Search the Community

@@Qtpie28 welcome Kayla! My name is Ericka! I'm 25 5'5" and weigh 311. I also have uhc and have started my journey recently. I am beginning my 6 month diet this month first nut appt on the 22nd....I will not be looking at surgery until next year either due to uhc requirements! I was originally wanting to get vsg but after talking with my surgeon I decided on gastric bypass. I felt like we were kindred spirits when I read ur post and wanted to reach out lol. If you want a journey buddy I am here since we are in a similar place! Good lick and congratulations on your decision to live a healthier life!

It sounds like you are at the front end of the process so I will discuss the steps along the way from my experience. I attended an introductory seminar at a hospital that specialized in bariatric surgery. In this seminar, the various types of surgery were discussed, I underwent an initial screening, I met with the surgeon and selected the surgery, and I met with the liaisons on insurance. Insurance is an important consideration for this type of surgery. My insurance required that I undergo a 6 month medically supervised weight loss and exercise program in order to qualify. So I began this program. I underwent a mandatory psychological review to see if I would qualify. Many of the weight loss problems have a psychological component to them. I began attending free bariatric surgery support group meetings once per month. I began to diet and exercise on a daily program. I went cold turkey on caffeine and carbonated beverages. I had been on a 6 diet-coke per day habit for many decades. I went through a week of terrible withdrawal syndromes after I went cold turkey. After 6 months my insurance indicated that I qualified for the surgery. I underwent a one day pre-op physical exam to uncover any physical problems that might endanger my operation or recovery. These uncovered a few problems, so I underwent a second round of pre-op exams with specialist in their respective fields to resolve these issues. I attended a one-day training session that went into fine detail about the surgery, the vitamin/protein/fluid/meal volume allocation after surgery. I underwent a RNY gastric bypass operation 17 months ago. I lost 110 pounds. I am now at 150 pounds. My diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, frequent urination problems, profuse sweating have all gone into remission. In clothes, I went from a size 3X in shirts down to a size small. In pants, I went from a size 46 down to a size 33.

Over five months of supervised visits I gained 11 pounds. My physician told me I had to lose the weight I gained before my appointment with my surgeon. I lost 15 pounds, had my surgeon appointment, and was approved from BCBSM. My surgery is scheduled for November 20th! Best of luck to you. You will do great!!!

I have severe anxiety and depression. My surgery is scheduled for november 25th. Most things that I have read say that it improves your depression and anxiety. I do not know about bipolar disorder. It does not change the effectiveness of the medications. I have talked to my surgeon about it. If you haven't had a consultation, I would go to one. I was very nervous before I went to one.

I take nine pills every morning for a variety of major depression/anxiety/ADD issues. I have my pre-op appointment on November 4th and have to bring all my pill bottles so that the psychiatrist can talk to me about what I can and cannot take normally leading up to and after the surgery. I am so prayerful that getting the sleeve and finally losing some weight will get me off of some of this medication. I am only 26 years old and my depression/anxiety is so debilitating sometimes that it makes me sick. My doctor had absolutely no issues with my mental state and thinks that the sleeve will hopefully help with my disorders. However, I am self pay - insurance would not approve me for several reasons, although I don't know if any of the reasons had anything to do with my depression. I hope you figure things out, and good luck!!! ????

