Wheetsin

40 lbs a year is not the average, it's people who - for whatever reason - are falling below the statistics. I would say "extremely" slow process, but it is (usually) slower than other WLS alternatives. Mostly because a great many of the other options are malabsorptive procedures. Of course you're going to lose weight quickly, you're starving (in the medical sense of the word) and malnourished. And yeah, for a VERY VERY small number of people it doesn't work, but this is true for every surgery I've heard of. There is an element of responsibility with the band, that some of the other procedures don't require, but I'll take that responsibility in exchange for the safety any day. I was 29, 5'10 and 382. Now I'm 30, 5'10+, and 254. I have a long way to go still, but it has been more than worth it to me.

BJean, my mother is Catholic, and I believe that had she followed her church's course of action, I may not be typing this because she would have been murdered long before I was born. From another thread (to save typing): When she sought help from her church she was told to look to god for the answer, but remember that marriage vows are intended to be forever. Lots of help, huh? She said that the undertone was very, very strong that everyone make mistakes, and yes - the man needed to own up to his offenses, but it was her wifely and godly duty to be there for him and support him through his hardships (hmm, must be hard to do that when you're trying to recover from a coma he put you in). To date she's not a "good standing" memeber because she didn't have an anullment of her marriage through the church, she just had a legal divorce. Through the eyes of the church this means she is living in sin - a married woman having a child and sexual relationship with another man. And until she receives a church anullment, she cannot participate in - I'm not going to call it the right thing - but church services such as communion and last rights. Once she looked into the anullment, but when she saw how personal some of the questions were, and some of the actions they try to take (e.g. contacting the ex, if you know their contact info), she decided it wasn't worth it, that what they were asking her to share really was no one's business but her own, and came to the conslusion that - ultimately - there was only one "being" that really needed to know what happened, and it already knew.

I think they lied to me. Here're the very last things I remember: I'm laying on the table, they're still trying to make the table long enough and someone else is putting compression thingies on my legs. Anesthesiologist: I'm just going to give you some oxygen... (mask goes on crooked) Thinking to myself: Great, with the mask on crooked I'm NEVER going to go under, all the gas will leak out. Doesn't he know what he's doing? What a dumba...... zzzzzzz... (I never had "oxygen" put me to sleep before.) BTW, the Happy juice they gave me kind of removed what little filter I have to begin with. And made me a "little"...weird. I was apaprently being very sarcastic and very critical. I don't remember much of this, but I hear it from my husband and parents. I had my surgery on Ash Wednesday, which has no significance to me so it's not something I was really aware of. Add to that the effects of the medication. I had two nurses near me with the ash crosses on their foreheads. Apparently I told one of them her tattoo was stupid and made her look like Charles Manson, she shoud tell her tattooist they owe her a lot more than a refund. The other was in recovery, and I kind of berated her, but I have only the faintest memories of it - telling her that she should be ashamed of herself, working in surgery and coming to work that dirty... grime smudged all over her forehead... and I told her she needed to go wash herself before she gave me an infection. :rolleyes

Search for fundoplication. Someone else brought this topic up maybe a week ago, probably less, and I'm thinking they received a good handful of responses.

Coughing as a cause of slippage came up just the other day. One of my surgeon's patients had to have her band removed, due to slippage, that was attributed to coughing. I can't say whether that was true or not, and I guess it is possible that "slippage" looks better on a record than "incorrect placement", so who knows - but that's the story I got. The symptoms I've always heard associated with slippage are more along the times of extreme inability to keep food down, or no restriction at all. As well as acid reflux, etc.

Would you like to move this to RnR for you? Granted we aren't recovering from a totalitarian dictatorship, but "spoiled" implies a lot more than the financial status of a country or its internal systems. I would agree that we're priveldged, but I would not say we're spoiled.

Oh, yeah, NOW I know that. I didn't when I got my band, until I was in there and he told me to scootch on over. So I did, and I was too tall for the table, and some of my last conscious memory is of the anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist arguing over how to make the table longer.

