Shrinkage

Thanks kacee, and thanks for the welcome, Dave! :clap2: Can anyone else help answer my questions, please?

Has anyone here dealt with Dr. Constantine Frantzides in the Skokie/Evanston area? The Dr. who referred me called him "gifted with a laparoscope". He mainly does laparoscopic gastric bypasses, but he also does the Lap-Band. His many many patients overwhelmingly sing his praises on obesityhelp.com, but again, they're mainly bypass patients. Does anyone have any experience with him or heard anything about him? Thanks!

Howdy all! I was originally scheduled for a 11/19 banding, and my surgeon's office called me a couple days ago to say that I was approved (yay! - though I'm still in the process of gathering all of the comorbidity letters from other doctors, just to be sure), and that I could move up my surgery to early October. I chose October 1st (to paraphrase Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, when you finally decide to change your life for the better, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible). So instead of my surgery being 66 days away, now it's only 16. So suddenly, the pace to ask whatever questions I still have isn't as leisurely as it was a couple days ago. So while I've been lurking on the board for weeks, and I probably ran across the answers to one of two of these questions before, please forgive me is I ask questions that are answered somewhere else in the forum. Sorry if they're a little wide-ranging: How long do you usually spend in the hospital? Is it outpatient? Overnight? How many days did you have to take off from work? What are the warning signs that your band is slipping? How do you take pills in general – mash 'em up in apple sauce? Most importantly, has anyone here dealt with Dr. Constantine Frantzides in the Chicago area? The Dr. who referred me called him "gifted with a laparoscope". He mainly does laparoscopic gastric bypasses, but he also does the Lap-Band. His many patients sing his praises on obesityhelp.com, but again, they're mainly bypass patients. That's all for right now, though I may have another question or two soon. Thanks in advance for your help! P.S. I wrote a big multi-paragraph post introducing myself to the board, but it got deleted when I got logged out for taking too long to write it. So here are the basics... 39yrs. old male BMI 43-ish Overweight for approx. 30 years I've tried mant many diets Lost 50+ lbs. 3 times in the last 9 years. Currently at my highest weight ever Decided on banding when it finally dawned on me that if I were capable of maintaining weight loss long-term, I'd damn well have done it by now.

You beat me to it, Buzz. Well said.