Many people over this last year have asked me what I did to prepare for my weight loss surgery. There were many things that I did and not one was more important than another. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that your preparation heading into surgery and especially the liquid diet the week or two prior will be the hardest and most important thing you do as a part of your journey. You will work hard to prepare your mind, your body, and to some degree your spirit to go though the surgery. Once you do have the surgery the hardest part is over. If you can survive the months before taking the plunge then everything you do after will be a piece of cake in comparison. I am here to tell you that anyone who says having a weight loss surgery is taking the easy way out is someone who will never understand what it truly takes to go through this process. To some degree I feel sorry for those who don't get it. They will never understand the joy and excitement that comes with going through this transformation. To be honest, even though my wife loves me and has been an amazing support through this whole process, she will never full know or understand what it is like to make this decision and prepare for the surgery like I do. This is part one, in a series of three posts, detailing my preparation for surgery. The first aspect of this preparation I will cover is how I prepared my body. This was pretty simple for me really. I was in bad shape and was huffing after just sitting up from a chair; as my transformation video in an earlier post has shown. I was miserable! I would practically crawl through my front door after just my first night back to work. I work as a pharmacy technician at a hospital and walk 8 to 12 miles a night. I was living off of Tylenol and Bengay. Honestly I smelled like I was probably 90 years old. Looking back I find myself completely disgusted that I ever let things get that bad. Since I could not really do much working out because of the toll work was taking on my body, what could I do? The answer came from my brother. He is a nurse and knows a ton about medicine. I honestly think he should have became a doctor, but he didn't want the added responsibility. Before I had fully decided on having the bypass surgery and long before anyone knew I was even contemplating that option my brother came to me, as serious as I had ever seen him. Those that know my brother know he's a bit of a joker and very lighthearted. His demeanor kind of scared me, but in this conversation would be the answer that would help me prepare my body for surgery. He explained to me that he wanted to see me healthy, that he wanted me to be able to be the cool uncle when he had kids, and how he wanted his brother back. He was scared that I wouldn't be around much longer and didn't want to see me die. Looking back I really think he was right. Then he did something that floored me and provided and amazing answer to how I would physically prepare for the journey I was about to take. He explained to me that he wanted me healthy so badly he would pay for my gym membership if I promised to go three times a week and swim. On a side note; He religiously checked up on my progress with the gym manager to make sure I was going and even went so far as to meet me at the gym and swim with me. I swam on a team in junior high and he explained to me the benefits of working out in the Water. Water has the ability to take all of the pressure off of your knees and other joints. It can keep you cool if you are prone to overheating and provides an amazing about of resistance if you find ways to take advantage of it. He set up a plan and told me just to come three times a week to swim and do what I could. So that is what I did. I did not want to let me brother down and I would hope he would agree it was the best investment he ever made. So that is what I did; I swam. I swam freestyle, I swam breast stroke, I saw backstroke, and when I was feeling particularly squirrely, I swam butterfly. Butterfly was my specialty when I was on swim team but man it is a butt kicker. I started out with 10 laps, which was a lot better than I had thought. I found I could move more freely and with less pain in the water. From there I just simply added one or two laps each time I went. Before I knew it, I was approaching my surgery date and I was swimming close to an hour non-stop! Why should I work out prior to surgery? There is a very simple answer. To prepare your body. You need to prepare your body for what you are about to put it through. This is major surgery and not something to take lightly. You also want to work out to build up your cardiovascular and pulmonary endurance. Strengthening the heart will make you strong for surgery because your body will be stressed, because of this your blood pressure will spike for a short time after surgery and it is a lot to put on yourself. Strengthening your lungs will help keep you from a common post surgical complication which is pneumonia. My goal in preparing my body was simply to be able to survive the surgery, keep my complications down, and my hospital stay short as should be your goal as well. I want to tell you right now that preparing my body worked out well. I had no major complications and I left the hospital three days later, which was the minimum hospital stay my doctor required for his full bypass patients. What if I can't swim? The key here is to simply get moving. If you can walk, then walk. If you have access to a pool, then you can water walk or water jog. If you love biking and can do that, then do that. You just need to move. Your goals with this are simple. First, you want to make sure you are panting a little from being out of breath when you are done. This will show you that your lungs have been pushed a little and if that is true then your heart will have been pushed also. Second, each time you work out, just add a little to it. If your taking laps on a track, add a lap or a half a lap each time. If you are walking your neighborhood then walk for another 30 seconds or a minute. If you do this early, as soon as you begin contemplating surgery the further along and better prepared you will be, come surgery day. As always, if you have any questions, or if there is anything unclear, please post your questions and comments below and I will work to answer them all as soon as I can. Also check again soon for part 2 of the series about dealing with the psychological aspects of preparing for the amazing journey you are taking.

