Heartonsleeve

I had similar issues with my PCP. I told her I wanted a referral to the surgeon and she told me I should just eat a lot of giant salads to lose weight, in addition to trying to scare me off with horror stories...wth? I called my insurer the same day and got a new PCP.

I had my sleeve done ne in the Boston area. At a center of excellence. My insurance company insisted on it.
The surgeon's fee was $5000. Anistezioligist wasanother$5000.
The entire experience was $23000. ( list). Including POST OP COMPLICATIONS, which added 4 days of hospital to my initial stay.
I am sure my insurance co will pay way less than $23k.
My wife gets MRI's, list price $6000. The "rate netgioated " by insurance is $2400.
If I had to be self pay I would have asked for the insurance rate.
Out of. Country scares me. I was considering Belgium. After the cardiac complications...... I am glad I was here in the US.

Really?? So you're saying that because they do a lot of surgerys they are "experienced"? Just because a builder builds a thousands homes...doesn't mean they are always built safe. Just my opinion...that's it.

Well honestly, your regret seems to be based on the false assumption that most of the world has....that anyone can lose the weight if they just eat less and exercise more. And yet the statistics do not bare that out. Less than 10% of obese people are able to lose the weight and keep it off. It's not from a lack of trying by those people. Indeed most if not all of us tried and failed many many times.
There are many factors both psychological and physiological that make it improbable for most of us to lose the weight and keep it off. The surgery is not the easy way out. It's not a short cut and it's not cheating. It's a tool to help you overcome those obstacles unfairly put in our way....those obstacles that most non obese people know nothing about. Do not feel guilty and do not regret your decision. I am almost 18 months post op. I've lost my weight, started a new life and found many reasons for living that I never dreamed existed. Those things would not be any sweeter had I lost the weight without surgery.

As my surgery date draws near, I find myself questioning the wisdom of having the majority of a major organ removed. Have I really become this desperate for a change? The more I think about it the more bizarre it seems. The fact that the sleeve is considered a "newer" WLS really makes me nervous about the long term. Everyone thought the band was amazing years ago and now it seems there are widespread issues with it.

As my surgery date draws near, I find myself questioning the wisdom of having the majority of a major organ removed. Have I really become this desperate for a change? The more I think about it the more bizarre it seems. The fact that the sleeve is considered a "newer" WLS really makes me nervous about the long term. Everyone thought the band was amazing years ago and now it seems there are widespread issues with it.

Complications are rare, people who post on forums are a vocal minority.

I almost never read these forums anymore. They are tedious and repetitive and full of misinformation. I am a few weeks from a year out and will post some pics at that point. I totally agree with my surgeon that most if what is posted is hearsay. I drink beer, I drink wine, I eat anything I want. I don't always exercise. I taste Desserts, dips, donuts, etc. I'm down about 85 lbs and continue to lose weight, though it has slowed. I have no fears of regain. My overall habits are very healthy now. I wear a size 6-8 and don't feel the need to be a size 0 or 2. Skin is an issue enough now.
Chill out.

That gym ad really looks like false advertising

I honestly think some of the after pics look worse. I hope I end up looking better after but if not at least I'll be healthier!

I honestly think some of the after pics look worse. I hope I end up looking better after but if not at least I'll be healthier!

They tried to pull this crap on me too. I ran back to my regular psychiatrist and cried and threw a fit and told him that he should know me since I've been going to him for like 5 years and this new guy that interviewed me/tested me knew NOTHING about me. There was all kinds of things that came up on the paperwork he wrote about me that I had no clue what he was even talking about. My psychiatrist agreed with me and spoke with the other guy and got him to "re-test" me after I saw a counselor twice. All of it probably delayed my surgery 2 months. But they wanted me to do an additional 6 months to a year of counseling before they would approve me. But that was before I pitched a fit. So don't be silent about this. It's a joke, and I've proved that post op I'm able to follow surgeon's orders and eat properly, etc. etc.

Why do the non believers feel the need to post on this. Wasn't this intended for the believers? So much animosity , so sad that there is nothing better to do but belitte the people of faith. I think I'll go and post in the Atheist Form and ruffle their feathers. No Matter what this country was founded on religion. The freedom to chose what you want to believe in. I, myself do believe in God. You try and take God out of everything and look at how much this country is becoming more violent everyday.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using VST

I'm not a Christian, but I will never understand why atheists take such offense to the personal beliefs of others. To imply that all Christians are sheep or have fundamentalist beliefs is completely ignorant and an unfair generalization.
IMHO, to absolutely refuse the existence of a higher power is as absurd as absolute faith in one.

