sarahcc

I don't smoke, but I will just pass along that my doctor told our pre-admissions class that they test for nicotine in the blood and urine on the morning of surgery. I kind of thought, That seems a bit extreme. I bet they don't really do it, it's just a scare tactic. I tend to be a bit skeptical, heh. Anyway, sure enough, I went to the hospital on the morning of surgery and the admissions staff confirmed I had orders for blood and urine samples, specifically to test for drugs, alcohol and tobacco/nicotine. I will say this - my surgeon took very, very great pride in his work and didn't look too kindly on increased chance of complication due to smoking when we were given clear expectations to quit. Whether it's because your surgeon cares about you, or cares about his stats,... if they say no, they don't mess around!

I've been eating a bite of strawberry here and there since about 4 weeks... my daughter LOVES them so I'm always cutting them up for her and we have a produce market that gives free samples of everything they sell Needless to say now that a trip there to get fruit/veggies provides me an entire meal! But I digress... I can't imagine 2+ months out wouldn't be a good time for a strawberry or two! Enjoy!

Congrats!! I'm 8 pounds away and I can't wait!! It's gone so fast!

This could just be me so take it for what it's worth but I personally don't see 10 more pounds for you to lose!! I wonder do you have much extra skin? That is contributing to weight and maybe 160 is where you land with the extra skin? Maybe that is your "normal". Just a thought but you look great!! Congrats!!

Before surgery when I got hungry it was all consuming for me. I couldn't think or do anything until I ate. And if I let myself get that hungry I ATE. Now a month after surgery I will say that I do occasionally feel hungry... that's not even the right word. I get an empty uncomfortable feeling that makes me want to eat. It's not very often. And it's not the overwhelming, desperate feeling that I had before when I hadn't eaten in a while. It's just a trigger now as opposed to a driving force. Hope that helps!!

It's funny this came up because I just had my 1 month follow up appointment on 5/16 and at that time, it had been nearly 3 weeks since I went AND I have been on solids since day 8 post-op. I asked my nurse practitioner, because I was starting to feel... just very... heavy, I guess is the best way to describe it. I had all these worries like something was wrong with my bowel, etc... and my NP was very cool about it. She told me not to worry, and also told me to take Miralax. I was also on a Colace pattern to no avail. Finally I just buckled and took a laxative to get stuff moving and boy did it ever! I was emptied out in about 4 hours, heh. Felt very much better! My recommendation would be to use a gentle laxative 1 time to clear you out, then introduce colace/fiber (such as Benefiber which can go in liquid and is tasteless) A liquid laxative like milk of magnesia should do the trick. My feeling is that all the dairy, which is what you need to eat to get your Protein in, causes a backup which even a stool softener can't help. Once you're cleared out and fiber is introduced, hopefully it should keep you going more regularly. Hope that helps!!

I've tried a Wendy's $0.99 cheeseburger and I can eat about half... sleeved 4/19. Bread/starch does fine for me, I have no issues with it but it does fill me up where protein should be, so I eat it sparingly. What I actually really like from Wendy's if I'm on the go are the spicy chicken nuggets. Not great for you by any stretch from a fat-content perspective, but not any worse than a cheeseburger (better, in fact) and with less carbs and similar protein. I would never eat McD's chicken nuggets, they skeeve me out. But Wendy's are really good

My claims have just come in for my surgery here in Milwaukee, WI. $48,458 was the total paid by my insurance. I would be responsible for 10% of that, but I have an out of pocket maximum of $1800. Some of that has already been filled by me so my portion will end somewhere around 2% of that total. It is outrageous how much these hospitals charge the insurance companies. My surgeon and anesthesiologist each charged $4,500. I had a few specialists reading test results that were each about $500. The hospital charged $35,000. That being said, I will say that I was treated like royalty there and I did have heart complications during my stay. I was still only there 2 nights though!

FYI just to add my nutritionists personal recommendations: My servings of food/liquid should be less than 10g fat and 10g sugar. She doesnt ask me to watch anything else I hope that helps! Good luck!

Myself personally... I choose a healthy balance vs. low carb. I watch my calories, fat grams and sugar grams but I don't put anything off limits completely. I told myself going into this that my days of "dieting" were over and low carb is just too strict for me. I also think about my life in a year from now (I'm almost 3 weeks post op) and I just can't see low carb being a forever solution for me. It works for a lot of people and seems to promote the fastest weight loss but the numbers don't lie: Burn more calories than you take in, keep hydrated and you WILL lose the excess weight.

I had a super indent at that incision! It looked a lot skinnier than the rest of my stomach, heh. I asked my surgeon about it and he said it's because of how that particular incision is stitched. I'm a little over 2 weeks post op and it's pretty much gone, just a little tiny dip now.

I agree I think its either too much or too fast. I'm two weeks post op too and I can eat the condiments but if I dont take at least 30 mins to eat it is not pretty, haha. My surgeon told me it should take at least 30 minutes to eat a meal and not more than 45 minutes (they don't like grazing lol) and that seems to work for me. Try stretching it to 30 minutes and maybe you'll find that you are feeling your full signal before you finish! Good luck!!

I would just be careful to generalize any post-op diet as being liquid only, because mine wasn't and I've heard of many others that aren't. I was on pureed from day 1, and they said pureed scrambled eggs were fine. At 8 days post-op I had my "two week" follow up with my surgeon and he graduated me to stage two diet which is soft solids in their program. It really just depends on how you're doing. I ate mostly cottage cheese my two weeks and I'm fine today. Down 21lbs in the first two weeks, which I see as a success! That being said, I would highly recommend giving your dietician or surgeons office a call When it comes to pain/discomfort and diet, I would say what they tell you is much more valuable then we could. We bring support and new perspective... they bring medical advice!!

