Bruce Peter

I finally got date today, after being approved by Aetna December 8. Now the clocks start ticking. Doctor said two - four days in the hospital and then home.
Any advice from you veterans?

I have hep c, so I can't take tylenol either. Motrin upsets my stomach, so I suspect they will give me oxycontin. I'm sure they will give you these meds

Hi Folks,
I have a long tale of woe to tell, but I'm a bit rattled and emotional right now. So if I'm not making sense, please forgive me
Went to the O-band center who shares an office in manhattan with new life, new look surgery. My first visit was in July, with 3 subsequent visits for diet, Seotemeber, October and November. In between I had blood tests, a psyche consult, endoscopy, and two sleep studies. The studies yielded me a cpap machine.. To make a long story short, I was approved for sleeve surgery on December 6. That's the good news. The bad news is that I was never told why I needed the above procedures, just "show up for a endo, now a sleep study, now another sleep study, etc". The communication was terrible and when I questioned them they were somewhat elusive about answering me. I understand now, that I needed these tests in order to get an approval. The process did discover sleep apnea, and diabetes. They knew what they were doing and they knew the set way to obtain an approval.Ok, fine.
I began to suspect the only reasons for most of these visits was to bilk my insurance company for as much as they could. That the surgery would be icing on the cake, but that they were going to get as much $ as they could in the process. Now let me preface this to say that I was assured on more than one occasion that they would accept insurance as full payment (which I "think" they have.) I'll clarify that later on.
So back to approval. Once I was approved they immediately tried to convince me to have the surgery done robotically. I was fine with that until they wanted to fly me to California. I live in NY. They were persistent saying they would fly myself and my wife, put me up in a hotel, then to ambulatory surgery, and finally back to hotel with a nurse to take care of me at no cost to me??. REALLY WTH is that? Anyway, I declined and insisted on having it done here in Brooklyn at the Verbukh medical center. That was a month ago and I haven't heard anything from them since. They will not return my calls. Further the receptionist is curt and difficult.
Fed up, I contacted a local surgeon and asked if they would take the case. They will and I'm signing a release for them so they can get the records from Verbukh; who btw, were not thrilled about giving them up. I foresee problems obtain them
Now, back to insurance payments I mentioned earlier. I decided to look at my insurance claims today and surprise surprise, Verbukh has billed Aetna over 40K!. Oh but that's not the best art. According to my Aetna, they have only paid about 25K leaving 15K owed ( my co-pay) Now, I have not gotten a bill from Verbukh and I may be wrong, they may simply have billed Aetna, and accepted that as full payment, but 40K?? For three visits, 2 sleep studies, a cpap mating and endo? Are they serious? On the other hand, I may be right and will eventually get a whopper bill.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
B

Would it be wrong of me to ask for before and after pictures and I'll be the judge?

After nearly 2 months of waiting I decided to call my insurance carrier, Aetna today. They have approved me, and there is a letter of approval in the mail. I sure hope this works for me. The band was a disaster and I'm out of options. I've had an eating disorder since I was a child.
I should get a call from my surgeon any day now to schedule a consult and surgery date. I'm excited and worried at the same time. I realize this is only a tool and the I have to establish a new, healthy relationship with food.< /p>
Wish me luck

Hi guys and gals,
Has anyone here had the surgery done robotically? I have been offered that option, but I would have to travel to either Florida or California.

After nearly 2 months of waiting I decided to call my insurance carrier, Aetna today. They have approved me, and there is a letter of approval in the mail. I sure hope this works for me. The band was a disaster and I'm out of options. I've had an eating disorder since I was a child.
I should get a call from my surgeon any day now to schedule a consult and surgery date. I'm excited and worried at the same time. I realize this is only a tool and the I have to establish a new, healthy relationship with food.< /p>
Wish me luck

After nearly 2 months of waiting I decided to call my insurance carrier, Aetna today. They have approved me, and there is a letter of approval in the mail. I sure hope this works for me. The band was a disaster and I'm out of options. I've had an eating disorder since I was a child.
I should get a call from my surgeon any day now to schedule a consult and surgery date. I'm excited and worried at the same time. I realize this is only a tool and the I have to establish a new, healthy relationship with food.< /p>
Wish me luck

After nearly 2 months of waiting I decided to call my insurance carrier, Aetna today. They have approved me, and there is a letter of approval in the mail. I sure hope this works for me. The band was a disaster and I'm out of options. I've had an eating disorder since I was a child.
I should get a call from my surgeon any day now to schedule a consult and surgery date. I'm excited and worried at the same time. I realize this is only a tool and the I have to establish a new, healthy relationship with food.< /p>
Wish me luck

sweet!

