BJean

Yup, afraid it's true. The little buggers don't disappear no matter what you do. You might have some luck covering them with self-tanning cream or tan towels. And I have a friend who has an expert do a specially mixed spray tan for her during swim season. It's expensive but she looks fab. And the loose skin is another lovely little issue. I'm finding that my upper arms are probably never going to have nice definition, just stoopid sagging on the underside. It sucks when you stop waving goodbye and your underarms don't!

I think a lot of it depends on how old you are and what kind of shape you're in. And what kind of vacation do you have planned? Will you have someone to help with the kids on vacation? Are you a single parent? Have a good, supportive husband and father for the kids? Needless to say, there are no guarantees that you won't encounter something unusual during or after surgery that might require more help from outside than you originally planned on. But I'll give you feedback on my progress after surgery. I only had a few days of feeling uncomfortable and only a couple of days that I felt like I needed a little pain medication. I bounced back very quickly after the band, not so fast after the sleeve. But I am older than you are and probably wasn't in as good physical condition as you. My left side incision where he removed the portion of my stomach was pretty sore and tender for a couple of weeks. And although I've heard a lot of people say they had no energy, I felt pretty good except for that one tender incision. It is crucial that you get in the required amount of liquids, Protein and Vitamins for a speedy recovery. The better care you take of yourself, the quicker you'll feel like doing your normal activities. And if you try to eat like even a little like you used to, you'll have problems. I hope your doctor has a good plan that is not too rigid with food choices. My dietician had a plan that added new foods every 2 or 3 days and so it kept me from getting bored with my diet during those weeks just after surgery. All in all, if you take good care of yourself, and you have no complications, you should be fine. But you will probably still need to pamper yourself a little and not expect too much from your body. It will have been through a lot with the surgery and anesthesia and it takes a while for anyone to feel 100% after all that. Good luck! Hope all goes well for you.

I apologize... I just noticed that your surgery was in June. Sorry! You might not be eating enough to keep your system happy. They insisted that I have Centrum Chewable Vitamins every day plus a Calcium with Vitamin D with two meals. The Centrum and Calcium cannot be taken at the same time so I take the Centrum in the morning. I drink some Water then chew it up and then a little more water and then Breakfast. It has worked so well. I feel so much better and healthier than I did before the sleeve. I take the chewable calcium with Vitamin D with lunch and dinner. If I miss the Calcium + D, my stomach gets seriously unhappy. I asked the dietician about that and she said that the Calcium + Vitamin D actually help with absorbtion of nurients. I also take a Vitamin B-12 sublingual (under your tongue) once a day which makes me feel great. I also added a L-Lysine tablet once a day, last week because I spent too much time in the sun and got a fever blister (herpes) on my nose. It's cleared that up quite nicely. I used to hardly ever take vitamins and didn't think I needed them. But I get plenty of Protein, take these things I listed and I haven't lost my hair or had any other issues since surgery. I feel better than I have for many, many years. I have followed his orders and it's been great. I haven't had to take those PPI's or acid reducers at all except for a few they gave me in the hospital. A couple of nights I felt a little burn and the doc told me to take a tsp of Mylanta. It worked like a charm and haven't had to take it since. And I used to have acid reflux with the band. So I can't tell you how happy I am and how great this surgery has been for me. I hope you get it resolved soon because I want everyone to enjoy the kind of success that I have.

Doc said no fencing with real swords, no acrobatic acts that include ariel swings, no mix of bison-elk hamburger meat for the first 3 days, only yogurt drinks that don't have kiwi and not to lift my husband for 10 days if he weighs more than the combined weight of our dogs. Oh yeah, and 124.5 ounces of tea, preferably green, per day for 6 weeks. Fortunately I was able to stick to the plan. Well, except for the acrobatics. You just can't keep a good girl down!

Sounds great Brooklean! Keep up the good work. It's been about 3 months since my surgery and I couldn't be happier! I haven't had a stall, although I experienced a minor slow down since the initial period of dropping a lot right after surgery. But my weight loss has been pretty continual, like promised, which is around 2 lbs a week. I now have reached the point where I have lost more than half of what I need to lose to reach my goal of 130. Knowing that I have less to lose than I've already lost is somehow very exciting to me. I've always had this huge amount to lose even after I've lost 30 lbs or so on any diet. I started out with the band at 220 lbs and now I'm in the 150s. I was so afraid I would never weigh less than 170 again which is basically the lowest I got with the band. So I can't tell you how happy I am with this surgical procedure! I only wish I hadn't wasted 3 years fighting with the band!

