I was curious to know how long it took for many of you from the day you went to your doctor and told him/her that you wanted to get the lap band to the day of your surgery??? i have seen a lot of people talking about a month and a half anywhere to 6 months?! i know that every one is different and their circumstances are different but i just need an idea. i told the doctor all about me trying to loose weight since i was 16(now 24 and being over weight my whole life) in the mean time having a baby gaining 100lbs! diet, exercise, pills, nutritionist(gained weight with them!), starvation, carbs ect. and how all i lost was that 3lbs of water weight no matter how hard i tried. she took one look at me and my weight gain since my last appt asked me a few questions about my smoking i told her its done i will quit and she said i need to if i want surgery and i researched how long nicotine stays in your system which depending on how much smoked from 2 to 60 days im calculating about a week for myself she sent me on my way to do blood work and i would see her in about a week with the results and talk about the next steps... before even asking my primary dr about lap band i called my insurance myself and asked them if they cover it and they said they do so i know that shouldnt be a problem. my concern is since i have tried all these weight loss fails will i be sent to another weight management center before the insurance will approve it? they said nothing about that over the phone they said if your dr approves you we will pay? i should know in a few days about my blood work i hope all goes well!

Kami,

I started this journey June 2010 and my surgery is tomorrow. After my initial consult with the surgeon in June, I took a few months to really think about if this was what I wanted to do and also did some research on my own. I didnt actually begin the testing until late August early September. My insurance company required 6 months of diet/exercise supervised by my doctor. That seems like a long time, but by the time you go through all these tests that are required (I am a single mom, so taking off a lot of time from work, was not an option) it ended up being 7 months.

I wish you the very best with your choice to have surgery and I certainly hope you receive everything you wish out of it. My suggestion is for you to call the insurance company and ask for a list of requirements for the surgery. Every insurance company is different. That will give you a pretty good idea of what and how long things will take.

Best wishes and welcome to this journey,

Kymba

thank you i am also a mom do have a fiancee(not his child)and planning on getting married and taking a bunch of days off isnt really an option either thats why i did my first appt and then went straight to blood work. anything i can get done in one day i will. i have been researching b4 i even went to the dr and asked about it, i know im ready! the problem is in about a year we were planning on getting pregnant and i did all the research on being pregnant with the band and he is dead set on being pregnant by then. and he was only on the band wagon if that was still able to happen, he said if not i should wait till after but im not putting more baby weight on top of this body, he is INSANE if he thinks im dong that. he is happy i want to do this and get healthy but its not ideally how he would like it. i just dont want it to be a year process and then mess up all our plans for our family. i have watched videos on youtube about that it was as soon as a month but maybe they were an ideal candidate or something i dont know... i just dont want time to be a factor in getting discouraged...