Bettina

Kim, I had to pay out of pocket for the dietician too. I will get all the receipts for it when I am all done......12 sessions all together...ugh...and then submit to my insurance. Luckily, the dietician is my only out of pocket expense! Anyway, she was so informative....I was thinking I could even just go to her for weight loss without the banding...but i am def gonna get banding if approved, but in the off chance i can't get the approval...I will def go back to her!! I have barriatric bootcamp and then the banding...just don't have dates for them yet.

Finally its over, I had my fitting last night. OMG I asked for the nose pillow head piece. And while it is skinny....I felt like Warf from Star Trek...big bumpy ridges along my nose. The air was doing 90 up my little nostrils...lol Okay so I calm down ---I put it on...sitting on the bed watching "Jaws". Its blowing air out the front like nobody's business....I am thinking hubby is gonna have a fit, I'll never be able to sleep in bed again!!! :notagree The worst part was the freezing. The tech told me it would be room temp air....umm no, my teeth froze, my nose froze, my ears were starting to ache.....and now I had to pee. (i never ever get up in the middle of the night for anything!!) The air was so fast that my cheeks were filling with air....for fun, I'd open my mouth and a big bunch of air came out...too funny. Twice the nose thingy's pressed against my cartiledge of my nose and the air stopped...lol. :painkiller: I was gonna call the tech, but she was watching me....lol. So she came in and gave me a plain hose with two little nose things...with a strap for my head. She put the humidifier on too. OMG I am cured (not really but you know what I mean) Finally found my C-Pap "happy place".:clap2: And, it doesn't make me sound like Darth Vader (like the first one did) I was laying in bed snickering like an idiot thinking "Luke, I am your father" Ugh. So the tech was really sweet and I was explaining "nurse-zilla" (prev Journal) to her and she said "you know what you are done with that...I am putting a rush on this and you'll be done....it says you need your surgery in August in your file, and we are gonna make it happen" OMG I wanted to cry!!! So they are reading the report asap...I will have my machine two days later and then I can call the doc and say.....Sign me up!! I am afraid that he might be booked for August:nervous ....so it has to be done early Sept before my classes are too hot and heavy into work. That should be that for the hurdles!!!:clap2:

Finally its over, I had my fitting last night. OMG I asked for the nose pillow head piece. And while it is skinny....I felt like Warf from Star Trek...big bumpy ridges along my nose. The air was doing 90 up my little nostrils...lol Okay so I calm down ---I put it on...sitting on the bed watching "Jaws". Its blowing air out the front like nobody's business....I am thinking hubby is gonna have a fit, I'll never be able to sleep in bed again!!! :notagree The worst part was the freezing. The tech told me it would be room temp air....umm no, my teeth froze, my nose froze, my ears were starting to ache.....and now I had to pee. (i never ever get up in the middle of the night for anything!!) The air was so fast that my cheeks were filling with air....for fun, I'd open my mouth and a big bunch of air came out...too funny. Twice the nose thingy's pressed against my cartiledge of my nose and the air stopped...lol. :painkiller: I was gonna call the tech, but she was watching me....lol. So she came in and gave me a plain hose with two little nose things...with a strap for my head. She put the humidifier on too. OMG I am cured (not really but you know what I mean) Finally found my C-Pap "happy place".:clap2: And, it doesn't make me sound like Darth Vader (like the first one did) I was laying in bed snickering like an idiot thinking "Luke, I am your father" Ugh. So the tech was really sweet and I was explaining "nurse-zilla" (prev Journal) to her and she said "you know what you are done with that...I am putting a rush on this and you'll be done....it says you need your surgery in August in your file, and we are gonna make it happen" OMG I wanted to cry!!! So they are reading the report asap...I will have my machine two days later and then I can call the doc and say.....Sign me up!! I am afraid that he might be booked for August:nervous ....so it has to be done early Sept before my classes are too hot and heavy into work. That should be that for the hurdles!!!:clap2:

I highly recommend anyone that has questions to view this webinar. :clap2: It is lengthy (2 hrs) but well worth watching, if for nothing else, you can use it to know what questions to ask your doctor! http://www.or-live.com/AtlantiCare/weightloss/skin/rnh.cfm?language=english

I highly recommend anyone that has questions to view this webinar. :clap2: It is lengthy (2 hrs) but well worth watching, if for nothing else, you can use it to know what questions to ask your doctor! http://www.or-live.com/AtlantiCare/weightloss/skin/rnh.cfm?language=english

MSNBC Video ahhh finally i found it!!

Hey Diva, You know, 52 is just a number.....I bet you don't feel 52. And just think of how much younger you will feel when its all said and done!! And...you are adding years to your life by having this surgery! (oh and if you had this done years ago, it would not have been as good....something else would have come now and you'd be thinking that you wished you'd have waited. Everything happens for a reason and there was good reason you are doing it now. Telling your mom...don't worry about that, I had to tell my mom cause if she found out ---well lets just say she gets in a snit! I just only told my older sister last week and I have been working on this since April! She is a big non-supporter...who needs to be dragged down--it carries enough stress with it all on its own! I felt like a failure too at first for resorting to banding, but then thought, I have no one to please but myself (hubby isn't happy about it, but oh well, its for me--I want to be healthy!!). And I know when the non-supporter sis will be all over my case when she gets back from vacation---but i don't care..I'm not doing it for her either..lol. So take a deep breathe, you're not alone!!! Best Wishes! And Happy Early Birthday...I am an August Baby too!

