QueenOfTheTamazons

Write up a letter describing your attempts at weight loss, how the weight effects you physically and emotionally, family history of co-morbidities etc. It helped me get my approval pushed through... it cant hurt.

We are 3 hours from the hospital. I told him to "bring every fluffy pillow in the house and the pink blanket". Not fluffy = dense memory foam Pink blanket = beige fuzzy blanket, def not pink. But he thinks the sage blanket is grey. Men. My dogs get super neurotic and clingy after we return, so i would rather he stay with them. I cant handle recovery and 250lbs of crazy dog.

Complex is obstructive sleep apnea and central (brain forgets to tell body to breathe).

50 grams was just Breakfast and lunch. I was planning on at least 20 grams more for dinner and snack. I will try to keep some deli meat or similar for this type of thing.

I did the same thing. Pre-op requirements with the surgeon in Chico, CA and switched to surgeon in San Jose, CA for the procedure. The Chico dr had a $2500 "lifestyle management fee". My new dr only charges $300, half of which pays for the food for the two liquid diet. I woukd get copies of your medical records for "personal use" before you switch. It took 7 requests and over 2 months to get my old dr to release my records, even though i had signed the release in person.

Shakes, jello, broth, liquified and/or strained broth or creamy Soups without rice or Pasta, gatorade, juice, etc. They sent me diet food packs (similar to medifast or WonderSlim, dont remember the name) that has oatmeal, but only during the first week. I can also have cream of wheat during the first week. The oatmeal is nasty paste. I always used to turn it into bread on medifast and i hate cream of wheat.

Do any of the post op sleevers have complex sleep apnea? How did/does your weight loss affect your treatment? Have you had your machine adjusted? Has anyone had a follow up sleep study? My Dr said losing weight might resolve the obstructive part of my sleep apnea but the central part might never resolve. I am interested to hear if anyone else had weightloss resolve both parts of their complex sleep apnea.

I had lox and bagels for dinner. I know, shame on me. I needed something solid in my stomach and thats what i had left in my fridge. I was feeling very out of sorts. Bad heartburn, nausea, light headed with diarhea all day. I was walking around walmart in a fog and had to pull over on the way home because of dizziness. I was doing ok Protein wise (~50g) and had drank 40 of my 64oz of Water. I dont remember feeling this bad the last time. Has anyone else had this nasty combo before and how did you deal? I did 10 days of liquid diet in July and never had so many issues at once.

My insurance required 25 out of 30 days of compliance in order for them to cover the cost. I started out just turning in the memory cards but around the 1 year mark, when the insurance would essentially give me my machine (i own it now), it started not recording the data. So i was given a wireless accessory that reoorted my sleep each night. I am use a pilaro q mask for 18 months now. It covers just my nose. I am a side sleeper and a bit on an aligator roller. The 6ft hose generally gives enough flexiblity that i dont pull the machine off the side table. For side sleepers, i recomend a fluffy pillow so that uuu and a firm one for support.

I am going to bring my phone and tablet (for books), my sadly ugly but most comfortable night gown, my bipap, pillow, wallet with cc and ID. I need to bring everything because i am driving 200 miles in a rental car the day before surgery, dropping the car off the morning of and taking an uber to the hospital. My husband ill drive down Friday to pick me up. He can only get so much time off and i wanted him to be with me during the first few days home rather than stare at me sleep.

Agree. My doctor said that weight loss might correct the obstructive part of my sleep apnea but the central part will likely stick around forever.

Sounds like me. My O2 levels were getting down to 68% and i was averaging 53 apneas an hour. I was diagnosed as having complex sleep apnea and given a bipap and am O2 concentrator.

I am getting my sleeve on 10/5 and my husband a month or so later.

My pre-op diet was 9 days of full liquids and then 1 day of Clear Liquids. Sucked so much. I was never full and always hungry. Sent from my Nexus 5X using the BariatricPal App Oh my goodness! Poor you. I have to do clear liquids the day before, then of course nothing to eat or drink after midnight. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App Mine is two weeks of full liquids and one day of clear. Today is Day 1. I did it for 10 days the last time in anticipation of ins approval that didnt come. At least this time i gor sure am getting sleeved.

Where can you find that? Walmart doesn't carry it. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using the BariatricPal App In my area, Winco carries unflavored whey protein by the pound. I also found it at Sams club.