Perhaps you're taking in too much liquid or solid food at a time and your stomach is overloaded. I mean you don't have to take in much to reach overload. Sometimes only a very small amount makes me know that if I take one more drink I will spit up instantly. Your problem actually sounds more involved than that but it's the only thing I can think of that I have experienced that is similar. Good luck. Hope you get it resolved soon. If you've lost 70 lbs. since April, chances are you definitely should be feeling weak. You need your Vitamins, in chewable form, and you need your Protein - 70 grams a day. Have you been keeping track of your protein intake? Do you have a good source of easy to ingest protein? Like a Protein shake? And you should also drink a little Cranberry juice to aide your kidney function.

I was sleeved on April 28th. Haven't had any symptom you mentioned. I have had the usual female hot flash but nothing centered in my body or feeling like it was somehow interacting with my inner surgical site. Definitely should stick with pressing your doc on this!

God doesn't interfere or cause bad or good things to happen. People need to wise up and take responsibility for their actions and understand that people are fallible, accidents happen and there are good people and bad people in this world. Stop giving God credit for the good stuff and stop blaming the devil for the bad stuff. This entire discussion reminds me of a time when people worshipped the sun god or rain god or whatever god they created in their heads so that they could explain things away that they couldn't deal with. Life is precious, death is inevitable. Everything inbetween is up to us. We might read the good book for guidance on how to be a better person, a better wife or husband, a better parent or friend but it's a guide book, written by fallible people, not the literal word of God. And I know that the more someone who is a close-minded, extremist religious fanatic hears that, it will merely cause them to dig their heels in deeper because they find such comfort in their beliefs. That's fine, whatever works for them... just so long as their beliefs are not forced on me. Because my beliefs are every bit as real and important to me as theirs are to them.

Amen brother!

The Vitamin D deficiency is not to be taken lightly. I take a Calcium + Vit D with two of my meals everyday. It helps with digestion among other things - by that I mean absorbing nutients. Also, I have been taking 75 mg of Wellbutrin post surgery instead of the 300 mg. Wellbutrin XL prior to surgery. And I'm doing great! I also take the Chewable Centrum Vitamins and a B-12 sublingual a day. I am feeling better and am happier than I have been in many, many years. And my weight loss is progressing slowly but surely every day. People are beginning to say that they hardly recognize me if they haven't seen me since before surgery. I also found that I needed L-Lysine supplements because I got a big fever blister near my nose after spending too much time in the sun. I was surprised to learn that L-Lysine also helps metabolize Protein properly. It's not a very well known supplement but when I need it, for a fever blister or herpes breakout on my face, it is the ONLY thing that helps. Good luck. Don't be depressed. Take your meds. We're bound to be low on energy as fast as we're losing weight. Try the sublingual Vitamin B-12.

Sorry about your personal bed wetting problem but very happy that you are such a bright person.

Sorry you're so narrow-minded that you can't understand the difference between "pro-choice" and "pro-abortion" Is there anyone else out there who doesn't understand that one can be anti-abortion AND pro-choice? Anyone who can't understand how someone can rant and rave about abortion being killing, under any circumstance imaginable, and that the reason it is wrong is because God made all things but who finds it perfectly acceptable to rationalize and in fact endorse capitol punishment?

Yay Rodriquez, you're awesome!

Cleo's that was my first thought too. And you hit the nail on the head - personal choice is what this discussion is all about. Think what it would be like if one day our country became so over populated that the government decided that women could only have one child, or even no children.

You're still addressing the three of us patty. I thought you were going to stop? Just have to have the last word? Oooh, I consider that a challenge. A sperm and an egg that have met up are not a baby, no matter how much you insist that it is. It is a fertilized egg. It has a certain percentage of a chance of continued growth. The conditions must be right. And one of those conditions is that the woman/host be willing and able to nurture it to term. It IS life. It IS NOT a person. It is a POTENTIAL person. Otherwise, why wouldn't we be having funerals or at least some kind of rituals, for every spontaneous abortion that happens when nature realizes that it is not a viable pregnancy and automatically sheds the "blob of tissue?"