Is there a way that I can delete this thread!! Some of you really need something to do with your time! It's a chain letter my 12 year old niece sent me it wasn't meant to ruin your lives, as it obviously has!! Don't like it don't look. And at this point I'm going to say what's on my mind and I don't mind if it gets me deleted from this forum. GET A LIFE!!!

Shouldn't have gone there, BCA.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn offered the following explanation: “ Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'
Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' [9] ”
Vox Day notes concerning atheism and mass murder: “ Apparently it was just an amazing coincidence that every Communist of historical note publicly declared his atheism … .there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal162 acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao …
The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined.
The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity’s worst and most infamous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition. It is not only Stalin and Mao who were so murderously inclined, they were merely the worst of the whole Hell-bound lot. For every Pol Pot whose infamous name is still spoken with horror today, there was a Mengistu, a Bierut, and a Choibalsan, godless men whose names are now forgotten everywhere but in the lands they once ruled with a red hand.
Is a 58 percent chance that an atheist leader will murder a noticeable percentage of the population over which he rules sufficient evidence that atheism does, in fact, provide a systematic influence to do bad things? If that is not deemed to be conclusive, how about the fact that the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them. If one considers the statistically significant size of the historical atheist set and contrasts it with the fact that not one in a thousand religious leaders have committed similarly large-scale atrocities, it is impossible to conclude otherwise, even if we do not yet understand exactly why this should be the case. Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation![10]

I never forward anything that tries to emotionaly manipulate me into forwarding no matter how much I agree with the content. I am not a cyber puppet.
Amazing how bent out of shape people get at religious expression. In no way does the post do anyone any harm. Unless someone is trying to behead you let it go.

From the thread description: "This forum is for general conversation, sharing interests, having a laugh or discussing anything not specifically related to VSG surgery."

My name is XXXXX XXXXX and I have just hijacked my wife’s account under the name of westcoastlady.
Twelve hours ago I took a call from Alex, the owner of this web site and was asked several questions that concerned him. I did not appreciate the way the call started off by pretending to be a future patient of wls and asking me if he could book an appointment through me with a certain doctor. I felt he baited me to see if I was a coordinator or someone in a position that can make a booking and receive a monetary fulfillment. He failed! After being in the conversation for approximately 10 minutes, Alex requested that we “ease off” on promoting certain surgeons, hospitals and hotels but that I should continue to speak the truth as I know it. He suggested we not give out our personal phone number but to discuss my thoughts and concerns over the chat lines (which I will not due to the fact as getting lambasted when discussing someone else’s doctor that they consider a hero). He did not request my wife to leave his site but to “just cool it” abit.
His concern is that my wife has given out our own personal home phone number to approximately 12 people to help people making evaluations for future patients easier.
I have been to TJ 13 times, once for myself, once for my wife, three times with friends and eight times with complete strangers whom I had only chatted with on this site and the OH site.
I KNOW most of the TJ surgeons, all the major hotels and all of the hospitals and clinics and I feel I have a vast amount of knowledge to share.
But regrettably, this will now come to an end since Alex has had a few complaints about me (us)… as he put it… us being sketchy by giving out our private phone number and then offering my “free service”.
We get 20 to 30 emails and phone calls a week of people saying thanks but it just takes a few complaints to take it all away. I even have a “new friend” in TJ right this minute that we are in contact with several times a day. Seems she thought it would be no problem being there by herself but now wishes I was there. Not everyone needs an advocate, but ones that do sure appreciate it.
I know my wife has posted that I have gone down with complete strangers and acted as a patient advocate. This is true. I speak for them when they can’t because of the pain, the language barrier etc. I make them walk when they don’t won’t to. I go buy bags of ice for the nurses’ station for all patients because the hospital/clinic has none. I carry their bags, I call their loved ones, you get the drift.
What is my charge you ask? It’s nothing. Zero. Nada
Why can I do this? I’m retired. Retiring before I was 50 has made life grand and we live it large. I have nothing but free time and a damn plane ticket is less than $500. One hundred percent of all the people I have accompanied are VERY thankful and most of them have bought us thoughtful gifts and trinkets to show their appreciation. And to be very honest… I am considered kinda wealthy. Some say stinkin rich lol. I say healthy!
I have even paid the difference for a young man to switch doctors to another (an $800 extra) so he would not take a chance with a certain doctor where I have personally witnessed two deaths.
In closing I always looked at it as paying it forward. I had such a bad surgery at such a bad clinic that had a doctor on board that wasn’t a licensed doctor, had to get fixed up a year later… you get the picture. My wife had a great surgery with Dr. Kelly and his team. MBC sometimes uses a bait and switch tactic when it comes to inquiries, changing hospitals and hotels without advising you, actually just taking the cheaper way out.
Again… I have vast knowledge of what goes on down there and have tried to share it at my expense. To those who read this and are concerned that I will renege on my future commitments… please feel comfortable as that I am a man of my words and I will follow through.
I have asked my wife not to offer my services to any others and I feel that I have paid it forward as much as I can. Thank you all for your patience reading this mumble jumble. Seems that when you’re upset you have a thought every 5 seconds but not enough time to write them down.
To those of you that complained that we had ulterior motives, your wrong and that’s your prerogative and we hope you have an uneventful surgery with whomever, wherever and whenever.
The drama is over, no more suspense!

