NanaRenan

I'm sorry you had such an unfortunate experience. But I think it's unfair to the 99% of people who WOULDN'T have that same experience to encourage them away from what might be the best thing that ever happened to them. I just hope they don't stop with reading of your bad experiences and read the many hundreds of GREAT band experiences. Meanwhile, I hope you continue to get healthy in whatever fashion you are able to and I hope that doctor of yours is smarter with the next patient who has difficulties. God bless.

I learned being diabetic that the smart thing to do was eat something as soon as my feet hit the floor each morning to turn on my metabolism. So I still do that. I try to eat at the predetermined times, eat the smartest things I can choose from and stay full until the next meal. If I'm frequently becoming hungry before the next meal -- or just before bed -- that's my clue it's time for a fill. Eating around the band means eating anything that will slip quickly and easily past the band and is contrary to smart eating -- ice cream, shakes, high calorie Soups, etc. Once you're past liquids and mushies post-op, you should be eating REAL food....that requires cutting and chewing. This will sit in your pouch longer and tell you're brain you are full much, much longer. Soups will go right past and your brain isn't getting the FULL signal.

Marina, you will hit many, MANY plateaus on your weigh down. Don't let them get you down. Here's how to handle it....when the scales keep showing you the same digits, walk to the mirror, cup your hand up to approximate how LITTLE you can eat. Take your other hand and gesture from head to toe while you look yourself in the eye and say, "You can't maintain all of THIS", gesture up and down, "on just THIS little bit", show self the hand, "so you're gonna have to let some of THIS", gesture up and down again, "GO!" Then wait for your body to figure that out. Remember -- your body is doing exactly what it was designed to do -- MAINTAIN, MAINTAIN, MAINTAIN. Only problem is you want it to maintain at a different number and it really likes the number it is at. When it realizes you are right, it can't maintain your current weight with so little intake, it will let go of a few pounds at a time and then FIGHT< FIGHT< FIGHT to maintain THAT new weight.

Noticeable hair loss is a common side-effect of genereal anesthesia and generally peaks between 4 to 6 months out. I experienced it with my tonsillectomy 25 years ago and every other surgery since. (My hair is very long, so when it starts coming out in gobs you can't NOT notice it!) I had my band placed in August 2007 and had to have my port revised in March of this year. I noticed a couple of days ago that I'm having trouble hiding my pins under the bun because I've lost a lot during both surgeries. BUT, I'm also needing more hairspray because there are so many little new hairs poking up everywhere!! So eventually it'll be okay.

Thanks for the encouragement. No kidding tho', we should get together sometime!

I think there are several different "classes" of SSRIs. (My terminology might be off, but I know not all are created equal.) I just know that it worked like a charm for me. So well, in fact, I'm pretty sure stocks dropped in whatever company produces Imodium!!! LOL

Hi Gang -- don't think I've been in here before. But according to my driver's license, it's where I belong! I turned 46 in July, but seeing as I'm almost 100 lbs lighter than I have been in the last decade -- I feel 26!! :smile2:

Forget Camelot. Forget Atlantis. Forget Valhalla. ONEDERLAND is the magical place I fantasize about going to!! I can honestly say, since I've finally dropped into the 220s, I can, for the first time, actually believe I might make it. In fact, I've had to give up all my 2X and most of my 20+ size clothes. I'm looking a DOS free existence!!! No twos on my scales OR my labels. Is it possible? Can it really happen? Onderland.... Do I need a passport to get there?

Isn't it tho'....? My daughter was comtemplating using it if she has another girl. Her new hubby vetoed it because his brother's BEAGLE is named "Ruby". As if that dog will live forever and be at all the family reunions!!! LOL I am SO blessed -- I thank the Lord for him about a dozen times a day. He's not PERFECT and we do get on each others never from time to time, but then I stop and think that Mike on his WORST day is better than a lot of guys are on their BEST day and all I can do is say "Thank You, God" -- again!!:smile2:

I got my band a year ago. Dr. Fernando Miranda is my surgeon. In 2006 I tried to use Dr. Speigel -- and wasn't daunted by his quirky bedside manner. But in the middle of getting together past surgery records that would have qualified me Aetna, he suddenly dropped Aetna -- or so his staff told me. I called Dr. Spivak's office and they refused to see me. So -- I sat around and gained weight until my cardiologist actually feared for my life!! He sent me to Dr. Miranda and I couldn't be happier!!! He also did my Daughter-In-Law in May and my son is considering doing it after the first of the year -- he'll go with Dr. Miranda, too! Seriously, I would recommend him to anyone in the Houston area!

