Toosywoots

Nazzy, I hired a patient facilitator company I found by googling gastric surgery to help me jump through the hoops that BC/BS PPO has for gastric surgery. I started working with them in May and all the insurance hoops were jumped through two weeks ago. BC/BS should be paying 100% of the medical but not some of the doctor appointments and specialists that I had to see prior to getting approved that they required. They have come a long way in giving in since the first time I tried to have this done about 10 years ago.

I have my Date of October 8th!!! It's the day after my 56th birthday! This will be my best present to myself ever, I hope. BC/BS has approved me and they are paying 100% of the cost. I've been jumping through their hoops since Mother's Day though. I've also been on a liquid protein pre-op diet for 3 weeks and must stay on it until the surgery to shrink my liver.

The way they found out about my liver was a blood test showing high liver counts. I started having high liver counts even when I was skinny about 30 years ago. Then when I took lamisil for a foot problem about 5 years ago, it sent the liver test sky high. Then they tried to do an ultra-sound but I was too heavy to get a good picture they said. So the primary care doctor sent me to a specialist. He told me to loose weight because I probably have a fatty liver or hepitis C and shoved me out the door. Then 2 years later, my primary care doctor sent me to another liver specialist and he said I would have to have a liver biopsy to really see what was going on. The specialist told me some scary stuff about bleeding to death and such plus he said even if they found out there wouldn't be anything they could do. So I didn't have the biopsy done. A year later my primary care doctor asked what ever happened about it and I told him. So he sent me back to the liver specialist to have the biopsy. He didn't do it but another specialist did and I nearly died from a pain killer they gave me. The liver specialist told me the results over the phone--fatty liver with some scarring and told me to loose weight. Then he refused to see me again. So my primary care doctor told me that I need to loose weight in a big hurry and was mad that neither of those specialists referred me to a wieght loss surgeon. So I hired a patient facilitator to get me through the insurance hoops that had refused me weight loss surgery about 8 years ago when I had a 42 BMI and now I am 53 BMI. Now my primary care doctor is in a miff and not happy that I am using him for the surgery referral process and having him send in the letters required. I wonder if has to do with insurance kick-backs or what? I am using a surgeon about 150 miles from here and not part of our city's medical bunch. There was no one around that could do this surgery or gastric bypass. I wasn't about to go to a general surgeon!

Oh, I forgot to add that I have a BMI of 53. I have lost 12 pounds prior to starting the high protein 800 calorie diet.

No suicidal thoughts but I sure would like to do severe bodily harm to the people with the judgemental looks and nasty remarks I get.

I am glad I am reading this because I am on the pre-op high protein diet and am waiting for surgery to be scheduled. I am worried about my fatty liver(non-alchoholic) with scaring and they said this diet will shrink my liver. I feel slight pain under my rib cage right now. It could be all the gas this diet is creating too. I won't complain so much about my diet if it shrinks the liver so the doc can get at my stomach.

My doctor told me that my fatty (non alcholic) liver with scarring with Diabetes will kill me with in a year if I do not loose a bunch of weight quickly. I have investigated Lap Band and Gastric Bypass surgeries. The Gastric bypass effects the liver and scared me a lot. So I was wondering if anyone has experience with the liver and the lap band. I have started the 800 calorie protein diet and am just a couple of weeks from having lap band surgery and they have said this diet shrinks the liver. Please let me know how previous bad liver patients have done on this pre-op diet, surgery, and post-surgery.:smile: