AshevilleEddie

HAHAHA!! Juli, we were probably typing at the same time!

Hmm, that's from some commercial, just can't remember which one. Anyhoo, here we go! Please bear in mind any subjective answers are from what my DH and I have experienced personally... Has anyone had significant problems post surgery? Nope. I will be doing this alone -- was anyone afraid going to have this done at the time of surgery -- (This is playing a mind game on my masculiniity issues to be honest. The whole idea if I was "man" enough then I would not have any fear and the other if I was man enough I would not be in this situation. I realize it is old tapes and not a valid truth) but has anyone else feel or have felt similar ? I was terrified. DH acted like he was getting his hair cut. Anyone aware of MDs in the states who do lapbands for a reasonalbe fee? I checked with NYU and they want 26,000. A bit much for me like way too much. Our doc is around $18,000, but we're in Florida. Of course, if you came down here you'd most likely have a nice Gay couple to take care of you for a few days. Has anyone post op become or develop issues of anorexia or eating depravation? I think everyone deals with "head hunger" to some degree. I do more than Sean (my DH). I personally don't think anorexia would be much of an issue, especially if you've never dealt with it before. Post op how does this affect a person sexually? More/better positions! Is the port obvious? Not at all. Sean is about 20 lbs from his goal weight and you can't see it at all. Does it become more obvious the more weight you loose? Nope. See above. It does however become easier to find if you're feeling for it. Can it be felt while another person is touching you? Yes, if you know where it is. But it's not real obvious. If you were just fooling around with someone who didn't know it was there, they may or may not even notice. Does the port hurt in general or during exercise of if it is touched? I had some port-area tenderness for a couple of months. If I overexercise, the area may be a little more sore than the surrounding areas are. Can pressure be put on the port? I wouldn't recommend getting punched in the gut, but normal pressure is not an issue, even increased pressure during sex in certain positions doesn't bother either of us. Due to the wt loss has anyone noted a increase in sex drive? I haven't yet. Sean did, but it was only for a couple of weeks. So sad...:cry If this is an incease in testosterone has anyone noted any hair loss? Nope. Keep your Protein intake up and that won't be an issue. Despite successful wt loss does anyone still see themselves as fat? I'm not to that point in my loss yet. Sean still does a bit, but it lessens with every pound. How do you cope with others reaction to your wt loss? Smile and say thank you. Do you share with others you had a band or not? Depends on who it is, but it's kinda like my orientation; I don't wear rainbow feather boas to work but I do keep a family photo on my desk at work and whoever sees it sees it. Does anyone continue or go to OA/Weight Watchers or a band group for ongoing support? Just monthly support meetings at our Weight Loss Center and all my peeps here! :biggrin1: I know I will have excess skin - how do you deal with that and how has it been with others who your being sexual with? Well, Sean has lived with the excess skin and the fat behind it for almost a decade. He knows that I'll have surgery to remove it when I'm done. Anyone here in NYC that attends a or knows of a band support group? No idea, sorry. I am sorry about all the questions and if are overwhelming --- um you can um blame my mother-- Yes, it's all her fault. :guess She always told me to "shut up" as I ask to many questions Well, shut up then. :heh: Just kidding! Ask all the questions you need or want to. That's what we're here for. I think you'll find this thread in particulary to be very supporting... And BTW, :welcome:!! Glad to have you aboard!

It's from the nitrogen gas they use to pump up your abdominal cavity. It disperses through the shoulder joints for a lot of folks. Mine just felt like I had swallowed a brick!

Oh yeah, your poodle fixation. I'd forgotten about that. Personally, I'm not quite that Gay...:heh: Love ya Mark!!

Hmm, I never thought to combine the two. I wonder if I went down to Miami Ink if Ami could do something with that...

:clap2: Way to go Stevee! :clap2: Keep those updates coming!! My update isn't as dramatic as yours, but I'm quite happy to report that since my last fill the scale is finally moving (even without coconut oil, though I just got my order today) - I'm down to 228#! That's a total of 34 so far. I am going to start taking it again, just to make sure I keep moving. All the talk about tattoos has me ready to get back into the studio too. I got my first (but definitely not last) one when we were on vacation in Key West in April. When I got it I thought it was really big - it's a custom tribal design about 5" high by about 2" wide in the center and down to a point at the top and bottom - now it seems really small and I can't wait to have it added to. I eventually want it to cover my entire upper arm and up onto the shoulder. But I'm saving it for a reward to myself after I lose down to goal. I've also got two more planned. I know the location of one (upper right arm) but not the exact design. It will probably wind up being tribal too. The 3rd one is going to be Donald Duck (yeah, I know, go ahead and laugh it up. I can't help it, I love The Donald) but I don't know where yet. I want it to be somewhere I can see it without having to look in the mirror, but it just wouldn't look right in the shadows of all the tribal stuff...

