lmattera

Hi everyone! I am new to this group and the forums as well, this is such a great site and I'm so happy to have found a group of people from New Jersey! I am getting banded by Dr. Shakov and Dr. Strom's at Bayshore Community Hospital on Feb 15th. I noticed a few of you have been banded from that group and I would love to know how things are going! I met Dr. Reich at an information session and thought he was wonderful but he was going on vacation and I wanted to get an appointment as soon as I could because I heard it takes months to get everything done but boy does that group work fast! I had an appointment on Dec 19th and they scheduled me to get banded Feb 15th. Congrats to you all on your weight loss journey! I hope everyone had a great holiday!

Hi everyone! My name is Lauren and I am getting banded on Feb 15th, 2013. I haven't told many people because I'm afraid of being judged, and it doesn't help that the few people I have told reacted quite negatively, even my aunt went as far as saying she was going to do whatever she needed to make sure I didn't get this done. I'm 22 years old and I have been overweight my entire life, and both of my parents had to have weight loss surgery (my mom had gastric bypass in 2005 and has lost 110 pounds and my dad had lap band in 2010, but has only lost 40 pounds because he still has poor eating habits). I am very hurt that my friends and family have reacted so negatively towards what I see as the biggest blessing in my life. My family thinks that I should be older to have the surgery (so I can suffer with my weight longer like they have had to) and my friends don't think I'm overweight enough (even though my bmi is 36 and I have a lot of breathing problems- insurance is covering the surgery). My parents are starting to support me more than in the beginning, and that's all that really matters to me, but it would nice to have support from more people. I'm so glad I found this forum! My surgeon recommended it to me Any advice would be truly appreciated, I look forward to getting to know some fellow banders!