anonemouse

If your pannus is interfering with your exercise as much as it sounds like, I think you should go for it, with the realization that you'll need more PS later.

I've never heard of a dandruff issue being one of the symptoms of PCOS. I encourage you to go for laser treatments for the hair growth, though. It's been the only thing that helped mine. I doubt you would see any major improvement before your birthday, though.

Stress can make it go, too, regardless of how much protein you are consuming. I've noticed that my hair loss increases and decreases, depending on how much stress I'm under. Right now, it's shedding left and right, and I'm getting very good amounts of protein in my diet.

Yes! I just found the envelope that you sent it in, and I thought it was you that lives in Michigan! Hell, I'm so bad at remembering names. Even now, two weeks before the end of the semester, I can barely remember who's who in the classes I teach.

Stupid postal service! :angry

Grad school's worth it, I think. For the most part, it's been enjoyable, with only a few moments of true "tear your hair out" stress. You get to take all the interesting classes in grad school!

Awesome, Neal! I can't wait until I'm at that point!

I think I got some from someone else, too. Btw, did you ever get the syrups in the mail? If you have, they've either gotten lost or my parents have forgotten to give me the package.

Abnormal psych actually sounds pretty interesting. The exams I'm taking are my grad school comprehensive exams (taken after all course-work for the degree is finished), so I've gotta do well or else I won't be getting my degree next year. Nice bit of pressure, huh?

I should be, but I felt like taking a break. I can only read ornithology textbooks for so long before I go crosseyed. :faint:

My restriction is pretty good, I think. I can eat just about anything (other than lots of soft bread, anyway). I'm just over 5 months out (as of yesterday), so I'm averaging between 1-2 pounds a week. Of course, sometimes I lose several very quickly and then wait a few weeks before I lose anymore, but I'm happy with it. Yep, I'm down a size, to an 18, and I'll be at a 16 in a few more pounds (my pants are pretty loose, but the 16s are still a little tight).

Honestly, I wouldn't give them the land, then. It seems obvious that they just want to sell it and make money off of it. Which isn't horrible, but they should just be able to come out and say that instead of being all passive aggressive about it. I'd recommend holding onto the land and just giving it to them in your will.

Thanks, Julie!

I keep forgetting to post that I did get the package (plus, I can't remember who sent it to me). Haven't tried it yet, but I did get it.

Um, alpha, beta.... Beta keratin is in feathers. In mammals, there are epithelial keratins, hair keratins, and cytokeratins, but that doesn't really apply to birds.

I go back and forth, honestly. Sometimes I absolutely love my students, or at least the ones that seem to actually give a damn. Other times, I just want to smack them. I think it's the time of year, too. The last few weeks of the semester are NOT fun, especially this semester (I'm taking the comprehensive exams for my degree starting on Wednesday). I think I'd enjoy it more if I were teaching different classes, too. Right now, I'm teaching introductory non-majors' biology, so the vast majority of my students are just there because they're required to take the class, not because they're actually interested in the material. Hell, half the time I'm not interested in the material. I would love to teach something that's actually at least half-way interesting, like evolution, conservation biology, wildlife ecology, or animal behavior. Unfortunately, as a grad student I'm stuck teaching the classes that none of the real professors want to teach (lucky them).

I would imagine that it's quite unlikely that, if someone chooses a surgeon that is completely unresponsive to them after surgery, they were the only patients of that particular surgeon that that happened to. So, IMO, unless someone chooses a very obscure surgeon who doesn't have many patients that are active members of a support site, it isn't likely that people wouldn't have seen reports of that type of behavior (or lack there-of, I guess). Of course, it CAN happen, I'm not trying to say that it absolutely doesn't. Sometimes, these things DO happen. But again, IMO, it's not very likely that it would be an isolated incident. And if it isn't an isolated incident, patients are generally going to talk about it and prospective patients would have heard about it.

