SpecialK

Debbie - I've heard others say that when they lost alot of weight their shoe size changed... now that's just what ya need - an excuse to buy more shoes. Maybe Santa can give you a DSW shoe store gift card!

Thanks for the info about the nutrionist appointment. My psych test is this Thursday... sounds like another example of no big deal either to get through that. I do find myself thinking about the whole process alot - just processing all I have read, thinking through all I hope to accomplish when I lose a significant amount of weight where my knees don't hurt among other things. For both of you who are getting to buy new, smaller outfits and things -- congratulations. That is fabulous. I did have a small scale victory this week - still hanging in there doing Weight Watchers faithfully and logging my eating in an online food journal website. Lost .6 lbs this week so that is about 5 lbs total. If I can finish out the year with saying I lost weight throughout the holidays, that will be a great goal. I'm leaving to go to Arizona for holiday with my family but they know I'm working through the lapband procedure approvals so I don't think I'll be doing any big 'pigging out' episodes with them. The food police will be watching. Just kidding. They know how hard it is to lose weight. So, .6 lbs this week. Yea!

Thanks for letting me know your experience. I was wondering if Aetna made you do the 6 months of nutrition counseling even if your BMI was over 40, and if you had the 5 years of documented medical visits showing you'd been overweight. Thanks.

I guess I'd appreciate it if people would respect that not all of us like or use profanity in our daily vocabulary. Other forums I participate in don't allow it but people are still pretty creative at using symbols or substituting for a letter or two to get across the point that they are upset and want to vent. Just my 2 cents worth.

Look under the USA Local Support Groups, then under Ohio, and you'll find there are groups of Buckeye Bandsters in Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, all over! Congrats. Go Bucks!

Congratulations Juli from Ohio! An Ohio lap band hopeful working through approvals! I have my first nutritionist appointment on December 18th.

I have my first Mt. Carmel nutritionist appointment scheduled now for December 18. I'm still waiting for the cardiologist's office to call back with the stress test appointment after more than a week. They said they have to coordinate it with Mt. Carmel so I'm not sure why they just don't give us the phone # to schedule directly with Mt. Carmel on it rather than use the doctor's office as a middle man. Just another hoop to jump thru I guess. I also had a little extra expense I hadn't thoought I would have. My primary care doctor (PCP) is charging me $50 to pull out my medical chart from a storage facility in order to be able to forward to the surgeon's office the past 5 years history of my weight issues (they check weight and height every appointment) and what they've counseled me over that time about diet and weight. I read from some other Aetna lap band patients that if you've got medically supervised evidence of your BMI for 5 consecutive years, Aetna might approve the surgery without some of the 6 months of nutrition counseling. My PCP has gone totally computerized and sent all the paper charts off site so it costs them to get one back to copy it, send it on to the surgeon, and then send the original chart back out to storage again, thus the $50. Ugh!!! If this $50 saves me 6 months of waiting to get my lap band it will be worth it. With paying $300 administrative fee, then $200 nutritionist fee, and now $50 for PCP records, its adding up for this holiday time of the year. I'm trying to bite the bullet on the money and just remember alot of people don't have insurance to pay any of it, so I'll try to be thankful for that. Anybody want to share their experience working with Mt. Carmel's nutritionist? I'm doing very careful food journal logging using a web site so I have plenty of detail to show her.

I'll try attaching a picture of the band here. AP New Band Type picture.bmp

The new band is called the AP model and it has the saline solution pockets all the way around it and the old band was the VG model and it didn't have a saline pocket area under the buckle. From what I've read, having the saline pockets all the way around is for improved fit around the stomach and the opening that is in the center is more rounded than oval which I wonder if that will help fit food through better? I'm sure they researched the heck out of it at Allergan before releasing a new band given the VB model was really doing well.

My psychologist said the Magellan Health behavioral clearance requirements for bariatric surgery say they have to do the test to have a score of questions and then she interprets it and recommends for the surgery. It isn't bad to get through. I look at having the psychologist as having one more tool in my toolbox to work with after surgery.

Okay, maybe I need another cup of coffee this cold snowy morning.... They didn't say that we couldn't invite guests to the meetings so yes, I think you can go if you haven't been banded there.

Sorry, I forgot to post that the Mt. Carmel Support Meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and we were done by 7:30 pm or so.

