I attended an information session at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia on Tue, 6/4 and decided I would like to look further into the Lap-Band procedure. I also went for a check-up at my primary the next day and of course to discuss the possibility of WLS.

The nurse practitioner and I decided that I could not be a better case scenario with a BMI of 41 for bariatric surgery. So she went ahead and sent a referral over to the office of Dr. Amy Cha at Penn Health for a consultation. My consultation is Tue, 6/11 and I couldn't be more excited. I met briefly with this Doctor after the info session as she was the presenter and found she was very friendly.

I would just like to know what the next steps are on my part as far as research and questions to ask my surgeon and/or any of her staff. Any and all feedback would be awesome and greatly appreciated. Thank you

First of all, welcome to the forum. There is a great source of information here. Also congratulations on working at getting healthy.

The best thing you can do for yourself ,is to educate yourself.

To many ppl go into this thinking its a quick fix and then find out its not. The band is a tool and unless you work with this tool, it will not work. You follow your Drs instructions and it will work, but there is work involved.

Good things is, it does work.

As far as whats expected of you next, is hard to say. Everyone's insurance requires different things. My insurance, Aetna, made me go through a 6mth supervised diet, psych eval and nutrition classes.

My bariatric team led me every step of the way. They gave me a print out of things I had to get done and how long I had to do it.

They took care of all the paper work.

Best of luck on your journey. Stick around and ask questions.

We're here to support each other.

Thank you for your input, like I said, any and all is helpful and more than welcome. As I research further and further I am discovering how much work this procedure actually takes, both pre and post op. I am okay with that, however, I think I should try a more intense diet whilst I go through the process until my surgery diet. I think this will help me mentally and physically prepare for the pre-op diet, if any, and the even more strict post operative diet. What do you think?

Hi! Just wondering if you have had the band surgery yet? Still doing pre op? It's been a while since you posted.