My date is not until November 6 my son's birthday is November 17. Just trying to gauge how I might be feeling. He's only turning eight of course he's going to want his mommy to do fun things with him. Already planning an outing the weekend before surgery but want to know be gull of pain and grouchy all month! Plus I wanted to go to the women of Faith conference. Just sitting down mostly but it is all day. And I promised him a Kings game his bday!

So I had my first appt Sept 2nd with NP.. I already did my sleep study last Sunday which I hated..I couldn't sleep.. hopefully I slept enuff.. Next week I have my endoscopy .. and my echogram.. by the end of this Month I will have all my test done and psych appt..then 3 more weigh ins.. When I started I thought omg.. 6 months of weigh ins.. I Will never get this surgery but it's going pretty fast.. now I have to decide if I want the sleeve or bypass.. I have acid reflux.. I am leaning towards sleeve..even if I have to take meds for a whole for my reflux.. it got worse as I was gaining weight.. so maybe it will go away as I lose weight.. I'm just letting everyone just starting..don't get discourage .. the time flies .. :-)

Had band out august 21st, 2015. Starting pre op diet tomorrow and having surgery November 16th, 2015!!!!!

It's been quite a journey so far successful band surgery 2012 then problems with my band and weight regain all bar 30lb. I am on the pre op diet of lean protein and no more than 40g of carbs. Surgery is 11 days away feeling nervous and excited. Have lost 10 on pre op diet so far. Have pdh diet protein for post op in strawberry and mint choc chip. Any other revision people out there how are you all doing x

Dear LapBand World, Here's my story I started out at 257lbs and lost 10 pre-op. On November 30th the day of surgery I weighed 247lbs. In the two weeks after surgery I lost 10 more lbs and was down to 237. Since then I have only lost 2 more lbs. I had my first fill January 12th and haven't really noticed a differance in restriction. I have a 14 cc band and my doctor fills only 1 cc at a time.THE REASON I AM WRITING ALL THIS IS BECAUSE I'M NOT LOOSING LIKE I THOUGHT I WOULD. I have only lost 22 lbs so far and most of it was shortly before and shortly after banding. IS THIS BANDSTER HELL????? I try to eat what I'm supposed to by I tend to overeat, obviously or I wouldn't have needed the surgery to begin with. I'm worried because I see others on this forum loosing more weight and I FEEL LIKE A FAILURE. My questions are when did you start to REALLY REALLY loose weight??? AND how does restriction help with weight loss once you get it?????? I am tracking my food and exercising although i could do better with both. any other suggestions???

Has anyone ever tried to get a cost reduction due to having the band since we eat like children? Just curious. Taking cruise in Nov (Disney)

I wish you all the best!! I also just got my approval last week and will be having my surgery on 2/15/11. I was lucky in that from first appointment until surgery date it will only be 2 1/2 months. Dr. Strickland's staff stayed on top of everything and was really on the ball in getting everything I needed done fast. I have been obese for 20 years and come from a fanily that as weight issues. I never thought I would have surgery because several people in my family had the gastric bypass and gained all their weight back. But my back went out in August and was barely able to leave the house for 3 months and the doctor said if I didn't get the weight off I would be cripple by the time I got in my 60s. So after some research and realizing that my family failed with their surgeries because they never changed their lifestyles I was determined to do the lapband. I was getting a little discouraged during the process of approval but once I got my date I had renewed determination. Can't wait for 2/15/11.

I think insurance companies are finally seeing the value in sleeves. Bands and bypass have so much aftercare and complications. They are a life long investment and the dollars will be spent forever. No so with the sleeve. So hopefully ins co's will change their tune soon. If you have to take NSAIDs that is a contraindication for bypass, that might help with the appeal process.

