MacMadame

Here's some info on the history of the character, including the WLS line, and a picture of the actress: Ashlee Wolfe Played by Caitlin Van Zandt on Guiding Light - Soaps.com and here's a bit more about the actress: Caitlin Van Zandt - Ashlee - GUIDING LIGHT - GL - Bio

I'm not afraid of what other people will think. But I want to avoid making my losing weight into a public event with people asking me how much I've lost and questioning everything I put into my mouth -- even if it's because they care and not because they want to be mean. I agree that most people don't notice what others eat and most of the rest are too polite to say anything. The people who are going to comment are the ones who are a) relative strangers, but rude, or :biggrin: close to you and so feel comfortable being that personal. You can't do much about the rude strangers, but for the people close to me, I think I will tell them eventually. But in my own time and as it comes up. Most of the people close to me aren't going to be too awful about it. I've ditched all the toxic people long ago...

It's true that every doctor seem to do things a bit differently, but I don't think that means that it's all okay. Some docs have better erosion and slip stats than others and I'm sure that their recommendations for post-op care feed into that. Also, chewing your food to mush and having it be mush when it enters your mouth are not the same thing. The act of chewing your food generates saliva and that activates various parts of your digestive system. If you are "eating" mushies, that doesn't happen. The whole purpose of being on the liquids and then the mushies is to keep your stomach quiet during the healing process. If it moves around digesting things, you increase your chance of the band not anchoring properly, which in turn can lead to slippage. Now, it's true that the experts don't know 100% why slippage occurs and right now the advice not to eat solid food any sooner than 4-6 weeks out is based on theories. Maybe in 5-10 years, the advice will be different. But in the meantime, knowing what we know now, I would be very leery of advice to eat solid food any sooner than 4-6 weeks out and I'd be a bit skeptical of advice to wait any longer than that. We do know about how long it takes for our insides to heal and for most people that's 4-6 weeks, not 2 weeks and not 2 months.

I'm having insurance issues and it looks like I'm going to have to switch my surgeon. Dr. Estakhri at ValleyCare Medical Center takes both my old insurance and the one I'll switch to at open at enrollment and I like the look of the program from the hospital's web site. Dr. Estakhri doesn't have a web site though or much info about her on the web. I did find an article about her from 2004 so she's been doing these surgeries for a while and she has good patient testimonials on ObesityHelp.com. I'd like to hear from someone who has used her and/or been through the WLS program at ValleyCare though. Anyone?

I have an idea where people's pictures morph from their highest weight until their lowest. I think that would be inspirational.

Sigh. My doctor says my shoulder will never get better if I keep going online all the time. But how can I post that I hate people who post just to post if I can't post?!

Everyone is different. Which surgeon do you think would be more motivating to you? Personally, doc #1 sounds like my idea of the PERFECT surgeon -- fun and easygoing about the stuff that doesn't matter but strict about the stuff that does -- like the pre- and post-op diet, plus very experienced. But that's me. Other people might be driven crazy by him. Which one did you like better? Which one are you more confident will do a good job? Those aren't questions the rest of us can answer.

I don't buy this. How many people post in the "why are you fat?" thread about their parents getting on them about their weight as youngsters and how that actually made it worse? Plenty! I started getting nagged about my weight at about 8 or 9. At that point, I wasn't even technically overweight, but had gotten pudgy as part of the start of puberty. My family nagged and nagged and made me feel so bad that that I went on a diet at 13 starting me on a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. According to you, my mom was caring and doing the right thing, but I found being picked on about every morsel I put into my mouth and being denied food when I was in pain from hunger to be pretty abusive. Diet's *don't* work. We don't really understand what causes obesity. We don't really understand what turns it around. Until we do, we can't say that these kids wouldn't be fat no matter what the mom did. When my dd eats, it doesn't matter how much I put on her plate -- when she's done, she's done and that's it. I could serve her 4 eggs for breakfast but I'd be lucky if she ate one of them. Plenty of parents when faced with overweight kids have cut back on their food and only served healthy food only to have their kids sneak junk food and extra servings at every opportunity. The government needs to worry about kids who are being beaten and sexual abused and starved and stop trying to get every family to conform to their own narrow ideas of how families should be.

Is it time yet? :thumbup:

The way I look at it is: if the world-wide rate for a complication is something like 2% and a surgeon has 2, 3 even 5x the normal rate, that's still 90% of his patients that don't experience that complication. Therefore, the fact that a doctor has patients who haven't had complications, doesn't mean he's a good doctor. Yes, all doctors have patients who get complications and all doctors have patients who don't get complications. But wouldn't you rather go to a doctor with a 2% complication rate over one with a 10% complication rate? I know I would.

