dontgoggilme

hey ya'll. i'm semi new here. about to be banded day after tomorrow and i wanna start getting my plan together on exercise for after my band. what do ya'll feel is the best post banding exercise that gives you a good workout but doesn't totally leave you dying and unable to move? lol

so i have tricare prime and when i went for my pre op testing on monday, the day surgery nurse said that tricare requires me to stay overnight even though usually this is just a day surgery. i asked her if she was sure and she said her notes indicated that yes, tricare required an overnight stay. a friend of mine (also tricare prime) was banded with the same doc over a year ago and she did not have to stay overnight. i wonder if it could be something new tricare has started. does anyone know? also, if i stay overnight, how will i drink my protein shakes that night and til i go home the next day? the doc wants me drinking 2 oz every 15 minutes to equal 8 oz per hour of alternating water and shakes. should i bring my shakes with me? will i be mixing them alone? or will the nurses just give me water and iv fluids til i go home, then i start the shakes? any prevoius overnight stay experiences would be appreciated. thanks!

omg! this is horrible but i'm so glad i read about it. i'm getting banded on friday and am trying to get an idea of do's and don'ts. i already realized trying to talk while munching (i was chewing a vitamin and trying to talk and a huge chunk went down... were i already banded this would be an issue!) is a big no no. now no eating while driving. will make a BIG mental note!!!! thanks!!!

glad to hear i'm not the only one!!!!

i had this issue, too. i had numerous "last meals". a friend of mine had this as well. only... she got her band over a year ago and at that time the surgeon (we have the same surgeon) wasn't making people do a pre op diet. well, i found out at my nutrition class yesterday that the reason our surgeon started making people do a two week pre op diet is because too many people were having huge "last meals" up to the minute of minute the day before surgery. they wanted to get it all in before they couldn't have it anymore. and they were eating so much they were enlarging their lives and that was making surgery more difficult for both the surgeon and the patient. much more risky. so now i've had to do the pre op diet. it's been super hard but i understand the need for this after the explanation i got yesterday. don't feel bad. you are not alone.

my consult was on january 25. i had a band date on like february 22 and that date is march 12 - this friday! so for me it was like almost 7 weeks from consult to banding date. and i thought it was taking too long! what was i thinking? time flew by!!!

wow! those both sound like awesome tools! i'm going to look into getting one - or both - of them! thanks!!!!

wow! now this is scaring me! i was always a little worried about this anyway but dang!!!! my date is friday (pending i get over my respiratory infection by then). i don't wanna die!!!!

my clear liquid day is thursday. day after tomorrow. they told me basically the same thing said here... anything as long as it's clear. and i can't have anything that's orange or red that could be mistaken for blood.

so yesterday i went for all my pre op stuff. everything was fine. had to see the gi doctor again to completely clear me for surgery on friday. he said all is well... except sunday i started exhibiting signs of an upper respiratory infection and it has been steadily getting worse. he put me on a z pack and said that it should be clear by thursday and if not, then they will have to postpone my surgery date for another day. so if i don't hurry and get better i won't be getting banned friday as planned!!! this is very upsetting. now i think i might be getting conjunctivitis in my left eye as well and i'm just like "why me???". lol has anyone else had their surgery postponed due to being sick or other health issues?

i do not think your expectations are unrealistic. as we all know, the band IS a tool. you have to use it like you're supposed to. you have to follow the plan. my doctor says compliance is number 1 to getting where you want to be and losing what you want to lose. it doesn't sound like your friend was very compliant if she was having her fluid let out so she could pig out for a birthday party. my doctor is really picky about letting people's fluid out. he said that if you have something lodged in there, he'd rather have them in go in and extract out the object that release the fluid from the band because it's like starting over from day one. and i can't imagine anyone wanting to do that just so they could eat and be non compliant. i think you can get anywhere you want to if you use your band/your tool the way you should. good luck! =)

i absolutely love all the replies this thread has been getting. the good stories, the sad. the way everyone is so encouraging to one another! this site really is something special. succeed, i'm so sorry to hear about the bad news at your doctor's visit. and yes, i do know exactly how hard it is to drive with tears in your eyes. nearly impossible and i feel for you. i really do. you are so lucky to have such a little supporter with you though; your daughter who thinks you are perfect just how you are. always our kids that can warm our hearts through tears, isn't it? i would definitely follow btrieger's advice and consult with another surgeon. i've heard they aren't all "created equal". chunkster, your "wall of words" was great and i appreciate you taking the time to type it all out for us. maddy, i totally feel ya on the c-section thing. i've had a c-section myself (it was horrible!!!! and they ended up having to put me under general anethesia halfway through because I was feeling things I shouldn't have and moving around so much they couldn't do what they needed to do! sigh!) and then i had a VBAC three years later with my daughter. which was also horrible, btw. so i tell myself if i can handle two horrible births and not being able to use my stomach muscles for a while after all that then surely i can deal with five small incisions, right? i sure hope so!!! i've had numerous surgeries before but i'm still nervous nonetheless. at the same time though, i'm sooo ready and excited about getting my band. i wish i had it already!!!! p.s. thanks to those who confessed to not being so great on the liquid diet. i've had a hard time with mine here and there and it seems to be a going good, then going not so good kinda thing. makes me feel better to know i'm not alone! but hey... my husband has been doing the liquid diet with me and he's having a hard time of it,too. and wouldn't you know he's a tough military man, too? LOL

i agree that it sounds more like a program fee that they are having you pay. my doc has one, too. it's $200 (not covered by insurance of course) and has to be paid on the day you do your pre op testing (that's monday for me). i don't quite get the whole program fee thing because couldn't they just include that in as part of the surgery price and then insurance would pay? that way they would get their money and the patient wouldn't be out the $200. but at the same time, i am not going to complain about it really because my procedure is covered 100% other than that program fee so i don't really mind paying it as to compared to what i would be paying if insurance didn't cover everything like it does. i could see someone being upset about it especially if they are self pay.

