hungry4help

hi dr. schulman... i know that insurance companies rarely cover plastic surgeries. but which, if any, have a better history of paying for panniculectomies? also, besides recording instances of rashes, etc., is there anything i can do now to help my case more compelling to an insurance company? thanks in advance for your help.

nicely said, ready. nicely said.

i live on new york city's upper west side, about a block away from h&h bagels -- arguably the best shop in the u.s.! damn, they're good. unfortunately, they're bagels are also huge. up until my last fill (3 months ago), i'd have half a bagel from time to time. was able to eat them without a prob, but i'd be full for for a long, long time. the sensation kinda took the pleasure out of having one. as a former brunch junkie, possibly being relegated to eating lox and cream cheese without a bagel isn't a tasty idea.

thanks juli and az! hope y'all are having a good weekend.

you prolly already know this, but everyone responds differently to fills even if they have the exact same size band filled with the exact same ccs. it's a weird question of anatomy. i've got a 14 and my band was "primed" with 2ccs at surgery. stayed that way until my first fill. 3 or 4 fills later i'm up to 6ccs and feeling restricted. i eat 3 smallish size meals a day and a snack or two. am rarely hungry in between meals and dropping 1-2 pounds a week. is that a sweet spot? feels like it to me! again, everyone is different. if your doc is willing and able, you might want to get your next fill under fluoroscopy. it can help the both of you see exactly how much anatomical restriction you're actually at. i had it done and it really helped me visualize what was going on inside me. there was something about seeing the barium fill up my pouch and trickle thru that made clear to me that most of the hunger i was feeling was prolly in my head and not actually my body saying, "feed me!" good luck. you'll get there.

hey all... hope everyone had a good 4th. i had a blast playing at a lgbt tennis tournament here in nyc. made it to the women's finals and mixed dubs quarters. how butch is that?! sadly, i can barely lift my right arm now. whatev... that's what ibuprofen is for. oops, we're not supposed to do ibu anymore, right? tylenol sux. anyway... post breakup heart is still a little heavy. what can i say, i miss my ex and all that we had. (cue the violins.) still, slowly but surely, i'm getting through it. hope all is well with everyone else. ps, i broke the -50 mark. yipee!

juli... has anyone called you out for being overly gay?! silly straight people! hope everyone is doing well these days. post breakup life is getting better day by day. am looking forward to a great summer. funny how i can endure the heat better now that i'm a little thinner!

great to see everyone doing so well! i'm down nearly 50 since mid february. here's to hoping i'm in onderland by the end of the year.

hi az... why is it that time moves so much more slowly when one is sad?! stupid time. decided to skip out on nyc's coming pride weekend. instead, i'm off to tennis camp in amherst. am hoping my renewed sportiness will get me thru this emotional ruff patch. (sorry to sound so melodramatic. i guess the anonymity of this board is somehow giving me license to be a bit sappy!) anyways, that restricted feeling has dissipated. one day it was there. next day, it just wasn't. wtf? am skedded for another fill on wednesday and may go for a top-up that'll bring me up to 6ccs. am eating more than the one cuppa of food people seem to manage when they're in their sweet spot. since i'm working out, i haven't been too worried about it, but the loss is slowing down and in addition to getting smarter about nutrition, i could really use an assist from my band. hope all is well with you and everyone else here.

hi cosmo... have you seen the wii fit thread in the exercise and fitness folder? if not, there are lots of user reviews there. i tried it out, but decided not to buy it. seemed fun, but was worried the novelty would wear off. but that's just me, it may be the perfect thing for you. annie... re: not telling anyone... i decided not to tell many people; just my ex-gf, my sister and her wife. my reasoning: i didn't want to deal with explaining myself or my decision. and i didn't want to answer questions from friends and family like, how much have you lost? it may just be a rationale, but i wanted to do this for me. now it's simple to make a statement like that, but embedded in it is a whole of psychological drama and turmoil re: "fitting in", being normal looking, why can't i just exercise "self-control?" answering those questions for me is enough work, especially since my responses vary from day-to-day. answering such queries from others could, in reality, amount to a full-time job. there may come a time when i decide to "come out" about my banded status, but that time is not now. good luck with your process.

if you ever do make it to nyc, the moonlight rides are the first friday of the month. folks meet in columbus circle at 10pm and ride around the park's loop (no cars!) at a leisurely pace. total mileage, a very manageable 10 miles. and if you can bike down from ossining or take metronorth (our commuter rail). just go to their website and download a bike permit. (conductors will fine you if you don't have one.)

aww shucks, juli. despite what you may have heard, nyc is a great place to bike. we've got monthly midnight rides around central park to routes up and down the hudson. fi you ever make it out this way, definitely bring your bike!

