MacMadame

I am always shocked when a surgeon recommends GB over lap band for any reason other than a patient needing a more immediate weight loss due to health reasons (i.e., you'll be dead in a few years if you don't drop 100 lb. NOW) or a patient just being psychologically unfit for the lap band. Outside the US lap band surgeries are the #1 WLS precisely because they are less invasive, more customizable, cheaper to perform and have less complications. It's only in the US that gastric bypass is the #1 WLS. Personally, I find that mystifying and I wouldn't find a US surgeon recommending bypass to me over lap band to be particularly compelling just because I think their thinking on the subject is so warped. I mean "you're young enough to have a riskier surgery" isn't my idea of an impressive argument unless that surgery had a much better chance of success. Yet long term studies show that bypass patients keep off no more weight than lap band patients so it has no better chance of success. The only thing it has to recommend it is faster weight loss with less lifestyle changes -- though the lifestyle changes are still necessary if you want to keep the weight off in the long run. So basically it's a bit easier and a bit faster at first, but no easier and no more successful in the long run. Hey, cut me open and slice up my internal organs, I'm sold! Not. Not only am I not sold, but I find the "you're young and healthy" argument to be a better argument for lap band... if you are young, you can take an extra year to get the weight off. If you're old like me, an extra year is a long time. :w00t: Sure you are going to read a lot about complications of the lap band on this site -- it's a support site for lap band. Go to a support site for GB and you will see all the complications they suffer. You think PBing sounds gross? Try dumping syndrome. You are scared of slippage or erosion? How about getting a leak in your staple line! Both surgeries have complications, but many of the lap band complications can be dealt with while many of the bypass complications are more dangerous or just have to be lived with. If you are still feeling hungry after getting a lap band, you can get another fill until you don't. If your portion size is too small and you can't eat a lot of foods, you can get an unfill. It's in your control. If you get GB and you can still eat too much or you can hardly keep down anything and are having trouble getting enough nutrients, what are you going to do? You are SOL if you can't get in enough food. If you can eat too much, then I guess you could get a revision to another type of WLS. But there goes the money you saved by just getting the bypass right away instead of getting a lap band and then revising to bypass. :tt2: Then, if your body reacts badly to a bypass, what are you going to do about it? Technically it can be undone but that is a pretty rare surgery so most bypass patients just live with whatever problems bypass gives them even pretty severe ones. With a lap band, you can have it removed if your body just won't tolerate it. Over time, everything should heal back up to normal and it's as if you didn't do it. Even if you don't get back 100%, you are still better off than a bypass patient who has complication after complication and no recourse. There are some people for whom GB is the right surgery. Such as those who need to lose weight now because their health is rapidly deteriorating. There are also those who will not be compliant and they know it and/or it's clear from their psych eval that they won't be compliant. If you aren't going to follow the rules, the band won't do much for you. But I do have this thought for those who don't want to make lifestyle changes... if you aren't willing to change what you eat and be more active, how successful do you think a bypass will really be? I wouldn't want to have my insides rearranged and then gain all my weight back because I wasn't willing to change my eating habits. Finally, think about 10 years from now. In my case, I'll be over 60 and so a lot of treatments won't be recommended for me. But for those in their 20s and 30s, there are a lots of new and better treatments for obesity on the horizon. If you get a lap band, you are in a position to take advantage of those treatments. If they come up with a ghrelin-blocking pill? You can have your lap band removed and start taking it and get the hunger control of a lap band without the sliming and PBing. If a better lap band or a better surgery is introduced, you can have it. If that new VBLOC device works out, you can get it. If you get bypass though, you may not be able to take advantage of new obesity treatments. Something to think about.

At my Physical Therapy office, they use Goo Gone on stubborn bandage adhesive. You do have to be careful not to get it in the incision but it works like a charm and is a lot less painful than using something with an alcohol base.

There are some links to full hour surgeries in the FAQ section. (The YouTube videos are shorter because of size limiations.) Here's the link to the page they are on: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f228/two-live-lap-band-surgery-videos-58171/ I have links to more at home if you are interested.

The Lapband AP system comes in two sizes, but the Realize only comes in one size (according to their web site). Could your PA have got confused between the two?

Mine doesn't. I specifically asked about it. If the surgery excluded, so is everything related to it including all pre- and post-op testing and services I get due to complications.

When I google magic hot tubs I get this: Magic Waters Hot Tubs Now I'm pining for a hot tub. oh and apparently there is a Hot Tub card in the Magic the Gathering card deck. Who knew? (Besides ds and his geeky friends, of course.)

That makes sense to me. I have similar symptoms sometimes and I'm not banded yet. So it's not the band. In my case, I had my gallbladder removed and if I eat too much fatty foods, I get craps and diarrhea. Btw, dumping syndrome is a very quick thing, from what I've read. You eat the food and as soon as it hits your intestines, it gets dump out and you might not even have time to get to the bathroom. Ugh! That sound horrible. I'm glad we don't get that from the band.

Long term studies show that band and bypass patients lose the same amount on average in the long run though bypass patients lose it faster at first. But keep in mind these are all averages. If the average loss is 50% that means some people lost nothing or even gained and some lost all their excess weight and maybe even a bit more with everything in between. Knowing the average is helpful, IMO, but it say nothing about how much weight any one individual is going to lose.

I thought your name was LilMissBand-Aid. :thumbup: I would kill for a hot tub ... it would have to be a magic one that needed no maintenace though.

This is why I have no problem with a site for BBW dating. If you are a BBW and you want to date people who think that's awesome, then BBW Romance is going to work for you. It's targeted towards people who want to date you vs. a generic dating site which isn't targeted to anyone and therefore 90% of the people on it aren't interested in 90% of other people on it.

