MissKay

Mine was 35 minutes, and an hour in the recovery room.

thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for posting this. i know if my insurance jerks me around i'm going to have to get a loan, and i was high balling around $15k thinking it's what I'd have to pay. so this helps ease that a lot.

Hi all! I just started this sort of journey about a month ago when a very inspirational blog (Simone's Journey to Health) turned me onto and educated me on what the Gastric Sleeve was. Since then I've done a bunch of research on my own and stumbled upon this forum a few days ago. I finally made the appointment with my regular doctor to discuss this as an option and start the whole process. The one thing I'm struggling with is questions to ask her, as well as advice on how to deal with if she pushes back on it. I'm 25, I'll be 26 in May and I'd really love to just start this now since from what I've found my insurance may require a 6 month monitored diet plan before covering the cost. So putting it off isn't really an ideal option. I'm really tired of feeling and looking the way I do. It affects me more and more each day. So any advice would be wonderful!

Ohhh, gotcha! Thank you for that information. I have Premera Blue Cross, and I met with my doctor today and she's going ahead with referring me to a surgeon. But they're doing a sleep apnea test on me first since Premera has a multitude of hoops to jump through. Which admittedly is entirely overwhelming, but I'm determined to see this through. I know they did mention the 6 month supervised diet with a nutritionist before going forth. That's the part I'm super nervous about since a friend who had this surgery said that if you lose weight on that diet they will normally say you don't need the surgery since you can do it on your own. I know I'll lose some, but nowhere near enough.

I do need the referral, my insurance requires a referral from the PCP for any specialists, or anything like that. I'm not even sure what a center of excellence is? From what I can see I'll have to travel to Seattle or Portland to have the surgery done. Where I live there is only a surgeon that does Lap band.

-- ignore, posted in the wrong section