anonemouse

For those of you waiting for your first fill, believe me, restriction makes it SO much easier. I was kicking myself before my first fill, just because I'd gained back a lot of what I had originally lost after surgery.

My back is killing me! Whenever I get really stressed, I tense up my back muscles until they really start to hurt, and apparently I'm really stressed right now. I am teaching my second class of the semester tomorrow, and it's material that I'm not very good at. Who'd have thought that you'd have to teach chemistry in a general biology class? Plus, my adviser wants me to send him my Excel file of data for my thesis so that he can tell me how to analyze it and make a poster to present in November. Of course, I haven't actually done anything on my thesis data since my seminar in April, so I'm going to have to think of a way to explain that to him.

Zannie, you are a stronger woman than I would be, if I were in your position. Knowing myself, I would probably have thrown him out, filed for divorce, and been as vindictive of a bitch as I could possibly be (and I can be quite a vindictive bitch). Hell, I probably would have sued the woman for alienation of affection. So kudos to you for trying to save your marriage.

I can definitely commiserate with you. That's the most difficult part of this whole thing. I still sometimes think to myself, "You're such a pig!" But at least I'm being a pig on much less food than I used to.

Well, I'll definitely be rooting for you!

I'm going to agree with WABB here. It's a well-known fact that over the last several years, the techniques used for banding have evolved and improved, resulting in increased success and fewer complications. Statistics from a study that was begun well over 10 years ago, using techniques that are now considered to be dated, simply aren't applicable to today's Lap-Band surgery. So while I wouldn't necessarily ignore this study, I'd definitely take it with a very large grain of salt. I prefer this study, which looked at all studies published in English-language journals up to September 2005 that had more than 100 participants and at least 3 years follow up.

I just wanted to say that this doesn't have to be a regret. If you think it's something that you can't do because you think you are too old, stop. I currently teach college-level biology classes, and I can tell you that you would be far from the oldest student that I've seen. One of my students was a lady that was in her 70s. If you regret it as much as you say you do, I really, really encourage you to go back. You may have to go without some things for a while, but I guarantee that it would be one of the best things that you will do in your life. Look into going back to school. There are all sorts of grants, loans, scholarships, etc. that are available.

Yeah, probably. I've tried to ask my parents to keep quiet about it, but they don't seem to understand why they should. And apparently, it isn't enough that I'm asking them to do it.

That's really one of the best things about LBT. The drama doesn't take over every single thread. That's mainly because we do have a distinct area for people to bitch and complain their hearts out. To steal a phrase, what happens in Rants and Raves stays in Rants and Raves. At OH, there is no real way to keep people from fighting all over the board. And as fun as it sometimes was to watch, it got old very quickly. If you happened to be friendly in passing to one person that wasn't popular, you became enemy #1 and were suddenly subjected to attacks that came out of the blue. If you tried to get people to act like adults, you might as well have joined ranks with the devil (or at least, that's how you were treated). The very last straw for me was being attacked from nowhere because I made a comment about something in a thread where the issue had already been mentioned by another member. The nut that attacked me even accused me of having multiple screen names and pretending to be someone else. I decided that I just didn't have the time or patience to deal with that level of insanity and paranoia. What really pissed me off was that I let the [rhymes with witch] get to me. I was almost sobbing at my computer. I had never been subjected to such a vicious, unprovoked attack before, let alone one that was so out in public. Like I told one of the chick's friends who PMed me to apologize for her, I had never been so humiliated in my life. If she had wanted to accuse me of something or attack me, she could have at least done it in private. And of course, I never got an apology from the chick, and she knows where to find me. Bitter? You bet. And I hold grudges like a pro, too. Just ask my parents about my 7th grade teacher, who I still despise (it's been a good 12-13 years) for making me cry in front of the entire class.

Well, I only told my parents, brother, and a couple of other people. THEY took care of informing everyone else. Heck, everyone knows now, including my mom's hairdresser and many of my dad's clents. It's really quite irritating. I would have liked to not be under such a microscope and I would have really liked to have had the choice of telling people of not.

