FLbandgirl1985

Hey everyone! I just found out on Thursday that my insurance co. pre-approved me for surgery! I am being banded by Dr. Fusco on 10/26/09 - I'm so excited!! Any fellow Dr. Fusco patients?? He seems very skilled, I was definitely impressed with him at the Seminar. Ok, well I hope to hear from some of you soon!! :thumbup:

Hey there! Just wanted to add my 2 cents!! I am a thyroid cancer survivor and the girls I work with call me the "thyroid queen" because I know so much about thyroid function, thyroid meds, etc.! I just want to say that those who stressed how important taking your medication is are 100% right! Once you develop hypothyroidism (low functioning/sluggish thyroid) you generally have to take medication for the rest of your life (there may be very rare cases where you can stop, but generally the rule is it's a lifelong med). I think the 1 pound is totally a coincidence - it takes about 4-6 weeks for the medication to take it's full effect (thus your doc will give you a lab slip to do in 6 weeks each time he adjusts your medication). Your thyroid produces hormones that EVERY cell in your body need to function properly! It's extremely important! There are basically 2 different types of thyroid medication: Synthetic (i.e. "Synthroid") Or Natural (Armour Thyroid, Westhroid, Nature-Throid --- it's "natural" because it's made from porcine thyroid glands aka "desiccated thyroid") After I had my thyroid removed I was on Synthroid for a few months which works for many people, but I was not one of them, I continued to have depression/anxiety, memory loss, fatigue, excessive weight gain, dry skin, cold intolerance, etc. so I was switched to Armour Thyroid and all my symptoms are gone (except for the weight problem, but that was an issue before my thyroid cancer, and I did lose 30 lbs after starting Armour) - I've been on it for 2 years and my levels have stayed very consistent. Anyway, my point is that if after being on Synthroid for awhile if you don't feel an improvement do some research on natural thyroid medication and see if it might be right for you... One more thing, you said your TSH was 4. something? After I had my thyroid removed they didn't give me any medication because of this special kind of radiation treatment I had and my TSH got up to FIFTY (the higher the number the more hypothyroid you are). I felt like an 80 year old! It was horrible! Anyway, I could go on and on about this subject all day LOL - if you have any other questions let me know!

I asked my surgeon about NSAIDs (Non Steriodal Anti-inflammatory Drugs) like Ibuprofen, Motrin, etc. and he said it was fine - he said there is a risk associated with taking them (ulcers -- and I think it maybe increases your risk of band erosion?) but the risk was so small it wasn't worth suffering through my period every month. I have pretty bad cramps so I definitely use NSAIDs during that time. I will definitely probably try to use Tylenol for any headaches in the future though instead of popping ibuprofen...I am planning on trying to take it only when absolutely necessary and use Tylenol for anything else...

Co-morbidities are medical conditions that increase your risk of death and are made worse by your obesity or are thought to be caused by your obesity, such as: Hypertension (high blood pressure) Hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol levels in the blood) sleep Apnea (where you stop breathing for short periods while you are asleep) Degenerative joint disease (joint pain/damaged joints, like your knees) I'm sure I left something out, but I hope this gives you a good idea of what co-morbidities are....

Mine is in my signature line. I love reading everyone's blogs, it's been great!! :thumbup:

Congrats!! I just got approved on Thursday, oh happy day! LOL :thumbup: Do you have a surgery date yet??

My surgeon and his staff are awesome!! The insurance specialist called me yesterday and said that when she sent in my information for pre-approval the ins. co. sent back a denial saying that as of Oct. 1st they require a 12 MONTH physician supervised diet history!! My insurance coverage is through a very small ins. company in that is only in the county I live in and they are only contracted with one surgeon: mine (luckily he is very skilled and has been doing LB surgery since 2003). So when they got this news from the ins. co. he was really annoyed and he went and had a meeting with the insurance company's board of directors and told them it was ridiculous! He talked them into reducing it to a 6 month diet and he also talked them into approving my surgery WITHOUT the 6 month diet because they had totally dropped the ball in notifying him (esp. since he is the only LAP-BAND surgeon they even work with!!) of their new requirements and I've been working on getting this approval since early September. So basically he fought for me and they approved it! Isn't that awesome!?!?! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!! My surgery is October 26th! I can't wait!! :thumbup:

Hello Everyone...if your name is not here why dont you copy and paste then add your name and date! Happyloser 10/1 bethany329 10/1 Timmers 10/1 Lindac80 10/1 Marfar7 10/1 Ca7696 10/2 Opus03 10/2 RedboneLA 10/3 ihavehope3 10/3 Viking_girl 10/5 leetie 10/7 Jtreece 10/8 MommyOf1 10/8 Suz-Q 10/9 Noodles 10/9 SharPei 10/13 Guy 10/13 Cshytle 10/13 MoniqueD 10/14 Jenfromtheburg 10/14 ncarreras 10/14 angela677 10/15 Kme 10/15 Nooshie 10/15 munkee'smommy 10/15 Oliverdog 10/16 danyett 10/16 We3601 10/19 Onikenbai 10/19 Deekel 10/19 Mzcancer 10/20 Soexcited 10/21 erenstar983 10/21 pina3940 10/21 jenrobbar951 TBA HDmama 10/22 Crazychica133 10/26 Sarah1285: 10/26 Idahlem72 10/27 Daria77 10/27 Barley 10/28 4girlfamily 10/29 TxCloverAngel 10/20 nc_liz 10/20

Hey Everyone, I've been reading through the rules for deducting the cost of lap band surgery on my taxes and my only question is: If I am paying for the cost of surgery with a credit card (CareCredit) can I still deduct the cost? Since it's basically a loan I wasn't sure if that still counted...I know this may be a stupid question but I just wasn't sure. Thanks!

