MacMadame

Other people have been successful with submitting a picture diary. Sometimes the insurance companies like to see weight going up and down and up and down, too. It shows a history of yo-yo dieting. So it might be in your interest -- if they say they want a 2 year history -- to submit 5 years worth of pictures instead. I'm a bit shocked your doctor's office shreds records like that. How can you have good care if they only know what happened to you in the past 3 years? Do they have the records on computer instead? Honestly, if my PCP only kept records for 3 years, I'd leave her.

He might, but what would your boyfriend say?

Yeah, I told my surgeon I was going to have problems with this. But then I forgot all about it. Until it happened. I'm not one that responds well to negative reinforcement so I think that's part of the problem.

Unlike myself. :thumbup:

In my Post-op bible, it says expect 10-20 lb. the first month and 5-10 lb. after that. I've also seen at lot of people do 50% excess weight at the 6 month mark and goal at around 1 year. But a lot of this depends on how much you have to lose. Plus some lose faster and some lose slower than that. I've seen lightweights (BMI 40 or less) get to goal in 6 months. You have about 2-3 months before surgery, you can get a head start and that will help. For example, I was at 30% EWL at day of surgery (that took 7 months though) so it probably won't take me 6 months to get to 50%. It will probably be more like 2-3 months for me. OTOH, are you really doing to miss your brother's wedding because you don't want a bunch of people you never see to see you at less than your absolute best? Family is important; what relative strangers think of us is not.

I'm definitely not enjoying mushies as much as I thought I would.

Congrats on joining the "loser's bench" and welcome to LBT. If you want to know about support groups, I think the NY state forum would be an excellent place to ask. Good luck finding one.

I did but I also changed my diet to have more protein and less carbs and I think eating carbs makes you crave them.

The issue with the donor violations is that in this new era people can donate $10 every week through the internet and put whatever info down they want. Both campaigns are dealing with this issue, but Obama more so because he's got more small donors than McCain. All these guys can do is comb through the records looking for suspicious donations and return the ones that aren't legal. And that's what they are doing. Most of the ones we here about are found first by the campaigns and have already been returned before the press even gets wind of it. So I don't see it as a !skandal! The voter registration thing, OTOH...

Ugh, I keep eating too fast. Mushies isn't turning out to be as much fun as I thought it would be.

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. You look like a monkey ... oh wait, that's the 9 year old version... Happy Birthday, dear Alex Happy Birthday to you.

I'm 5'1" and weighed only 206 when I had my consult (I was 223 when I started the whole process though.) I don't think the superiority of the sleeve is all about how high your BMI is. However, there is a concern with some surgeons that someone with a higher BMI won't lose enough with the band. So maybe that's why your surgeon recommended it to you.

I'm only 3+ weeks out but just starting on mushies and still eating too fast. I'm really bad about eating fast and about paying attention. What happens to me is that I get a pain in my breast bone. Once I had to barf up a bit to feel comfortable. The rest of the time, I just stop eating and the feeling fades. I get it while drinking too because I keep forgetting and drinking too fast. But obviously liquid doesn't get "stuck". Keep in mind, there is no stoma with the sleeve like there is with a band. That means food doesn't really get "stuck" or at least that much. It can be painful and you can get "foamies" if you eat too much or too fast, but it's not exactly the same as when a piece of food just won't go down because it's too big to pass through the band's stoma. When I was looking into both, one of the things that struck me was how many banded people had trouble with all sorts of foods compared to how many sleeved people had trouble. Most sleeve people can eat anything, or almost anything, once they get past the first 6-12 months.

Slippage has nothing to do with your port. It's when your band loosens up or moves and often a piece of the rest of the stomach rolls up under the band and gets pinched. If it doesn't get addressed immediately, you risk having that part of the stomach tissue die, which can be very serious. Sometimes slippage can be fixed by simply unfilling the band. Sometimes if you do that, the pinched part will slide back down where it's supposed to b and the band settles back in place. Unfortunately, though, once you slip once, you tend to be prone to slippage. Equally unfortunately sometimes an unfill isn't enough to get the band and stomach back where they can be and the band has to be removed.

I think Tyra *is* actually a role model in this area. She has gone on record as saying the tabs are crazy and, while she has gained a bit, she's no where near fat in real life and is proud of her curves. In other areas.... well, least said about that the better.

Hypertension is a co-morbidity for a lot of insurances. So is sleep apnea and a LOT of us have/had it. So maybe you can get tested for that.

I'm not an experienced bandster so I can't help with that, but I wanted to say: Welcome to LapbandTalk!

Oh, Jachut, how I love you. (er, not like THAT. ew.)

Some guy at work was saying he was going to take all his money out of this 401k today. I tried to convince him that buying mutual funds at the height of the market and selling them at the low was dumb, especially when he's got at least 25 years before he can take the money out without penalty, but he would not listen.

I'd be surprised if they really knew. In the head, sure, but to be there is different. At least that's what every contestant on every Reality TV show I've ever read about says.

Actually some banded people drink things with carbonation and some eat bread. But some can't. It depends on how tight they need to get the band to get proper restriction. The eating a few bites at a time may be just immediately post-op when her tummy is swollen and irritated. Eventually she should be able to eat 1/2 - 1 cup of food at a time which is way more than a few bites. Post-op it's all about QUALITY, not QUANTITY. You learn to savor your food and only put in good stuff since you can only have a small amount -- you want it to count. So she'll probably come to enjoy food (once the early days of recovery are over) again, just in a different way.

I don't see the point in looking. I'm not retiring for another 15-20 years. The market could go up and down 5x between now and then.

Me either. I still hate the show and won't watch it again.

Actually it's not true that the Lap Band has a better record. Realize and Lap Band have a similar record. As for doctors, check out Laproscopic Associates of SF. They do clinics and support groups in Stockton though they don't have a surgery location there. Their stats are excellent. They report 10-20% better excess weight loss with the band (they use both Realize and Lap Band) than the industry average. They did my sleeve and I am very happy with them. Lap Band Surgery by Laparoscopic Associates Weight-Loss Surgery in San Francisco

And yet people still think we get obese because we are lazy. I don't think you could call Oprah lazy. I think that's exactly why she should do it. (Well, besides the fact that it actually works unlike all the things she does over and over.) Imagine how the stigma against WLS would change if someone like Oprah finally saw the light.