I have my first consult on Monday the 9th. I have had my PCP recommend the lap band after 6 months on a diet and no change. I have a bad back and knees and they will not touch me till I lose at least 70 LBs. I am at 255 BMI of 45.

The lady i was working with at the Dr. Office said she saw no trouble.

MY question is from the first consult was you time line till surgery?

Mary

HOPEFUL FOR SURGERY!!!!

Depends on your insurance. I have Tricare, so my timeline was quick. Met the surgeon on June 17. Got approval from Tricare on June 22. Met with the nutritionist and counselor on June 30. Had surgery August 2. My head is still spinning on how quickly things happened. Would have had surgery sooner, but Tricare only allowed surgery at 1 surgery center where my doctor only gets 1 surgery day a month.

mine was june consult mid aug surgery! very quick

My first consult was the last week of May or first week of June and I was banded yesterday.

My first consult was 12/28 I was scheduled for sugery 3/10 but had to postpone due to another health issue. When you do see the surgeon they are likely to require you to loose some weight before surgery. I have heard 5-10% of body weight. My surgeon required 10%, with the delay I have actually lost 15%. Depending on how strick your surgeon is the amount of weight you need to loose could affect how long it takes before you could have surgery.

why would they want you to lose weight before the surgery if I could do it on my own I would not require the lap-band?

Seminar mid-March. First surgeon appointment April 2 (and every month thereafter), labs and tests 4/20, nutritionist and psych eval end of May, lost my 10% as of July 1 and got the OK from insurance on july 22! Surgery is coming up on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To me this has been FOREVER.

Decided to do this first week of January, did some research about insurance requirements and attended the seminar Feb 3. Approved with insurance company Aug 2 and still waiting for surgery date.

I believe the reasoning behind loosing weight is 1) the laproscopic procedure requires running the tools through the belly area and the less fat the better; 2) Getting you into the habit of eating heathier and smaller portions, 3)surgeries have risk and the less you weigh the better. I am a bit sqemish so I held off watching the videos on youtube. Real surgeries not animated ones. I finally watched them and actually feel better about the surgery. The thing that really shocked me was they showed this yellow stuff that they were moving the tools through. I thought to myself that cant be fat. Well it was. So you really got the idea how important loosing weight will be pre surgery. Also they show how they lift the liver out of the way so that the stomach can be worked on. They have to lift half of it which I never really though about how one organ can completly cover another. Livers store fat and one doctor said that the 2 week liquid presurgery can shrink the liver by 25%! That's a lot.

why would they want you to lose weight before the surgery if I could do it on my own I would not require the lap-band®?

Actually, lots of us can lose weight on our own. I've lost so much weight over the past 40 years, that I should be hanging from a charm bracelet! The problem for me -- and lots of us -- is keeping it off for the long haul.

I asked my doctor about the pre-surgery weight loss, and what he said backs up what honk said. It is also a measure of compliance for some docs. If you can't stay on a two week diet to shrink your liver so that you are a better candidate for a successful surgery, then there are questions as to whether or not you are ready to use the band properly. It is a tool, not a weight loss mechanism. Plenty of people manage to cheat the band, and maintain or even gain weight with it!

My insurance (BCBS) has a three-month period. From my first appointment with my surgeon to the day I wound up in the OR, it was about five months; I was approved within about 4, but the holidays pushed available OR time into January, when I was banded.

The time actually went quite quickly. There are lots of odds and ends to be done that fill up the time---appointments with specialists for operative clearance, preop classes, and so on.

Mine was longer because I also had the 6 month insurance requirement. I had my 1st consult on 2/24 and was banded 8/3.

I have TriCare, so no real hoops. I just had to meet the requirements, which I did with no problem. I did have to have a psych eval, and Upper GI, a clearance from my doctor and a nutritional class. Oh! And I had to attend the informational seminar that kicked everything off. Once I was approved and scheduled for surgery, I had to have pre-op testing and a chest X-ray. For me it took nine months, but only because my mother got sick and died in the middle of my process.

I had my first referral appt with my PCP on Nov 25 and had surgery March 15. It probably would have been sooner than that, but my insurance kept referring me to psychiatrists that didn't take my insurance, didn't work with adults, didn't do psych evals or were dead. That in itself took six weeks, so I probably could have been banded the first week of February.

On my own or thru my regular dr I would have to weight a year. Going thru the surgeons practice they were able to work with me aetna insurance and they only required 3mos if I went that way. So I did. I only had appts once a month..and then fulfilling the requirements in the last month and I was in. I started in december and was banded march 13th.

My first consult was 5/24 and my surgery date is 8/26.