SpecialK

Good luck in your journey investigating lap band. I know Dr. Myers at Riverside Hospital's Fresh Start program is very experienced as are the three doctors at Mt. Carmel, Dr. Price, Dr. Miller and Dr. Choban. They've all done hundreds of the procedures including RNY and Lapbands. I don't hear much about the Sleeve "VBG" in most Columbus threads. We do get together as a groups of patients of all the different lap band programs once a month at the Polaris mall and we meet in the food court and visit as friends for those banded, checking into it, and whatever. Some bring a spouse or friend along the first time if you feel concerned about coming alone the first time which is why we meet in a public place where you can come and go as you'd like. Check out the thread under the Ohio forum thread that is for a July 12th Central Ohio get together. We represent all the different programs in Columbus and even some self-payers that went to Cincinnati or Detroit for surgery.

I also had Dr. Price who did my surgery March 17, 2008. I now have Dr. Miller for follow-up appts and he'll do my third fill. The first 2 fills were done under fluroscopy at Mt. Carmel West and Dr. Miller says he can now do mine in the office, much simpler. Check out the Ohio thread labeled "N E 1 Banded Mt. Carmel Columbus" that's where all the folks banded by Dr. Price, Miller and Choban are concentrated.

Acainab - Yes, there are alot of us who have been banded in Central Ohio, some from Riverside, some OSU and a bunch from Mt. Carmel. Are you in the Columbus area? Check out the Ohio thread labeled "N E 1 Banded Mt. Carmel Columbus" that's where all the folks banded by Dr. Price, Miller and Choban are concentrated.

All of you Inspire me! Thanks so much!

Welcome Janne! I know how anxious I was going through the jump through the hoops for clearances but before you know it, they will submit for insurance, then you'll be anxious for a surgery date, then for your first fill..... and before you know it, you're seeing the scale go down.. Exciting !!

Suecasb -- Great hearing from you. 20 Lbs is wonderful. Keep up the good work.

ThinnerMe (Angie) -- Congratulations on your insurance approval for your surgery! God is Good! Hope you get a date ASAP!!

Okay, I enjoyed the swimming pool so much for exercise and relaxation on vacation and decided I was going to get back to a water aerobics class like I had done years before but had slacked off in the last couple years. Well, its a class in an outdoor pool in Westerville and the lady that teaches the class is a real "drill sargeant" and she said she makes no excuses for working us hard - we are there to exercise not play! Whoa! Hope this helps me to keep on losing!

Heather, I think they would accept the items you've mentioned. If it isn't something they normally stock I'm sure they are seeing families in need of basic items and would give them out to someone in need or get them to an agency that would.

Hi to everyone. Got back from Florida from vacation and was anxious to get on my home scale this a.m. -- I stayed off the scale on vacation because I didn't want to let it run my life.... AND....drum roll now! I lost 4.8 lbs on vacation from where I was on June 13th when I left to today! Go Shrinking Shamrocks Go!! :ohmy::biggrin::biggrin: <--- 4 smilies for 40 lbs! AND second NSV... I was able to buckle a seat belt without an extension on the flights from Columbus to Charlotte, NC on an Embraer jet that only had 2 seats on each side but I needed about 4" of the extension belt still (darn!) on the 737 jet that went from Charlotte to Florida. Can't wait until I can buckle the airplane seat belt regardless of which plane I fly on but that was such a nice feeling. I've updated my ticker and officially crossed the 40 lbs lost milestone as of today. About 3.5 months since surgery 3/17/08 to lose 40 lbs is fantastic for me. P.S. Yes, I too now know what sliming and productive burping is. Nothing terrible but I definitely have a different level of restriction with this 2nd fill and if I push it and eat a few bites past my limit, I have that pressure sensation, want to get rid of it, and have excused myself once in a restaurant to be sure I was okay. I know now to just leave the food on the plate and let it to away and try not to feel guilty that my family or friend paid for a dinner and I can only eat maybe 1/3 of it. That's what got me, trying to eat a Thai dinner of chicken and vegetables, I didn't even look at the cup of white rice that came with the meal, and I just had to let 2/3 of it go to waste. I had warned them I couldn't eat much so they knew it wasn't that I didn't like the restaurant's food they chose to go to but I just was full. I really missed checking into the forum but it was a good vacation and now its good to be back to sleeping in my own bed and with my own pillow!

