flowers

I think it boils down to age and genes. I know I will have loose skin. I lost over 80 lbs on nutrisystem. Once you are past menopause, the skin just isnt as elastic and the more past it you are the worst in the majority of cases, there are always exceptions. I went thru menopause about age 40 and Im turning 58 next month and I know I would have to have complete body surgery to feel good about how I look. My stomach sagged, my under arms sagged and the skin near my neck got wrinkly when I lost, so I look ridiculous in a sleeveless dress or tee shirt. The skin on my upper legs also showed the cellulite and hung loose. Pretty awful. And I only lost a little over 80 lbs and then I gained it all back, so I know it wouldnt be better since I stretched out my skin again. Age is a big determining factor, lets be honest. If you are 20 or 30 you probably woudlnt have saggy skin, odds are.

The only doctor I know of that makes you wait 3 months is a doctor who started that policy now for those banded in Mexico. I think he has too many patients now and this way he is avoiding any complications from other doctors. My fill doctor I picked has a 5 week minimum wait.

Im having my first fill this Sat, and waiting to see what the fill doctor says I can have afterwards, as far as mushys or liquids or what. Iv been pretty good, but you are down more than I am. Looks like we started about the same BMI too. Im anxious for my first fill, it feels like my port moved, so Im worrying, cant wait for Sat to get here and hoping the port just move up and not flipped.

I am insulin resistant, and wouldnt be surprised if I had PCOS when I was younger. I really watch my carbs. If I eat hardly any fruit or carbs I dont lose. Im really pushing the fish. I try to eat very few carbs, because they cause your insulin to spike and you can gain weight just from the excess insulin in your body. Im walking twice a day now and watching it and only losing about 1 lb a week as hard as Im trying. I have a fill this Sat.

I have read on another message board that you can be filled more than 4 CC with that band. That the tubing holds extra, so that they can actually fill you past the 4 cc mark. (someone else had no restriction at 4 CC). It seems to be a misconception that you can only put in 4CC.

I did reply to your question. I said I can eat anything. There is nothing I can eat. Iv even had subs from subway at this point, well we split a footlong 4 ways, but I can eat bread or any food Iv tried. I asked you if you have a list of what your doctor considers soft chewable and if bread was on that list, still dont know, or if you just decided it fit the criteria. Im confused and give up. Good luck to you. I wish you luck and wasnt trying to be argumentative, just to clear up my own confusion about what you mean when you say its ok with your doctor. He said bread specifically is a soft chewable food or not? Beats me. Unless you are one who had a prefill or you had a lot of swelling from the surgery, you should have no trouble eating any food at this time.

I have no restriction, my first fill is next saturday. As the poster above explained, its not that you are unable to eat things now, its that they could cause slippage of your band, thats why its not allowed. There were no foods I was unable to eat from the time I got my surgery. I went thru a airport the day after surgery and not having that Mexican meal because I wasnt allowed, about killed me, but you can bet I could have easily eaten it. I just dont want slippage. Im already concerned, my port moved last Friday. My surgeon says impossible and I called the fill doctor and she said as long as its only 90 degrees, she can get to the port, and Iv been following orders. You asked us if we thought that was ok to eat, but you have obviously made up your mind if you can eat it, then it doesnt matter if its not allowed. Im worried about slippage and have read you need to take care of your band after surgery, so later down the line you dont have trouble with it. I did have a taco, a week or so more down the line from where you are. I was still supposed to be on mushys for 4 weeks. Like you I could eat anything, but that wasnt my doctor's orders.

Its unusual to be allowed bread 2 weeks past surgery. The fact that its soft bread, its still bread. If your surgeon has bread on the list, then not sure why you are asking us? Im just saying its very unusual to be allowed bread so early, but as we know every doctor is different.

You do seem to be losing a heck of a lot of weight fast. It cant hurt to add in two snacks a day like we had on Nutrisystem or low gi diet. One could be either protein OR dairy and one was strictly protein. These will probably not affect your weight loss, but they will keep you from getting hungry. Some favorites were two hebrew National fat free hot dogs, fried in the skillet in Pam to not add oil. a slice of turkey bacon and a fried egg, lite laughing cow cheese (35 calories) and some yogurt/cottage cheese or turkety pepporini slices. Pop the pepporoni slices in the microwave in lots of napkins or paper towels to cook them crisp fast. You can have about a dozen of them and the cheese I think, have to go figure out the package. 15 slices is a serving. an extra 200 calories of mostly protein a day will probably fuel your weight loss and help build more muscle for continuing to lose faster. It will also keep your metabolism from dropping to fuel future weight loss. I would also insist on a fill. Tell them you dont want to do this on your own. I would fuss.