Is this cutie a Beagle??

I think that is standard for glamour shots!!! I am feminine looking and I looked like Herman Munster dressed as a woman:omg: ! But i didn't feel so bad when my sister --who is a total girly girl ---looked a a drag queen:chinese , i sent the pics back and got my money back!! LOL I think Walmart portrait studio does a better job and for half the price! :huggie:

Welcome to the Flabby Belly Club Leila, That was a good article, I put it in my favorites, I forgot about Lecithin!! The massaging of the skin is good to shrink cellulite (since it can't be dieted away. My sis lost 70lbs right after GB-very quickly and now she has an "apron" she wants removed...I so do not want that!!! Her mother in law has the apron in the belly area after having bypass also......and.....ugh......flat bum....she used to tell me that she would sit down and think she was sitting on something...come to find out it was her own flabby hiney....she had the surgery done and is soooo skinny now. But she said the surgeon did a crappy job, it was the bypass doc and not a plastic surgeon. (but, it was covered by her insurance) But my theory on that is she is like 65yrs old and the probabiltiy of her wearing a bikini -not that she can't--i know her and there is now way she would--so the surgery wasn't pretty....at least she is not sitting on her butt flap! Oh yeah she had wicked sores from the overhang! (sorry that was graphic I know!) I sold Avon up until 2 months ago and I have lotion that firms your butt and stomach....so I am gonna give it a try. For the most part, Avon is pretty good, so we will see!

Ugh family can stink sometimes can't they?? Best wishes to you!!

Aussie Chick: I know what you mean about only having flabby belly....that is the only trouble spot I will be having too. I think its prob (and I am guessing because I don't know you) is that we have most of our "fat" in our bellies --well that and my butt is in trouble too...lol. So if we lost and gained in the stomach area, it would make it stretch easier..hence be flabbier! I want to lose the weight slowly so I can do crunches to be able to keep up the firming along with the weightloss so that I don't need a tummy tuck (no way can I afford that).

Kim, isn't your doctor making you go to a dietician before banding??

Monica, You are doing good on the weightloss issue...you have lost 4.375 lbs per month and the expected weightloss for banding is 1-2 lbs per week...so your right on target! Keep up the good work!!:huggie:

Yes definitely stay in network if you can....hosp stays are a HUGE expense if they are out of network!! But check with insurance, because sometimes if the doc is covered and that is the only hospital he works out of....they may take the amt that your insurance would provide if it were in network...that actually happened to me...yay! Hospitals don't have to solicit for patients that's why they don't join networks....whereas a private doctor is competing with other doctors..so they hop on that network bandwagon as to lower the prices ---after all, lower amt of money they recieve is better than getting no money at all! Let us know how it went!!!

Yup Yup, Leila....that was exactly what the doc told me -hormones are stored in fat.....worries me thought, will I grow a mustache once the fat is a lot less and I have less hormones:confused: ??? LOL OMG my DH just shaved his beard -gotee--and now his face looks bigger --poor thing i used that notion to try to get him to grow it back and he looked at me and asked what I was gonna do to hide my chubby neck (please, that is the ONLY part of me that doesn't have fat!) I looked at him and said "i guess I'll just grow a gotee!" LOL:p

Ditto. I thought Jacqui was just expressing her feelings on how she "personally" wouldn't have bypass done. I wouldn't either, but that sure doesn't mean I knock those who have! I wanted banding, but if the doc told me I'd do better with bypass, I'd be signing right up! The definition of "Forum" according to Websters: 1 a : the marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business b : a public meeting place for open discussion c : a medium (as a newspaper or online service) of open discussion or expression of ideas

Shawn, That is awesome!!!!! Yay!! You must be so proud of yourself!

LOL Oh joy!!! Something else to look forward too!!!!:huggie:

To put my two cents in, My sis did have GP and was not successful....and is ashamed, and sad. She was ashamed and sad before GP and almost didn't do it because of embarrassment that she let herself get to that point to need GB. I am ashamed that I let myself go and now am doing surgery to correct it. I am still doing it, but I still feel like this should have never happened. I am not gonna throw myself off a bridge over it, but no harm in saying how you feel. When I went to Europe last year the doc gave me happy pills.....which i was bent on not taking, but sis insisted. I did not take them and was so proud of myself. That does not mean that I think those who take meds are weak.......it just means I was proud of a personal accomplishment. (it was my first plane ride)

Christa, funny you should ask about a period change.....I was just talking to my GP about this after talking to the gyn about it.......losing weight absolutely changes your cycle!!! Flow changes and everything! My sis was told this too and I didn't believe it so last week I asked my woman GP. And I am living proof of this because post Pfen-Pfen......was Rachel (now 9) my Gyn said "I could have told you this would happen post weight loss---but he never said why...lol. Crap, and I thought it was caused I looked hot and hubby just couldn't help himself....ROFLMAO!!!

Thank you!!! and...I am so glad you say that I will love it! --Getting down to the wire now.....all tests done and fitted for my C-Pac...just waiting to hear from doc on the date of the banding.....ugh getting jitters about it today...lol.

If you have it done in Mexico....where are you going to go to have your fills done?

The barium drinks don't bother me. I didn't even have an aftertaste. Must be something wrong with me, I could drink them everyday and not be bothered...okay starting to scare myself now..LOL