Hi to everyone. Got back from Florida from vacation and was anxious to get on my home scale this a.m. -- I stayed off the scale on vacation because I didn't want to let it run my life.... AND....drum roll now! I lost 4.8 lbs on vacation from where I was on June 13th when I left to today! Go Shrinking Shamrocks Go!! AND second NSV... I was able to buckle a seat belt without an extension on the flights from Columbus to Charlotte, NC on an Embraer jet that only had 2 seats on each side but I needed about 4" of the extension belt still (darn!) on the 737 jet that went from Charlotte to Florida. Can't wait until I can buckle the airplane seat belt regardless of which plane I fly on but that was such a nice feeling. I've updated my ticker and officially crossed the 40 lbs lost milestone as of today. About 3.5 months since surgery 3/17/08 to lose 40 lbs is fantastic for me. I'm off to church to sing praises and thank God for all he has done for me through this surgery and the friends I have met due to this journey. P.S. Yes, I too now know what sliming and productive burping is. Nothing terrible but I definitely have a different level of restriction with this 2nd fill and if I push it and eat a few bites past my limit, I have that pressure sensation, want to get rid of it, and have excused myself once in a restaurant to be sure I was okay. I know now to just leave the food on the plate and let it to away and try not to feel guilty that my family or friend paid for a dinner and I can only eat maybe 1/3 of it. That's what got me, trying to eat a Thai dinner of chicken and vegetables, I didn't even look at the cup of white rice that came with the meal, and I just had to let 2/3 of it go to waste. I had warned them I couldn't eat much so they knew it wasn't that I didn't like the restaurant's food they chose to go to but I just was full. Okay, off and running for the day! God Bless to all!

Hi to everyone. Got back from Florida from vacation and was anxious to get on my home scale this a.m. -- I stayed off the scale on vacation because I didn't want to let it run my life.... AND....drum roll now! I lost 4.8 lbs on vacation from where I was on June 13th when I left to today! Go Shrinking Shamrocks Go!! :smile: AND second NSV... I was able to buckle a seat belt without an extension on the flights from Columbus to Charlotte, NC on an Embraer jet that only had 2 seats on each side but I needed about 4" of the extension belt still (darn!) on the 737 jet that went from Charlotte to Florida. Can't wait until I can buckle the airplane seat belt regardless of which plane I fly on but that was such a nice feeling. I've updated my ticker and officially crossed the 40 lbs lost milestone as of today. About 3.5 months since surgery 3/17/08 to lose 40 lbs is fantastic for me. I've already bought my 40 lbs of sugar to take and donate to the food pantry to celebrate. I was telling my sister and niece in Florida about the donation idea and they thought is was really great and couldn't imagine what it would feel like to carry 4 of the 10lb bags of sugar around 24 hours every day. They said I should really be proud of myself. AND I AM!! :ohmy::biggrin::biggrin: <--- 4 Smilies for 40 lbs!

I'd recommend you go to the GENERAL LAPBAND SUPPORT forum thread and post some questions on Mexico, etc. as there are a bunch of bandsters out there who can reassure you. Best wishes.

Loved the humor on your posting here! I can't wait until I join you in the Twoterville numbers! running a few behind ya! so you better work hard to keep on going down! Dr. Miller did my 2nd fill this week at MCW and it was a piece of cake, in and out in just a couple minutes really. If you haven't checked in on the Ohio forum in awhile, come on over!:frown:

Heather -- look at you go girl! 64 lbs on your ticker today! Congratulations!

So far my first 2 fills have been easy. Both done at MCW with fluro but now that they did the 2nd one and found my port easy to feel through the skin, they said I can have my future fills in the doctors office. That should help with some logistics. I had a little bruising with each one but nothing I worried about at all. You should be getting close to fill #1 at 6 weeks out from surgery. Good luck! P.S. I got my fills done at 1pm on my lunch hour and went right back to work if that tells you how simple things were.

Welcome to the site Kelley! This is a great forum and so glad to hear you're doing well with your lapband. I'm at about 3 months now and also doing great.

Yes, who would have ever guessed in 3 months any of us could have lost this much! I had my 2nd fill today and got weighed at the hospital and was down a total of 9 lbs from 1st fill 6 weeks ago, so that is more than 1 lb a week losing -- I'm thrilled and just have to be reminded that this is how my own body works. 2nd fill was 1.5cc's to get me to a total now of 6cc's in my 14 cc band. I'm on liquids today, pureed tomorrow, mushies the next they back into full foods. Hoping this is the right fill level for me for awhile.

