Wheetsin

Come to think of it, I know nothing of contract law, but I would think that making an exception for just in person, outside of cases of extreme and unique disability, would be grounds for a lawsuit on behalf of all the others for whom the exclusion remains in-force...

No Faith, you're right. Riders change contracts, not individuals.

I know we aren't telling you what you want to hear, but you asked and we really are just trying to help. From whom are you getting your info that the company can just up and change their exlcusions, just for you/one person??? You may want to seriously question whomever it is. I've been associated with the insurance industry for several years, and I've never seen it work the way you're describing. By "it" I mean an exception being made to a policy for just one person, for something like WLS. The only time I've seen anything even close to that has been in situations of unique and extreme disabilities, and even then it was a fight. For your every day stuff, every employee receives the same benefits and exclusions affiliated with their elected plan.

I told everyone. Aside from the whole concept that it's not something I need to feel secretive or about or judged for, it's what I felt I needed -- PERIOD. If you're out with friends or co-workers, and have to PB - and if you ever go out with anyone this is probably going to happen - it will be very, very hard to hide it. Trust me. It doesn't just happen. It's usually a long and painful process that might require several trips to the bathroom, or just one really long trip, and you're probably not going to be perky right away -- if they're prolonged (more than one or two yaks, I'd guess) episodes, you really do feel drained afterwards. I've been out with friends/co-workers, and been in this spot more than once, and having them already know made it so much easier. I could just say "that last bite didn't go well, be back when I can" and head to the bathroom and don't have to worry about lying to anyone, having them wanting to come in and check on me to see if I'm ok, etc. In fact one time I had a PB strike in the back of a limo ride to the airport with a coworker, and had to ask the driver to pull off to the shoulder of the interstate so I could hop out and do business. Since she already knew, she wasn't terribly worried, it wasn't a big "Wheetsin puked on the way to the airport - she must be sick, I wonder if we'll get sick too" type thing. People just got it. Oh and not to mention that a co-worker once had to give me a ride for an emergency unfill. I couldn't have explained it then even if I wanted to. Not that the chances of this happening are high, but if anything ever happens to me and I'm not able to tell medical staff about my band, I'd much rather up the odds that someone with or near me can. I'm not big on lying, especially to people I give a shite about. So the whole ethics/morality/guilty conscience/tripping up in my own lies isn't even an issue... and not one I'd want to have to deal with. It's easier to find support when ppl know what's up. Instead of, "Why aren't you eating more?" I get "Let's go here, they have Soup for Wheetsin." Instead of, "What diet are you on?" I get, "Can you tell me your surgeon's name?" I've referred a bunch of people, and many of them have had the procedure. Being able to help that many people break their cycles of obesity was, in and of itself, enough reason to share. All of this is IME/IMO of course.

Insurance requirements. Some sugeons may require patients to lose X lbs or X% of weight before they will do the procedure, but medically supervised diets are in the realm of the insurance companies. Most of the time, anyway. I would imagine there could be an exception out there somewhere.

Well, but according to your ticker, to look at those numbers in a different light, you've lost nearly 40% of your excess weight in 6 months. "Only" 30 lbs might be something to blink at if you had like 300 lbs to lose, but with "only" 73 to lose, 30 is virtually halfway there. Many people would kill to be able to claim those same stats. YOu didn't specify if you were self pay or ins, but I did say: Many self-pay contracts (at least stateside, I don't know about MX) include 1 yr to-the-date of free fills. Well - here are a few things to consider. Having not lost "what you need to lose" by a certain date does not mean you need a fill. Maybe you just need to give it more time. You make it sound like unless you're at goal on your 1 yr anniversary, you will have to automatically pay for a fill then. That's not the case. I haven't had a fill in 8 months, nor do I need one. Maybe you won't either. Surgeon's don't "spring" this on people, this would have been in your contract. If it was, then you should have known this all along. If it wasn't, then talk to him about failing to enter it in the contract and what recourse you have available to you as a result. Also, don't push a fill if you don't need one just because it's your last chanec to get it free. Free isn't worth your health. At least two and a possible third bandster that I know IRL went to their obligatory 1yr post-op to get fills, even though they had restriction. They all then had to fork up for unfills because it was too much, and it has been a fill/unfill cycle ever since then. Do you feel you have restriction? Lost weight, eating this or that, not the point.