BJean - no sweat on my end. I come across as a know it all, when in the real world that's not the case at all. I just carry strong opinions, and a fair amount of knowledge, and have no problems speaking up. Including when I don't know something. I'll be the first to ask about it so I can add it to my repetoire. And it's the best when two "know it alls" disagree on something! :biggrin1:

Two sisters I know were banded in 2001. Both still have their bands. One is having some problems (believed to be caused by the materials the bands were made with then), the other is doing just fine. One has gone from larger than a size 36 to a size zero, the other went from a 28 to a 14 and is now back up to a 22. (Roughly, anyway - I haven't spoken with them in a while so things may have changed since)

Sliming, like "PB", is one of those things that 10 people will probably define 7 or 8 different ways. To me, sliming precedes a PB. It's the period of excessive salivation before you actually have the PB. The saliva is thicker than normal, and "ropey" (aka can create a rope from your lip to the sink without breaking). Yum! I've heard several others refer to sliming as a PB where only saliva comes up. But to me, if I've "yakked", it's a PB, I don't care if saliva, food, or my missing sock comes up. So - you tell us what it means, and we'll add it to the list of possibilities.

Uh... yeah, same here. If they'd said to me, "You can wear underwear, but we'll just take them off once you're out" my panties would have been off faster than if I'd just seen young Sean Connery giving me bedroom eyes. Here's my perspective. And one of my worries: How the heck are they going to get my ass off the gurney and onto the operating table? Gumby on a cracker, good thing I won't be awake for the humiliation of them not having enough nurses on the clock to heave-ho me over there! So now add to that... Not only do they have to heave-ho me over there, but once that's been done, they now have to find a few people to.. ahem... elevate my buttocks enough that my panties can be pulled down. Or they'll just say "F*** it" and shear the damn things off with the scalpel. And then probably bill me for it, to boot!

Artificial sweetners don't adversely effect me at all, but they are a known cause of weightloss stalls. There are a lot of people out there who truly cannot get below a given threshold of weightloss while consuming artificial sweetners. BTW, with the FDA labeling, the same is true for most ingredients. Take carbs for example. You can list something as "0g carb" if it has less than 1 full gram. Sometimes manufacturers are honest and will mark ">1g", but there are plenty of foods out there with .99g carb in them, being sold as 0g. My rule of thumb, if it says 0g carb, I still count it as 1g. And if it says 0 calories, I still count it as 5. Not that I really count or keep track, but I do try to pay attention.

I don't like or watch football so I didn't see any of these, but I read that they're pulling the candy bar ad. After receiving several complaints they decided the commercial had strong homophobic undertones, because something "manly" had to be done to counteract something "gay". Anyway, like I said - I didn't even see it, so I have no idea. Just thought I'd spread the word.

Is that kind of like, "I'm not a nurse, but I play one on tv"? :heh: :heh:

I've never taken it, but when I went in for my annual physical last week, my doctor had a flyer on her wall - she was looking for people to volunteer for an exercise challenge, and if your BMI was over 30 and you accepted she would put you on phentermine for the duration. I was curious, but didn't have time to ask about it. I will probably call in the near future.

Then shame on her. If she sees that trend, it's her responsibility to follow up for aftercare, and what she eats and how much - again, only one person is making that decision. Don't think this applies to all people who are banded. Possible - but so what? Bumping into something can give you a blood clot. I got them from BCP. Of course if you're having surgery yuor risks go up. I'm not even at high risk and they gave me heparin. Sometimes the best thing you can do is smile and walk away. Yeah, I'm going to have excess skin. But give me a choice between weighing nearly 400 pounds, or having a droopy body, and I'll give you the same answer every time!

This is 100% true. There are deep psychological roots behind rape, virtually all of which will stem directly from aggression. About 75 - 80 percent of rape victims who fight back get away, even though they could have been overpowered. According to the rapists, it's because they had to fight, and they didn't want to fight, they wanted to dominate. Just like robbers. They don't want someone who's going to put up a fight, that could get you hurt. They want someone they can overwhelm. DIfferent motivators, same target group. When I was in school they used to advise us to "just go along with it" if we were ever being attacked. I remember sitting in a session and having the advisor tell us that if a man grabs us and threatens rape, we should fondle him and rub against him like he's just the best thing since sliced bread, then make an excuse (her suggestion was needing to remove our tampon) to get away for a few minutes and run as fast as you can. You can probably see the flaws in this approach. :faint:

We need to know what food stage you're on before we can recommend foods for that stage.

I didn't read that ogling = respect in anyone's comments, though I may have missed some. I think people are saying that curiosity, especially in a young child, and especially about something the opposite sex has that he does not, is natural. Perhaps it will work exactly as she has planned, and perhaps she is seeding her child with future neurosis. Who's to say. Other than that child in another 15 years.