I got my 2nd fill today with Dr. Miller and Missy at MCW with fluro. Dr. Miller actually did the fill and he hit it within less than 30 seconds of trying. Very painless 2nd fill. He said I can do my next fill in the office, no fluro needed. I have a NSV too -- Missy walked up to my tummy and started to feel for my port and she had this big smile and said I can feel your port!! :behindsofa: just like that.. so I guess the 9 lbs I lost in the 6 weeks from 1st fill on April 29 to June 10 (today) is melting away some of that abdominal area fat! According to my home scale this puts me about 35 lbs since my pre-op weight about March 10 when I started a voluntary pre-op diet and lost some before surgery. 2nd Fill done 6 weeks after 1st fill and they added 1.5cc's to my 4.5cc's from first fill so I'm at 6 cc's total in my 14 cc's band. Actually Missy said that if I have any issues and had to go into an ER for help while on vacation that I was to tell them 6 ml's. Do cc's and ml's equal each other? Actually I'm now anticipating getting on the airplane this Friday a.m. and seeing how close I come to buckling the seat belt without having to then still get the extender. I can't wait until I no longer have to go through that embarrassment.

Fenton - love your idea of how to contribute to a charity that feeds the world to Celebrate your loss. It is so interesting to see how varied things can be from one person to the next out of the same office and getting banded about the same time. The two people who got their first fill on the same day as me were able to get their 2nd fill at 4 weeks and 5 weeks respectively but I was told they were holding hard and fast to the 6 weeks between fills so I've been hanging in there. I sure can relate to Kerri's wanting her 2nd fill. I am lined up for tomorrow under fluro for #2 fill.

I think there has been a Realize personal band journey tracking site for awhile but I found that Allergan has the My Lapband site up and running too Lapband.com - Sign In to My LAP-BAND :driving: Warning they need to tune up performance on some website functions so be patient, at least they have it up. :incazzato:

I was trying to find some Allergan Lapband info and stumbled onto the fact that they have the personal My Lapband website up and running now and you just register and can start adding some basics about who your surgeon and surgery date was, and then there is a progress tracker chart. I put mine in today. I figured it might help Allergan in researching the kinds of progress people with different starting BMI's have. Lapband.com - Sign In to My LAP-BAND I will warn you, the website needs tuned up some, slow performance on screen response time :incazzato: on some things but at least they have it working. I posted a Feedback to them that I was surprised they didn't ask the type and size of Allergan Lapband the person had nor did they have a section on the site yet that asked about number of fills or fill dates and size of fluid in the band. I think it would be helpful to be able to have your fill date highlighted on the graph. I'm going to try to log my weight on this at each fill date and at least 1 time per month if I don't have a fill. :driving:

Hi Shamrocks! Believe it or not I'm "happy" :incazzato: to report that I only have paid $2000 total out of pocket for everything related to my March lapband surgery and that covers the hospital, surgeon, pre-op testing and physical, and my first fill post op. Now why would I be happy at $2000, because its my Out of Pocket Maximum for the whole year for 2008 so every bill that comes in now that has an amount over what the insurance covers, and above my basic co-pay, is written off and I pay $0. Hallelujah!! Now why am I really, really happy? :huggie: Because I had knee surgery April 17 just one month after my Lapband surgery March 17 and all of the excess cost on the knee surgery got written off...$0 for me to pay. What a blessing. So, besides the out of pocket costs I had to get through the hoops to get approved, including some expensive cardiology clearance things, I am thankful that insurance covered most of what others have taken a loan out for $12,000+ if they are self pay. So, I guess, my word to the others who are still hoping to go through this is, yes, it is worth jumping through the hoops the insurance companies make you do in order to use your insurance to cover WLS. :driving: Ohio is at 90+ today too! :sad:

Juli and Niki-- I was told by the lady that supervises the church playland that they like people to bring their own socks if possible but they keep a hidden stash under the counter for those kids who happen to show up without socks so if you'e exhausted from working the night before and forget socks on the kids, we have a backup plan.

Lyn - Yes that is right that our docs do not put a prefill amount in the band at time of surgery. They are using the Allergan bands, the AP with the puffy pillows for holding the saline that go all the way around the band including under the buckle area. The older style Allergan bands and maybe the J&J Realize band do not have saline under the buckle part so the band makes more of an oval versus the AP it is just about all the way round. On band size, there are two AP sizes, Small and Large, the Small holds 10cc's and the large holds 14ccs. I've been told the surgeons determine the correct size during the surgery at the time of placement. I have the AP-L, I think Niki, Greg, and Katie all do too if I remember right when we were comparing notes after our first fill. We all asked Missy to tell us what our band size was at our first fill since she had our chart right in front of her. P.S. There is another Mt. Carmel bandster that also works at St. Ann's and her name is Darlene, something about HR area. If you PM me with an email I can send you an invite to a Yahoo group of the central Ohio bandsters where we have pictures posted, etc. Sarah is a nurse at MC, same with Niki too at MCE. The word must be getting out about lapband at the nursing community--lots of lapbanders I see work in that field. Greg would be the first church organist I've seen on the board :-)