1SunMoney

I had this surgery on 5/3/2010 after spending the better part of a year fighting my insurance company to pay for it. I was blessed to have Dr. Kim do my surgery. His staff is very patient when it comes to working with Insurance. On my birthday 4/19 I started with the pre-op diet and during this period I lost 22 lbs. My begining weight was 345 lbs. This morning I weighted in at 280 lbs which is 65 lbs lost in about 6 weeks. I believe that alot of my success is due to the fact that I walk every day rain or shine, hot or cold. I was doing 27 miles a week and have stepped it up today to 5 miles a day. Dr. Kim told me that this surgery is a Tool that would inflict pain on my body if I abused it. I now know what he means. My goal is to get to 185lbs. I was a diabetic on insulin and I have not had any injections in the last 4 weeks due to being able to control my diabeties with diet and excersize. I also suffered from high bloodpressure and now have no issues with my blood pressure. It has been amazing. My Cardiologist said that "You are saving your own life" and that means alot. I have already had a stint put in and another blockage opened up in the last year. I will be posting a blog and keeping in touch. If you have any questions I would love to hear from you. Thanks Jim Russell Waxahachie, Texas:thumbup1:

5/3/2010 must be our lucky day. I had my surgery on this day and have lost 68lbs so far. Good luck with your weight loss. 1SunMoney!

I have had the VGB procedure done 5/3/2010 and I have not regreted it. The 1st 3 days after surgery were terrible but after that it has be great! My wife had the lap band originally in 1995 and lost alot of weight until it broke. She has since with with the Gastric Bypass and is now better again. I researched all the options and I decided that the VGB was the right choice for me. My Dr. agreed and so far it has been great. I have lost 68lbs to date. If you want to talk Email me at jamesrussell2@live.com and I will give you a phone number to call me in person. Good luck!

I had my surgery on May 3, 2010 and I started this adventure a year earlier trying to convince my company that this was the right thing to do! I was pretty convincing and they aproved my surgery. On 4/19/2010 I weighed in at 345lbs with a BMI of 49.6. I currenty as of this date weigh 280lbs. I have lost more weight in the last 6 weeks than I had over the past 4 years. My wife said I am loosing it 2 fast but I feel good! This was not without some pain and frustration but that you probably know already. I felt like I had made the mistake of my life the day after surgery but I have since changed my mind. Had I not taken this step I probably would not be here in 3 to 5 years. My wife had a lap band done in 1996 and had great weight loss until 2005 when it broke and damaged her stomach. She had to have an emergency gastric bypass but has had some issues with this surgery. The picture above was from 2006 and I have not had a picture of me taken since. That will be changing! I am having some problems with eating 6 weeks after surgery and I am still having to puree all my food. I have tried multiple times to eat small amounts of food that is not ground up to a pulp and have had no success. I will be seeing my Dr. on Wednesday and this is one issue I want him to talk to me about. I also have a wierd experience when I eat with my nose starts running and I then have to sneeze for about 10 minutes. I thought maybe I had a a food alergie but it happens no matter what I eat. Is this a problem with anybody else? Let me know. I am walking 3.5 miles every day and today I pushed it to 5 miles with no side affects. I plan to step it up a mile a week until I get to the wall! In closing I want to hear from some of you about what issues you are having and maybe we can work together to help each other. Thanks for the support! Jim P.S. the 1SunMoney name is my Poker name.