Debbie - the talk was real general about healthy eating - you are right, nothing I hadn't heard before but I guess going to a support group at the holiday time is good just to get reminded to stay in control as much as you can. One question they had us work on in small groups was about was making a new holiday tradition not centered around food.. Well, I'm one of those crazy women who love baking and sometimes I'll spend a whole Saturday covered in sugar and flour baking and making fudge for all my family and friends. Not this year... I just don't think I could keep my hands out of them so I'm going to wait until close to the actual holiday, make the fudge I am 'famous' for and give it directly to them and skip all the other baking where its easy to eat 10 'broken' or slightly overbrowned cookies before you know it. Ha Ha! Question for you, can you eat a cookie or a piece of fudge and not have a problem with your band? Like does the sugar make you sick?

Thinner me aka Angie - any news about your surgeon situation with him leaving Barix? Have you met a new surgeon? Good luck! I'm real well acquainted with Heath, OH as my mom lives in Pataskala now and used to be in Reynoldsburg and her favorite store is Elder Beerman's at the Indian Mound Mall in Heath so I'm over there all the time on a weekend. She has a husband with progressing Alzheimers and I drive her and sit with him so she can shop and even get groceries because he has wondered off and out of the stores before when she sat him down at a chair/table like in a store where she could do that in the past. Really scary to see how Alzheimers takes away the quality of life.

They are held at Mt. Carmel West Hospital, Medical Staff Bldg, which is just to the left of the Emergency Room entrance, in the Auditorium on the 1st floor. Here are the dates. There are parking garages close by and everything is well lighted so no issues at all. There was a check in sheet if you wanted credit for attending the meeting but you could also just walk in and sit and listen without signing in if you were just starting to investigate the process of different hospitals weight loss programs. Also, they very kindly had plenty of large chairs to accommodate us who need the extra room that sometimes auditorium seats don't provide so don't letting being uncomfortable keep you away. I was trying to talk myself out of going but I knew it would help if I'd just go. I was glad I went. A few people got up and gave their current weight loss progress and gave food suggestions and tips. There was a mix of GB and lap band patients from what I could tell. If there is a list of Riverside or OSU 2008 weight loss support group meetings maybe someone who knows what those dates and locations are can post them too. (If they are open meetings for others to attend.) Jan 7 - New Years Resolutions Feb 4 - Post Op Patient Panel March 3 Relationship and Sex Therapist Presenter April - ANNUAL STYLE SHOW - will be at Polaris Mall - more details to be announced. These are patients at or nearing goal and the mall stores help put them into new outfits and you get to hear their Before and After stories. May 5 Food is a Nutrition Tool June 2 Vacation Planning July 7 Self Esteem August 4 Ask the Expert (Dr. Patrician Choban, MD) September -- TBD October 6 Reconstructive Surgery (Dr. Bivik Shah, MD) November 3 Holiday Planning December 1 - Patient Panel - The Gift of Weight Loss - Life Changes

I attended the Dec 3 forum on Healthy Eating and they passed out the schedule of 2008 support group meetings. They are held at Mt. Carmel West Hospital, Medical Staff Bldg, which is just to the left of the Emergency Room entrance, in the Auditorium on the 1st floor. Here are the dates. Jan 7 - New Years Resolutions Feb 4 - Post Op Patient Panel March 3 Relationship and Sex Therapist Presenter April - ANNUAL STYLE SHOW - will be at Polaris Mall - more details to be announced. These are patients at or nearing goal and the mall stores help put them into new outfits and you get to hear their Before and After stories. May 5 Food is a Nutrition Tool June 2 Vacation Planning July 7 Self Esteem August 4 Ask the Expert (Dr. Patrician Choban, MD) September -- TBD October 6 Reconstructive Surgery (Dr. Bivik Shah, MD) November 3 Holiday Planning December 1 - Patient Panel - The Gift of Weight Loss - Life Changes

:clap2: Debbie, You Look wonderful. Seeing something that didn't fit before or you could get it on but my fat rolls showed, will be such a wonderful feeling. Congratulations and keep up the hard work. You're going great!

