Daydra

It might be. I had to use mine as a "bridge loan". I have a Health Reimbursement Arrangement through my employer that will likely reimburse me the cost of the surgery, but they can't pay up front and my clinic requires self-pay to pay 2 weeks in advance. So for now, I will make the payments until the denial from my insurance company comes through and I put in my reimbursement submission, then I'll pay it off. It was stupid to have to do it that way, especially since I have over $20k in my reimbursement account and still had to take a loan. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Good luck, and I'm glad you don't have to use it for the whole thing. Interest rates for medical procedures aren't that good, though my clinic staff say that Springstone rates are lower than Care Credit rates.

I used it. My first payment is due on the 5th, so I don't have a lot of experience with their servicing yet, but it was super easy to get set up. Good luck!

I was discharged yesterday morning around 7am. Very little discomfort. The thing that bothers me most is drinking and taking meds. Feels like they're pushing their way into my stomach and I have to sit or stand ramrod straight to get them down the easiest. More discomfort than pain, though. Have a minor sore throat. No other problems. No nausea or vomiting. Gas doesn't seem to be a significant problem either. I'm still about 4 pounds up from the iv fluids. I only managed to get about 24 oz down yesterday. I do find that warmed broth goes down easiest, but my dry mouth really just wants Water. Right now, I'm at about 16 oz for the day and it is slightly easier to get down than yesterday. I'm sure tomorrow will be better and I'll be able to get more down. Still on clears through tomorrow, then can start full liquid on Saturday. Hope everyone recovers well!

Great work!!!

14. That must be an horribly difficult decision for you to have to make for your daughter. It sounds like you really want the best for her, and I totally admire that. I would be really concerned about her maturity not being ready to have wls surgery. For me, personally, from about age 17 to age 21, hanging out with my friends and drinking, eating poorly, and various other immature things were a big part of my life. If I had had wls before that point in my life, I would have ruined myself because having fun was more important than taking care of myself. I was on Phen-fen about this time and I couldn't or wouldn't make the necessary decisions to follow my doctors instructions and ended up gaining back all the weight and then some over a short period of time. At about 24 or so, I looked into gastric bypass. There were a lot of reasons I ultimately chose not to get it done, but the biggest thing that I realize now, was that I was not emotionally ready and wasn't ready to make the lifestyle changes necessary to be successful long term. I've now made most of the other changes in my life that will now allow me to be successful, I've recently developed triathlon as a hobby, so I'm far more active than I used to be, I've changed my eating philosophy to a much cleaner diet, where 10 years ago, I was still perfectly willing to eat fast food and other garbage. She's got a lot of teenage years and early 20's ahead of her, and that age group simply isn't known for making a lot of responsible decisions. I'm not a parent, and I'm certainly not your daughter and don't have any way to assess whether she could be ready or not, but if I were to base this decision from my own life experiences, I wouldn't do it. In your role as parent, I would probably try to work really hard to provide the healthiest food possible and try to get her into therapy to see if there is an underlying emotional/psychological reason that she finds it so difficult to lose weight. Best of luck to you and your daughter. I hope that whatever decision you make works out well for you both.

Ah. I get it. Glad that you just had that one sore spot!

Yikes! I have to admit, I could probably get by with just ibuprofen, but I would not be very happy about it! Why be forced to tolerate pain if it's unnecessary? Good thing recovery time is fairly brief with laparoscopic procedures.

Thank you so much for the support and well wishes! I plan to keep updating here as I lose! I just can't wait to see what I'm capable of as I finally lose this weight that has been crushing me my entire life!

Thank you! I felt the same way, at the same time as feeling generally anxious. Best of luck to you on your surgery and recovery!! Sending supportive thoughts your way!

Thank you! I had my emotions in lockdown the day before and the morning of the surgery. I was really nervous and just had to maintain forward momentum. I was very settled with my decision being the right way to go. I had considered wls nearly a decade ago, but I wasn't ready and the only option available to me was bypass, which didn't appeal to me because of the rerouting of my system. I also wasn't excited about the band because I didn't want a device, and now that I've read here that there seem to be a lot of revisions to sleeve from the band, I'm really glad I made that decision. I'm sure you will do great! Just make sure you follow all of your doc's orders. I know there are a lot of differences between docs, but we trust and pay the one we've chosen to know what they're doing, and I'm not going to be the one that plays armchair quarterback with my surgery. Sending you lots of support for tomorrow!!

Surgery yesterday, discharged this morning. I'm super excited to see what success is going to look like! My clinic staff said that my recovery while under their care was much better than most (but of course we all know they've got the good drugs there!) . Drugs at home, not quite so good, but still feeling really good considering I'm only 29 hours out from surgery. I have some minor soreness along the line of my incisions and some muscular soreness around my diaphragm. No nausea, no vomiting, little gas, a little heartburn sensation when I'm not sitting up straight or standing, and it's slightly difficult to stay focused due to the narcotic. The only other thing I 'm not cheering about is trying to get all my meds and fluids down due to the swelling and uncomfortable sensation, but that's all it is, fortunately, "uncomfortable sensation". No complaints here and I can't wait to see what awesome things are awaiting me in my future! Best of luck to you all! At this point, so far so good and I'm really pleased!

