I am new here so this topic may have come up before. But one of the frustrating things for me on any band forum (or in real life) is lap band recipients who seemingly know nothing about this piece of silicone that they had implanted in their bodies. I am not talking about the newbies who are trying to educate themselves. I am talking about ignorant individuals who know nothing months out of surgery. The band slip rate has gone up and so has erosion rates....(not to mention revision surgeries)....do you think maybe its because of some people refusing to learn how to live with their bands? There are legitimate reasons some have band complications that are beyond their control...but I wonder how many end up with problems because they are simply tuned out and in denial that they are responsible for their success. What started this rant is an individual on another forum who is doing something dangerous daily and when we all post that she should stop she says her doctor knows what she is doing and we are all liars, because we must do it too. Thats as specific as I am going to be...I have decided to pass all those threads by from now on....if they want to screw up their bands thats their choice.

When you work in OR you just get used to everyone being naked. You don't even notice it. When someone that comes in with undies on and you have to remove them, then you notice.

If you don't want people to remember you naked, then don't try to leave undies on thinking nobody will notice.

Yeah and ladies - remember that good haircare doesn't stop at the waist. :whoo:

Yeah and ladies - remember that good haircare doesn't stop at the waist. :whoo:

And cleaning out your OWN belly button isn't a horror either!

I'll be totally honest here. I have a really hard time cleaning my bellybutton. It has become bottomless. With weightloss, my stomach has kind of collapsed, and my bellybutton went with it. I'm a visual person, so see graphic below.

I try to pry it open in the shower, but it's like trying to pry open the business end of a water-weenie. Seriously. Think of a Water weenie, and trying to get down into its... hole. The minute anything gets down in there, the water weenie is closing in on it. That's exactly what my bellybutton does. I try to push the shower head against it, on massage mode, to jet water down into it but I have no way of knowing if it's successful. So now it's a combination of shower head, qtips, and trying to work some peroxide down in there.

I seriously don't even want to think about what's in the deepest, darkest reaches of my bellybutton. At least some loose change and probably my missing cell phone, for starters.

Here's what my bellybutton has done. I mean - how do you really clean that? (on a brighter note, I'm going to have my primary doc start recording this stuff, and see her every time the skin gets irritated instead of just piping some neosporin in... may help my TT case with the ins co):

Wheet, you kill me. I love the free-hand

Okay, so you have an excuse. Most others don't. When it takes 13 foot long q-tips to dig out treasures in someone's belly button it's stinky and gross.

Okay, I have another one. Now, I realize there is a fear that goes with surgery and that's fair. BUT, at some point it needs to be put in perspective.

Aren't some people essentially saying, "I have no fear of a heart attack, stroke, blood clots, diabetes complications, or breathing problems from being FAT but OMG, what if the same damn thing happens during surgery so I can get healthy? Is surgical banding really worth the risk?"

When I see people preferring fat over a small chance of surgical complications, the above is what I am hearing.[/quote]

Yeah,.... and then those people get RNY.

I haven't been banded yet but I have been researching it for 2 years and am still fighting with my insurance company to get the surgery. I have encountered all kinds of people that have had the banding done...on the net, support groups, and people that I know have had it done (I work in the healthcare field). I find that right now my biggest pet peeve is people that I know from my town that have had the surgery and it was paid for by Mn medicaid or Ucare (basically by the MN taxpayers) and they are really non-compliant. Here I am...with 2 different insurance companies that deny my surgery and I am fighting like hell to get it. They get it done for free...and then don't comply with the program. One guy I know that had it done for free wants to have his band loosened so that he can still drink alot of beer.WTF.....He still weighs over 300lbs and has been banded for over a year, but he's at the bar every night. My tax dollars paid for his surgery. OMG...............

This thread is a crackup!! And just to add to your giggles, I am a n00b at this and have yet to be banded, and have already asked the question about sexual positions and port discomfort (haha) and was just about to ask about how bad the face wrinkles get after the weight loss

(Seriously - is it bad for most? There's not a lot of things about my body that I feel good about but being 45 and having NO wrinkles on my face is one of them. Most people guess my age at around 35. My brother, who had a similarly youthful face, lost weight a year ago and for the first time looks his full years of 50 - a fit and healthy 50 year old, true, but when a little overweight, you'd never have picked him for being past 40.)

I haven't been banded yet but I have been researching it for 2 years and am still fighting with my insurance company to get the surgery. I have encountered all kinds of people that have had the banding done...on the net, support groups, and people that I know have had it done (I work in the healthcare field). I find that right now my biggest pet peeve is people that I know from my town that have had the surgery and it was paid for by Mn medicaid or Ucare (basically by the MN taxpayers) and they are really non-compliant. Here I am...with 2 different insurance companies that deny my surgery and I am fighting like hell to get it. They get it done for free...and then don't comply with the program. One guy I know that had it done for free wants to have his band loosened so that he can still drink alot of beer.WTF.....He still weighs over 300lbs and has been banded for over a year, but he's at the bar every night. My tax dollars paid for his surgery. OMG...............

I read a post on another board where someone had a band at tax payer's expense and she was furious when she discovered she might have to pay something like a $20 fee for fills so she wanted to have tax payers pay for revision surgery to RNY.

Yep, we self payers understand your frustration. Better to have tax payers pay an ADDITIONAL $30K+ for revision surgery to save her $20 for a fill.

This thread is a crackup!! And just to add to your giggles, I am a n00b at this and have yet to be banded, and have already asked the question about sexual positions and port discomfort (haha) and was just about to ask about how bad the face wrinkles get after the weight loss

(Seriously - is it bad for most? There's not a lot of things about my body that I feel good about but being 45 and having NO wrinkles on my face is one of them. Most people guess my age at around 35. My brother, who had a similarly youthful face, lost weight a year ago and for the first time looks his full years of 50 - a fit and healthy 50 year old, true, but when a little overweight, you'd never have picked him for being past 40.)

Everyone is different but I know that my full, wrinkle free face is now growing a rooster thing under my chin (where my other chins used to be) and I have fine wrinkles around my eyes that used to be puffed out quite well with fat.

YMMV.

*sighs* Yes, I think that is going to be the trade off Ah well...nobody died of wrinkles that I know of, and I know this weight is killing me...not a hard choice when put that way, eh?

[Ticker removed coz it's just too depressing until I get my band]

BTW, while I understand... that is just WRONG! We ALL started out with a humiliating ticker. I swear to you, nobody notices the high ticker, we ALL notice the weight loss. Every bloody pound is from sheer effort banded or not, we KNOW that.

Okay, three posts in a row. I'm at my limit. Okay, I'm not. But it's nice to write anyway.

Re removing the ticker: Well it's not so much the humiliation, it's just the constant reminder that I have to WAIT and I'm not the most patient of people. Of course, I could use that waiting time to start on the loss on my own, but that would be being sensible, wouldn't it? I've never claimed to be sensible

Re removing the ticker: Well it's not so much the humiliation, it's just the constant reminder that I have to WAIT and I'm not the most patient of people. Of course, I could use that waiting time to start on the loss on my own, but that would be being sensible, wouldn't it? I've never claimed to be sensible

Oh hell! If any of us were sensible we'd have started the pre op sooner than necessary.

Go for it, put the damn ticker up. It keeps you honest, it prevents you from gaining during the dreaded "waiting" period.