I'm glad you vented. It's healthy and it is good that you posted your own views and experience. It's what helps us all understand how difficult this topic is for most women and how very personal it is as well. None of us can walk in another woman's shoes. What would be unthinkable for one of us is absolutely a necessity for another. I admire you for the decision you made and the fact that you were able to not allow the rapist to have control over you beyond that heinous act of aggression he perpetrated on you. You must be a very strong and smart lady. Your son is a lucky young man. And since you're intelligent I hope you can understand or at least respect the feelings of any woman who would be unable to cope with continuing an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy where a man forced his sperm into her body without her consent. The life-changing, life-challenging condition that a rape forces on many women, other than you and probably many others who feel as you do, surely could cause their destruction since any sane and normal life would be impossible for them. In other words, many women might rather die than continue such a pregnancy. These are the reasons why the government should not be able to take away women's rights on this issue. We are all so very different. We are all entitled to our own beliefs and the control over our own bodies. Children are far too important to be considered a commodity controlled by the government. Women are as well. Again, I commend you for your very brave and loving decision and I congratulate you for taking control of your body and your life and the life you gave your son! You have an amazing story. If your son ever did hear it I am sure he would only have love and admiration for you.

I'm glad you're done. You make no sense. You are totally against abortion because it is murder. Oh but except in a certain case, then you've decided there's an exception. And as for capitol punishment, you're all for THAT. Holey smokes! That's murder no matter what you want to call it and no matter how many ways you try to justify it. And we're not talking just disposal of a blob of tissue - it's the actual murder, the real killing, of an honest-to-goodness living breathing human being. You're passing judgement on a person based sometimes on circumstancial and/or trumped up evidence and then you're murdering them. What kind of moral code or righteousness allows that? You do not even sound remorseful about your harsh commitment to capitol punishment when someone on death row has been been wrongly convicted and found to be innocent. And your arguments fall flat when you try to defend them. And I've only touched the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to your logic. You quote passages from the Bible when it suits you, when it suits your way of thinking. And then you totally ignore passages that make a case for a viewpoint that is quite the opposite of yours. Or you say that's not what God meant! And then you go on to tell us of some interpretation you've heard that you've decided is correct. And then you announce that you are worthy of presenting the correct interpretation to us on behalf of God. You really have no clue how pompous and arrogant you are. You have convinced yourself that you're speaking for God and therefore correct in every word you say. In fact, you get it wrong most of the time. It will be refreshing to not read your assinine comments on this topic.

Band to sleeve revision done when I was 64 - and I wish I could have done it years ago!

This is so stupid I can't even wade through it all. It goes from wrong to so freaking wrong it is unbelievable. God didn't write anything - down or up. The Bible wasn't written when mankind developed into an upright creature. So there were no rules from the outset, nothing written, nothing spoken. We are intelligent life. We make our own rules. We develop our own spirituality. We made the Bible. We may have had divine inspiration or it may have simply been people with enough intelligence that they were attempting to make sense of life and trying to ensure that people could learn to coexist in peace. I'm not unfaithful. I am very faithful. But I'm not stupid and I'm not ignorant and I am not, unlike yourself, blinded by religious endoctrination and unable to think for myself. Like this kind of discussion between us always winds up, I'm suggesting once again that you stop thinking in absolutes. Stop buying into rigid thinking and judgement of others. You are always going to be a basically unhappy person until you allow yourself to question and question some more. And actually be open to other possibilities. It will enhance your spirituality - not crush it. I do understand your fear. And that fear runs very deep. It will take some work but you can do it, I think. Although I am not positive that you can actually get past that deep-seated fear that you cling to. You're so wrapped up in fundamentalist, extremist blind worship, you are missing one of the most important things that life has to offer. And you'll never know exactly what that is until you stop that chatter in your head and let the life blood flow freely without such stricture and negativity.

You do not have the right to protect human embroys from anything. So there is no infringement involved.

