M Taylor

This is exactly the feeling I've been having and was also wondering whether or not to call my surgeon as the pressure in my chest started to get pretty intense, but I found that sipping some warm broth helps to aleviate it. Marie

I had my six-months supervised diet already completed and it STILL took me six more months to get approved, but I had issues with insurance losing my paperwork (although BCBSIL has still been the best insurance company I've ever been with) and a pulmonologist whose first available appointment was a month out. From what I hear, the people who have the surgery within a month are usually self-pay patients. The program I went through will put insurance patients on a "fast track" program if they have had a bulk of the requirements and paperwork completed and obtain insurance approval before the initial consultation. Marie

You should call and verify your benefits and coverage before scheduling anything. When I had UHC Choice Plus (until March of this year) they wouldn't cover ANYTHING related to weight loss, although what exactly they do cover is determined by your employer. Good luck.

Sometime the week of November 12.

I'm 22 now and was just banded 3 days ago, but I started looking into it when I was 16. I think that teens who grow up severely overweight are forced to mature and face reality sooner than others, and that if she is motivated and has a strong support system her age shouldn't hold her back. If it weren't for the fact that my family was rather poor and health insurance wouldn't cover it, I would have gotten the band years ago. Luckily my husband's insurance (BCBSIL) covered my surgery and I'm able to develop a healthy lifestyle before we start a family. Good luck to both you and your daughter.

A lot of what makes up your "ideal weight" is your body fat percentage, not just your BMI. According to the BMI calculators, my ideal weight would be 139-153 lbs, but when I have appointments at my surgeon's office and they do a complete analysis, he tells me that a healthy body fat for me would be 24%, putting me at 199 lbs. That gives me a BMI of 29.4, right on the border of overweight and obese. If you carry more muscle mass than the average person, you are going to going to appear overweight on the BMI charts.

I went to the informational seminar in mid-April, first meeting with the surgeon May 1st , nutrition and psych evals at the end of May, paperwork with documentation of 6 months of supervised weight loss sent mid-June (which spent the next 30 days sitting in the wrong department at the insurance company, despite the surgeon's office calling every week and being told my case was still being evaluated,) FINALLY got to the right department end of July, surgery approval August 3 :clap2:, had to wait 4 weeks to get in to see the pulmonologist (routine), who then calls me THE EVENING BEFORE my appointment to cancel for no reason :mad:. Pre-op testing done on October 1st, and the surgery is scheduled for October 12.:whoo: Six long months!:faint:

After six long months, I finally got the date of October 12! YAY! :clap2: Marie

I love the individual 4oz cups of lowfat cottage cheese. I prefer plain, but they also come with fruit. Each cup is 90 calories and 11 grams of protein.

This was one of the topics we dealt with in our support group this morning. It was suggested that whenever we are accused of taking "the easy way out" we ask the person "What part of this is easy?" I think most people would be hard pressed to find an intelligent answer. We are, if anything, taking the hard way out. Easy would be continuing our bad habits and letting our weight control our lives. There is nothing easy about changing eating and exercise habits we have had all of our lives. It's a near impossible feat. Congratulations to those who have been able to do it without surgery, but I'm not ashamed to admit I need the help of the Lap-Band to do it.

Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove Village/St. Alexius in Hoffman Estates have a package price for both the Lap-Band and the Gastric Bypass. "We have a package price for Lap Band® that includes hospital, surgeon, and anesthesia costs for approximately $17,000. Cash prices for gastric bypass start at $27,000 and are variable based on many factors. The Kane Center works with a financing company to provide loans to qualified applicants. The hospital also has very reduced pricing for cash payment options for either procedure." You can check out their website at Weight Loss - Bariatric Gastric Bypass Lap Band Surgery - Alexian Brothers