded people looking into this? I just read about it and it appears that, for those who can tolerate it, it offers some promise in terms of making people just NOT HUNGRY. You can google "byetta + appetite" for details.

Where do you live, Amy? Mexico is a pretty big place and, unless money is no object...it could make a difference. Oh, THAT Cantú! He is someone who has sent some "marketer" (who is not MO and who does not have a band) here to hang around and be friendly and drum up business and for that reason alone, I think I'd find me another doctor. If you want a hospital on a par with those you find stateside (and I don't mean how nice it looks, but how much state-of-the-art stuff it has and how many physicians, in how many specialties, are available in case of any problems), you will find those most of those facilities in Mexico City and in Monterrey. The border towns--Tijuana, Ciudad Acuña and Reynosa--have smaller, sometimes two-or-three-doctor hospitals, that seem to be able to handle most of what they take on...but where I would not voluntarily have surgery. Interestingly enough...in Monterrey and Mexico City, the doctors who charge the same as those in the border towns actually POCKET less money themselves, because the hospitals are far more expensive. For example, a few years back, the hospital in Monterrey where I had my band place charged about $2000, for the whole package. A hospital in Tijuana, where I went with another banded person, charged $47/night...plus the fees for the OR. Big difference. HUGE difference...both in the cost and the facilities. I'm all about saving money...but, for me, there are only so many corners I'm willing to cut. Sue

It has been so long since I wore anything in "regular" sizes...and in the interim, the vanity sizing has caused a HUGE difference in sizes, so I'm clueless...and goal-less. I know that, back in the day, what was a size 12 for Marilyn Monroe would be about a 6 now. I read about people (about my height) who are wearing a 12 or 14 but who are FAAAAAAR heavier than I was back when I wore those sizes...and my first instinct is to wonder why they would lie about their clothing sizes, since they OBVIOUSLY are larger than that. But they aren't. The sizes have just REALLY changed. So I have no goal...how sad.

HERE'S the REAL dope on a sleep study... --yeah, you probably will fall asleep, and --no, that stuff will NEVER come out of your hair Hey! I've done a couple and they are irritating, but so are my upstairs neighbors. Can't do much about either one! There are some pulmonolgists who will insist that you have a pulmonologist involved--and that you wear a CPAP or Bi-PAP machine to cut down on the number of times you stop breathing--while you are in the hospital, until all the sedatives are out of your system. BTW, I was absolutely sure that I DID NOT have sleep apnea. The highest setting on the machine I ended up with was 20...I needed a setting of 18...so I had pretty severe sleep apnea. So much for knowing your body! Sue

But MY doctor IS the cutest...

I understand that you are on top of it. But, the fact that the advertising is still THERE makes me wonder if I'm the only one who thinks someone is "working the system."

(Potentially the wrong forum, but I wanted visibility.) --We have a practice here wherein the moderators don't edit posts. --And we have a policy that no advertising is allowed. --And we also have a member who has identified herself as NOT banded and has NOT mentioned being MO or attempting to acquire a band for herself, whose posts are almost exclusively for the purpose of recruiting patients for the doctor she works for. Some members and moderators have posted that advertising is not welcome or allowed. But the original posts are still there. So the advertising is still in progress. Just out of curiosity, how do y'all feel about moderators removing posts that contain advertising? I'm not talking about the my-doctor-is-cuter/smarter/richer than your doctor stuff that goes on. And I'm not talking about the participation (not that it looks like it will be happening much any more) of surgeons, such as Ortiz and Pleatman...but blatant advertising that is being posted by someone who visits here solely to drum up business. And, let me be quite clear that NONE of the moderators have asked me to open this conversation and that they are all capable of asking their own questions, if they have any... But...what do you think? Should posts which contain advertising and which are part of an ongoing recruitment process for a particular surgeon be edited or pulled, or should they be ignored or warned, but allowed to stand?