Except some people do have a small fill at the time of surgery, a prefill, so her band DID have saline in it when it was placed.

Maybe this is why my surgeon was adamant about giving me a pre fill during surgery. I asked twice and he was absolutely against it. If you have swelling and dealing with restriction, yep, you cant get anything down. Some surgeons want to give you a head start, that doesnt always pay off.

I had trouble tying my shoes after they made me take them off, but slip ons were not comfortable for all that walking, I needed my track shoes. Took me about 10 minutes to get those shoes back on by myself.

I was never told no caffeine, so I tried half and half decaf and caf coffee for the week after surgery, now back to regular coffee. No soda, dont want to take the chance on my port slipping, but other than the claim caffeine stimulates your appetite I know of no reason to give it up.

I was hungry immediately. When they finally let me go back to my hospital room, I asked when I could have dinner. The doctor said you wouldnt be able to eat all this, but I did. (2 big bowls of Jello, apple juice and tea). The next dayafter surgery in the airport to come home, there was a Mexican eatery, I was dying for. Nothing I could find to eat, I was on Clear Liquids still. I always felt like I could eat anything I had eaten before surgery. I was not one whose stomach swelled up and they couldnt eat. Iv had just about everything at this point, no restriction on any food. Luckily in a week I have a fill, I hope it helps. Everyone is different. You will have some saying they couldnt eat as much after surgery and some like me who could eat anything and everything, if we had been allowed. No one size answer fits all about a lot of this and how people react.

Im 4 1/2 weeks after surgery. Couldnt feel my port at all, then suddenly I woke up this morning and it was sticking out. Been freaking out thinking my port moved. Got hold of my surgeon who thinks my belly fat moved, he says he stitched the port 2 inches below my skin. Talk about freaking out and never read anything about one day out of the blue your port would be sticking out thru your skin like a bump out of the blue. Getting a fill (assuming everything is ok), in 8 days and looking at the port and band under fluor, talked to fill doctor and surgeon today. I think there are lots of unanswered questions other than do I have to follow my doctors orders. Before this a couple weeks ago my skin was pulling up on the ends of my stitches and turning red like the incisions were infected. There was a miscommunication when the stitches should have come out. (they should have come out after a week). Maybe Im the only one having issues like these?

I didnt know anyone threw up after surgery. I thought that was when you were filled too tight and tried to eat food that you didnt chew well, it could come back up. Iv never heard of anyone throwing up after surgery, if that is what you are asking.

You stated my exact fears. I could eat right after surgery even though folks said they couldnt. I have never felt like there was anything I couldnt eat. My first fill is August 16th under fluro. I have this fear there is something wrong with my band because I have never felt any restriction.

I ate a lot of chicken salad, just chicken with mayo, no celery. Mine said mayo or gravy.

There was a thread what to look for in a Mexican surgeon that has many of the basics. Same would apply to any surgeon. I agree, first how many lapbands have they done. Not how many weight loss surgeries, but specificially lap bands. When I went to a seminar they had stats on that they had never had a death, that they had taken steps to cut down on resulting gas and post surgery minor complications. How many incisions will you have. I saw on FOX news that they now have 150 surgeons in the US who will do surgeries thru your mouth, that overweight people recover much faster if they dont have incisions. In addition to lapband, they can do gastric bypass and even gall bladder remover completely through the mouth. One gal posted she had this, but they did one small incision for the camera. Which type of lapband do you want put in. I had my choice. The newer one I was afraid would be harder to get fills for so got the one that had been around longer. Hard to say which is the best choice. I cant remember all the criteria I looked at but these are some of them.

My fill doctor requires you to wait at least 5 weeks for the first fill. No exceptions. Im having my first fill Aug 16th.

I bought one of those things you see in the infomercial that is supposed to cleanse your body you take daily. I wound up not being able to go normally and had to go to a special doctor to get prescription fiber, something that I took daily until my body was able to go without help from laxatives. Learned my lesson. There was one ingrediant in the bottle that the doctor said was not safe to take daily, despite what it said on the label.