LOL .. nope not preggers and thankfully, the suit was fine. Will have to be dry cleaned due to a cut on my knee, but that'll be okay heh. I had 0.2ml of fill removed yesterday, so on that side of things, I'm feeling much better. My doctor and I agreed that while that would leave me with the ability to eat more than I'd like (before that 0.2ml was added previously, I felt almost wide open), its better than being overseas and too restricted. After hearing some horror stories of doctors, I'd much rather leave all my band-care to the one I trust if possible. If I put on a kilo or five while on holidays, so be it. When I get back I'll have a fill and try to get it back off (of course, I'd whinge like mad about it though LOL). I saw my GP this morning. She reckons it was a combination of low blood pressure and low blood sugar that brought on the fainting. My blood pressure has always been on the low side, but it was lower than usual today - 90/50 sitting, 82/44 standing. She says this is due to the weight loss but if I start feeling dizzy when standing and such, we probably need to evaluate it again. She's also doing blood test for blood glucose, cholesterol, Iron levels, liver function (she said this one is actually really important after banding or bypass) and umm, something else that I can't remember lol. I should have the results of this series tomorrow around lunchtime. She wasn't too worried about it all but told me of course, to keep something to snack on in my bag at all times, just in case. On a side note (and I meant to include this yesterday), my wonderful hubby was so sweet all weekend. We were in business meetings the whole time, but he kept checking on me, worrying himself silly every time I so much as got up to go to the restroom. He really is great. At the end of the trip, on Monday afternoon, we had a few free hours til our flight, so we walked around the city. Found ourselves at Tiffany's. Walked out with two lil blue boxes *g* (my first ones ever). I think mostly, it was because he felt bad for me not being able to eat at all the nice restaurants we went to lol.

LOL.... you are going to open that can of worms?!? It really comes down to YOUR choice... the surgeon will explain the varieties and why they may be good for you, and then you (or your insurance) decides. Some insurance companies still don't cover the sleeve. Personally, the sleeve felt like the best for me... I liked the idea of keeping my insides in tact so the nutrients stayed in my system, etc. I know several people that had the bypass 10+ years ago and said if they could do it over, they would have chosen the sleeve. Your co-morbidities, gerd, and other factors will play in to your decision. Good luck (glad you are not considering the band...just MY opinion)

hey kim, i do the atkins diet. i asked my surgeon and nutritionalist and they both gave me the thumbsup. they said the tiny amounts bandsters eat combined with low carbs makes you lose like a gastric bypasser. as bandsters we are told to eat Protien, then veggies then carbs...well i do that but on my protien i make sure it doesnt have any sweet sauces on it and its low carb, veggies i just eliminated certain veggies (short term) and the carbs i eat are from low carb Pasta and bread's. i had problems getting restriction so the first 7 months of banding i did diet (as best i could) and exercise to lose 38 pounds. since getting restriction the past 5 months i have dieted (and been able to stick to it) and lost 65 pounds. i will only diet till i am at 190 pounds, maybe i'll stop at 199.999999 but for now i am saying 190-200. then i'll be ready for plastics and just maintaining my loss!

Hi Everyone! I have been diagnosed with MS for 4 yrs. now. My surgeon recommended GS over banding and bypass surgery due to the MS. I had to skip the last two surgery dates due to a bad relapse in July as I had terrible vertigo and went numb on my entire left side. After two rounds of high dose steroids was able to come down from the vertigo. It was terrible with throwing up for 36 hours straight and not able to walk. Thank God after six months I am back to base line and walking, have short term memory loss but just meet with surgeon on Monday and said he will proceed with my WLS, he has it scheduled for Feb.3rd and I am very anxious but nervous at the same time, just want to recover with no complications or another relapse. Keep me in your prayers as I will you all as well, and glad everyone is doing well. Did anyone have any issues after the surgery that I should be aware of? Looking forward to a new year and a new me with more energy. I take Avonex once a week, but my bloodwork shows no antibody build up to the medicine so its the MS. God Bless and hope to hear back!