By the early 90s I'd managed to rid the house of every mirror except for the little medicine cabinet mirror in the bathroom. I went through a lot of wacky hairstyles and colors trying to fight the inevitable -- but Ruby's genes prevailed and by 2000 I surrendered to the reality that I AM just like her. BUT, there's nothing to stop me from being a New & Improved version!! :w00t: He said the cutest thing to me a few months ago. He's joked for years that he'd pay $10K for a photo of me in the bikini I wore on our honeymoon! This time he said, "I was married to a porn star, but I didn't own a video camera!" :ohmy::thumbup: So he celebrates every milestone in my lap-band journey and is willing to cash in some of his retirement savings to pay for PS when the time comes. We've got a lot of years to make up for! :wink: Oh, yeah -- and we OWN a video camera now! :thumbup:

I can see where WLS and the changes it brings could further rock a shaky marriage. I think my biggest problem has been times when my emotions (or hormones, depending on whom you ask!) are all over the place and I don't know what to do with myself. Before WLS, I just conveniently headed to the kitchen to smother the emotions with food. Now, I have to find other ways to cope or -- HORROR! -- just DEAL with them. Hubby's had to do a lot of hand-holding and quiet listening. But none of it has been a threat because we've got 29 years together and have endured bigger hardships than this.

Color me "guilty" -- I do often whine about not losing faster, and the truth is, I have no one to blame but myself. My results HAVE been phenomenal by a lot of standards, but could have been WAY better by now. I know all too well that I have NOT exercised nearly enough and have TOO OFTEN put the wrong things in my mouth, even if the quantity was significantly less. I'm sufficiently contrite. In fact, I'd decided to blow off the gym today, but I'm gonna log off and get dressed and go. Thanks for the kick-in-the-pants. I needed it.

To quote my husband, "What a TERRIBLE problem to have!" LOL I showed my daughter the other day what I might look like in side profile (with my pannus lifted and pulled to the front) and she couldn't believe it! She even commented I might be smaller than her post-PS! (Watch her, she'll get really serious on diet and exercise if I start creeping into her sizes! LOL) Seriously tho', I'm still battling the mental issues. My brain is constantly telling me I WON'T lose much more, that I'll still be fat, etc., etc. Possibly thinking I'll stuff some food just to shut it up, IDK. :crying:

Ezma -- great that you saw the positivity in that event. (And WOW! You're hurtling down the road to normalcy at twice the speed I am!! You GO, Girl!) A friend of mine back where I used to live was showing around some photos from my daughter's wedding she attended in June. One gal, who I've known for 30 years, asked "Where's Pam?" When my friend pointed me out, she realized I'd been in quite a few photos -- she just hadn't recognized me. That was a cool NSV.

I posted this in my August 2007 group, but tho't I'd share with the whole LBT audience.... The BEFORE is on my birthday, July 2007. The AFTER is Memorial Day, 2008. My GrandDoll, Sloane is in both shots. And I've lost a whole 10 y/o -- LOL -- she weighs almost what I've lost in a year!!!!

Why thank you, you're so sweet! This morning my husband and I stopped into Whataburger for our Saturday morning breakfast -- I eat two bites of the egg out of a taquito and I'm good until lunch. :smile: Anyhow, he got up to refill his iced tea and when he was walking back to the table he got this really big, goofy grin on his face. I said, "what?" He said, "Just looking at you sometimes I'm blown away by how different you look." It was a relief, cause lots of times he says, "I can't believe how much you look like your mother!" And that's when the fight starts....:biggrin: Not really -- just kidding! I do look like her and I fought it hard for years, but I've surrendered! LOL

