MacMadame

Hi there. Welcome to LapBandTalk! There is a whole forum for people who are struggling with the band and I bet you lots of people there could help you.

If WLS is excluded, it means your company hasn't paid for that coverage. So you have to self-pay.

Aetna's bariatric policy is on their web site so you can look up the details. They do pay for lap band if your BMI is over 40 and you go through a 3 or 6 month program. However, your company has to include WLS in their coverage. If your company excludes it, then you are hosed.

If you've already been approved by insurance, it's okay to lose weight.

I like snakes. Mine went from a D/DD to DDD. I am VERY ANNOYED. Except I don't think that's what he said. I think you are over-interpreting based on the past. I'm at work. :smile2: The Heathwise brand is only sold through doctors, but there are a lot of places that have the protein hot chocolate and I think it's all made in the same place with different brand names on it. Try Nashua Nutrition or Focus 28, if you can't find Healthwise online.

I can't wait for the show to be over so we can hear all these interviews with Vicky about how she's' just misunderstood and the editors did a hatchet job on her! (Yes, I kid. I can definitely wait to hear her whining excuses.)

When I eat too much, I get a pain around my breastbone, so I think it's the same as with a band. It's definitely not like it used to be. Though I have come to the conclusion that what I used to think was my stomach is actually my intestines!! There are some successful band to sleever who stop by this board periodically -- I'm hoping they will chime in soon with their experiences. But most of them report the sleeve to be easier. Less getting stuck, less pbing. I have never had any issue with food coming straight back up and that doesn't seem to be a problem for the people I know in general. I know some people who in the early days did have to be careful not to eat and go right to bed, but that got better over time. I'm wondering, based on what he has said, if he is still making the sleeves with a 48 - 60 f sizer instead of using a 32 - 34 f as is much more common these days. With the bigger sizes, there was an issue with regain at the 2-3 year mark because there was still enough of the stretchy part of the stomach left. So the surgeons who use that size tend to be down on the sleeve and say it doesn't work.

This is why I caution people about taking those online formulas that calculate how many calories you can eat a day too seriously. They *always* over-estimate for anyone who has been morbidly obese. Btw, Jachut, it's not always the formerly obese who have these issues. A good friend of mine is an active 40-something male who works out 6-10 hours a week. He finds if he goes over 1500 calories a day, he gains weight. He's never been overweight a day in his life and he was an elite athlete all through childhood up until young adulthood. I think it's kind of sick, really. You'd think he could eat a lot more than that!

If you don't get answer here, try the California forum under USA forums. There are some people there trying to start a new support group in SoCal and plenty of SoCal people who can answer your question.

Welcome to LapbandTalk! There are a bunch of Kaiser people on here. I live in Fremont, but don't have Kaiser.

Sometimes that's a sign of being over-filled, but it can be other things too. You might want to ask on the Post-op forum or the Complications forum because I know you are not alone!

MySpace is for teens with no taste. :biggrin: MacBoy asked me to join MySpace and friend him. I think he just wanted another body for his Mob though.

It must have helped. I didn't have any gas issues at all. Er, not to rub it in or anything. :thumbup:

Welcome to LapBandTalk! You should get the answers you need here. Check out the Post-op Support subforum in particular.

Is there a FillCentersUSA near you? They tend to be good about these sorts of situations.

You might want to check out the forum for people from "other" countries, if you don't get a response here.