I don't know how you guys can drink Crystal Light. The artificial sweetener tastes like a mouthful of metal to me. All diet drinks taste that way to me. I can't choke them down. Some of them literally make me gag.

Hi! I'm here every so often. I've been spending a lot of time with my parents lately, and they only have dial-up, so I haven't been getting online as often. I should be here more often now, since the semester has started and I don't have time to make the drive to my parents' place. I am doing great, so thanks for asking! I finally started losing weight again after I got filled (I had regained several pounds after I started back on regular food), so I am absolutely thrilled with finally having some restriction.

It's definitely made me a LOT more aware of how I treat other people. Probably too aware, to be honest. That's one of the reasons that I tend to be run over, figuratively, in real life. I haven't held it against my brother, but I do recognize his actions as being the basis of a lot of my problems.

That's what my doctor recommended, also. If I get a headache, I still take Advil liquigels. And if anyone is considering the Tylenol reditabs or whatever they're called (supposedly mint flavored), DON'T. They are completely disgusting. Seriously, I tried them once and nearly gagged on it.

I don't remember much about the time immediately before surgery. I remember them coming to get me and moving me to the pre-op room. I started shivering (it was COLD), so they put a very hot blanket on me (seriously, almost hot enough to burn). They gave me Albuterol right before the surgery and then moved me to the operating room. The very last thing I remember is them asking me to move myself over to the operating table, and I remember the weird eggshell-padded arm boards, and that was IT. I don't remember a single thing past that point. The next thing I remember is being shaken and told to breathe in the recovery room because I was apparently forgetting to breathe.

I have to say that my brother was the worst offender in my life. Some of you may remember that I've mentioned in other threads that I was emotionally abused by him. There's not really one single comment that I can bring to mind, but rather years of constant criticism and verbal attacks. It was literally to the point that my parents considered basically farming him out (I didn't know this until recently) because they didn't know how to make him stop. I've gotten many apologies from my mom, telling me that she wishes that they'd done something. Sometimes I think about what my life might have been like if they hadn't sat around and ignored what he was doing.

Luckily, my favorite drink from Starbucks is the Vanilla Iced Coffee with cream. It's not nearly as high in calories as some of the others.

Oh yeah, that's familiar. I spend WAY too much time here, usually.

What really drove me batty about the formatting "there" was that you had to search for certain topics. There wasn't any division of topics, like there is here.

Yeah, I finally gave up on OH several weeks ago. I had my account there deleted. I'd had enough of all the infighting and BS, constantly feeling like I had to watch my back because of who I was friends with, and with the horrid formatting. I hope you feel welcome here, Wendell!

I'm finally losing again! Once I went back on regular food, I regained about 6 pounds from my post-op low (went from 211 to 217). Since my first fill on August 9th, I've lost 7 pounds!

I've got horrible sleeping habits. That'll have to change, though, since I'm teaching this semester. I am definitely a night owl, so getting up early is going to suck.

For once, I completely agree with you. I feel that he shouldn't be sentenced to death, but rather be forced to live for the rest of his life in the prison's general population. That, to me, would be real punishment for him.

I've had 2 fills. I got the second one on Wednesday. With the first fill, I had some restriction, but not very much. Luckily, my surgeon's willing to be pretty aggressive with fills, so I was able to go back for the second fill just two weeks after the first one. That gave me time to see if I was going to tighten up (sort-of a delayed reaction to fills that apparently happens sometimes). She believes that if the patient knows that they haven't hit their sweet spot, there isn't any reason to wait longer than necessary between fills.

Just wanted to recommend Dr. Virginia McGrath-Weaver to anyone who is considering having their surgery in Memphis. (Or even if you aren't, since I didn't consider it until finding out that my insurance would only pay for two surgeons in the entire state.) She is AWESOME. She's got a great bedside manner, and she's a really good surgeon. Very supportive, also. The nutritionist that works for her, Kat, is tops, too. Everyone that I've talked to at the center was really friendly and very accepting of lap-band patients. They don't seem critical of the band, like a lot of bariatric folks do.