I was banded July 9th, about one month ago as I said above. I lost the easy weight right away the first couple of weeks, then the last 2 weeks, is when I stalled out. Im just going to be more careful of sugar and carbs and keep on eating well. I actually cancelled my lapband surgery and posted two threads saying I was really having a hard time deciding if I should get the lapband if I wasnt not overeating. Three folks attacked me saying I needed to journal and that I was in denial and so many said I must be overeating and just didnt know it that I rescheduled the lapband, but I was never convinced that I was overeating before I got the lapband, so how is it going to help me?? Well, I get my first fill Aug 16th, maybe that will help and the fills will surprise me. On another board, we had a turtle thread for slow losers. Maybe we can start a thread like that. I see some who lose huge amounts and I look and their surgery was 5 months ago, and Im like wow. And hoping for a miracle for all of us. The skeptic part of me wonders. lol. I wish I was as postive about the band as everyone else here seems to be. Im sure willing to be converted to a happy bandster.

tp78 you lost 34 lbs since March?? and consider yourself a slow loser?? I would be dancing in the streets. To the person who said having insulin issues would be caught in diagnostic testing. I dont have insurance and havent had diagostic testing since I rarely go to the doctor. I did try and get into a diabetes study, my sugar levels were high enough, but I have no other co-morbidities, so I have been diagnosed many times with high sugar levels, pre-diabetes, not full blown. I got the lap band on my own and was self pay (I went to Mexico where no testing was required). My point was there could be other reasons for not losing than just not trying. Sometimes we have to try other things in addition to working on our diet. Not everyone has diagostic testing. I was back and forth about the lapband and this was one place who said of course you are just overeating, get it, you wouldnt be sorry. So I rescheduled the lapband and got it. I have my first fill a week from Sat. Maybe the fills and results will surprise me. I hope so. I keep thinking if Im not eating more than a average of 1000 calories a day and exercising, I should be already losing weight. Im still worried I made a mistake and got the lapband for nothing, that overeating really wasnt my problem. So, like everyone else, for whatever reason, I join you in frustration at slow losing. PS Im also not someone who was overweight all my life. I was 120s most of my life, got up to about 135 in my late 30s. I didnt get up over 200 lbs plus until I hit menopause and my whole system seemed to go out of whack and doctors would just say exericse more, join a gym when I tried discussing why I was gaining 20/30 lbs in a month.

Iv decided that its my sugar levels still out of control. I am going to start taking alpha lipolic acid and Omega 3 oils which last time helped me lose. The alpha lipolic acid is classed an an antioxident, but in a few countries is prescription controlled as a diabetes drug, but you can buy it over the counter here in health food stores. Im walking at least a mile and a half every day, a few times twice. Im counting calories. Im eating right and only lost 1 pound in a couple of weeks and not losing inches either. Kroger here has salmon on sale this week which I intend to stock up on and eat for dinner the next couple of days. Im a month past surgery. No reason to be losing this slowly already, so going to try to control my sugar, counting calories isnt helping. I was 157 lbs in 2007 and now Im 218 lbs to the person who said it took years to gain this weight. If you have out of control insulin spikes you can gain weight much faster than "years" as you assume. Dont know why people assume it took years to gain the weight for others, not always the case, there can be medical reasons. OP maybe you need to try some other things, walk more try eating more fish without coating, cut down on sugar and see if it helps. I had 3 people attacking me about journaling on another thread, accusing me of being in denial and saying all I needed to do was journal, I was lying to myself and overeating and not honest, as if I cant count calories. I had found out once before I had to get my insulin spikes under control before I could lose weight and then the weight fell off until I stopped doing the things I should be to control my sugar. You may need to find out what works for you, like I did. Im turning over a new leaf today.

When you know the chances of something going wrong are less than 1% and weight them against that 1 out of 6 morbidly obese will die within 10 years, the odds favor getting the surgery. I have to say I came out of surgery asking when is dinner. It did hurt to bend over and to get out of bed for a few days. Im now about 4 weeks past surgery and unless I twist the area where the port is Im all fine now. Me and the guy who they meet at the El Paso airport, we both flew thru surgery from what I understand. (I went to Juarez and they meet you at the airport in El Paso to drive you to the hospital). Other than what the doctor said was gas for a while, I was fine, just tired after surgery and Im 57, one of the older bandsters. I decided I didnt want to die early is why I went thru with the band. Im still not sure it will help me lose weight. I have over a week before my first fill. I am more a nibbler than a overeater, so Im unconvinced, but did it anyway.