Thank you everyone! I appreciate the info! That makes a lot of sense and it's what I was thinking, but I just wanted to make sure I was on the right page. Thanks again!:thumbup:

What can you take once you've been banded? Can you take smaller tablets, do you have to crush them? Is that only post-op for a period of time or permanantly? I'm just wondering because I take a Multivitamin and some other supplements and I'm wondering if I'll be able to still take them after I'm banded, I thought I saw someone mention something on here about tablets getting stuck.

Thanks for the info everyone! I met with my nutritionist on Wednesday and she told me I wouldn't be able to swallow anything bigger than an aspirin but what you all said made perfect sense...I will just cut them down smaller if I need to (as long as it is safe to - I'm mainly talking about vitamins).

All surgeons are different, I know my surgeon requires: Clear liquid diet x 3 days before surgery (the first 2 days I can have 1 meal per day besides the clear liquids). The first week after surgery I am on a full liquid diet (I can blend up Soups etc.). Then the next 2 weeks after that I am on "mushies" (anything I can mash up with a fork basically) and then after that I graduate to "regular" food (for the most part). You seem a little confused about what you can have - have you checked with your surgeon/nutritionist? I just met with my nutrionist this week and she gave me a full list of what I can have in each stage as well as lists of types of food I can buy and meal examples as well as Protein requirements. Don't hesitate to call your doctor! :smile:

So I think I've been through the full range of "pre-banding" emotions! I was super anxious and excited and couldn't wait, then I was nervous, scared and questioned if I was making the right decision and now I'm just excited and ready! I am totally at peace as far as the process and how long it may take. I feel well educated and informed about what I'm about to go through. I hopefully will have an answer by either Friday or Monday as far as finding out if I have pre-auth. I have a BMI of 38 and a diagnosis of Hypertension - from what I understand, I meet my insurance company's requirements (I have Health First Health Plans, a local company) and they do not require a 6 month diet. The insurance lady at my surgeon's office has given me a couple of mixed answers, first she said I needed either a BMI of 40 or 35 and a co-morbidity, but today she told me my history looked good but we "may have trouble" - so who knows? I feel pretty confident about things, but we'll see! If I get approved right away I may be able to have surgery as soon as October 19th! WOOHOO!! :tongue2:

I'm supposed to provide a 2 year diet history that will be attached to the letter of medical necessity that my primary care physician is going to write for me. What did your list look like?? Just trying to figure out if I'm on the right page with mine...

Hi Everyone! I've been lurking around here for awhile and I thought I would finally introduce myself. I've known about gastric banding for a long time and I've always thought it was a great option as far as WLS goes, but I've never considered it personally until a couple of months ago. Obesity runs in my family and I've been overweight my entire life. My highest weight as an adult was 236 lbs and my lowest adult weight was 179 lbs. Right now I weigh 210 lbs (I'm 5'3). In 2007 at age 21 I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer - I had surgery to remove one lobe of my thyroid that had a "suspicious" (biopsies had been inconclusive) tumor on it, then after they verified it was cancer they went back in a month later and removed the rest of my thyroid. Then after that I had a special kind of radiation treatment (called radioactive iodine, or I-131). I've had two 6 month follow-ups since my diagnosis and so far they haven't found any recurrent or residual cancer!! The type of thyroid cancer I had was slightly higher risk but my doctor says it still has about a 90% cure rate. It was pretty crappy to go through, but I'm so thankful to be recovered from everything. The whole diagnosis process and then eventual surgery/treatment was so stressful, I had lost about 50 lbs before I went through all that, and then gained it all back during the time I was sick, of course it didn't help at one point that I had no thyroid and they weren't giving me any medication because of the kind of radiation they gave me - at one point my TSH was 48 (normal level is about 0.40 - 4.0) - I could just look at food and gain weight! After I got better from being sick and got adjusted on the right thyroid medication I was able to lose about 35 lbs on my own through diet/exercise over the course of about a year, but in the last 8 months I've just been going up and down with my weight, really struggling. I have gained back about 10 lbs. I'm really discouraged - I just have been having a lot of trouble controlling my hunger. I finally realized that I may not be able to do this on my own. I think the lap band could really be the tool I need to get to a healthy weight. So luckily my health ins. co. covers lap band surgery! I have already been to the seminar, and I'm having my psych eval on Monday. I just need to go meet with the trainer and nutritionist and get my letter from my PCP and I'll be good to go. The insurance lady at my surgeon's office said my ins. co. is one of the easiest as far as approval goes and they don't require a 6 month diet so I'm super excited about that! I've already been through major surgery so that doesn't scare me, but I am worried about hair loss. I've never had super thick hair and when I was sick and went through all my surgery etc. I definitely had a lot of thinning going on with my hair - and I think it made me more paranoid about hair loss in general. I feel like I never grew back as much as I lost and so I don't have much to spare, but I know if I keep up my Protein and supplements that should help. My Mom always told me it wasn't noticable, but it's hard not to feel self conscious. As far as me, I'm 24, single and I live in central Florida, on the east coast. I work as a medical assistant for a cardiology practice and for the most part I love my job. I'm really want to get my weight under control now so that when I hopefully get married some day and have kids I'll be at a healthy weight and not still struggling with all this. My biggest goal is to be a cancer survivor and an obesity survivor! Anyway, I just want to see thanks for all the great advice and insight I've already received from you all! ~ Sarah -

