Humming Bird

I did not have comorbidities, but I did have a BMI over 40

I don't even have insurance, so I would have been self-pay anyway. I personally would not go outside the US.

do you have any comorbid conditions ?? What is your BMI. After reading that post from the thread Denver post.... I would stay away from going outside the US. I went to Dr. K in Denver ...... it's worth checking out his website www.lapbandrockies.com

I don't expect others around me to change their eating just because I have changed mine. I went to a child's birthday just lastnight. I did not eat cake and I did not expect anyone to change just because I was there. My family has eaten pizza, cake, icecream, burgers, french fries, hot wings .......... all in front of me and they should continue !

I don't know how to use my phone camera very well and I suck with the computer too. I was just trying to figure out how to get the pics from the phone to the PC. It takes me awhile, but I gett it figured out.

I am a 45 yr old female. After my overies were removed 10 years ago they did test all my hormones. All my hormone levels were almost nonexistant including testosterone levels. They put me on testosterone , messed with dosages, and it gave me severe acne, so I opted out. This may have contributed to my rapid weight gain in those 10 years (along with other things) I took estrogen for 5 years. Now I take none. I guess I should get some hormone testing done, but with no health insurance I avoid any added medical costs.

Thanks for the post Doc. These are the 3 things that have made the band a "magic wand" for me personally.

Men do drop weight faster than women. If you do a search with the question "do men lose weight faster than women?" , you will get all the facts about muscle mass, hormones, the differences in the male/female .......

I saved this post from another banster......very good info 03-09-2008, 09:11 PM #1 ajoneen Shrinking Shamrock Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 689 Blog Entries: 59 State: New York Best explanation of left shoulder pain I've ever found. permalink If you woke up with a pain in your shoulder, you'd probably think something was wrong with your shoulder, right? Maybe you slept on it the wrong way, maybe you're a weekend warrior who threw the football a few too many times. In most cases, your hunch is probably right. Pain in the shoulder usually indicates an injury or disease that affects a structure in your shoulder, such as, say, your subacromial bursa or a rotator cuff tendon. Makes sense, doesn't it? But you might be way off. Sometimes the brain gets confused, making you think that one part of the body hurts, when in fact another part of the body, far removed from the pain, is the real source of trouble. This curious (and clinically important) phenomenon is known as referred pain. For example, it's unlikely but possible that your shoulder pain is a sign of something insidious happening in your liver, gall bladder, stomach, spleen, lungs, or pericardial sac (the connective tissue bag containing the heart). Yup - conditions as diverse as liver abscesses, gallstones, gastric ulcers, splenic rupture, pneumonia, and pericarditis can all cause shoulder pain. What's up with that? Neuroscientists still don't know precisely which anatomical connections are responsible for referred pain, but the prevailing explanation seems to work pretty well. In a nutshell, referred pain happens when nerve fibers from regions of high sensory input (such as the skin) and nerve fibers from regions of normally low sensory input (such as the internal organs) happen to converge on the same levels of the spinal cord. The best known example is pain experienced during a heart attack. Nerves from damaged heart tissue convey pain signals to spinal cord levels T1-T4 on the left side, which happen to be the same levels that receive sensation from the left side of the chest and part of the left arm. The brain isn't used to receiving such strong signals from the heart, so it interprets them as pain in the chest and left arm. So what about that shoulder pain? All of organs listed above bump up against the diaphragm, the thin, dome-shaped muscle that moves up and down with every breath. The diaphragm is innervated by two phrenic nerves (left and right), which emerge from spinal cord levels C3, C4, and C5 (medical students remember these spinal cord levels using the mnemonic, "C3, 4, 5 keeps the diaphragm alive"). The phrenic nerves carry both motor and sensory impulses, so they make the diaphragm move and they convey sensation from the diaphragm to the central nervous system. Most of the time there isn't any sensation to convey from the diaphragm, at least at the conscious level. But if a nearby organ gets sick, it may irritate the diaphragm, and the sensory fibers of one of the phrenic nerves are flooded with pain signals that travel to the spinal cord (at C3-C5). It turns out that C3 and C4 don't just keep the diaphragm alive; neurons at these two spinal cord levels also receive sensation from the shoulders (via the supraclavicular nerves). So when pain neurons at C3 and C4 sound the alarm, the brain assumes (quite reasonably) that the shoulder is to blame. Usually that's a good assumption, but sometimes it's wrong. From: Anatomy Notes: Referred pain

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The band is the closest thing to a magic wand that I have found ! I lost 70 lbs in under 7 months with very little effort on my part. I have hit a small plataeu this week and may have to resort to exercise! OMG! It is also understandable that weightloss will slow as I get closer to goal. If someone has a great deal of weight to take off, it is not unrealistic to think 4 lbs a week will drop off. There are some bansters on this very site that are proof of that. "Tool" , "magic wand", call it whatever PC term you want, I think it's great!

I had 2.7 cc at surgery

I had the left shoulder pain for several months, but it was not from the CO2. It is pressure on the phrenic nerve. The gas/air does not stay in the body very long at all.

I watched part of it. I really liked it and will watch again. I agree It was too staged, but still like it.

That is very cool ! I love seeing wildlife in my yard and on my drive to and from work. It is my stress relief. I have been keeping my camera in the car so I can take pics. On my way to work for my monday job I often see Big Horn Sheep and on the way home Elk. I had taken my camera out of the car to take to a wedding on the 13th, and what do you know, on the way home on the 15th there was a huge heard of ELK ! So I took a couple pics with my phone camera.

Go back to your surgeon...... just do it ! You will be much better off if you do. They can offer you the help you need to make this work better for you.

I did all those things early on plus some..... didn't really help.

Some people have noticed, but I would think most just won't say what they think. I am still glad I got banded and hope my hair returns soon. I have had 4 surgeries with general anesthesia and only had hair loss now, so I think it is more the lack of nutrition. Suppliments are just not the same.

You can try all the remedies that people talk about on this site and start them early. Some swear by them, but in my case, nothing helped. The 2 big ones seem to be protein and Biotin. I was doing both of those even before my hair started thinning and I don't know if they helped or not. I am still doing both of those and several other things. My hair is baby fine and thin anyway, so I think I was doomed. At 7 1/2 months post-op I think it might have slowed down a bit. I would say I lost about 30-40 %.

I eat broccoli often. I add cut up broccoli to cheese soup.

Great news ! well, except for the problem at the other end. I know this may sound a little strange, but sugar free life savers are a great laxative.

call and ask if there is a re-fill on record

I would still go out to eat and be social. I just order soup. Maybe they don't ask you to go because you keep turning them down?

The weight watchers info is sure worth a try. I would try everything in every form you can dig up. I would also appeal if you get turned down the first time. If all else fails, you could do self pay like I had to. It's a bummer to make payments, but I got banded.

Do you still have a re-fill for antibiotics at the pharmacy from that last infection? It would be worth a call to the pharmacy.

do they go down easier than meat? I may have to try them.