Maybe it was some weird cookie thing. :thumbup:

It sounds like your surgeon is unfamiliar with the sleeve and therefore he is uncomfortable with doing it and coming up with excuses. You need to find a surgeon who regularly does them and is familiar with them and get a second opinion. As to the things your surgeon says, many of them are not true. For example: 1) Cancer - the sleeve will DECREASE your chance of having both stomach cancer and ulcers. Losing weight will significantly decrease your risk of certain cancers overall including breast cancer. 2) Pregnancy - there is no reason you can't have a baby after a sleeve. You only need about 200-300 more calories a day when pregnant and that can be easily accommodated by having an extra snack each day. There are guys who are consuming as much as 1800 to 2000 calories a day with the sleeve. The sleeve will limit the amount of food you can eat at any one time, but you can eat every hour if you need to (not that you will or should). 3) GERD - generally in the first couple of months with a sleeve, your stomach is producing too much acid for the new stomach size, but it will adjust. In the meantime, this is easily controlled for most people via a daily dose of a PPI. In my case, my GERD got better after my sleeve because of my hiatal hernia repair. A small minority do have significant issues with acid during this temporary period, but most have no issues that taking a PPI can't cure. 4) All WLS is permanent. The band right now is making scar tissue on your stomach that will never go away even when the band is removed. The idea that the band is this safe surgery that is completely reversable compared to all the other scary and unsafe permanent surgeries is, IMO, the Big Myth of the band. 5) The sleeve is not that new. It's new as a stand-alone procedure for weight loss, but it's a partial gastrectomy and those have been done for decades. My aunt had one over 45 years ago, for example, due to stomach cancer. We know the long-term issues with removing part of your stomach and they are few and far between. Mostly, you have to be religious about Calcium supplementation and on the lookout for other possible deficiencies such as B12 and anemia. Otherwise, as long as the pylorus valve is intact, there really isn't much that happens long-term; the main complications are short-term as a direct result of the surgery. Does your surgeon do anything but lap band? The way he talks about other surgeries makes it seem like he doesn't. A surgeon who doesn't do a particular surgery is not the best source of information about it. The bottom line is that it's your body, not his, and you owe it to yourself to get another opinion from someone who actually knows what they are talking about and isn't going to use scare tactics to talk you out of what you want.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! This is a great place to find out what life with a band is like and learn a lot about the band. I'm sure you'll be happy you joined!

My surgeon removes as much gas as he can. Walking a lot and Gas-X can help with what's left. They did tell you to walk a lot, right? It's good for avoiding blood clots as well so it's really important to do.

Good luck with your journey. Which Dr. Rod did you have? Arturo or Jose?

It depends on your insurance company. Some want a 5 year weight history and some only 2 years and some no weight history. Then some will use any year you didn't qualify as an excuse to deny you while others consider an up and down pattern a sign you need surgery. However, if they do deny you for that reason, I would think you would have grounds for an appeal as the NIH's guidelines say nothing about being morbidly obese for X number of years just a history of failed dieting.

I don't know about disability because I always get that through work. But you will have trouble getting a private life insurance policy for about 5 years out from your surgery. Group life through work shouldn't be a problem in most cases though.

It's really impossible to know if you've hurt anything unfortunately. Luckily it's not like with a sleeve where you would get a leak if you did something bad. So that's why you can't do it again! (Because you won't know for years and year.) But everything I've read has lead to me conclude there is no reason to do a clear liquid diet for a week or longer. The ASMBS even says that in their paper on nutrition. So if you are going crazy with the clears, why not move to fulls early instead of jumping to mushies which you really shouldn't start this early out no matter how good you chew them. Susan, in addition to talking to your surgeon, maybe counseling would help. Does your surgeon have someone on staff you can talk to? They can help you with coping techniques for your food urges. I really like the book "The Emotional First+Aid Kit" which I got on Amazon -- it's a guide to post-op life and talks about all the normal things that we go through in our heads and gives suggestions for how to cope with them.

It's not Aetna's fault. It's your company. They chose not to cover this lifesaving surgery. Plus, if you have other choices at Open Enrollment, it's unlikely your company is paying for WLS on any of the policies they offer. That's my situation. Aetna has actually been very good to me. They have paid for every pre-op tests, all post-op meds, etc. It's only the surgery they don't pay for and that's because my company didn't include the coverage. So it's my company that I'm mad at. They cover IVF, they are talking about covering sex change operations, they give us $300 to join a gym and a discount at Jenny Craig but they won't cover WLS. Morons.