Hi Ladies! Thank you for the encouragement...I have to admit I am pretty nervous about going forward, I guess it's just the what if's - I know it's the right choice but I can't help feeling a little anxious about the whole thing...I guess my biggest fear is getting the band and then not losing any weight, I know that's not going to happen, but I still have that little fear in my mind. Moragged - congrats on the weight loss! that is awesome! ESPECIALLY with going through/recovering from your hip surgery! :biggrin:

Thanks for the input everyone. From what I understand, this is the only surgeon that my ins. co. covers. I have a health ins. plan that is a local company and it's basically a HMO. Apparantly this is the only surgeon in the area that is contracted with them so my hands are kind of tied. Either I shell out the $3,700.00 or no surgery at all. I really don't have the money, I'll have to take out a loan (if I can get one). So, IDK :/ the thing that stinks is the ins. specialist at the surgeon's office said that my ins. co. is very straightforward as far as getting approval, as long as you have either a BMI of 40 or BMI >35 w/ at least 1 co-morbid. you can get it approved and they don't require a 6 month diet or anything. On one hand it seems like a lot of $$$ but then at the same time it seems like a small price to pay for my health. Like I said, the program does seem top notch, but I can understand why some of you feel that it seems too high. I really don't know....

So I went to a seminar with the surgeon I am considering the other night and I found out that my insurance definitely covers lap band surgery so my out of pocket will be $150.00 for the out-patient surgery as well as any co-pays for testing. However, the surgeon has a $3,700.00 "administrative fee" that is outside of what insurance pays for the surgery. This covers things like their nutritionist, trainer, support meetings, 24/7 on-call nurse, website used to track your results, etc. The program does seem like it's top notch - the surgeon is a training proctor for the lap band and realize band and goes around training other surgeons to use the system. He also participates in clinical trials and keeps a research nurse on staff. He is very into data and statistics and tracts EVERYTHING which was nice as he provided his statistics vs. general lap band statistics when it comes to surgical complications, etc. He also keeps his own first assistant on staff for all his lap band surgeries to ensure the shortest surgical time possible and they've been working together for 7 years. I was highly impressed with the surgeon and his staff -but $3,700.00 is still a lot of money. What do you guys think? Is this common? Did you have to pay a similar fee? If I can come up with the money I am pretty sure I will go ahead and with the procedure. I feel really good about the program, of course I'd prefer not to shell out $3,700.00 but I know there are a lot of you who'd gladly pay that vs. self funding the entire thing.

Wow, SO glad to see this post!! I have had pulsatile tinnitus (aka I hear my heart beating/wooshing in my ear) since I was 18 and I am now 24. At one point when I got down to 180 lbs it went away, but as soon as I gained the weight back and got over 200lbs it came back (I'm now 211 lbs). In the last year I've been having more frequent headaches and a couple of months ago I went in to see my PCP and he ordered a MRI because of my complaints, well it was 100% normal so I've been researching it more and come across IIH. I am convinced that is what I have! I had a eye exam last year and they did not see any papilledma but I know that doesn't rule out that I don't have IH. SO, I brought a print out on IIH to my PCP on Friday and he said he thinks I should definitely go see a neuro and have a spinal tap, so I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appt. So, between all that and having hypertension I'm pretty confident I will be able to get lap band approved through my insurance co. -- I have a BMI of 38.

I am going to a seminar on the 10th but I have so many questions right now! I was just wondering, who writes your pre-auth letter to the ins. co.? Is it your primary care doctor or the surgeon? Also, I have a history of hypertension, I developed it when I was 18 yrs old - I was 235 lbs - I lost weight (at one point I was down to 180) and was able to come off my medication at the time, but I've been gaining weight back for awhile and I'm worried my hypertension will come back - right now I weigh 212 lbs and my BP is running normal. My question - do you think the doctor will be able to put "hypertension" or "history of hypertension" as a diagnosis even though it's currently not running high? My BMI is 37 so I really need a co-morbidity to get approved w/ my ins. co. and I don't have any other problems currently besides back pain and a history of thyroid cancer as well as only 1 function kidney that does all the work (the other was damaged when I was a newborn). Any advice you can provide would be great!