Hehe. Can you relate it to anything else? E.g. sharp stabbing pain with deep breaths? Notice any differences in pain after certain types of meals - particularly much later in the same evening? Etc. Enter standard disclaimer than I'm not a medical professional. :mad:

Minimum Fluid to avoid dehydration is different for everyone and affected by factors such as how much you sweat, how quickly you breathe, how much you urinate, what kind of weather you're in, etc. The 64oz is a generically recommended minimum. MOST people are in a constant state of very mild dehydration. Some of the more common symptoms include headache (people will have a headache and take some aspirin or Tylenol, think that fixed their headache, when in reality they were slightly dehydrated, THAT was causing their headache, and it was the glass of Water, not the pill, that brought relief). Other symptoms include dry skin/cracked lips, and dark urine (among MANY others, but these are the ones that are super easy to identify as dehydration). Dark urine is one of the tell-tales. Properly hydrated, urine should not have noticeable color to it. As a doctor friend of mine says, "If you're pee isn't clear, drink more water." :mad: Now to your band issues... If you're unable to keep fluids down, and this has been going on for longer than a day, call your surgeon. I personally give it a day because for me, that seems to be about the time to fully get over irritation from being stuck. DO NOT try cold fluids if you are having a hard time. Instead try some hot tea, or even just warm broth or (water thin) hot chocolate. Warm liquids often have an easier time going down which actually seems a little counterintuitive (to me), but for some reason it really does seem to be true for most people.

I'm not sure, I helped my parents (TriCare) with their paperwork, but did not look at fills specifically. You could always call and ask. I don't know if fills have their own medical code - mine are coded as "office visit" -- so maybe ask about the maintenance.

I have dropped a size and a half, and gone from wide to regular width. Yes, even our feet get fat. :mad:

Yeah, aside from "stay fat" -- if you're asking specifically about the best way to have safe, maintainable weight -- reduced calorie IMO. I would suck at this as a non-banded lifestyle, but it's the only one that isn't a "program" or require you to drastially reduce any single food source. And exercise, of course... which is another reason why I'd still be fat. Not that I'm not fat, but you get it. :mad:

If they'll do it, more power to you. But they didn't tell you quite right. They don't just call and ask to have it added, they call and ask and then have to pay for it. A large employer- that's probably not going to happen. But if your husband works for a smaller place, and/or has some pull with the HR decision-makers, then there's a chance. Hence the "...really only one way out... ask the employer to consider purchasing the coverage" I mentioned earlier. Good luck/best wishes - hope your husband can Rico Suave someone! :mad:

Yeah, the scale is a huge Atkins killer. This is true for just about every weightloss effort out there, but on Atkins especially there is the "Atkins stall" which strikes (suually) right around week 3. Big drop, big drop... nothing! OMG it's not working anymore! (I moderated a large Atkins board for a year or two and I can't tell you how many times we saw this -- just about everyone there hit the stall, the only exception I can think of being, of course, men). So -- expect a stall around week 3, maybe as late as week 6 or 7. When you see it, stick through it. And avoid artificial sweetners, esp Splenda -- known Atkins stallers. On Atkins I would sometimes stall out for a few months at a time, and then "lose" 25 lbs overnight. Per the scale. Surely no one out there really believes I could have truly lost 25 lbs overnight, without an amputation or something. (just another example of how scales suck). :mad:

Moved to the lounge per this not being a band-related topic, but do please continue to enjoy your dialogue. :mad:

I do totally get it. I've been asked sooo many times by local/IRL bandsters, "HOW do you not weigh yourself everyday?" (I now weigh about every 2 months, and use either a BF analyzer or my measurements to gauge my progress - the scale is purely for fitday numbers). I liken it to carb addiction - your first few days of not doing it really suck, you're constantly thinking about it, especially when you see the scale and you're tempted just to jump on it real quick, much like you're tempted to take just one bite... and then after a while of not doing it, it doesn't bother you nearly as much as it used to. If you'd truly like to get away from it, throw the damn thing away. That's not really any different than not buying the ice cream while you're at the store (look at how many of us have to not buy it, because if we buy it we will eat it). Or if you have a SO, have him/her hide it from you. The reason I hate scales so much is because 1) they're deceiving, but really 2) I've seen them destroy so many otherwise valid weightloss efforts, including mine. You give up and give up and go without, and get on the scale JUST KNOWING that you've lost 15 pounds, and instead you've lost 2 lbs, or maybe gained 3. In reality your body may be down 3% of its fat, but you're retaining Water. So what do you do when you see that higher number? You say "F--- this, I'm not giving up my chocolate & ice cream so that I can weigh more!", throw out the weightloss efforts, and usually binge top top it off. It just kills me to see that happen. That's why I get so "matter of fact" about it when I post. Going by a scale to determine your success is no different than letting others' comments drive your self esteem. It really isn't. And no one or thing should have that much power over any of us. The one thing I think scales are good for (aside from weighing your total body mass, which they do well) is for the maintenance phase. I think it's important to see where you're at so that if you start to gain fat, you can nip it in the bud before it's one of those invisible/unnoticed problems so many of us had the first time around. But even then, it has to be done with a grain of salt (my personal recommendation is to track how much you gain/lose at different times of the month, and set a range for your weight with those numbers.) If 150 corresponds to a good body fat percentage, and I know that I can gain up to 15lbs during my period, or drop up to 5 near ovulation, then I know there's a 20lb fluctuation associated with my weight and I basically have to ignore anything within that fluctuation at the respective time. Then keep in mind diet-related Fluid retention, dehydration, bathroom habits, etc. and take it all with a grain of salt.