Really, short of telling them to stick it, I don't have much to offer.
I didn't tell many people prior to my surgery. I have told dozens and dozens of them since I've been at goal, though. As soon as people start in on that "Oh, I know this person that lost weight the hard way (or the right way, that's also popular)" B.S. I stop them and tell them:
1) Piss off
2) I've forgotten more about proper dieting and exercise than they'll ever know and have tried every diet, book, weight loss method, pill, hypnosis, acupuncture nonsense they can think of, so refer back to #1, please
3) Dieting for 15 years wrecked havoc on my body and my self esteem so again, refer back to #1, please
4) For every "ideal" weight loss solution they can show me, I can point out six others that contradict it, and every one of them has doctor and nutritionist approval and they can't all be right so refer back to #1, please
5) Traditional diets have a less than 5% success rate but the sleeve results in 50-60% EWL after 5-6 years - that means worst case scenario you'll keep off 50 of every 100 pounds you lose, instead of only 5 of them. And I dispute the stats and feel that most of us really see more like 80% or more EWL. Again, #1, thanks.
6) Losing weight is not easy even with a sleeve. You make good food choices and learn how to overcome your disordered eating or you fail - same as any diet. So yeah, #1 again.
At this point, sometimes I haven't been quite hostile enough for a person to get the picture. Either that, or they're one of those people that must convince me they're right no matter the consequences.
Typically, they bring out the big guns next: that horror story of that person they know that knows a person who has a second cousin who has a neighbor that either died from bypass surgery or regained all the weight.
I respond by giving them a dead stare that hopefully conveys how incredibly stupid and uneducated I find them and follow that up with, you guess it, referring them back to #1 once again.
So, in short, I tell dissenters to stick it.
~Cheri

Hi all. I have posted before but a little background. I have been overweight all my life and have tried so many diets that I can't stand that word. My husband got a job that covers wls as long as you do their 6 month program and qualify under their rules. As of now I'm waiting for approval and my surgery date is set for July 29. I am so happy... They started me on a diet of 2 Meal Replacements per day then dinner and 2 Snacks. I have been doing really good besides the 4th and a little too much tonight. Back at it tomorrow. I start my pre op liquid diet the 18th.. Not looking forward to that.
Anyways, this time of year is super hard for me.. We lost our son almost 3 years ago. He was 2. And his birthday is July 9th and he would have been 5 this year. When he passed I gorged on food I couldn't cook, sleep or think. I ate myself to 322 lbs.... I am still so heart broken but I am trying to turn to people for support instead of food. People think I am so strong but that's be a use I hide it and then eat my emotions away... I don't want to be that person. I have 2 other boys who need me around for a long time.. But I just need help. Somewhere to vent and get it out...
I have cried myself to sleep the last 2 nights but I haven't shoved it down with food. I just hope that I can continue this journey and make my little boy proud. RIP Jonny

The way I am looking at it is this: When you have a diseased appendix, you have it removed. When your gallbladder is full of gallstones and the only way to solve the problem is removal, you get it removed. I see my stomach as causing me a problem, so I'm getting a large part of it removed.

Dr. Pleatman recorded my surgery, I asked for a copy, uploaded on youtube. 24 mins long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2BtyBV6nBE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
48 days later after this surgery and I cannot believe how wonderful I am doing. Dr. Pleatman is in Michigan, I was covered by BCBS but the bulk of his patients come from out of state to pay cash. Having a surgeon with his experience and excellent reviews warranties a future without complications. I was going to a different surgeon but just when I was in my 6 month pre surgery medically supervised diet, I read about Dr. Pleatman, called the office, and switched. Best decision of my life! He is just a phone call/ email away. But I didn't have to bother him. I followed all post op instructions so my recovery was great! As of today I lost 34 lbs on my way to reach my target goal of 60 lbs down.

If he does not agree with the surgery then he probably shouldn't have it! Your body your choice.