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I'm amazed that the job market over there is so good that the health insurance offered can be a factor. At the moment in Aus things are pretty tough(though we are supposedly doing better than the rest of the world) and there is no way someone would turn down a job because of what was/wasn't included in health insurance. At the moment people, especially those starting out can be lucky to get any job at all.

I think you are over thinking this. Neither band is going to make any difference to your ability to play sport. If as you say you are sporty and do exercise a lot that should make your weight loss journey easier. Your Dr is perfectly qualified to decide which band to use . Having been a member of this board for approx 3 years my thoughts on the subject are that both types of band work well but typically people who have the realize band need larger amounts of Fluid before they feel any kind of benefit from the band. i have even heard of people with realize bands having more fluid in their band than the band should be able to take. It all has something to do with the fact that it is marketed as a low pressure band. I would say if you are happy with the Dr then you should be happy to go with whichever band they use. Hopefully you are not using this as some kind of excuse not to go ahead?????

My BMI was almost 32. My PCP was against me being banded as he said it was too dangerous so I went to the surgeon without a referral.I am so glad I did. Now almost 3 years out , at goal and maintaining and my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.

I would hope that her Dr has given her specific instructions and if not she should be asking him/her. She won't be eating, she will be drinking - juices, clear broth, Jello then moving onto Protein Shakes, Soups etc. I am not an endocrinologist so do not know if this has to be adapted for a person with type 1 diabetes which is why it is important that she gets professional advice.

Get rid of your boyfriend? LOL , only joking. The reality is there are always going to be other people around that have not had the surgery/don't need to lose weight/don't care if what they eat is healthy or not etc. A big part of living with the band is finding ways to deal with this and stick with your program. You are doing this for you so you have to remember what your needs are. Don't let others sabotage your new healthy eating way of life.

Your Dr seems to have been negligent so because of that you advise everybody that they should not get a lapband. People get organ transplants and their bodies reject them - would you advise them not to get the transplant? Women get pregnant and die in childbirth - does that mean people should stop getting pregnant? You can get MRSA in hospital - does that mean noone should go into hospital. You can have surgery for something minor and end up dead because of a blood clot or some other unforeseen complication. You can take medication and have a serious allergic or anaphylactic reaction - should everyone give up taking medicine. Yes you have had a bad experience and I am sorry about that. It sounds as though the NHS or whoever it is in Scotland messed up. That is hardly a good reason to advise others not to go ahead. If you want to caution others maybe you should make them aware of the risks of this particular Dr or the NHS in general. Life itself is risky. There are no guarantees. Imagine trying to live your life without taking any risks - that life would be no life at all. You wouldn't be able to go outside your front door because you could get struck by lightning or run over by a bus. You certainly couldn't go in a car as that is one of the most dangerous things people do every day. But staying at home is dangerous too, that is where most accidents happen. You could:- Have a fall Burn yourself Get electrocuted Be poisoned by food, or chemicals or gas or plants You certainly wouldn't want to have sex as that could involve catching a life threatening STI You would probably be so bored sitting in your room wrapped in cotton wool to protect you and keep you warm that you would over indulge in food and then you would get fatter and fatter and fatter and probably die prematurely anyway from a stroke or heartattack

I don't remember what my first meal was but I do remember my first mushie - tuna and avo mashed. After almost a month of liquids it tasted fantastic.

You should not be putting anything on your wounds and you should be keeping them as dry as possible. Self medicating without being advised to by your Dr can cause all sorts of problems.

That is correct. A huge number of the population have it without knowing it, it only becomes a problem in surgery or if you have an open wound or a depressed immune system. I think it should be standard practice to test everyone prior to surgery as that could help alleviate problems but unfortunately they don't.

Better to be safe than sorry. My father caught MRSA after a hip replacement and was in and out of hospital/surgery and now has 1 leg shorter than the other. If you were to infect your wounds you could end up losing your band or worse so doing this cleanse and making sure your wounds don't become infected is really important. It's good that they tested and picked this up.

Me too which is great when you want ballet flats or trainers , not so great when you want heels. I got really excited the other day because I found a stunning pair of shoes in my size. I actually don't understand why our big stores don't carry more small sizes as in Australia we have a huge Asian population and a lot of them are very petite and have small feet.

Take up a hobby. Sew,knit, scrapbook,paint whatever. If you are busy you won't be running back and fore to the fridge. Even the internet helps. I need to go and get dressed as i have an appointment in just over an hour but I have been sitting at the computer on LBT for the last half an hour and haven't got round to eating Breakfast yet!