Sunflower, it is a far more invasive and you end up more rearranged. But there is no dumping syndrome, you have a larger stomach than RnY, an extremely high Diabetes CURE Rate, there are no foods you cannot eat and the long-term excess weight loss is usually cited as 70% or higher. (Because there are those who don't believe there is a CURE for diabetes, I'm adding this link: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/95/103237.htm It doesn't show the whole breakdown in this article, but the last one I recall, the DS had a 90-something-% diabetes cure rate. I don't HAVE diabetes, but I was headed there.) There ARE problems. There is a higher mortality rate...but a lot of that is due to "saving" this surgery for very, very MO people, who have a higher mortality rate in ANY surgery. My recovery was quite long. And--instead of dumping or PB'ing--the DS ugly-bodily-reaction is unpleasant poop. If my RnY friends eat a box of Krispy Kremes, they dump. If my bandster friends (or many of them) eat a box of Krispy Kremes, they PB and/or barf up slime. If I eat a box of Krispy Kremes, many hours late or the next morning, I'll have odiferous poop and probaby four or five trips to the bathroom as I eliminate that disaster. [Editing to add: No, you don't absorb all the nutrients...or all the fat. The saeme mechanism that makes it possible to eat bacon and eggs an lose weight and STILL cause the cholesterol level to drop, ALSO causes you to not absorb some of the good stuff. Just like RnY, you HAVE TO take supplements FOREVER!! (Right now, I take my three Bariatric Advantage Chewable Multi Vitamins and four of their Calcium Citrate. BUT, I was taking vitamins and calcium before I had any surgery, so not a biggie. I'll have my six month labs in a few weeks and find out how I'm doing.)] Here's the most informative site: http://www.duodenalswitch.com/

Calling the Auto Club instead of changing my own tires is taking the easy way out; buying fish at the market instead of going out to sea in a boat is taking the easy way out; my giving birth by c-section instead of just dying was taking the easy way out...but who am I to stop some fools from doing everything the hard way if that's how they want to live?

The more I follow the different surgeries, the more I feel that there are people who "learn" what they need to learn, and others for whom the lesson just does NOT compute. I have a friend who had the DS, lost a ton and then gained back about 20 pounds before she went off to WW. Before I had my revision, I asked her what she had learned abot herself that helped her keep her weight off. First she said, "Not a damned thing. This surgery hasn't taught me a damned thing." Then she changed her mind and said that it got her to a place where her excess weight was a managable number and she COULD run off to WW to lose 15 or 20 pounds, instead of going there having to lose 130. I have another DS friend who manages to eat the sandwich filling but only a little bit of the bread. She varies five pounds from her ideal weight. I know of a person who has been a band role model. But when the saline has to be removed for whatever reason, and restriction is gone, she has been known to pack on thirty pounds in no time. Then there's Michelle, who is on top of things. The same holds true for RnY people, so I imagine is applies to those who are without a working wls at any moment. What's the difference? What makes some of us "learners" and the rest of us candidates for the short bus? What do we have to do to be ABLE to learn from whatever wls we have had? Ideas anyone?

When I was pre-op, the first banded person I met had lost ten pounds her first year. (She said she changed her diet and lost more the second year.) And I've met people who've lost 100 pounds in a year or so. It is SOOOO individual, even without other medical issues. I wanted to add that for SOME people, time IS an issue. Not for you kids, maybe, but for oldies and maybe for people who have spent a long time being MO. I have a friend who had RnY surgery a little too late. If she had done it a year or two earlier, she might still have her knees. She has artificial knees because of what years of Morbid Obesity have done. In my case (and I hadn't been MO for very long), I ran to the ortho guy as soon as I felt the first twinge in my knees. He wants my excess weight gone NOW. (He was even excited as I went for a breast reduction, wondering how much weight THOSE puppies were.) Until I lose about another 25 pounds (I've lost 65+ post-DS) I'm to avoid stairs, excess walking, treadmills, and low chairs. The sooner I get the weight off--and the less I do in the interim--the more likely I am to keep my original equipment knees! Sue Old person.

You are NOT alone. White meat chicken (and turkey) can be the source of a major plug for MANY banded people. Along with bread, breading, bread crumbs inside of foods (such as meatloaf, crab cakes and such), rice, Pasta, leafy things (as in salads) and potatoes. (One of the meds my never-obese husband now takes gives hime a dry throat. So now that I can eat white meat chicken again, HE can't.) Depending on how you are with celery (and how much mayo you can handle) tuna sandwiches might work. Soups and stews (again, I'd eat around the potaotes), chili (like from Wendy's, but that might be part of a "soft food symdrome" behavior, so watch out), refried Beans (also known in some parts as Taco Bell's "Pintos and Cheese"), and the inside of many burritos. Do you know Cobb Salads? I have ordered Cobb Salads (if they are NOT tossed and they usually are not) and asked them to put the lettuce on one plate (because lettuce was NOT easy for me with the band AND because it's important to have access to the protein) and the other stuff on another plate. That leaves you with the Cobb salad "innards," which includes: tiny, chopped tomatoes; small chopped eggs; crumbled bacon; some chicken or sometimes turkey (probably white meat, so you have to eat around it); maybe avocado and crumbled bleu cheese. http://www.goodcooking.com/ckbookrv/ghouse_04/cobb.jpg

Deevah...if you repost this on the main support board, more people will have a chance to see it and cheer you along. (And you will feel better sooner than you think.) http://lapbandtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=15

I saw this and wanted you to know that you are among friends. Evil little Easter friends, but friends, nonetheless: http://tinyurl.com/4pyos

:lalala: Is someone talking?

