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So as some of you know I started at 540 pounds October of 2015. I had surgery May 29, 2016 at 480 pounds and today (March 23, 2017) I am 303.6 pounds. I am mostly happy with my progress but am plagued with lots of extra skin. Even though I am not a year out from my surgery I met with a plastic surgeon for my stomach hang. It bothers me a lot and is pretty painful.

The surgeon gave me 2 options. 1. I could wait until goal or 2. I could get have surgery to remove the hang now and have a revision later. I chose to try and have insurance cover it now and get a revision later because it bothers me so much.

They submitted it to insurance and I got the call that they approved it!! My surgery date is June 5th! I'm very excited but also a bit nervous. The surgeon said mine would be the largest he has ever done and I would need at least 4 drains in for about 4 weeks.

I'm also nervous that by June I might be closer to goal and it might be silly to get it now when I would have to get it again so soon. It's really hard to tell my rate of weight loss though once I get closer to goal.

Overall I am excited and just wanted to share my good news with everyone!

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28 minutes ago, Dashofpixiedust8 said:

So as some of you know I started at 540 pounds October of 2015. I had surgery May 29, 2016 at 480 pounds and today (March 23, 2017) I am 303.6 pounds. I am mostly happy with my progress but am plagued with lots of extra skin. Even though I am not a year out from my surgery I met with a plastic surgeon for my stomach hang. It bothers me a lot and is pretty painful.

The surgeon gave me 2 options. 1. I could wait until goal or 2. I could get have surgery to remove the hang now and have a revision later. I chose to try and have insurance cover it now and get a revision later because it bothers me so much.

They submitted it to insurance and I got the call that they approved it!! My surgery date is June 5th! I'm very excited but also a bit nervous. The surgeon said mine would be the largest he has ever done and I would need at least 4 drains in for about 4 weeks.

I'm also nervous that by June I might be closer to goal and it might be silly to get it now when I would have to get it again so soon. It's really hard to tell my rate of weight loss though once I get closer to goal.

Overall I am excited and just wanted to share my good news with everyone!

That is so exciting! I can imagine and understand that you are nervous and unsure.. but honestly having your current loose skin removed will help SO much in your day to day life. I would say it's totally worth it to go ahead and do this now and once at goal to do the revision later! Not having the painful loose skin will make it easier for you to exercise and get around which will help you get to goal.. so I say go for it! No matter what you decide or what happens, I know you can do this and it is so awesome how far you have come in your journey so far! Congrats girlie :)

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@kayshabear Thank you! I agree that it will help me overall. It's just hard to make the final decision. I guess I will see where I'm at in June! If I continue the same weight loss rate as I'm at now I will be down an additional 50 pounds and be only 55-60 pounds away from my goal! I doubt I will stay at this rate though. :-/

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If you're close to goal by surgery, you may want to talk to your surgeon about doing a full TT. I've heard that with insurance, often times you're able to get the additional TT portion of the surgery for less since insurance is already covering part of it (OR, anesthesia, etc). Just a thought.


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Congratulations!!!! Reaching goal is a huge accomplishment. This will be a very much deserved gift to have the excess weight removed. I wish you the best !!!

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@sjfinkThanks for the tip! I'll have to see where I am when the time comes!

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@Thejeweledsleeve Thanks! I still have about 105 pounds to go. I've lost about 70% of what I want to lose. I'm happy with my progress so far. I'm having more issues recently as I'm trying to date and have been going out to eat more and cooking at home less. I need to learn how to balance it better!

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That's so exciting. And scary. Im so happy for you though! You totally deserve it. One way to think about it is the amount of skin being removed will take pounds off for your goal. So say you do lose the 50lbs (which i can totally see happening) before your surgery. They are still taking off pounds of skin. So if you have 105lbs to lose and lose another 50 and still have 15 to 20 or more lbs of skin to remove that's some of the work right there. Then you'll have less than half of that 105lb remainder left to lose. I hope that made sense. Just take it a week at a time and before you know it you'll be going in for your new flatter tummy![emoji3][emoji1][emoji6]



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Congratulations!!!! It will make it so much easier for you to move around and exercise with it gone :)



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@Torriluv87It is both exciting and scary! It's true the skin will weigh some. The doctor said the skin doesn't weigh as much as I might think it does though!

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@Suaniya Thank you! I am really hoping so!

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    • LeighaTR

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      · 2 replies
      1. Selina333

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. LeighaTR

        I hope your surgery on Wednesday goes well. You will be able to do all sorts of new things as you find your new normal after surgery. I don't know this from experience yet, but I am seeing a lot of positive things from people who have had it done. Best of luck!

    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

        I don't know at what point my life expanded, was it when I lost 100 pounds? Was it when I left my walking stick at home ? Was it when I said yes to an outing instead of finding an excuse to stay home ? i look back at my last five years and wonder how loosing weight has made such a difference. Be ready to amaze yourself.

        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

    • CaseyP1011

      Officially here for a long time, not just a good time💪
      · 0 replies
      1. This update has no replies.
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