First, it isn't murder. Second, you do not have the right to try to make people do your bidding - i.e., carry a baby when they are unable to to it or do not want to do it. You cannot interject your wishes into a woman's womb. You have no right to do that and it is physically impossible for you to do it.

It is very hard to do but PUT AWAY THE SCALES! At least for a few days. Then, what I've learned is that (if you're really sticking to the low-cal program) your body has begun to hang on to every calorie because it thinks it's starving. That is quite common. Honestly this sounds counterintuitive but eat more calories for a couple of days. I promise you it will tell your body that you aren't starving it and your body will then allow you to realize a weight loss again. It is really how it works. The other way to do it, if you don't trust what I'm telling you, is to increase your exercise by a lot. But when you're eating very little and your body is hanging onto everything you eat, it's in starvation mode. If you increase your exercise (which will work for seeing a loss) but you aren't taking in enough Protein, it can be very hard on your muscles, including your heart. I'm no medical professional so go ask the medical pros in your life. If they say I'm wrong, then it's because they haven't had enough experience to understand the phenomenon.

As Rodriquez said, we don't put laws into effect because they are reflecting what God "said" in the Bible. Sorry to burst your bubble. But you definitely seem to live in one. A small, contained bubble of thought and beliefs. We pass laws because they keep us all from running over each other on the streets; to keep us from thinking it's all right to take other people's belongings; to keep us from killing our enemies; to have a structure for us so that we can hopefully live in peace in this very populated world. My beliefs on a woman's right to choose whether or not to procreate will absolutely in no way infringe upon your beliefs. Your desire to make abortion illegal definitely infringes upon my beliefs. We're not only talking about keeping religion out of our government, we're also talking about keeping our Constitution REAL. Making laws that do not take away the constitutional rights of others to live their lives. We don't have laws because of God. We just do not. We have them because we are a civilized society. And we try to make our laws that are fair to everyone as much as possible because that's what our Constitution and Bill of Rights promise. That's why our forefathers came here and why they wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights the way they did. Not to please God. They did it to make this a free country, where people do not have to live by any rules set up by one particular religious doctrine. They were intentinoally very open and explicit about separation of church and state. Why can't you understand that? Why do you continue to argue they wanted a nativity on the courthouse lawn?

Me: "... as it relates to every other woman and what they believe, it's fine for you to make your beliefs known to them but you are not our creator and you have absolutely no business telling them whether they are doing the right thing if they choose to have an abortion, no matter what their personal circumstances are." You: "I never claimed to be your creator. God gives me the right to tell others about what he has to say on issues. To say that I have "no business" to do so on a thread entitled "who supports the right to choose" is ridiculous. If we saw each other on the street or something and I overheard your conversation about having an abortion, then it would not be my business to tell you anything. But here, this is what we are discussing, so it is my business. If someone were to ask me what I felt about abortions and why, I would tell them." No, that's not what you want to do. You want to make laws that reflect your personal beliefs on this issue. It isn't that you just want to tell people what you believe and what you've decided that God has said on the subject, you want to legislate what you believe to the point that it is as if you think you're God Himself. You use His name and you say you're using His words but it's you who wants to rule us and they are YOUR words you're using. If God wanted to rule us in that way, then He would. He didn't choose you to rein us all in and have us follow you and your teachings. Everyone does not believe that God spoke to us through the Bible. And He, no matter how convinced you are of it, DID NOT write, nor did he actually speak to be quoted, in the Bible. Talking about an issue is one thing - labout this or any other topic like gun control or capital punishment or legalizing drugs - everyone is free to give an opinion and reveal their beliefs. But when you decide that your beliefs should be the law of the land and they are simply your beliefs with no basis in science or even good sense, then we have to draw the line.

If you believe that it is God's will that a woman or girl becomes pregnant and you also believe that a person should not interfere with God's will and you also believe that abortion is murder, then it makes no sense that you would believe that it's all right for anyone to get an abortion for any reason. And I hope you never have to face a personal situation where you are conflicted between your own body and your beliefs. As for what you believe as it relates to every other woman and what they believe, it's fine for you to make your beliefs known to them but you are not our creator and you have absolutely no business telling them whether they are doing the right thing if they choose to have an abortion, no matter what their personal circumstances are. Hence the absolute necessity for this to not be a governmentally controlled issue.