Butch, Weight loss often causes back problems because we carry ourselves they way we did before the weight loss. Once I lost 40-50 pounds, I went to my friendly local chiropractor for an adjustment and some time on those machines that pound the crap out of your back. Not only did it help the problem, but later on, those visits (one or two) were just more evidence that I needed the panni.

#1--I have never tried this, but there are those who swear by papaya enzymes. If you try it, just take a little. #2--Eggs can be horrid, because they never really dissolve like other foods, they just chew into smaller pieces. #3--When THIS resolves, you'll probably want to do another two or three days on liquids, because the stoma is probably swelling a little in this situation, and stuff that went down yesterday may not tomorrow. (You didn't ask, but I'd probably cough a few times...not too far from the bathroom...and see if I could dislodge it just enough.)

I was afraid that "gone" was something more ominous. That's because I'm old and my mom is almost 83 and I'm always worried that one day she will be gone and I will have forgotten to ask her something or thank her for something or stuff like that and I'll be out of chances. So, I'm glad your mom merely left town. And she'll be back. That's a good thing.

Looks like it. I wrote: The difference between those bypass and banded patients who are not at goal, say, three years out, is that the bypass people lose down to goal or near goal and regain, and the banded people never lose much. I wrote that I was speaking of banded and bypassed patients who--three years or so post-op--were not at or near goal. I suppose I could have made it more clear, but I'm not sure how and I really thought it was pretty clear as I wrote it. (I didn't visit the links, because how many people, here, at one site, HAVE lost a lot of weight was NOT what I was talking about. I was, again, talking about people with band or bypass, who--a few years post-op were not where they had planned to be.) Couldn't agree more. On all your points. You should. ALL sites that are home to more than one procedure have their share of misunderstood facts, or misunderstood comments or self-appointed spokespersons for one procedure or the other. And disagreements, from time to time, are the rule, not the exception. Yes, we are all entitled to create our own opinions, although I would suggest that creating our own FACTS, is just bad form...and will probably be challenged. So, if you say, "I will not have anything more invasive than the band...just don't want it," you certainly have MY atta-boy. (And that and $2.75 might get you a cup of coffee.) But if you say, "I will not have that DS surgery because everyone who does turns orange and gets webbed feet," you might reasonably expect to hear from those who are in the mood to challenge your facts. Just as YOU might challenge someone you THOUGHT said that banded people don't lose much weight. Agreed. Indeed...and those were people who were always un-pissy. Some of us are just pissy in general, having nothing to do with which wls we are trying at the moment. I was pissy when happily banded, I was pissy when unhappily banded and I'm pretty pissy now. (Not everyone sees the glass as half-full; that's what makes this planet interesting.) Perhaps some people are perceiving my pissy-ness differently now that I'm unbanded. Or maybe they didn't know me back then. I STILL recommend the band for many people and provide as much support as I can, here and at other sites. What I CHALLENGE are outrageous claims with no basis in fact. I know that the newly-banded or the about-to-be-banded often perceive any negative information about the band as an attack on their dream. But they CAN choose to perceive it as just the other side of the coin. I have never suggested that the band doesn't work. I've simply pointed out that some people go into this propostion (not so much here, more so at another site) COMPLETELY unaware of what they are getting into and what to expect. And even here, as you can see from some of the questions asked by recent post-ops, some people make it clear that they know NOTHING about being banded. Too many people go into banding thinking that it's all pretty pink ponies and rainbows, with no problems. If they bother to hit the internet seeking out information, they deserve to hear the whole story. (And civilized, fact-filled debates for that matter.) Cheers, Sue

The difference between those bypass and banded patients who are not at goal, say, three years out, is that the bypass people lose down to goal or near goal and regain, and the banded people never lose much. (That's for those who are not at goal a while out.) They end up at the same place, but by different routes. (And that's the RnY, not the DS, which has a different average weight loss.) I agree, except that not everyone who has to have their band removed ends up with a stomach that is just "the same." Sometimes there is damage to the esophagus or the stomach. You are awfully young to try try something as drastic as the surgery I just had, anyway. There ARE risks...but at my age it wasn't like I was risking a long, healthy life. It was more of a trade-off between having five or maybe ten more BAD years, or taking a chance for ten or more GOOD years. I opted for the latter, but I don't think I would have done so in my twenties or thirties.