MacMadame

330 lb. ---------------------

You need to go by how you feel. Cardio is generally okay but here are restrictions on lifting weights. If an exercise does something similar to lifting weights -- say it works on your core -- then you have to use good judgement. I tried a Jazzercise class at one month out and it HURT. So I stopped. But I never had any trouble the treadmill or stationary bike. I felt okay to do Pilates at about 2 months, but everyone is different.

I'm going to move this to the Plastic Surgery section. There are lots of discussions about Smart Lipo there and lots of people who will have opinions for you.

Maybe you could show him some pictures, but my understanding is that scars get pretty faint fairly quickly. I'm more worried about how dh will feel if I get that breast reduction I'm thinking about. He really is attached to my breasts!

I'm going to move this to the Insurance section as I think you'll get more answers there.

Sounds like something you need to talk to your surgeon about. Some people get heartburn after WLS but burning can be caused by other things too.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! I a Best Coaster too, but in CA. I started out wanting to lose 75 lb. am now aiming for a little over 90 and my surgeon thinks I can lose more. So we sound like we're in a similar range.

That we were very lucky to have the option of a c-section and so shouldn't feel sad about it? :thumbup:

Today is my official rest day. So I rested. :thumbup:

I hated my epidural too. I got pins & needles all long my legs. Yuck. Both my kids were c-sections and both were induced. I'm starting to understand the school of thought that says that inductions lead to c-sections. OTOH, LJM, I suspect both of us are people who would have died in childbirth in another era. So, compared to that, c-sections are nothing, right?

That's pretty unusual. Plastic surgeons do breast reductions after WLS all the time. I'm planning to do it and the PS I had my consult with didn't see any problems with it.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! You've come to the right place. We have an recipe section and there are lots of support forums. I learned a lot here when I was researching the band before my surgery.

Welcome to LapBandTalk!

When I still thought Aetna was going to pay for my surgery, I wanted to do the 3 month version for exactly this reason. I figured I'd be learning about life after WLS and it would help. The 6 month diet, OTOH, is not only 3 months longer, but didn't have that "multi-disciplinary" aspect that would make it valuable. In the end, I self-payed and didn't do either. But that's another story for another time.

Oh, there are a bunch in the Houston area. Dr. Ferreri, Dr. Alansis and Dr. Spivak, I'm told all do the VSG. Possibly Dr. Wilson and a Dr. Thomas though I'm less sure about those.

Congrats to LJM and the rest of the LJM gang!

I'm 4 months out. At 7 weeks out, I started regular food and went to Vegas the next day. Um, the food part was frustrating. Still frustrating about 2 weeks later at Thanksgiving. But by Christmas, it was all good. I think it was at about 12 weeks where I was okay with the amounts I could eat and didn't feel frustrated. Before that I could eat so little.

Except you post misleading stats and things that aren't true so instead of helping people make an informed choice, you are just muddying the waters. And doing it in a way that makes it difficult for people who are already banded to get support. Btw, I haven't got a band at all -- the EWL for either band are too low for me -- so I'm not taking any of this personally as an affront to my own choice. In fact, when you tout a carefully selected study designed to "prove" that Lap-band is so much better than Realize band, it just make me :thumbup: because neither is showing very good EWL compared to bypass, sleeve or DS. You are arguing over inches when the difference between lap-band (either one) and another WLS is miles. Then again, do you see me jumping into every thread about which band to get saying "don't get either! they suck! get a sleeve instead! it's the best!". No, you don't. First, that isn't helpful to someone who has done their research and decided the band is the right WLS for them. Second, just because the sleeve is right for me, doesn't mean it's right for everyone. I'm not so arrogant that I think whatever I've decided for myself is right for the rest of the world. That's exactly why I respond to your posts. I don't want you misleading some unsure pre-op because you've got some sort of hate-on for a band you have no personal experience with. So be supportive. Go to another forum and ask a question about something you are going through. Offer advice to someone having trouble with something you've mastered.

You might want to ask in the Doctors & Hospitals section too.

I'm doing a 5k in March, my first tri in April, another in June and another in Aug.

Treadmill, 47 mi. 3.36 mi.

Ah, but don't forget I don't have a band. Because I'm losing at a faster rate, more like a bypasser, I need to worry more about lean muscle loss. You should see some of those bypassers who don't, btw. They look kind of like walking skeletons. That's not what I want for myself.

I think everyone should have labs. How do you know if you are trending down in something, if you have no baselines? You don't want to wait until you are out of range to address problems. It's easier to come back if you haven't totally tanked. Because of my pre-op labs, I started supplementing with Vitamin D, for example.

There is no evidence that it takes longer. It completely depends on how aggressive your surgeon is, how many ccs it will take you to get restriction and a host of other issues. Many Realize band patients get restriction almost immediately (combo of not needing a lot of ccs and their surgeon being aggressive with fills) while many lap-band patients have wussy doctors who give them .5 or 1 ccs at a time and only will do fills every 6 weeks to 2 month, while they need 7 or more ccs and so it takes them forever. Of course, this happens with Realize too. I really feel sorry for the bandsters who can't get restriction for 6 months because their surgeons won't fill them enough. Btw, the FDA doesn't set the limits on the fills for bands. That's not their job. They approve or disapprove medical devices based on the info provided by the manufacturer. (They also make manufacturer proof their claims or stop making them so if Allergen was saying the Band improves your marriage or J&J was saying that their band will make your hair thicker they'd ask for clinical data to back those claims up.) The manufacturer set those limits and they are the ones who know if they are absolute limits or just guidelines. My understanding is that they are guidelines since every surgeon I've ever talked to has said that.

That's too bad. I love my support group meetings. For one thing, my surgeon runs them so I get more interaction with him. That always gives me confidence to follow the program since he so clearly knows what he's doing. They aren't like an AA meeting either. We have topics and speakers as well as the post-ops getting to ask questions and talk about what is bugging them. I love online too (obviously, since I'm always here), but in person serves a different function for me.