That's exactly what I plan to do, GreenEyes604

That's exactly what I plan to do, GreenEyes604

@@Bruce Peter I would just send them the data card and when they are done with it, they can send it back to you. That's some major BS that they want you to drive all that way for them to do something that will take them 5 minutes. I damn sure wouldn't do it.

That makes sense. I'm going to send the data in. I don't see a reason why I need to be present .
Thanks, guys and gals

@@Bruce Peter Good luck!

Hey @@Bruce Peter, good luck! Let us know how things are going for you. How has your cpap Machine been working out for you?

I have done all my diet appointments (4 months), gotten a sleep study and a cpcp machine, blood work which turned up diabetes and now I wait for insurance (Aetna) I think my chances are pretty good since I had the band and removed it. I also have two co-morbities with a BMI of ~ 36. It's been two weeks so far. Wish me luck

Any men on here. I'm considering surgery and would like hear from the men.

When I tried to quit smoking I gained 8lbs! I am down all 8 now and weigh in on Thursday, I "feel" I should be down another 3 by then.

I threw up a few times at around 3-5 months post op...Both times from eating too fast. Let's be honest I was emotionally eating and probably shoveling food. Sleeve does not like that. I luckily learned my lesson and it hasn't happened in ages. It was aversion therapy. The band I vomited ALOT but unfortunately I could never learn any lesson from it except to eat sliders...
This is why I get worried when I read of sleevers talking about "sliming" or whatever as though it's normal. It is not!!!! A healthy sleeve with normal eating behavior never leads to vomiting in my opinion. I spend alot of time chatting with successful veterans and non of us vomit. I eat petite (i like to think of them as skinny chick sized) portions of all types of food even though I do eat low carb. Love my sleeve! !!

I am 11 weeks post-op. I remember that stuck feeling with the band. It made me stop eating immediately and after suffering for a bit I would usually go throw up and meal time would be over. I also remember how good it felt if the stuck food actually passed through. It was like total relief. All of that is gone. It does not happen anymore. I also don't feel the port anymore in my abdomen. I had the band for 10 years so I was used to all of those feelings that come with the band. It is really nice having it out of me. I hated that lump in my stomach and explaining it to doctors that were examining me for something unrelated to it. I also want to say that it worked for me for 8 years perfectly. I lost 100 lbs with it in a years time and maintained that for 7 years. I didn't have the problems that lots of other banders have had. I started gaining weight about 2 years ago and I noticed that I could eat alot more. I developed problems that I have talked about in my profile section under my story if you care to read it there. So, I had the sleeve revision in March. It was painful for me. I was hurting bad for about a week. Now that the incisions have healed and my stomach is far along with the healing process, I have become very satisfied with it. It was about 4 weeks post-op and I was into the solid foods portion of the plan that I noticed "restriction" for the first time. It was painful to me. This is not the stuck feeling of restriction from the band, it is a painful feeling from your stomach saying "No More Room". I stopped eating right then and after about 30 minutes it passed. My stomach was still healing and I pushed it too far with food. I then became more diligent with my Portion Control. I am now 11 weeks post-op and I do not feel any pain at all. I feel full. It is a full feeling that I used to get way before all of this. The problem is that in my head I can see that I have not eaten very much and I think that I should eat more, but my stomach won't let me. When my band failed I was able to eat much more, and I did, and I regained the weight. Now I have to retrain my head again to think that I have eaten enough. I eat less than my 3 year old foster daughter. She thinks it's funny because we eat from the same kind of plate. One of those little plastic child plates that are sectioned off into small portions like a tv dinner tray. She gets a kick out of watching daddy eat using her pink kids plate. The only difference is that she gets dessert after dinner and I don't because I am full and can't eat anymore. Good luck to you.

Hi folks,
I had lap band surgery several years ago and finally had to have it removed. I couldn't tolerate and restriction whatsoever, even liquids would come back up. Well as the story goes, I've gained weight again and I'm considering the sleeve.
With the band, I was constantly throwing up. I had a four cc band and couldn't get more that 1cc of fill before I was completely blocked up. Even liquids would get stuck and it was very painful. I had some heartburn too, but that was tolerable.
Are the complications with the sleeve similar?
For those of you through the stages, eating solid foods, what happens if you eat too much? To you hurl? Is it painful? How much can you eat? what foods can you tolerate? I know with the band, beef was impossible to eat. Are there any foods that you can't eat? Any regrets?
Thanks in advance for any help
Bruce