hi az... thanks for asking and i'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond. i've been away/off line in the past few weeks. post-breakup, i've kept busy with work, tennis and riding my bike. so far so good, but not quite myself yet. sigh. the good news is that i do feel restriction. i'm not quite at my sweet spot, but i have been getting "fuller" faster and am sated for longer. oddly, i didn't really feel the last fill kick-in for nearly two weeks. i do have another fill skedded for next week. if i keep the appt, i'll prolly ask for something like .2 to .5. ah, the mysteries of the band. welcome to all the new people! if anyone's in the nyc area, feel free to drop me a pm. would be nice to meet up with some locals.

hey all... i'm looking for some new pals to ride with in new york. anyone game for central park evening rides or weekend excursions over the gw bridge and into new jersey? if so, please speak up. fyi, i'm no speed demon, but i'm a pretty strong biker. haven't really done more than 30ish mile rides this season. still, i think i'm strong enough to hang off your back wheel from at 15ish mph.

hi all... i was banded on 3/3 and was filled a little earlier than usual. unfortunately, starting early just meant i started having problems sooner. my otherwise extremely skilled surgeon (as well as his pa and another doctor in his practice) has had lots of difficulty accessing my port. apparently, due to the way my weight loss has gone and the slope/shape of my abdominal wall, my port tilts downward in a unusual way. translation: i've been, poked, prodded and left black and blue each and every time i've gone for a fill. i wouldn't have minded any of it if i'd reached restriction. sadly, i had squat to show for any of it. then yesterday, we finally resorted to a fill under fluoroscope. you'd think that would have made things easier and less painful, right?! alas, it took my surgeon, a radiologist, a fluoroscopic specialist, 2 lidocaine injections and nearly one hour to access my port, empty and refill it with 5ccs of saline. it was the most painful session to date. i'm a pretty stoic woman, but i locked myself in the bathroom stall afterwards and had a good cry. i'm on liquids for another day, so it's hard to tell if it worked. but i'm optimistic. they had me do a barium swallow afterwards to see what kind of restriction i have and from what i saw on the monitor, i should be at my sweet spot... at least for awhile! here's hoping the rest of you have less painful fills!

thanks, julie and az... have been visiting this site often in the last few days and it's helped a lot. hope you all are having a good start to the summer.

hi all... haven't visited this thread in awhile, but it's good to know it's always here. it's been a rough month. after 3+ years, my gf and i broke up. long story, but it was a mutual, albeit very painful, decision. damn, it sure was hard not to slide right off the rails. chocolate has always been my favorite anti-depressant and i really wanted to od on it during the last month. i can't say i stayed away from it completely, but i definitely did better than i had in the past. i managed to take my frustration out by playing tennis and going to the gym. (spin class produces an abundance of endorphins!) this banding process has made me painfully aware of how i've used food to medicate mood swings and ease loneliness. intellectually, that's not news to me. but because i'm now banded and because i haven't been using food as a numbing agent, my feelings seem more poignant and more sustained. i've been forced to navigate and endure my emotions in new ways. again, it ain't easy and i sometimes really miss my pals ben and jerry. i knew the band would make me physically healthier, but it's also upping my emotional iq. that's a pretty nice side effect.

went in for another fill yesterday (.5ccs) and it was my first pain free experience. my doc found my port in 1 try! it was such a relief. going in i was worried about the pain but also that i might have developed a leak with all the poking and near misses during previous attempts. luckily the 5ccs were still there. we added just a bit and i definitely feel more restricted, but am prolly another .5 away from being at my sweet spot. it's close, at least i hope it is. i hope everyone else is having a pain free time of it.

check out this link. pay special attn to the video! it's crazy funny. Wii Fit: Can a Videogame Help You Lose Weight? | Newsweek Technology | Newsweek.com

hi tangerine... congrats on your weight loss. but as others here have mentioned, you do sound too tight. consuming mostly liquids seems to defeat the purpose of the band. does dr roslin know how restricted you are? (he's also my doctor.) maybe you just need a .5cc or less unfill? it might be worth checking in with him about. best of luck.

hi jaunderwood.... how did your fill go?

aww shucks, salsa. thanks! actually just went to weigh myself after my last post and i'm obese! never would have thought i'd actually be proud and happy about that!

well, i guess my rather painful flouroscopy experience paid off. i started back on solids 48 hours later and i definitely felt restriction. phew! i was beginning to feel like i'd never get there. i'd describe what i feel as rather moderate restriction. i haven't pb'ed or foamed and i have eaten some brown rice and Pasta. but i find that i get fuller faster and am sated much longer when i don't eat foods that are sauced. plus, as others have noted on the board, it eating slowly is key. i'm hoping this feeling lasts. in a pound or two i'll go from morbidly obese to plain old obese. i suppose it's kind of silly, but it feels like an important milestone. i should cross the line sometime next week.

yup, scar tissue is an issue for me too. my doc mentioned something about that being a possible explanation as to why it's so difficult to inject saline into my port. seems like scar tissue might be occluding the surface of my port. jaunder: not to worry, you'll get there. a loss is a loss, no matter what the number!