Hi all, I'm really worried about coming round from anaesthetic having sleep apnea as I have a habit of removing my mask when I'm asleep, anyone got any advice please?

I just replied to the November buddies post

Hi All, I work for Verizon Wireless, and have Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (BcBs). My initial consultation was 12/23/13, I was able to see all the specialist and get approval by 1/14/14. The paper work was submitted to my insurance on 1/23/14... I am bitting nails (not literally) waiting to hear back!!!! I am scheduled for RnY gastric bypass on 2/26/14. I am so anxious, nervous, and excited, but my initial worries are the insurance approval. Has anyone ran into problems with Anthem?? Help!!! LOL

So i went to consultation set to have sleeve. While waiting in wait room and hearing some ladies talk about their rny surgeries and how successful they were and barely any pain. I started 2nd guessing myself. I told dr i wanted sleeve and he said it would work great for me but if i changed my mind to gastric would also be great. I was hoping he would push for one or the other. Ekkk my hopes are to lose 100 lbs with sleeve? He said guarantee 80 with sleeve and 100 with bypass???

I am a nurse and have seen quite a few patients that have had many serious problems from the gastric bypass. Also the lap band is reversible. But really your surgeon is the one who should be telling you what the best procedure would be for you. I had the lap band done on March 30th and I only wish I had done it sooner! So far no probems and I have lost about 35 lbs. Good luck to you in whatever you decide to do!

REVERSIBLE! the main reason, the second is it seems that gastric bypass is so intrusive. They reroute your intestines and make you a little tummy. I am very happy and satisfied with my choice. Armed with the knowledge that it was not something that will just happen and that I have to contribute to the weight loss has helped me become a better person. I am forced to make better food choices or I wont lose. I am also exercising and feel like a new man. The best of luck in your decision, to me it was a no brainer!

Rhonda, Your decision should be made between you and your surgeon and some self-reflection. I am 4 mos out now and feel great with my decision and my weight loss. That said, my surgeon was very clear with me that if I could not commit to regular exercise I would probably lose 20-40# tops! I am in the gym 5-7days every week since a month after surgery. For me, I had lost weight before I considered surgery. I know I can lose it and have the right mindset to succeed and keep it off. Also, I had made many lifestyle changes prior to surgery. I am young and otherwise very healthy aside from a back injury. At this point, I didn't feel I needed to go the more drastic route of RNY. I like that I am responsible for my weight loss. I have some restriction now, but I still have more control over my choices than bypass patients do. In 4 mos postop and a little over a year since starting this process I am now down almost 90# and down 6 dress sizes. So it can be done, but takes A LOT of dedication. If you are able and willing to commit to regular cardio and strength training as well as make the changes in your diet, then the band may be right for you. However, choosing the bypass is a great option as well. You will lose weight faster, but there are other possible complications and longer recovery. You can dump post bypass but not post band. With either surgery, vomiting and PB'ing can happen. Since bypass is malabsorptive, you can have Vitamin and mineral deficits, but these issues can happen after the band too, if you make poor choices. Also, do not look at the band as reversible because it should not be removed except in the extreme case of severe complications. The band is placed to help you manage your weight over time. Just because you lose X pounds doesn't mean then the band can come out. Both surgeries are major abdominal procedures and are permanent except in the rare case. RNY is more drastic and requires a lot of cutting and stapling while the band involves some internal sutures around the device. Both surgeries have been proven to be safe and effective. Remember, RNY is still considered the gold standard for WLS. In the end, both surgeries require you to exercise in order to keep the weight off. The bypass just shortens the weight loss phase. I know many people who have chosen both surgeries and each has been successful and healthy. The choice is yours, but I encourage you to be honest with yourself- your comittment, expectations, and lifestyle. Talk to your surgeon and others who have had surgery. Best of luck! I'm sure you'll come to the right decision for you. I wouldn't change my decision for anything!!