I will now be unsubscribing from this very exclusive thread to which I was never acknowledged having joined and from which I have received zero support.

I'm the same. I have to have something hot in the am to open me up. While I've managed to come off most of my meds since banding, I still have a few pills I have to take in the mornings. Taking them with hot tea or my newly discovered protein shake "hot chocolate" (killing two birds with one stone!) is the only way they'll go down.

Well, over the weekend I was able to eat pretty much ANYTHING! And was actually hungry enough to. I had called the dr's office last Friday to see what I should do. Since I was so frustrated they went ahead and bumped my appointment to Monday. So I went in and explained to my doc what was going on and he thought I needed another fill. Sooo, I decided (note, I decided) that I wanted to be a little over-restricted, enough to tell. So I get my fill, I can tell the Water I'm drinking is moving down very slowly, but I don't think anything about it. By the time I made my next appointment and got out to the car I knew it was way too much. I very quickly went back in and told the receptionist what was going on. Well, in about two minutes flat (about the time it took that water to come back up ) the nurse had me back on the table and was yelling down the hall for the doc! He did a slight unfill and all was well again. I am still much tighter than I've ever been, but I'm getting my fluids and Protein shakes down just fine. I can't really eat solids until lunchtime and I am still able to eat more in the evening. But I asked my doc about that and he said that it's a phenomenon he's had lots of patients report to him. He said as long as I can get some calories in by 10 or 11 in the morning to get my metabolism moving, that's fine. And liquid calories count so I can drink my Protein shake first thing instead of waiting until closer to bedtime like I've been doing. But cold shakes don't go down very easily that early, so just figured out that I can heat my low-carb milk before I add my Protein powder and have "hot cocoa" for breakfast! Kills two birds with one stone. The hot liquid relaxes my esophagus so I can get my protein in early, plus it's still somewhat relaxed at lunch time so I'm able to eat solids much more easily! I think I'm pretty close to my sweet spot as I've actually lost 4 lbs as of this morning!! :biggrin1: Sorry for the long post, but I didn't want to leave anything out!

Damn! You go girl!! I'm starting to get that feeling too (finally). I weighed this morning...I'm down 4 pounds!! And that's without coconut oil! I think I may be close to my sweet spot. I actually put on a pair of size 40 shorts earlier. Still a tad too tight to wear out in public with my shirt tucked in, but I got them on! I haven't been able to wear 40s since high school...and I graduated in 1982!!

I can't wait to see my, um, toes again too! :heh: I finally feel like I'm on the way. Had fill #3 on Monday afternoon and am down 4 lbs as of this morning. I think I may be close the my "sweet spot." After not losing any net weight for six weeks, this is a welcome relief. And I just put on a pair of "inspiration" shorts - they're size 40! I haven't been able to wear 40s since high school (I graduated in 1982!). WOO HOO! :whoo:

Same here. There's just not a lot going on. So much for us Gay men leading such fabulous, exciting lives, huh? I did have another fill on Monday. By the time I got out of the office and out to my car I realized none of the water had gone down and in fact, was about to come back up. So I went back in and told the receptionist. Well, in about two minutes flat (about the time it took that water to come back up :confused:) the nurse had me back on the table and was yelling down the hall for the doc! He did a slight unfill and all was well again. I am still much tighter than I've ever been, and can only eat about two oz of food, but I'm getting my fluids and protein shakes down so I'm not too worried. I usually loosen up in about a week and a half, so I figure by this time next week I'll be just right. :grouphug: In the meantime, I'm out of coconut oil and the weight loss has stalled again. Maybe the increased restriction will make a dent in it... So how is everyone else doing? We've almost made it 'round to another weekend. WOO HOO!!

Another belated b'day Faith! :happybday2: I can't wait until everyone's finished reading. So much to discuss...

I second that. In fact, they didn't even ask to see my card. I went to pull it out of my wallet and our server said there was no need!