Well, although we all know to go for protein first, the good news is that no one has ever gained all their weight back from eating watermelon

So my bill will also probably be somewhere in the 50K range, but I had heart complications during recovery and had many many tests run. I fear visiting the nuclear medicine department just itself sounds expensive! I also worked with a cardiologist through my stay. My out of pocket maximum is $1800 with no deductible, and they bill all my charges so I'll be setting up a payment plan.

I was sleeved on 4/19 and I really struggled on 4/20 and even 4/21 getting Fluid in. They did discharge me because I wasn't vomiting but it was very difficult. That being said, I found that in the hospital they kept giving me ice Water, and I finally asked for room temperature and that helped. Now at home I also drink gatorade on occasion and that helps me to feel better too. Also, I found that I was able to take in the most fluid when I had taken pain medicine. Now I don't know if that's because my body relaxes with the lack of pain, but for some reason, at home I am able to drink approximately 12-20 ounces of fluid over the course of a dose of pain medicine, far more than without. I am trying not to use my pain meds because I need to drive to appointments and it makes me feel generally sleepy/itchy/weird. But maybe the relaxation part is key. I have to be like, 100% fully relaxed for any fluid to go down. Weirdly enough, I'm on pureed food post-op and greek yogurt, as well as cottage cheese, go down without even a tiny struggle. So strange! Wishing you the best!!!

My BCBSIL approval took 1.5 business days. They submitted on a Thursday afternoon and I called Monday afternoon, and they told me it was approved that same day around noon Good luck to you!

I have a PPO with no deductible, but BCBSIL is covering me at 90%. I'm guessing that won't matter however because I have an out of pocket max of $1800. Like others, co-pays do not count toward OOP max but I've only paid about $75 so far. I just got a bill for $265 which I'm guessing was my pre-admissions testing lab work or whatnot that isn't covered as an office visit. However, it's not due until after my surgery so I'm going to pay it all together and see what it comes out to. I'm pretty positive it will be well over 18K though, so I'm just going to assume my amount will be $1800 total...

I'm scheduled for April 19 and I also have no liquid diet pre or post-op. I'm not able to have anything after midnight the night before surgery, and will probably be on liquid only for the two & a half days in the hospital. From there my stage 1 diet is pureed. Weeks 2-4 are soft foods and after week 4 (or whenever stage 2 food is well tolerated) is general diet. My pre-op is just low fat, low carb, high Protein. I'm getting sleeved in Milwaukee at the Froedtert Hospital & Medical College of WI.

April 19th here in Milwaukee

Yeah, I'm not sure why some surgeons do a per-cert of coverage before a pre-auth for approval. I will say that my surgeons office advised us during the info seminar that if we went through the process of all the testing, ie. upper GI, blood labs etc... were performed and it turns out we were ineligible that we would be responsible for all of that stuff, possibly out of pocket. So maybe to avoid all that, they call in to make 100% sure you're eligible for coverage before doing anything? Not sure. But whatever it is that they do, I hope they do it fast for you!!

You and I have almost the same story! Mid-November is when I started my info seminar and surgical consult. I also have BCBSIL and happened to be on vacation in Orlando and reading this forum as a lurker at the very end of January when I saw a post saying that BCBSIL had removed their requirement. I kind of thought it was a misinformed post or somehow not applicable to me, so I went onto their website and read the policy word for word. Sure enough!! I actually got back to my home in WI on 2/1 and called my surgeons office to let them know; they also validated the new requirements!! So I had to finish up my psych eval, upper GI, wait for those to come back and then off it went to insurance a week ago Friday. Came back two business days later. SO! Surgery date April 19th. EXCITED for myself and for you!!!

Yep same as DNLMom my surgeon's office submitted my stuff around 4:00pm on Friday afternoon and mine was approved the following Tuesday around noon. BCBSIL has a super quick turnover time right now so (probably better because they lifted the SWL requirement for IL, TX, and a couple others...) so regardless of what your surgeons office tells you I would call after a few days. Wishing you a speedy approval!!!

If I was really going to place blame on anybody in this scenario I would place it in two places. 1.) The surgeon for being a jerk. 2.) The trial attorneys that encourage people to file lawsuits that are ridiculous and over-inflated, causing surgeons to have malpractice insurance that is so ridiculously steep and strictly written. I would say there is a good chance his refusal to see you as a patient has a good amount to do with what he's got written into his malpractice insurance. If something goes wrong, everyone always has to blame someone, and he may feel very vulnerable as a doctor in the U.S. who treated you vs. the surgeon you had in Mexico, who may be more difficult to pursue in a malpractice lawsuit if it came down to it. That being said, a doctor that runs a private practice has the right to deny service to anyone for any reason, same as any other business owner. If he feels uncomfortable or at risk in treating you, you probably don't want him as a provider for you anyway. I can't blame him for not wanting a Mexico-sleeved patient at his support group. It has nothing to do with Mexico, however. It's about having a patient there for a procedure not done by him or his practice (partners, affiliates, etc...). There's nothing in it for him; no way that could end well for him. If he has you there, you could say, "WOW, this sleeve is amazing, and it works brilliantly and look how great I'm doing, etc... etc... and I had it done in Mexico!" He now has an advocate for the surgery not by him, but from a competitor. Or vice versa, you could go in there saying the surgery was awful and you've had a terrible time, and now he's got a badvocate (hehe... get it? Advocate, badvocate? Only funny to me? Ok.) for a procedure that was not done by him, and what may not have even been in alignment with his standards of practice (I have no expertise there). Either way you're a huge risk for him to allow into support groups.