I'm posting alot today but I had a big week of making progress with the jumping through the hoops. Specifically today I met Dr. Phil Price who will be my lap band bariatric surgeon. He had a 4th year resident, Dr. Matt Bauer, come in and talk with me and he was great. They both asked me for my BMI if I really didn't want to consider Gastric Bypass or why I was sure I wanted Lap Band surgery instead of GB. There were real satisfied about how I answered and why I thought LB was for me, I showed them how much I had read and asked them lots of questions, and they were real patient answering all my questions. Dr. Price said, okay, we'll do a lap band on you!!! I asked him about his medical experience and he graduated about 20 years ago from Ohio State with his medical degree and completed residency at Mt. Carmel and is a specialist in laprascopic surgeries and he's also a trauma surgeon. He was one of the very first surgeons in Columbus performing the GB surgery. He's on the teaching faculty of Mt. Carmel helping other new and young doctors earn their 'wings' per se just as he had to do himself. What Dr. Price and Dr. Bauer both emphasized is that I will lose weight more slowly with LB than I would with GB and that I'll have to work harder to lose with a LB. I said I was ready to do this for the long haul and that I've been real pleased with the progress I hear from others posting on the board about how they are doing with the band. I think from what I'm reading the lap band is catching up really well with the GB results within that first year. Finally, Dr. Price said that I'd get my first fill about 6-8 weeks after surgery and that they do this with fluroscopy. P.S. He has a sense of humor - his biography on the web site said he graduated from Capital University and then went on to Ohio State for his medical degree. I went to Otterbein College which is Capital's biggest rival - kind of like the OSU-Michigan rivalry of small colleges in Ohio! He teased back to the resident doctor (Dr. Bauer) and said jokingly "put a note on her chart, no anesthesia for surgery since she went to Otterbein!" HA HA!!! Okay, I'll stop hogging all the web space here!

Debbie, congratulations on your very well deserved compliments. I'm planning to attend the December 3rd Mt Carmel Support Group forum next week and if they say the schedule of 2008 classes, I'll post it here.

The appointments this week went fine. I liked Dr. Price and just need to get through the cardiology and psych clearance steps and he said he'd send a letter to the insurance company to see if they will approve. It would be an answered prayer if they made me do less than 6 months of the nutrition counseling but we'll see.

Yes, always, always check your own medical insurance list of In-Network doctors as I got the list of clearances I needed, and the names that the doctors were giving me as options, and I had to go and find which of those were on Aetna for my health insurance and they all were not in network. Same with the psych eval, the names Mid Ohio Surgical Assoc sent me had none that were on my in-network for my behaviour health coverage plan (Magellan Health) and so I just got one In Network on my plan and she's qualified to do the clearance and its covered. Yea! Bottom line to newbies who are starting the insurance and clearances process - pick doctors on your In-Network plan list.

Just a quick note. I met my bariatric surgeon Dr. Phil Price today and I really liked him. He was pretty strong about presenting that I could lose alot faster with GB than the band but that I'm a great candidate for the lap band and as soon as I complete my psych and cardiologist clearances, he'll write the letter to my insurance and we'll see what they say. He has a good sense of humor - he went to Capital University and I went to Otterbein College - kind of the OSU-Michigan level rivalry for smaller liberal arts colleges. He said to mark down on my chart for no anesthesia during surgery due to patient attending Otterbein --Ha Ha! Anyway, I'm encouraged by all that has happened this week.

I had a friend tell me her doctor told her she is too old to be banded at 60 and I thought I've seen postings of some on this website over 60 so I'm curious to see how old you were when you got your band or how old you are now if you're going through the approvals/insurance process to get banded in the upcoming year. I'm 51 now and will 52 by the time I get banded. Thanks.

I completed the psychologist appt and cardiologist appt this week so far and both of those doctors were great but but require more tests or a 2nd appointment with each before they will write my bariatric surgery clearance letter. The psychologist says the insurance companies want a hard set of facts and not just a professional opinion so there is some kind of a test with lots of questions I have to take and then it is scored by the psychologist and then interpreted by her to make the decision to recommend me as clear for surgery or not plus her professional opinion as a psychologist. Sounds like alot of steps to prove I know what I want but I'll jump through whatever hoops they give me. Second, the cardiologist says I'm a great candidate for surgery but again the insurance qualification is that he has to now have an echocardiogram and a stress test done so I have to now schedule an appt for those. He reads off those test results and makes his decision to give me the cardiology clearance for bariatric surgery. Again, hoops to jump through. Maybe I should ask Santa for a jump rope for Christmas to get in practice with jumping! :-) First appointment with Dr. Price is this Friday.

:clap2:Congratulations Heather on getting your insurance approval. Surgery in 2 weeks - wow - that is really moving along!