faithmd

BJean: Thanks!! I am really trying now to make healthy and easy lifestyle changes. That way when I am banded, it won't (hopefully) be such a shock. I cannot imagine eating regularly and then al of a sudden being banded and be faced with a liquid diet, no soda, no sugary foods, no breads, etc. all at once. I figure if I make the changes now, slowly, I'm much more likely to be successful post-op. I am probably limiting myself now to things I may then choose to eat post-banding becaue I know now without anything stopping me (a full feeling for example), I would just eat and eat certain foods.

I prefer GDI power

Wow, that's tough. I would suggest you reevaluate going into debt and doing self-pay if it's going to be so long. Check out Dr. Kirshenbaum, he's in Denver and is very reasonable. Many people here have gone to him from all over the country: www.lapbandrockies.com http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=26213

Kerry, I was denied for not losing weight as well. Long story short, I was pissed and did something about it. I know this is going to sound bad and I'm sorry, but I'm saying it to help you: Don't whine and say you can't, don't cry and say that you can't, dust yourself off and DO IT!!!! I started my one year, yep ONE YEAR MD supervised weight loss requirement for my insurance company at 344#, I had a requirement to lose 9# for a total of 5% of my excess weight to lose. I got sick in that year and was put on a medication that sapped my strength and made me sedentary. I grew to 371#. I got fixed and got off the med at 366# in January. I kicked myself in the arse and and got to 348# and then my surgeon sent in my application for the surgery accompanied by a letter from my PCP and one from my cardiologist saying that it wasn't my fault that I gained weight and pointing out that I was again losing since being off of it. My insurance company denied me because I wasn't the magical 335#. Yep, DENIED. So I kicked it up a notch two weeks ago because I was not going to be denied again this month. I weighed in yesterday at 330.4# It's not that hard, really it isn't (okay, the last week or so wasn't the greatest of my life, for that last 8# or so). Here's what I did and I never have felt deprived, NOT ONCE: I log EVERY SINGLE BITE of food I eat and everything I drink on www.fitday.com It is FREE and pretty easy. I also log all of my activities on there to see how my calories are burned. There are plenty of other sites like it, SparkPeople is one, but I didn't love the format, some folks do. The point is that it's free and esay and makes you accountable for all you eat. That having been said, I do NOT count my calories, I do not watch my portion size intentionally. Logging the food has sort of done that for me. I am completely honest on my log (it is private, no one looks at it but me). If I ate two cups of cottage cheese, I put that in there, eventually I started controlling my portions myself. I find I now average (I do not aim for anything) 1500-1800 calories a day and taht has been working well for me. I do not eat ANY refined sugar, no enriched flours, no white bread, no white rice (except the occasional sushi) no Pasta except the Barilla Pasta Plus in small portions, no Breakfast cereals except Kashi. It's easier than you think and it has made a HUGE difference in what I crave. I was a carb fanatic, I LOVED bread and rice and mashed potatoes, etc. I stopped wanting it. I watch my labels to see just how many carbs are in something. I want to say I am NOT low-carbbing it. I just watch to see so I don't get too much refined sugar or simple carbohydrates, that's what makes you hungry again. I easily eat way more than 100 grams a day of carbs, so no, I'm not eating low carb at all. But things like pasta sauce can have a lot of sugar in it. so I look for the one with the lowest amount. I also try to avoid any artificial sweeteners, I do have probably one beverage with Splenda or NutraSweet that is manufactured a day. I have found that they make me crave sugar and the Splenda makes me hungry as it is processed just like sugar, while you don't get the spikes in blood sugar, you do get the drops and that signals you to eat again. I use Stevia, google it. I also use Blue Agave Syrup to sweeten things. I have already given up all carbonated drinks in anticipation of banding as you aren't supposed to have the post-op and I have given up caffeine. I gave it up for health reasons, but it is an appetite stimulant. I have started eating like a Bandster, I take small bites (and use baby utensils when I am at home) and put the fork or spoon down between bites. I do feel satisfied faster. I try not to drink with meals because (hopefully) soon I won't be able to anyway (after being banded, I mean). I eat my Protein first, veggies second, and then carbs/fruit if I still have room. It has made a difference. That's it, that's all I've done and I had lost about 32 lbs that way. The past week or so all I had was salads or chopped raw veggies and one or two SlimFast Low Carb shakes or EAS AdvantEDGE or Atkins shakes (good protein and low sugars) and some cottage cheese every day, and I got another 12 lbs off. That was not easy, but the other changes were. You CAN do it!