it's going ok. just had my morning protein shake about an hour ago and so far so good. yesterday i slipped up one time. the soup recipes were helpful and my sister (awesome cook that she is) is making me something special today, too. some kind of soup i'm sure. but as long as things taste decent i have no complaints. it's a lot easier to stay on the liquid diet when there are a variety of options. different soups, broths, etc. getting really nervous about banding as the date is getting closer and closer. i go for all my pre ops on monday.

wow. two of us getting done on march 12! good luck to the one getting it done in Mexico.i hope all goes well. =) and well, i'm glad to hear one very positive story even if it was a bit uneventful. better uneventful then something bad happeneing! i would love it if mine were that uneventful. hopefully it will be! =)

my band date is march 12. just a mere 9 days away (not counting today or the actual day of surgery). i'm really starting to get nervous. i think my biggest worries are that i won't wake up, something will go terribly wrong, or my liver will not have shrunk enough and they won't band me. i'm also nervous about the pain and gas issues afterwards. can ya'll share some positive surgery stories? thanks.

thank ya'll so much! and yes, i'm a march bandster, too. march 12. sooo close!!!! i am feeling better about things. tonight i went online and found some good soup recipes and my husband is going to cook them for me (i'm a bad cook lol). like i said before, he is doing the liquid diet with me so i'm not alone. lol i really appreciate all of your encouragement and support. ya'll are great!

thank you all for your responses. i'm really glad that some of ya'll were totally bluntly honest. i need that!!! i haven't had anything else solid since this morning and i'm going to make sure i stick to this better. it's just sooo hard!!! it frustrates me to know that a friend of mine had the same lapband surgery with the same doctor a year ago and she didn't have to do a liquid diet. they didn't make any of their patients do it back then but now they have started making their patients do it and i'm one of them. sigh! i will get through this. thank you all for your help. ya'll are wonderful!!!!

ok... so i started my liquid diet yesterday. the shakes i ordered from bariatric advantage (linked through my doc's office) have never come in and i'm working on trying to find out where they are. so i've been using some shakes i bought at the grocery store. but anyway... i'm supposed to have three to four shakes a day, two protein bars, and other liquids and that's it. well, it's been really hard. yesterday i had some canned chicken and a few pieces of cheese in addition to my shakes and other liquids. today i had some tuna and cheese. not a whole lot. yesterday was like one little can of chicken and three small pieces of cheese. today has been the one tuna patty thingy and two small pieces of cheese. is this ok? it's all mainly protein and not a lot of carbs or anything. what do ya'll think? i'm having such a hard time with this. i feel like crap. my husband is doing it with me to be supportive he says but i think the fact that he's handling it so well while i'm not is really just making me feel worse.

i have a banding date of march 12. i start my pre op diet this friday. i'm so excited,nervous, and etc.!!!

i do believe my surgeon will have me meet with a dietician first and asking him/her about it is a great idea. i'm supposed to do shakes and that is the part i'm worried about. i think it's wierd, too, that i have issues with the sweetners. i first discovered it as a teenager when we had sugar free popsicles and i got sick off just one. then i kinda noticed it happened everytime i had something like that with aspartme and saccharin and all that in it. i've tried and tried to drink diet sodas instead of regular and eat sugar free foods time and again and i always get icky. hopefully the dietician will have some helpful insight. thanks ya'll for your responses.

all of you have given some really great responses but check this out. my husband saw me on this post last night and asked me about it. i told him it was just a forum i'm in and i said ok. well, this morning he logged onto my computer to get on here and see what i had typed. he confronted me about it but lied and said he had read the whole thing last night which i knew wasn't true because he didn't see it long enough last night to have read the whole thing. so i confronted him on lying about it and invading my privacy. he's very low self esteem. he thinks i'm going to leave him all the time even before i talked about getting lap band. he was all in my browsing history and maybe evcen my email. i'm just like wtf? and totally password protected my puter now. sigh.

i haven't been banded yet, but the first thing my doc told me about when i went in was about failure rates. he said that most of the folks that find the band isn't working for them are those who don't come back for their fills like they are supposed to. they stressed and stressed to me how important and vital it is for a person to get their fills and continue the follow up care. the band is a tool and that includes the dr and nurse who give you the fills to get your restriction. i would never get a surgery and then not go back for routine follow up care which is essentially what happens when someone gets a band and never goes back for fills.

i'm going to be banded in early march and will probably be starting my pre op liquid diet in a week or so. i'm worried about something though. of course, we are all supposed to go with sugar free everything as much as possible and the protein shakes we choose are supposed to be sugar free. i have problems with artificial sweetners. they make me sick. literally. i've tried them all (sweet n low, equal, splenda, and some other wierd ones, too) and get the same results everytime. upset stomach almost vomiting and headaches. even if i just have a couple of sips of something like diet coke it happens. i been trying to drink shakes and eat things with artificials in them to try and acclimate myself to it but it's not working that well. so my question is this... do any of you have this issue? and what did you do? did you drink shakes that had sugar in them and did you still lose? i have been watching a youtube video of a chick that had this problem and she drank shakes with sugar in them and still lost just not as fast as she prolly would have if she had been doing sugar free. but that's only one person. i wanted to see if there were more people out there facing this problem.

i checked out ya'll's blog links. i just started my own,too. kinda nervous about it but here i go: That Magazine Girl