My insurance required the 6 months as well, but my doctor was 1.5 hours away. I would pretty much have to take a day off work to go see him, so I arranged to do the monthly appointments with my PCP. Fast forward 8 months and the insurance company is denying me because they say I didnt do my 6 months correctly. That there wasnt a record that we discussed diet and exercise. I ended up spending weeks fighting with them and having to get my PCP to write a letter and submitting one myself. Moral of my story... if you have access to a dietician and its not going to break the bank, use that instead of a PCP. It might save you some hassle and tears down the line.

It took me 18 months from first meeting to surgery date.

My surgery was scheduled for 3 weeks after I got my insurance approval. I start the liquid diet tomorrow. So for the past week we have been having a food funeral as well. All my favorite foods from different restaurants all over the city. I expect to ignore most of these foods for at least a year and a half or more, so it was kind of like a last-ditch taste everything you can week. I figure it's better to get it done now then after the surgery when I could really hurt myself or delay my weight loss. Plus , I'm going to have to be a model citizen so that my husband doesn't back out. He is a soda and burger junky so I need to make it look easy.

I didnt use the liquid diet stuff my dr sent. Most of it was nasty and i had a large supply of WonderSlim product that tasted a bit better. I mostly used the premade shakes that matched my surgeons diet models. I needed it to be easy, grab and go stuff since my husband was eating real food. If i had to take the time to doctor it, there was a higher chance that i would be tempted by his food.

You're lucky you're able to call the insurance yourself. With Anthem Blue Cross the insured can't talk to the authorization Department directly. You have to go through your doctor. I kept getting denied and the doctor wasn't told anything other than not medically necessary (bull poop) and then did not meet the requirements. They said I did not do the 6 months of medically supervised diet. I knew I had met the goals but had no way to talk to them directly and find out why I was being denied. Eventually I forced my way through by crying and demanding to talk to a supervisor and not willing to get off the phone until I spoke to a supervisor. In the end I had to get a letter from my primary care who I had done all of my medically supervised diet visits with and I wrote a 3 page letter detailing everything that was wrong with me, my family history of obesity-related diseases and a breakdown of my attempts at dieting over the last 15 years. I think the process would have been smoother and quicker if there wasn't this barrier between the insurance company and the insured.

If the surgeon can do the referral then go for it. I started the sleep apnea process before the weight loss surgery process so my primary care referred me. If you have sleep apnea the machine will make you feel so much better. I don't wake with headaches anymore , or fall asleep the minute the lights turn off while watching TV. I don't snore at all anymore but the machine does have white noise. Most importantly I'm not tired during the day and I don't wake up gasping like somebody punched me in the chest.

Has anyone ever considered adding unflavored protein powder to protein drinks, soups etc? During my first attempt at the preop liquid diet I had a hard time getting in enough protein because of liquid volume. I was thinking about doubling up so i could get more protein per cup of liquid.

You could always call another doctor and get a second opinion on how the process works. You could call another doctor and say something along the lines of I have BCBS Michigan and I'm considering gastric sleeve surgery, do you know what is required for insurance approval? My first doctor was bending over backwards to help me when they thought I was going to be paying $2,500 on top of their surgical fees. But once they found out I was going somewhere else all help stopped. It took months just to get my medical records. It could be that the doctor doesn't believe in surgery or that they're worried about losing the money for treating The Chronic illnesses that being fat tends to produce.

You usually have to be referred to the sleep doctor by your primary. The dr will meet with you to go over your symptoms. If you present with enough they will do the sleep study. During a sleep study you're covered in all kinds of wires and sensors. They rack your movements, your breathing, how many times you stop breathing your oxygen levels etc. When I had my sleep study I was stopping breathing 53x an hour. My O2 levels got down to 67%. Once they have all of your information they will decide whether or not you classify as having sleep apnea and whether you have obstructive sleep apnea, Central sleep apnea or complex sleep apnea which is a combination of obstructive and Central. Then they will bring you back for a second sleep study that will measure you again this time on a CPAP machine or a BiPAP machine. You repeat the second step until they find a machine and settings that greatly reduce your sleep apnea. For me that equals a BiPAP machine and an oxygen concentrator.

Right?! Especially considering they took medical patients. If we had $2500 (in reality $5000 for both my husband and myself) to throw around we woukdnt have medical. I would think that they woukd have a sliding scale for medical patients. Plus, most of the "benefits" of their lifestyle management program wouldnt be available to us because we live 1.5 hours away.