Here's a link to a thread where I posted all the questions I took with me to the information session as well as to the MD consult: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=32224

Here's a link to the Forum with two threads about questions to ask the Dr. as well as post op checklists, etc. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=73

I wish you the best of luck tomorrow night. I hope you have a really wonderful evening that ends on a sweet, spiritual, intellectual, vestal and elegant note. We're all here pulling for you!

I agree with your suggestion completely. Unfortunately if I chose that item, it would be my Kitchen Aid Professional stand mixer. Maybe I would buy some kitchen magnets shaped like stand mixers

I concur, I'd call them.

If I had dropped a load of money on a cruise, I'd want to have a slight unfill (assuming I get banded sometime before I die ) so that I could enjoy some foods perhaps I wasn't able to eat otherwise. I would try to control myself by not gorging on the chocolate buffet, but I'd want to be able to sample a few bites of lobster, prime rib, etc. I'd of course endeavor to eat as healthy of things as possible, but I would just want to know that my restriction wouldn't be such that I would have difficulty.

It's a couples shower, Sunta. He will be there (from what I gathered). In that case, I'd buy a couples gift.

I was also adopted, and I have always said that I am glad my mother had the courage and love for me to carry me to term and to give me away because she knew she couldn't raise me the way she would want to. But even having said that, I also recognize that this was before Roe v. Wade and if she could have aborted, she probably would have, and that's okay too. It would have been her choice. I cannot imagine the long term effects of giving up your baby that you carried for nine months and felt kicking and went through hours of pain and labor to give birth to. And if you had to have a c-section and then gave your child up for adoption, everytime you looked down you'd see that scar. It takes a much stronger woman than what I am sure we raise today to be able to do that. Talk about long term effects.

One of my dear friends and his wife adopted from Vladivostok, in Russia a few years ago and those fees are close to what they paid. Add in flight and hotel, etc and it was almost $20K, but in the US they were looking at that as a bare minimum for a starting point, let alone travel and then the wait.

Yep! I was pulled and yanked into my corset (just like the one you posted in your want to wear thread) by two women. It was a challenge but it was worth it! I had a waist and my 44DD's looked even bigger. EBay is a GREAT place to buy nice corsets for reasonable prices.

The biggie here is did you try on that specific gown in an 18? Do you know for certain that though your personal clothing size is an 18, that gown will also fit you in an 18? If so, then you may be able to lose to a 14. Wedding gowns are notorious for being sized oddly. One manufacturer's 8 is another's 6 and yet another's 10. There will be no way to tell until then. I used to make wedding gowns and I can say I wouldn't have ordered it yet in the 14. But what's done is done. You now have to buckle down and work, work, work. As Alexandra said, sure you can do it! And we're here for you! I don't recall if you said how much you weigh now, and I don't know how much weight lost = a size lost for you, but I've lost 40 lbs so far (pre-band) and still haven't budged a single size. Then again, I'm 331 lbs. I was 371 and a 28, and I am sitting here typing in the same 28's I was in then. Exercise will also be your friend.

VG is 11CM and 10cc's. It's easy to confuse cc's and cm's.

COVER YOUR INCISIONS! Eficka here experienced the unfortunate side-effect of having her incisions become reddened and they have not faded. You should not expose surgical incisions to the sun until about a year after healing. Other than that, you should be just fine.

WasaBB, I think you are absolutely correct that you should follow your MDs instructions! While I personally agree with you that 250 bands is a good number to be considered experienced, I thought I should point out that according to Inamed (the maker of the LapBand system) a surgeon is considered an "expert" and is cleared to proctor other surgeons in how to place the band after placing 100 bands themselves. That came straight from Don Mills at Inamed. Would I rahter have a surgeon who has placed 350 bands than 100 bands, probably, unless the complication % rate is significantly higher for the surgeon with 350 than 100.