Sherri -- I had severe IBS from 1982 to 2004. Like someone else mentioned, I've been in every public restroom in Dallas county!! It wasn't so bad when I had toddlers -- I mean if you go rushing up to a waitress or store clerk frantically asking "Where is your restroom"? with a toddler in hand, they assume you're potty training. <VBG> Anyhow -- I just wanted to mention what happened to me. Numerous colonscopies, very med under the sun, high fiber, no fiber, low fiber, no dairy, etc., etc. -- nothing helped. I assumed I would spend the rest of my life dealing with it. (People are amazed that although my "baby" is 19, I never leave home without baby wipes in my purse. Little do they know.... Anyhow, when I moved to Houston in 2004, my first visit to my new doctor, he looked at my chart and said, "So you have Fibromyalgia and Irritable Bowel Syndrome...?" "Yessir." "So why the HELL aren't you on Paxil?" Unitmidated, I replied, "Because no one ever suggested it." He went on to explain how SSRI's work and a lot of yadda, yadda which I 'got' easily enough. I was game to try it. Shoot -- I'd tried everything else doctor's had thrown at me. God as my witness, I NEVER had another bout of IBS while on the 12.5 mg of Paxil. Instead of it being a food or some phsyiological abnormality in my intestines -- it was neurotransmitters in my brain setting my guts on PUREE like a blender and ... well, you know the rest... Anyhow, I took it faithfully up until my Lap Band surgery, last August and have been winging it without ever since. I've had maybe a half dozen "episodes" in a year. (Had that many in a WEEK, before Paxil!) I won't go so far as to say I'm "cured", but for now, it's not a problem. If it does become one -- I'll head straight back to get my Paxil refilled!!! That's no way to live!

**waving at BrandyK** I'm in Pearland and have 'back boobs', TOO!! I'm wondering when I should call to set up a consult or attend a seminar with Dr. LoMonaco -- I've still got a long way to go to get to goal, but once I'm there, I don't want to languish in this deflated fat suit one day longer than I have to!!

I needed a tummy tuck at 321 lbs -- my stomach slapped my thighs when I walked! So there was never any question about whether or not I would need reconstruction after the WLS. I'm really puzzled by the people who are told to wait one to two years after banding, then others have the surgery before their first year is up....? Can someone 'splain it to me?

Hang in there. It's not at all uncommon for it to take 4 or 5 fills (or even more!) to get proper restriction. But it will happen. Don't throw in the towel. Just follow the rules about not drinking and pay attention to Proteins first, then veggies, then very little of anything else. The bigger question is not how much you eat at a meal, but how much you are hungry and grazing between meals....? If you are eating a "full" meal (and it's healthy food! not junk!) and not snacking between meals and at bedtime, you're still going to lose because it's less than what you were eating before.

Don't know how old your parents are, BUT, here's something they might not have considered....there will possibly come a day when they will need to depend on you and YOU want to be healthy enough to be a help to them. My weight SERIOUSLY hindered my ability to help do things for my mother when she got bedridden just before she died of diabetes and strokes related to a lifetime of obesity. My sister (who's been overweight all of her life) was in the hospital having a double bypass while my dad was dying in another hospital and I was running back and forth between the two hospitals. I spent a lot of that drive time crying because I could see where my path was leading me and I didn't want to end up like my mother and my sister!! PLUS, I now can romp and play with my grandkids -- something I missed out on a lot when my own kids were little. I can't get those years back. But I can get the best out of the years I have left to me. Do what you need to for yourself!!!!

You gotta good man there, aubrie! Sue...I don't "feel" anything unless I'm eating. In the morning I can eat about two small bites of eggs or slowly sip at most of a Carnation Instant Breakfast and feel full until lunch. For lunch I can usually eat 3 or 4 bites of something and feel full until dinner. Dinner I can eat about 1/8th to 1/4 of what I ate prior to banding. But, if the hiccups come I'd better stop. Sometimes I get in one or two bites too many BEFORE the hiccups and I'm in trouble. (Its about 'pacing' with me.) I pray. Rest my forearm on top of my head, sort of stretching one side out -- don't know why, but it often helps. If I don't start to feel better soon, I usually excuse myself to the restroom "just in case".

That is SO true. I always thought skin type (color) was a big factor. But my daughter and I are exactly the same tone....she's had two pregnancies with nary a stretch mark in sight and I looked like I'd battled with Freddy Kruger all four times I had a baby!!!