If you're talking about WASa, I don't know where you've been, but she's never pushed anyone into having surgey in Mexico. All she's done is advocate that people do their research. Hell, she's even posted about the "armpits" of Mexico, and let people know where the dangerous areas are and what people going to those areas should or shouldn't do (for example, she's posted several times about the police that steal from tourists that approach them in TJ). That isn't "only posting the pros" of going to Mexico. She doesn't exactly mince words when someone is talking about using a surgeon with a bad reputation, either. She doesn't go around telling everyone that every single surgeon in Mexico is above and beyond the quality of American surgeons. She is, however, an intense advocate of patients doing their research, whether they're using American surgeons or Mexican surgeons. And to be very blunt, if someone gets stuck with a surgeon that doesn't answer their phone calls or follow up with them, that's their own fault for failing to do the necessary research. Stuff like that doesn't exactly stay quiet on the support boards, 'cause people are very loud when they have an experience that they aren't pleased with.

I feel for you, Sharon! I finished the course-work for my degree last semester, so now I'm just trying to get my thesis finished up (and studying for my comprehensive exams, which I start on Wednesday). I get paid an absolute pittance for the time I put in (I get paid less than $800 a month). I'm really starting to think that this is just really not worth the effort I'm putting in. Don't get me wrong, some of my students are wonderful, but some are just miserable little [insert favorite curse here]. And right now, the miserable ones are outnumbering the good ones.

Walmart wouldn't be nearly so bad if the stores were better organized, I think. At the ones I've been to, there are never enough cash registers open, so you spend more time waiting in line than you do actually shopping. Between that, the slow cashiers, the horrid parking, the masses of screaming children, and the people who NEVER seem to notice that they are standing in the middle of the aisle and you need to get by them, it's miserable. I try to avoid Walmart at all costs, unless I can go after 11:00 pm. Hell, I've even been known to drive half an hour to a Target in the next town over, just to avoid going to Walmart.

I am seriously starting to freak right now. Hell, I shouldn't even be on here, but I needed to let off some steam and try to relax for a bit. My first comprehensive exam is on Wednesday, I've got another on Thursday, and the third one is next Monday. And guess what? My advisor (who's giving me the exam on Wednesday) isn't returning my emails, so that's adding to the stress! Plus, it's the last two weeks of the semester, I have a shitload of grading to do (y'all know me, I'm a MAJOR procrastinator, so I have half a semester's worth of quizes to grade) and I have to give my class their final exam next week. On top of that, I need to do all my Christmas shopping, and then I need to finish collecting the data for my thesis and start working on getting it all together. Seriously, I'm about to start gibbering over here. You'd think I'd learn that procrastination is BAD and that it doesn't get me anything but thinning hair, but no. Apparently I need to have it drilled into my head, REPEATEDLY. :speechles

That would be awesome! Seriously, we need to get a bunch of the LBTers together. Just not in the next month or so, 'cause I'm already about to pull my hair out because of stress. Hell, it wouldn't take much, it's already shedding like mad because I'm about to freak out, between grad school, teaching, and looking for jobs.

There is that!

I found a place in Memphis that has the best ribs that I've ever eaten. Now, I've never before seen the appeal of eating ribs. Most of the ones that I've had in the past were not worth the effort it took to get what little meat there was off of them. They were either lacking in meat or had large amounts of fat on them. But these, these were HEAVENLY. So if you're ever in Memphis, you NEED to go to Cozy Corner. Of course, I was only able to eat two ribs, but they were DELICIOUS.

Unfortunately, I'd have to say that the worst reactions that I've experienced from other people were from fellow fat folks. Don't get me wrong, I've had a couple of so-so reactions from skinny people, but the truly negative ones have been from fat people. If you are on the "smaller" side for WLS, it's not uncommon. Heck, during the few actual support groups that I went to, I got several comments from people that had already had the surgery, telling me that I was "too small for surgery." That irritated me, mainly because while I may not have been as heavy as they were when they had surgery (most of them were RNY patients), I was still fat and I qualified for insurance to cover it.