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Hi there RUlookn...Welcome to the lapbandtalk! There is a ton of information to be read on here. I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya! Good luck!

Hey bimbabe...I don't have an answer to your question...I just wanted to welcome you aboard! Hopefully somebody else can answer yer insurance stuff. Good Luck!

Great to have you on board, Mary. You're totally correct....it takes most people a little while to get good restriction (but a lucky few have some restriction from day 1. Until you do get good restriction, keep doing what you're doing: Eat healthy foods, watch your portions, and get some exercise. Eventually the band will help you out a lot more. Some people call the phase you're in right now "bandster hell". Don't worry, it will get better. Sounds like you are on the road to success!!

Been my (admittedly limited) experience that docs aren't usually specifically informed of who they're seeing at what time. Generally speaking, they rely on surgical staff to page them to whatever room they're needed in (not to excuse the docs at all......). Back in the old old days when I did my OR stint, Docs that finished surgery were too distracted talking to their offices, getting reports on recovering pts, or getting luch to know that pt X has been waiting for hours. Uh, I'm far from a doc apologist, BTW. Re-reading this post, it certainly sounds like it, though! So screw that doc too! There's plenty of blame to go around!!

This kind of competition is WAY more manly than a dance off! No hitting below the belt, fellas! Now go to your corners and let's have a clean fight, eh?

geriatric psych is big business today, because the insurances usually pay very well. There will always be unethical buttholes willing to screw people over for the sake of money. Sorry for ya, Glouc.

Here's my random rant, and I may catch a lot of flak for this, but here goes...First of all, let me state for the record that I myself am fat, and that I believe that fat doesn't always equal unhealthy. Disclaimer over. I had a pt recently in the sleep lab that was just starting her Quest for a medicare-approved lapband (she's young, on disability). Her stated weight is 442 lbs. She could not walk farther that 30 yards without becoming very short-of-breath. She has chronic non-healing wounds (bad enough to warrent debridment in the OR, and regular visits to a wound care specialist) on her legs. She told me that she has not slept in a bed for 3 years (she sleeps in a recliner). The rant part of all this is that when I was discussing possible co-morbidities that might help qualify her, she told me that she had none. Then she proceeded to tell me that, except for her leg wounds, she was the picture of health. Then she started griping about how unfair it was that medicare should punish the "healthy people" by not approving them for the band. My rant is this: Does she really think that she's perfectly healthy? I can't see her trying to embellish her medical history due to embarrassment (because remember, I'm fat too. It's not like she's talking WLS with a stickman) . It made me a little sad to think that she's deluding herself about her health. Then that started me thinking what if I'm a train wreck as well, under the delusion that I'm fairly healthy? Ah well......rant over.

Sorry SNT. There will always be some butthole trying to drag you down...(or maybe I'm the only one that has that particular Freudian nightmare?)

Hey LShelley, how much does your mastiff weigh? I have a Newf that weighs in @ 190 lbs (and he's not fat at all). I'm pretty sure mastiffs are even larger dogs than Newfoundlands, correct?

Yeah man, I think you're getting to the real heart of the matter. Strength does not always equal good-looking muscle. It may be rewarding to be stronger than the glory boys at the gym, but it's all about the slow-twitch muscle fibers if you're concerned about raising metabolism. I know this is an over-simplefication, but think about Olympic weightlifters vs. Olympic Swimmers. I had my dalliance with strenght training in my younger days. Now, I stick to bodyweight resistance exercises (pushups, pullups, squats and dips). If you think bodyweight exercises are too easy, try to bust off 150 bodyweight squats real quick and see if that doesn't burn the ol' quads. Like Jac said, in the end, it's all about personal preference....I have nothing for respect for powerlifters, but it's a younger man's game. I prefer to try and pack on lean muscle mass.

Haha, you wimp.....just kidding. I remember your hellish first experience. Hopefully this will be better. As for the sweet spot, sometimes a very small amount makes all the difference (don't get stuck into rounding up or down .5 cc's......sometimes .2 cc's can do the trick). Also, I understand that as you lose weight and your belly shrinks a bit, you may need to re-assess your fill needs (I guess I'm trying to say that the sweet spot is not always a fixed position).

Boo, I know you're mad at the doc, but this is a hospital goof pure and simple. I'd call the risk management people at that hospital and ask if it is a common practice to have patients given an IV, potentially exposing them to infection, for absolutely no reason at all. Then explain how much money you're out (between taking time off from work and gas money for the drive). Then ask if they can explain how the surgical department could make such an error. You just have to know what buttons to push.

I'd be more concerned if MSNBC had more than 20 or so viewers @ any given time, heehee.

So some guy screens his potential dates by asking if they read Cosmo, eh? People are weird.

Yeah, I feel gyped that I didn't get to catch all the drama.

No man....You're just one of the Enlightened ones. Some people just don't get it

There, they're, and their...

A Girl?!? But....but....I practically ooze testosterone (an unfortunate medical condition requiring the use of an adult diaper). I'm going to have to go full monty. A word of warning......when I'm nude I resemble Peter from Family Guy nude....so technically I can go naked and still not be nude.

Hey Jac, there was quite a fad of practical jokes going on at my hospital a few years back. One of the best (they still tell the story to this very day in certain departments) went a little something like this: Our hospital uses direct deposit, but on payday everybody gets a kind of receipt with various info on it. Thing is, it's delivered in one of those window envelopes. Below the name of the employee (which shows through the window) is the home address of the employee. If one were to manipulate the envelope in a certain way, the home address of any given employee could be accessed. Let's suppose an employee of the hospital also had a friend that worked in a convinience store. Every month this friend took delivery of the magazine order (which included many laughable low-rent men's magazines.......titles such as Gallery, Big Jugs, Wet Honeys, etc. ). The thing is, every time the magazine guy delivered the new batch, there were also a TON of loose trial subscription cards that would inevitably fall out of the magazines. If the hospital employee got a bunch of trial magazine subscriptions from his friend (say, from 7 or 8 weird, disgusting magazines) then he could use the home addresses from work to get a LOT of porno mags delivered to some poor bastard that was the butt of the joke. Weirdly enough, this actually happened. Not once, but several times! The identity of the practical joker was never revealed (although some names were bantered around as suspects). To this day, that practical joke hasn't been topped at my hospital.

Marie, I'm sure everything will go great.

I think I read a study a little while back that theorized that not all ladies have a "g spot". The hypothesis was that ladies that have a g spot were the ones more likely to orgasm through intercourse alone. Does this sound familiar to anybody?

What a money grab! Why not make the final movie a trilogy? Or an octet? I liked all the previous movie adaptations...I think they should be able to finish it in one movie.

Yup. I'm so deep backwoods I......can't come up with a witty metaphor. So yeah, I'm in the middle of nowhere.

I'm kind of afraid that if I had TiVo, I might never leave the front of my TV.

What station / time is it on? It sounds interesting, but I haven't yet caught an episode.