A good friend of mine once said, "When I was younger, I used to want to be reincarnated as a pair of women's underwear. Until I lived with a woman, and saw what their underwear look like." Yeah, as someone else mentioned, you're naked under the drape. The gown you get doesn't stay on. Everyone in the room is a trained medical professional and looking at you naked isn't going to be their priority. If you're determined to wear your underwear, best of luck to you, but I don't see it happening. But you won't remember it, and you'll have bigger things on your mind anyway.

I don't get animal abandonment. We see our dog as a child. Yes, we're those silly people who refer to each other as "mommy" and "daddy" when we talk to the dog. So yeah, we're those silly people who also talk to the dog. This will sound like "Oh, I'm such a great pet owner" and I don't mean it that way. The story is the story. The point is the question that was asked... and the fact that is has to be asked. One night our dog started vomitting, and it continued all night. We stayed up with him keeping him comforted and trying to encourage drinking water as much as we could. Took him to the vet, vet said he didn't think it was a big deal, keep an eye om him. The vomitting continued through the morning, and then our dog started to vomit and excrete blood. When I saw that I froze in a moment of pure panic. I made the hour and a half drive to the vet in under 40 minutes. As the vet is looking him over he says, "I don't really know what's wrong, I don't think it's anything major, but some of these tests can be kind of expensive. And he's dehydrated, so I want to get him set up on an IV. Some of this treatment can be kind of expensive. Do you want me to go ahead and do it?" I was like - what? Of course you do it! Because to me, it was unthinkable that cost would determine whether or not our dog got the care it needed. So I told him, "I don't care what it costs. If you think it will help, then you do it." And I didn't care what it was going to cost. It was the farthest thing from my mind. But apparently a lot of people do care - enough so that it's something the vet forewarns about. To me, what he did would be no different than taking my husband to the doctor with the same symptoms, and having the doctor say, "Well, something serious might be wrong, but tests are expensive, should I go ahead and do it?" Such a no brainer to me. Because emergencies are part of having life, and if you can't handle the emergencies that come up, you don't need the pet. I just can't accept that letting a pet die because someone thinks the treatments are too expensive is valid. And I hate seeing animals left in cars during the summer/winter. Uh uh, don't do it where I can see it happen, or you're not going to be very happy with the consequences.

No undies here. And I didn't care in the least. Underwear was the farthest thing from my mind. I mean - if I didn't mind laying there with no bra on, and my flab hanging all over the table, a naked pooty in the room with medical professionals certainly wasn't going to phase me. I mean - I have paps, and there the person is trying to look... during the surgery, any sight would be incidental. Never heard of doing the surgery between someone's legs. My incisions are too high up, there's no way unless someone was laying on top of me.

I do, and there are no secrets other than your genomic mapping.

I think part of what Laurend is getting at is that teaching a however old boy to look away from boobs is teaching him that you aren't allowed to look at boobs, rather than why not to look at boobs. I didn't read through the posts in detail so perhaps there was mention of some reason being given to the kid, but all I read was something along the lines of "trained to look away". It's completely normal for kids to look at others' bodies. They're curious. And they may ask, "Why are her boobs so small?" or maybe they see someone with boobs who looks like a man, and they want to know why. But it doesn't mean they're going to grow up into men who don't respect women. Respect can be taught, to a degree. Looking away when you see something can be taught. Or, you can use one to get at the other. I just don't see a connection between "you can't look at boobs" and "respect women". There's a difference between a man who sees you walk in somewhere and looks at YOU, including your boobs (because they can't magically disappear), and a man who looks at your boobs while you're trying to make eye contact with him. I respect men, but was never taught I can't look at their butts. Perhaps desynsetizing would be an equally good approach. Teaching them that yes, women have boobs and men don't. And then it's not such a big deal. And they learn respect along the way. And then when they're grown, there's never been a stigma around boobs. And they can just be normal guys who respect women, like most normal guys do.

I fly all the time. I've taken probably in the neighborhood of 30 flights since my surgery. I've set off the detector one time. They had me step aside and I told them I had a medical implant, showed them about where it was, and they broke out the wand. The wand confirmed and I proceeded to the gate. It was no big deal. Flying does mess up my restriction, as in makes me way tight. Not at first, but say the next day - I will be tight enough to warrant liquids. And for whatever reason it seems to happen about 90% of the time I'm going, but very rarely when I'm coming. Fickle indeed. My advice - and you'd think this is common sense but it kind of isn't when you start to get comfortable with your band... plan your meals when you're flying. You don't want to grab a "quick bite" on your way to the gate, and end up having to PB during take-off. (NO, that didn't happen to me, my PB came en route to the airport thankfully, but I was dreading that it would linger until take-off...ugh...)