Hmmmm, I might be inclined to decline both invites. Why? Because A) It's tacky, tacky, tacky to include where you are reigstered for gifts in the wedding invitation. B)If I haven't seen him in years, and rarely before that, I wouldn't feel an obligation to go. C) This one is my clincher: If nothing is on the registry for under $80 then that again is rude. You have to provide all price points in your registry list unless you are absolutely certain EVERYONE on your invitation list is quite well-to-do. Another option is to skip the shower (and save a gift) and attend the wedding with one gift (perfectly acceptable). Or attend the shower with a couple gift from the registry and take your camera to the wedding (this only works if you are a halfway acceptable photographer and can put together a decent album) and take lots of pictures yourself. Lots of candids are great, especially of kids and people dancing/talking/etc. Then you load them on snapfish.com (the best quality processing for the best price I have found) and order some prints. Make some B&W, some different sepia or pink tones, etc (all easy to do on SF.com) and then you make a wedding album for them. You can easily get it all put together in a couple of weeks and send it to them. They will LOVE it, it will be WAAAAY cheaper than a gift from the registry, it will give them photos liekly before they get theirs from the official photographer, and it is guaranteed to be one of the best gifts they receive. I have done this for the past four weddings I've gone to. Snapfish also has enlargements for a reasonable price, one of the weddings I attended, I just selected some very nice photos and had made into some 5x7's (less than $1 each) and some 8x10's (less than $3) and bought some beautiful frames and then wrapped them and gave that as a gift. Went over just as well. Or give $50 cash

I just read on OH that Dr. Obeid is doing well and will be back in a month or two. No one yet knows what the problem was, but apparently he was quite ill himself. So it is very possible that he did have a stroke. I don't need to know what was wrong with him, but I wish Hurley would have not lied to me and told me I'd be able to see Dr. Obeid in a week (way back when) and instead would have just said he is ill and won't be back for a while, you'll need to reschedule with another surgeon. It would have made it easier and I would have made the choice sooner to go with Dr. Wagner instead. Oh well, it's over now, I've chosen Dr. Wagner, Dr. Obeid is expected to be back in a month or two if he continues to recover well and life is fine.

Can you give the office a call? Or better yet, call your insurance company. If they've even filed again yet, the ins co should be able to tell you that. Then you'll know where you are in the process. You also would be able to know if you have been approved or denied if it's gotten that far.

Thanks, Wheetsin!!!

Really? I'm signing hubby up, too!

Hello Pebbles and welcome! First I have to ask if you are in the US? If you are, given you age being listed as 19, I wouldn't think you should be concerned about alcohol and the band for a couple of years, right? The band does not cause "dumping" syndrome like bypass does. Therefore you can still drink alcohol, but why would you? It's full of empty calories and can be tough on your stomach. With a small pouch being created from either procedure (band or bypass) alcohol wreaks havoc on your esophagus and stomach over time. Also, if you drink to get drunk and end up puking, you risk causing a band slippage, and that my friend, is BAD. Carbonation is generally considered off limits, at least initially and many docs still say never again, so beer or "coolers" or champagne are out unless you let them get flat first. So don't take that as a reason to get bypass, because lots of bypass patients report dumping syndrome with alocohol intake (sweating profusely, diarrhea, cramping, etc) which is no piece of cake. You are 19, believe me when I say that in a few years, alcohol will (hopefully) not be a big part of your life so please don't make a huge decision such as this based on which procedure will be easier to drink alcohol with (if that's a factor, I mean). After your initial post-op period (four or six weeks, depending on *your* surgeon's instructions), you can eat whatever solid foods you like. Though I have to say that there are certain foods some people can eat and other cannot. Everyone is different and you will not know what you can tolerate until you are banded. The point of the band is as a tool to restrict the amount of food you can eat, not what kind of food you can eat. It does require work, you have to make good choices in what you put into your body, and you will need to exercise. There are many choices and changes to be made in order for the band to be successful, but it is not anything one cannot do. Bypass malnourishes your body, it works by removing a section of your intestine and causing you to not absorb certain things. It is a truly lifetime commitment as you will never be the same again. You will need to take supplements forever. Sometimes those supplements include injections of B12 and Iron. At 19, I would never want to alter the insides of my body before I gave a band a chance (at 37 I won't, either). The band is removable, it can be deflated for pregnancy so you can eat normally, it is a flexible tool. Here's some threads that ask questions about band or bypass and what others have to say, I hope this helps you, good luck! http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=34045 http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=32584 http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=32616 http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=32079 http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=30997 http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=28724 http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=28690 http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=27483

Because it's now *6* lines, and as you had originally posted it is limited to 500 characters. Read Alexandra's original reply to you, and then read Suzanne's reply. She explains how to get more info and still have it be 6 lines.