That's the way I feel. If my insurance didn't cover it at all or they end up denying me, I'll self-pay but I want to work my insurance options first.

From what I can tell from reading here, if you lose weight, the surgeon just submits your pre-diet weight and you can get approved even if your weight after the diet is below insurance's minimum. OTOH, plenty of people haven't lost weight and still got approved. In fact, I've never seen anyone who had to do this requirement for insurance get denied because they lost weight or get denied because they didn't lose weight. Maybe they got denied for other reasons -- not having the right records, not otherwise meeting the requirements, but never for what happened to their weight during the 6 month diet (unless their surgeon's office submitted the weight after the diet and the BMI was now too low -- but most don't do that.) Now, some surgeons will not operate on you if you don't lose a certain amount of weight, but that's not an insurance requirement. That's their requirement. Insurance just seems to want you to do a 6 months medically supervised diet and they don't seem to care if you lose weight on it or not. This is why I can't figure out what the purpose of the 6 month diet is. The best explanation I've heard is that they are just trying to put an obstacle in your way so you don't even get to the point of asking for authorization. I hope that's not true though because that would be very

Sorry, I only have an iPhone. Before that I didn't see the use of a data phone. I had my PDA and a little cell phone and was happy. :smile2: Btw, I couldn't figure out how to sign on. All I could see on the home page was a place to register.

I think we are straying from the point... at least from my point. Lap band surgery is definitely a big step and it is surgery. But it can be done on an outpatient basis and has few life-threatening risks other than the normal risks of surgery, such as infection and blood clots. It is definitely safer than having your gallbladder out or gastric bypass. On top of that, the rewards are excellent. The majority of people who get it do lose at least 50% of their excess weight and keep it off. That's a big win and it makes the risks worth it to me. I don't think you can say the same about diet pills. First, it's not clear how safe they actually are. There was a time when doctors would tell you that phenfen is safe. Obviously, they were wrong. Will they be wrong about the new diet pills that are out today? Only time will tell, but Meridia was banned for a while in Italy due to some deaths it caused and the FDA is watching it closely because of deaths it caused in the US. It's definitely one of the riskier of the diet drugs IMO. When it comes to diet pills, I think the FDA is much too willing to approve things that aren't particularly safe. Their attitude seems to be that nothing is worse than being fat. I don't share that attitude. I don't think it's worth the risk of taking something that raises your blood pressure and increases your risk of heart attack when it only promises a small weight loss and that weight loss is temporary -- unless you want to continue taking diet pills for the rest of your life.

I prefer the despair.com version of BBK's sig saying: What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies right to our faces.

We have another thread on this topic. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f80/obese-blamed-worlds-ills-63644/ Maybe the mods can merge them?

This thread is from 2003. Does that help with your confusion?

The risk needs to be commensurate with the rewards, IMO. I don't think that something that helps you lose a few pounds is worth risking damaging my heart for. Lap band surgery isn't major surgery, btw. It's minor surgery and very few people have died from it.

That's what his patient coordinator told me. Now this was 2 months ago so maybe he's done a few more since then. If he does other kinds of surgeries, that would explain the low count. I had assumed he was new to it when I heard the 50 number. I was happy with my choice of Dr. Foster, but now with my insurance issues, I think I won't be able to use her. I've been trying to get through this month at work and then I'm going to start working the insurance again and then I'll know for sure. The program at Valley Care (my current second choice) looks good to me, but all their classes start in the afternoon. The latest is 5:00 pm and one is at 3:300pm! If I were working near them, that would be okay, but I work on the Peninsula so that means leaving work hours early. With 3 pre-op classes, the intro seminar and 2 post-op classes, that's 6 times I have to leave work early, not counting any pre-op testing or other post-op appointments. That's not practical. Then the monthly support group meets at 5:30pm so I'd probably never make that either. I'm really annoyed that my medical group only does RnY and that the hospital I live a mere 6 blocks from doesn't do WLS at all. Not just annoyed though. I worry about having a medical emergency and going to the ER and them not being able or willing to treat me.

If a magazine pays people for their stories, I don't see why WLS stories should be exempt from payment.

I'm not a big fan of diet pills either. Everything I've read about them says they don't work very well and they are dangerous. The average weight loss on Meridia, for example, is a mere 20 lb. OTOH, it can raise blood pressure. Given what phenfen did to people's hearts, that makes me nervous. I'm willing to risk my heart in order to lose a mere 20 lb. I can lose 20 lb. just by drinking more Water, eating more Protein and taking up an active hobby like ballroom dancing. It's 100 lb. that I can't lose without help. If Meridia was giving patients 50 lb. weight losses, I could see it, but not 20 lb.

Thanks! I had to email an attachment and I hate that... you lose the context of the discussion in PM.

I didn't know we had a mobile skin. I'm going to go try it out on my iPhone!

I'm curious. If Dr. Upadhyay started doing bands in 2004, why has he only done 50 of them by now. That's about 10-15 a year. Is the program very small or do they focus almost exclusively on RnY? ETA I forgot to say that I had heard that Dr. Wetter's bedside manner left a bit to be desired. Dr. Foster is supposed to be "no nonsense" which is fine by me but I've never heard that she jerked anyone around or was mean. I can take no nonsense but I can't take being a jerk.

Usually they charge your insurance more because they know that they won't get all the money they charge. However, if they have a contract with your insurance company, that means they have agreed to except what your insurance company says is a usual and customary charge. So they shouldn't charge more than that. If they try to get you to pay the difference, find some place else!