Moved to the support forum. I'm what we used to call here a "winded rabbit" - I dropped weight like no one's business for a while, and have had an uphill battle ever since. There's not really such a thing (for anyone here) as unable to lose weight. There are, however, ways to identify what's causing your roadblocks and move past them. It's largely a numbers game, so look there first. Have you figured your BMR & AMR, and does your average caloric intake fall between the two? If not, are you supplmenting your activity so that it does? Are your calories healthy calories or crap calories? Etc.

So get rid of your scales and buy a tape measure instead. Or a BF analyzer. There's no difference between saying "the scale numbers have to go down if I want a size 12" and "the tape measure numbers..." or "the body fat numbers..."

Yeah this is very common. Many self-pay contracts (at least stateside, I don't know about MX) include 1 yr to-the-date of free fills, and a good number of insurance coverages will also only cover up to the first year. In my case, I had insurance coverage and mine were "free" for a year, after that first year they're still covered, but they're coded as an office visit so I basically pay my co-pay for fills - $20. Actually his suggestions - as I understand them - sound look good suggestions and it also sounds like he's a very responsible doctor, thinking more about what is best for the patient than what the patient wants to happen. Just my 2 cents tho. :mad:

You as a customer (well, customer's customer since your employer is their customer, not you) can't submit a rider. Rider (contract rider) is, long story short, the documentation used for a clause to change a contract. Think of it like an addendum or ammendment - a document that effects some change to the original contract. HTH

Hate to say it, but start saving for self pay, or (if you're employed) start looking into your own benefits. Employer-enforced exclusions really only have one way out - to ask the employer to consider purchasing the coverage. I can't think of any employers I know who would do this for one person, but I guess you never know. If it's the carrier refusing to cover, you have a little more room to play with. But in this case, it's basically a matter of not having it because it's not being paid for. Getting the company to pay for it (add it to their plan) would really be the only way around it.

Moved to pre-op forum. The psych eval should be an opportunity for a professional clinicial to evaluate your eating behaviors and style, assess your likelihood for success as well as the expectations you have for surgery, and then provide some assistance in techniques to help maximize your success. These would includ eprograms of behavioral change, coping mechanisms, helping to reset expectations of needed, etc. Unfortunately many psychologists do not seem to do this, and instead throw out some standardized assessment tests (e.g. personality tests) and that's about it. IMO a -good- program will be comprehensive, including a psychologist who does more than give you tests. Tests won't do a thing that spending a few hours talking with the patient can't do, and talking & prescribing action plans can do SO much more.

scales pretty much suck. The one thing people never seem to realize is that a scale does what it's designed to do which is report the weight of your entire mass: your skin, hair, and everything in and on your body. They do not tell you changes in your fat or size, just in your overall weight. We get a lot of posts here of people freaking out because their scale has shown an overnight weight increase and they assume they gained fat. All the scale is saying is that your entire mass weighs more now than it did. It says NOTHING about your fat. I've had to post this as a reminder to people whoa re freaking out about overnight WEIGHT (not fat) gain probably 50 times, if not more. Hopefully your post will get some readers.

Soups, even hearty soups, are fine (IMO) as long as your restriction allows you to eat them. The deal with soups is that many people find that soups "go right through" the band, thus they might need to eat more to reach the "full" sensation. If you want soup and need to eat more, then I say just eat more. It's not going to take a lot more to get the feeling, and for me personally, I can feel full on soups, especially if I eat them earlier in the day, say for lunch.

Some caffeine is fine, it would be very hard to avoid caffeine alltogether. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I do drinka lot of tea. I don't care for the flavor of decaf tea so I drink the regular about 80% of the time, decaf the other 20%. I try offset this with healthy amounts of water.

I'm not a Nov but I know several people with 10 cc bands who had to have 7+ ccs to feel restriction beyond the day they received the fills.