Hi all, Had a very busy reading weekend - Sean and I stood in line at Borders for about 3 hours Saturday night waiting for the Harry Potter book. Pretty much all of yesterday was spent reading until I finished it late yesterday afternoon. No spoilers coming, but I will say that it was really good. The action starts very early on and doesn't let up until the very end. I will have to say though, that it was not the ending I was expecting. I've spent so many years coming up with ideas and theories and for the most part I was way off base.

I was on Lactated Ringers IV fluids (contains some glucose) so no worries with going hypo. Then they monitored my blood sugar and gave me a small dose if insulin when it was too high. Post-op you may find that you have to decrease your dosages of diabetes meds. Check with you doctor and see what s/he says. I stopped taking one of my meds about a week pre-op with the intent of going back on it after surgery, but not only did I not ever get back on it, I was completely off ALL DM meds about three weeks post-op.

Like a few other guys, I've been lurking in here for a while too. My issue is pretty much the same as Dave (Dumpling). I was banded on 5/16, had my 2nd fill two weeks ago and am going in on Monday for #3. I can barely choke down water in the mornings and can eat like a freakin' hog by 9 or 10 at night. Unfortunately, that's always been my worst time to overeat, so it's almost like I have a "part-time band." I went for about six weeks with no loss at all and have only lost about 4 lbs in the last week after adding coconut oil to my diet. Anyway, even with being able to eat so much more at night, I'm still only taking in around 900-1200 calories per day and eating very low-carb. I'm losing inches (down almost 2 pants sizes) and am off all insulin and other diabetes med, so I should be really happy. But I want to see the scale move. AARRGGHH!!

I made something at lunch that I thought should have been a no-brainer - tuna and fat-free cream cheese - but it got stuck and I almost PBed on it. Then last night I decided to go mushies (because of the near-PB) and made some pimiento and cheese. Over the course of the night I ate the whole f***ing thing!! Part of it was stress eating, but part of it was real hunger. I bumped up my next fill to Monday morning. I still don't know if it's the right thing to do, but I'll have a chance to sit down and talk to the doc first...

Um, any chance that's my fault??

Well, it did come with the caveat that I could eat whatever solids I could tolerate. So having said that I should mention that I did not go hog wild. I just started introducing easily chewable stuff. No ribeyes or anything. That was on day 9. :biggrin1: Just kidding!! But seriously, even though I could tolerate things like ground meats and well-cooked veggies, I still ate lots of mushies most of the time. Didn't want to push the envelope too much...

Ok, I had my second fill three weeks ago tomorrow. I'm at 6.5 cc in a 10 cc band. Whenever I drink I can pretty much chug as much as I want. When I eat certain soft/mushy-type foods I can eat more than I think I should be able to before I get full. But when I try to eat solids, most things tend to get somewhat stuck after about 5 or 6 bites. Meats are the worst, and I'm not talking dry, tough meats either. Even hamburger, fish and moist, tender cuts of chicken are difficult too. The odd thing is that it doesn't happen all the time, but it's enough to be troubling. Even resorting to mushies as much as I have been, I'm still eating a fraction of what I did pre-band (averaging between 1,000 and 1,200 calories or less) and have only lost 4 pounds in the last six weeks. I have days that I think "Wow, I really need another fill" and then there are days that make me feel like I need to go in for an unfill. I do have a fill apointment set for 7/26, but I'm not sure what I need to do when I get there! Any ideas??

Don't sweat it! I was at the same stage as you 2 days post-op and my doc advanced me to solids at 8 days post-op.

I had to stay overnight because I'm diabetic and DH had to stay because of sleep apnea. Our doc normally sends his patients home the same day...

I like that a lot better! Guess I read it wrong. But did you like Supreme Band Rule #1??!?? :biggrin1:

As a bandster, I have to disagree with this statement. I'm not saying we need to rigidly schedule our meals and never deviate from that routine, but I've found that if I let myself get too hungry I almost always eat too fast and make myself sick. As a diabetic, here's what I have done (and I'm now off ALL diabetes meds since about three weeks post-op). I follow Supreme Band Rule #1 (I made that up, like it?) and eat my Protein first, then my green veggies, then any low GI carb source last (only if there's room). I am eating very low-carb by default. I also eat a little something every few hours, for a couple of reasons. First, until I am off meds for at least a year I still consider myself diabetic and try to avoid hypo episodes at all cost. Second, that helps to boost your metabolism and keeps the weight loss going. As for your original topic of head hunger, I think we all have to deal with that to a point. I haven't found any magic bullet for it yet. :phanvan