Heck, I know so much about good nutrition, I could GIVE the nutritional consult. Which is why when my dh asked why not go see a nutritionist instead of getting a band, I seriously had to decide if I was going to let him live. :ohmy:

My surgeon recommends coming in once a year for a check-up after the 2 year mark. Before that, you are coming in more often. I've never heard of a bypass being reversable. The stomach is stapled into two pouches and pieces of the intestine are cut off and placed somewhere else. There are plenty of bypass patients would love to have their bypass reversed due to complications, but that doesn't happen. You can always take the band out if your complications require it.

Until we have a better idea of both the causes of obseity and how to cure it, I don't want the government coming in and telling some family that all they have to do is sign their kids up for some sports and their weight will come off and they won't do that, they'll lose their kids. How many of us were told "just start going to gym and your weight will come off"? I bet most of us. And how well did that work? I'm guessing not too well or we wouldn't be getting banded. Obesity is a complex issue and some social worker with no expertise in the matter is going to break up a family unit over her (or his) own preconceived notions about how to deal with weight. Frankly, I'm horrified.

lapbandjourney.com is an alternate link to the lapband.com website run by Allergan, btw.

No, you shouldn't get the band removed at goal weight. It's meant to be permanent. You would only take it for medical reasons (i.e., some sort of medical emergency). The band works by controlling hunger and portion size. If you take it out when you reach goal weight, you'll go back to be hungry all the time, start overeating, and gain all your weight back like you have with previous diets. (You being "anyone who gets a band".)

How can that happen? The band is on the outside. :biggrin:

Except the mortality rate for bypass is a lot higher than from lap band surgery. That's a big one for me.

That's the one I'm talking about. :crying: I've shot for 16 hours with only 20 min. breaks with that thing. Standing on concrete the entire time. Towards the end of the event, I'm kind of leaning up against the hockey box, hopping a strong wind doesn't blow through the rink. :wub: I'm assuming weddings are a bit easier on the body. I know they pay better. :thumbup:

My experience with shooting like that is that it's more stressful on your body than a non-photographer might realize. Definitely take it easy and let someone else carry everything. How heavy is your camera? My 1D is about 5-6 lb and my biggest lens is another 5-6 lb. That's 10-12 lb. without the tripod and my shooting events usually last 12-16 hours. I assume the wedding will be shorter. :crying: OTOH, I'm just using a monopod so I'm still hefting a lot of weight. Maybe a tripod will be easier. I'd still take it easy and let the second shooter do most of the work.

What I don't understand is why someone would think that hearing some story (probably 2nd or 3rd hand) about someone having a bad experience would suddenly completely change whether or not getting banded was a good idea. Am I missing something? Something can go wrong with every medical procedure, whether elective or otherwise. It's not like the idea that something can go wrong is a totally new one you haven't considered at all prior to now, right? I think it's kind of cool you told her you weren't interested. I probably would have listened just to be polite and then been seething all day about it.

I wouldn't worry about it until you are at goal. The weight comes off different parts of our body at different rates. Right now I'm thinking it's coming off your bottom faster than your top. Eventually, you'll run out of bottom, though, and more will come off the waist and the top. However, even thin people don't always have perfect figures so you may have certain styles that will never really work for you. At least now that you are mostly in the regular sizes, you have more choices. :crying: You may have to get your tops in one kind of store and your bottoms in another. But right now I have only two stores in my town whose clothes fit me at all so I'm looking forward to having more choices even though I know my proportions are always going to be an issue for things like dresses even when I'm at goal.

I tried a Capri Sun to do thingie today and no heartburn. Then I did a Fruit Punch Crystal Light To Do and I'm getting heartburn. It's just so weird. I'm going to try using hot Water and see if that makes the difference.

I prefer the Daily Plate too.

Something I learned a long time ago was to only keep clothes around in the size that I am. I spent so much time hating my body and not being happy with it when it was actually a pretty decent body and I don't want to be like that any more. Accepting the size I am and buying close that fit the me that I am is part of htat. Congrats to all the non-plus sized people. I hope to join you some day! :crying:

Saying you are a better candidate for bypass isn't the same thing as saying you need bypass, though. Surgeons have their own ways of evaluating the risk and benefits of different WLS. Their values and beliefs about how to weigh the risks and benefits aren't yours. So you need to find out *why* they recommend one procedure over the other and then decide if that is a compelling argument to *you*. In my case, there is no compelling argument that will convince me to have any WLS that involves cutting up my internal organs in a permanent way and especially not anything that involves malabsorption. So my choices at this time are between Lap band and not getting surgery at all. If you feel the same, you need to say so to the doctor during your first consultation. If he continues to push bypass, then you need to find a different surgeon. But most likely, if you explain yourself well and show that you understand the issues, he will say "okay" and happily do the lap band.