I can totally relate to your story. I was 11 years old as well, the first time my mom took me to Weight Watchers. I've done it maybe 7 times, and done tons of other diets and strategies in between. I'm 5'8" and my highest was 349. I would always lose some weight, but would eventually lose my motivation and obsession with doing everything right and quit. It never gained it back really fast, but I always gained it back. I was down to 230 this last time (115 lb loss from where I started that time), but eventually couldn't pull it back together after making a couple weeks of bad choices during a family medical crisis. I gained about 50 pounds back, and that's when I started looking into weight loss surgery again and was really glad that the sleeve had become an option since the last time I had begun the process to have bypass. Best of luck to you, I know you will be successful. You have already proven that you can!

I like Weight Watchers. The meeting that I've attended for years has a leader that I really like, and I've got a lot of friends there. I've done Weight Watchers, many times, with varying degrees of success. My most successful stint, I followed more Clean Eating principles and used a Bodybugg to track calories eaten and burned as well as exercise. I hit a stall and switched to the HCG diet and lost a total of 115 pounds. The problem was, I was only successful as long as I was obsessive. Once I no longer had the motivation and energy to continue obsessing over what I should eat, how much I should eat, and how much longer I had to wait until I could eat during all my waking hours, I began to gain it back. The bottom line is: 95% of all diet attempts fail. (I don't think I got that stat wrong, but feel free to double check me) That is why it is so critical that weight loss surgery is a viable option. Those of us that get this far down the road have usually tried a multitude of diet plans, particularly Weight Watchers since they're the biggest game in town. For someone that has already run the gauntlet of diet plans and attempts at weight loss, I feel that suggesting they go back and give it the old college try only encourages them to prolong their misery and increase their feelings of failure. If someone presented a solution on any topic to me that only had a 5% long term success rate, I would give them the blank stare like they were a complete idiot for even suggesting it to me.

Although, if you signed up, you'd probably hit lifetime pretty quick and be able to go to meetings for free, so it would be a lot less money in the long run...

No, but my nutritionist told me the points method is not really compatible. I haven't really reasoned that out, because I hope to never have to pay monthly dues again! I'm sure if I thought about it, I could devise a way to adjust it to a post-sleeve diet. Nothing is stopping you from using the meetings for support and following a calorie and macronutrient tracking based diet. I did that for a long time a few years ago. It's really the support that makes the difference, I think. Most of us (particularly here) probably know as much or more about diet and nutrition as the meeting leaders. But, you can probably attend a support program for less money if you were to pick a different program. Also, if you had your surgery locally, your clinic or hospital may have a support group already set up.

That is so awesome! I'm sooo glad that you got such great customer service!!!

You are not a slave. You are entitled to recover from surgery with support from your spouse. You are entitled to pursuit of health and happiness. You are entitled to support from your spouse in your pursuit of health and happiness. What you describe sounds like abusive behavior to me. Best of luck to you.

Welcome and good luck!

Thanks! And most definitely! I started today. 870 cal/day. Basically shakes during the day and a 330 cal or less tv dinner for evening meal. I was pretty miserable at the office today, being hungry. I had 2 Protein shakes and a few raw vegetables while at work, had a Healthy Choice tv dinner, 2 pieces of light babybel cheese, and about 1.5 c of watermelon at dinner. Came in at 879. I figure that's pretty darn close to what I was supposed to do. I started my pre-op diet a day early because I was about 1.5 pounds up from my weight at my consult, so it wasn't critical that I was perfectly compliant today. I'm going to try to go to bed early, so I'm not tempted to try to snack... Good times... How about you?

Good luck all! Looking forward to hearing how it all went once you're on the Loser's Bench!

Agreed. My favorite so far is the Roadside Lemonade. I mix it with 16oz of Water and it reminds me of lemon-flavored Pez candy. I have tried the Grape Frost Isopure so far. I don't like it, but I can get it down so far (pre-op). It really throws me off to have a "cheesy" flavored background in a grape-flavored drink. I bought some artificially flavored water enhancers to see if I can increase the grape flavor and masque the cheesy background. Good luck!

I'd like to echo a lot of what has already been said here. 1 - Your medical team wants to help you, please go in and ask for help. You are not the first one this has happened to and they can help you make some adjustments to get you back on track, though I expect you already know what some of those are going to be. 2 - There are a ton of emotional issues associated with being overweight. Please find a therapist to help you strategize, provide support, and help you talk through whatever issues you may have surrounding weight. Being able to benefit from therapy DOES NOT mean there is anything wrong with you. It simply means that there are some issues that you need to work through. We all struggle with things and you're no different. 3 - My surgeon told me that the definition of a "successful" bariatric surgery patient is one that loses 100 pounds or some (50% maybe? cant remember...) percentage of their excess weight. You've lost over 100 lbs according to your ticker, so by definition, you are successful. Hold on to that. Remind yourself of how far you have come, and get back to some of those strategies that have allowed you to lose that 108 pounds. Call your clinic and make a new start Monday morning. Think back on all those reasons that you had this surgery and remind yourself of each and every one. Write them down and read them everyday if you need a reminder. You can do this! You already proven you can be successful! Good luck

Aside from the likely stall, if you've been working out with significant intensity for 6 weeks, your body might need a taper week. Athletes will train hard for a number of weeks and then dial back to a rest week, where they do shorter, lighter intensity workouts to allow their body to do some rest and repair.

Don't be embarrassed! It happens, and you're definitely not the only one. The only thing that matters is that you get back on track to maintain all of your successes. It's going to be hard work, but your medical staff wants to support you! Good luck!

I'm planning to wait until after I make goal. I don't want it to interfere with my weight loss.