wendy645

Hi all! I've recently gone to my first consultation with my PCP about the band and she's behind me all the way. She wrote me a referral to the nutritionist that I need to call on again (I called before to ask if there was a charge and I got voicemail and never got a call back) and wants me to do a few months sup. diet before trying for a referral to the surgeon. My insurance sucks and will put up a big fight, I know this. I talked to another lady at the info session who has my same insurance and said you have to do 6 months diet first, then pursue an appt. with the surgeon, and they'll only cover it if it's life-threatening. Ok, so I know where I stand with insurance. This was night before last. This afternoon, my boss hands me a sheet of paper with a questionnaire because our company is shopping for insurance! I'm kinda excited about this, but at the same time, kinda nervous! How are things affected switching insurance companies mid-stream into the pre-request process? Am I going to have to start all over again once we find out new plan? I'm expecting so, which makes me want to just wait on seeing the doc again on the regular right now cuz the co-pay sucks, but what if we don't end up changing companies? Then I'm gonna have to start all over anyway! :help:

Maybe I'm just starstruck but have you called the Methodist hospital in... Houston I think it is? That Big Medicine is filmed at?

Well, due to my car breaking down and a bad storm I got there about halfway into it (3 hour drive). The surgeon was on-call and got called out not too terribly long after we got there. There were no patients, which was something I was really hoping for, and the lady that took over the seminar seemed in a huge hurry to GTF out of there. I managed to stay behind and was the last out the door, talking to some of the other people there for the seminar. One lady has the same insurance as me, so she gave me a heads up on them. I know there's an exclusion, but she said they'll fight but allow it if it's life threatening. The way she SAID it though upset me. As if she had contempt for me because I was smaller than her. She was seriously bitchy about it, and kinda looked at me like I look at skinny people... woah... I've never been looked at like that by someone bigger than me! I'm used to it from people smaller than me, but this threw me for a loop! I'm kind of in limbo right now because my employer is shopping around for different insurance! Now that I've started to look into this and started my 6-month diet, things are going to change! EEK!

You got it done in Mexico.... so BC/BS AZ will cover fills but not the procedure?

I'd suggest another fill, too, or in the mean time try eating standing up and seeing if it makes any difference? Just a thought.

I'm actually excited that I won't be able to turn to food as therapy anymore, because it'll force me to look my problems in the eye and not eat through them. This way I can be on my road to healing and figuringmyself out, which is an ultimate goal of mine :girl_hug:

Seriously. We get judged enough for what we eat now, I don't want to continue the scrutiny! At least when people see me eating like a rabbit, they leave me alone!

Yay! :girl_hug: Thank you! I figured most of them would be answered, but then I'll write the answers beside them and ask anything that's left. It's good to know they're so informative, I went to one on GBP a few years ago and they didn't cover the lapband at all, but I've been told this will. Plus, I wonder if I was the only one incredibly let down by the info packet straight from LapBand's maker... y'know, the one you call the 800 # for? It was lame!

I go to my info session tonight, and being the meticulously need-to-be-informed-of-every-little-thing-I-can-think-of person I am, I made a list of questions to ask the doc that are left unanswered after the info session. I'm driving 3 hours to get there, so hopefully he'll take pity on me and answer my questions! So here's my list, if you can add any others in the next couple of hours, I'd love to see them!!! Questions for Lap-Band Info Session 8/14/07 What kind of co-morbidities do insurance companies look for? What has your experience been with insurance denials? Do you help appeal? What do you do to help with insurance? Do you work to find loopholes in insurance exclusions, say if the patient needs something else like gallbladder or hernia surgery? Have you worked with Mercy Health before, and if so how did it turn out? Are there options besides insurance and self-pay? What qualifiers make or break your accepting a patient? What tests and specialists do you need before hand? What are your personal pre-op requirements? How many lap-bands have you done? What kinds of bands do you use? How do you decide which kind to use? Do you use different kinds of ports? Does the patient have to request a smaller port? Other than size, are there any differences in the smaller and standard ports? How do you decide where to put the port? What was your complication rate? Death rate? What caused them? What complications have you personally run into in the operating room? What is your protocol for complications? Can you fix a hiatal hernia while in there? What does that entail, and can insurance cover it? What is average recovery time? How long do you recommend taking off work? What is your pre-op diet recommendation? What is your post-op diet recommendation? Do/can you record the procedure? (Yes, I’m a Health channel freak) What can a patient do to minimize recovery pain and time? How long are patients usually in the hospital post-op? Do most patients get relief from GERD? What are the activity limitations? What aftercare do you provide, and what is the cost? How long do you wait to do a fill? Are your fills done blind or with fluoro? Is there an additional charge for fluoro? Why do people complain of shoulder pain? What can we do to prevent slippage? Why does erosion occur and what can we do to prevent it? Are there many patients who reach goal and DON’T need PS/TT’s? What can we do to be one of them? What is the “golfball”? How do we avoid it? How do we get rid of it? What about PB’s and Sliming? Do we get a card saying what kind of band we have? What’s on it? What affect does drinking while eating have? Straws to drink – yes or no? My PCP recommends 4 months supervised dieting before trying to get an approved consultation with you. What do you recommend I do in the mean time? Wish me luck, I'm jazzed to go to the info session, plus my mom and boyfriend are going with me!!! :girl_hug:

Awesome smiley use, btw! Congratulations on a smooth surgery! I'm excited for you!!

I'm just starting, I've done my first PCP consultation bringing up the subject, attending an info session tonight, and setting up a nut. consultation today, and since the info session is 3 hours away, I have to leave work early. I said I'm visiting a doctor for hernia repair consultation... which is mostly true. The doctor wil be at the info session, I'm visiting that and by proxy him, and the PCP said they could most likely fix the hernia while in there, so... That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!