The band doesn't cause malabsorption. I would think that it is just to do with the reduced quantity of food. Make sure that you are eating regularly(nutritious/healthy foods) and plan a healthy snack in between meals. I would make sure I carried something in my bag to eat to make sure my BS didn't drop.

I have to disagree with you there. I am short - 153cm or 5'. I get teased about my height quite often. I used to hate it but these days I'm quite cool. There is also lots of height discrimination out there except people don't realise it. At movies or the theatre you often can't see over the head of the person in front. Shops put goods on really high shelves that shorter people can't reach Clothes are always too long and have to be taken up. Dresses can be a nightmare to buy because even if you can take them up the neck to waist ratio is all wrong. Lets not even talk maxi dresses - take those up and you lose all the pattern. I am still convinced that shorter people are the only group that are regularly discriminated against with no law against it!

My goal was to get down to a reasonable weight. I was hoping for 50kg but would have been happy with 52kg. As it is I seem to have settled at around 51kg. At the time I thought I would give up chocolate, Cookies etc and for a long while I did. The problem came in when I discovered that I could still eat them and not regain. I do have to make sure though that I do only eat them in moderation. The fact I have maintained my loss for approx 2 years with very little effort makes me feel great although i definitely think maintenance is harder than losing. Your band gets looser over time, things that were difficult to eat initially get easier and your motivation is not quite as high as in the beginning. I would love to have a perfect body with a flat stomach but at almost 50 and with 2 Caesareans and a hysterectomy behind me I don't think that is likely to happen!

No negative here. I love my band. I'm at goal and have been for almost 2 years. Feeling good, looking good, no major problems. YAY BAND

It is designed to be in for life. It only gets removed if there is an issue. There are people on this site that have had their bands for more than 5 years.There are other people that have had them for 10 or more years but they are busy living life and they don't visit the support sites as they no longer need them.

You shouldn't be measuring yourself against anyone else. Each person is an individual and so is their weight loss journey.It is not a competition. You don't know how overweight these people were to start with. How disordered their eating was. What their metabolism is like etc. They may have lost a lot so far but then they may plateau later. There are probably other people that would look at your weight loss and think the same as you are thinking, so it is all relative. You were happy until you started comparing yourself to others so stop !

Maybe the OP is menopausal too

It is normal for weight loss to be fast at the beginning of a program and slow down the longer you have been doing it. The more weight you have to lose the easier it comes off. You may also need to relook at your calorie intake because the less you weigh the less you need to eat to maintain your new weight. So if at the beginning you could eat 1500 cal per day and lose you may find that you now need to eat 1200 or 1000 or possibly even less.

Did I say I was talking about you? Or did I make a general comment? I wasn't being judgemental. If you read my post/s I said that cheating that has happened cannot be undone but that going forward it is important to follow your Dr's instructions as they are there for a reason. Time after time on this board people post saying they have cheated and all these people will come on and say it's Ok, fine, don't worry etc. Well it's not. If someone posts saying they have cheated then they should be encouraged to stick with the program, talk to their Dr etc. They should not be given validation that what they did was Ok and that it is fine to carry on. Not sure what name that was, I don't recall calling anybody anything.

Honk you are not being mean spirited. I am getting tired of reading thread after thread where someone has cheated on their postop diet and all these noobs come along and tell the OP it's OK, they did it, no problems etc etc. I get it - people cheat but they shouldn't . The postop diet is there for a reason. The last thing people need is all these unqualified people telling them that it is OK to ignore their Drs instructions and that they will be fine. Who has the medical degree? Who did they pay the money to and trust their lives with? Who should they be getting advice/approval from if they "cannot" stick to their postop diet? So the message here is if you have already cheated you cannot undo that but just because you have done it and think that it's OK does not mean that you should carry on or that you should encourage others to do the same.

Glad that you have realised that too tight is not the way to go. Unfortunately so many people seem to end up being too tight in the mistaken belief that they will lose quicker. Not sure though why you would want a complete unfill.If you do that it can be hard to get to the right level of restriction again. Often just getting a small amount of liquid taken out is enough to sort the problem out. Unless of course the band has slipped and that of course is a totally different situation.

Soft pasta. Something like canneloni or lasagne normally goes down easily. Or some kind of quiche.

I was also thinking possible slip. For things to change so suddenly would normally indicate something has happened. GO to your Dr and get checked out.