This is why, if at all possible, I'm not telling anyone but my mom, boyfriend of 9½ years, and best friend. And they all support me 110%. I don't think other people will, and to be honest, I don't feel like listening to their crap about it. I've researched this well and I'm sure you have too, so they can piss up a rope! We're doing this for us, not them!! I hope you've sat quietly and thought about this long and hard... if it's something you really want to do, don't let anyone get in your way. This is a life-changing decision and you know who needs to make those?The owner of said life! YOU! :girl_hug: At least you know you have tons of support here!!

You had it right when you said it's with any surgery. Heck, you could die having your tonsils out. It's just the fact that people's bodies vary so greatly, some are allergic to anesthesia and don't know it until too late, or there's a miniscule chance of something major going wrong, like cutting a major blood supply, but your surgeon will no doubt be too competent for that! Besides, the risk of dying with a lap-band surgery- to me at least- is not nearly enough to consider not doing it, especially since I'm gonna die if I keep along this path! May as well DO something about it! :girl_hug:

Oh! And your dog is adorable! He reminds me of mine!

Hi Nichole! Your post really caught my attention because I'm in rez land, too! Well, not technically, I'm in Page, but we're surrounded by rez. Where are you? I'm loving reading your blog and progress, I'm still at the very beginning stages

I'm curious (completely off-topic here) why do some people's posts have every word capitalized? Not caps locked, But When A Sentence Is Like This? Also... where do I sign up for one of those newfangled non-finicky bands?

I looked into surgery (bypass) when I was 19 years old after seeing Carnie Wilson on TV. I went to a seminar about it which is where I first heard about LapBand. Since I didn't know alternatives to rearranging your innards existed, I knew immediately I had to look into it. I've taken my time researching and decided this was for me. There are several things that did it for me. Feeling like I'm about to be decapitated in my own car by my seatbelt. Getting asked when I'm due. I like to reply with something dripping sweet that makes them soooooo embarrassed for asking. It's my little bit of spite, I guess. Going on a business trip and running across the airport terminal and feeling like I was going to DIE, but being afraid to ask for a ride from the carters because they'd just look at me and be disgusted little miss fat ass couldn't walk across the terminal. BARELY fitting the airplane seatbelts, and feeling my butt squishing under the arms and into the next seat, where the people next to me looked disgusted. realizing that 'm out of clothing options and I REFUSE to shop at Lane Bryant etc. I'm a tight size 26 but I will not go any higher because the only thing clothes-wise in my town is an absolute travesty. I mean, honestly. I think the vast majority of plus-size clothing is designed by bitter skinny minnies. Elastic waistbands and terrible cuts, prints that just shouldn't have been manufactured to begin with, much less turned into something a person has to wear on their body! It's what's inspiring me to want to make my own plus-size clothes line with my friend... even though I'll be too skinny to wear them Everything has just piled up onto me lately, making me more and more determined to do this. After being told since I was 7 that I was fat and worthless (I didn't get fat until I was 13, and I'm not worthless, dammit!) I have always thought of myself as fat and worthless. Until recently. I now know I'm just fat. And I'm ready to do something abuot it.

Yay you for taking this step to a better life! We're all rooting for you and will be subsequently post-stalking you to see how you do! :eek:

How did it go? I go to mine tomorrow!!

I'm just starting the process but this thread rocks my socks off! I can't wait to add to this list!! I'm not the only one with tears in my eyes, at least, that's good

My goal changes all the time, and I'm a self-proclaimed numbers nut. I have played with numbers since I can remember, even back to 5 years old. My high weight used to be 270, so I picked 135. Perfect number. But now, my high weight is 286, and I'd like to be 143 due to that, being half of it, but I don't like 143. Maybe 140 or 147. I've never seen/remembered anything below 165, so I'll also admit I have no idea what under-165 holds. I think it'll be a case of wait and see when I get there :-) I'd still love to see 135! Or be able to wear a single-digit size. Even a 9 would THRILL me!

The thing that I find so interesting is the double standard. I've had COUNTLESS skinny friends complain about how fat they are, and I tell them I'd love to be their size, and they all are quick to say they don't think I'm fat, they just feel fat for themselves. At first I thought of this as a load of horse pucky, but I'm starting to believe it. I still come away from the conversation feeling planetary if they're complaining about their size whatever, but I also know they feel bad themselves. And since I know how feeling bad about your body feels, I leave it alone.

Well I was beat to the punch! I was going to come in and post something to share my signature with you lovelies When I saw this thread I read the name to my mom and she asked if she was a shorty porty. I exlplained the band has a port and that was the reference. She's overweight but losing, and not banded. It's funny how a lot of us aren't happy with what we've got, huh? For instance, I'd LOVE to be 5'9" but it's not gonna happen (probably? That patient gaining some height inches is inspiring!!) but at the same time, I'm thankful I'm 5'7", which I know a lot of people here and gonna be like "Oh shut up, you!!" about LOL For the poster who noticed things getting longer on her as she loses: I hope to have the same problem! I have faily long legs, but the pants I can find are short on me (I'm not much of a loser yet!) but instead of having a belly sticking out to make the fabric go out and then down... without it going out, the only place for it to go is down! Holy run-on sentence, bat man! Anyway, good on you all for working with what you've got, and I hope my signature picture can bring you a smile :eek:

Wow I can't believe it's been 2 years since someone replied to this! I'm bumping this because I think it could get much more attention!

Wow, I have nothing to offer but I'm really interested in the answers here. Where in your back hurts and what kind of pain is it? Like, an ache? A shooting, or stabbing, or burning pain? And is it while you're eating or afterwards? Sorry to ask so many questions but it might be helpful to narrow it down for other ppl who've gone through it or may know why