Hi, :wave:I'm in Seaton Delaval, just outside Newcastle Upon Tyne in the North of England (although I am originally from Portsmouth in Hampshire). I'm scheduled to have a lap band fitted on 17th December by Mr Woodcock at North Tyneside General Hospital (paid for by the NHS - only 6 weeks and 6 days to go). Mr Woodcock told me that I had to lose weight before he would fit the band so I have lost 75 lbs since May this year (2007) through a sensible balanced diet and lots of exercise.

I am really worried about how to eat after the surgery. I have been on a diet for so long that I don't know how to eat normal diet foods any more. I am a vegetarian too.

Do you just eat very small amounts of normal food? What is normal food? If I eat tiny portions of the kinds of food I have been eating whilst losing the 75 lbs I will only be eating about 600 calories (maybe less) per day. Is that OK?

I am full of trepidation. This is a really big step and I wouldn't be taking it if it were not the very last resort. I really believe that I need this provedure. It's not that I can't lose weight (I've just lost 75 lbs) but I just cannot eep the weight off - which is why I have been offered a lap band rather than a bypass. Any information or advice you could offer would be gratefully accepted.

Hello there!

I am scheduled for surgery the same day that you are in Indiana.

I start my pre-op stuff a week from Monday and see the dietcian that week too.

Do you get to see a diet specialist? I would suggest that... they should be able to answer any question that you have about eating after the surgery!

Best wishes!

Yes, I have seen a dietician already, and I will see one again after surgery, but dieticians tend (in my past experience) to be rather boxed in by theory. The practical experience of living with a lap band woud be really useful to draw upon - but I doubt that most dieticians would have that resource.

I have my pre-surgery assessment on 28th November, and I have to start my "liver reducing diet", which is basically a low fat low carb diet, ten days before surgery - so that would be on the 7th of December.

I'm terrified that I may gain weight before the procedure. I've really experienced a demotivation in my diet and exercise regime since I was given my date. Do you think they might cancel me if i have gained a lb or two?

Becci

Hi OHM, I am wanting to know what the process was in getting your surgery at North Tyneside, I am due to see Mr. Woodcock at the end of October 2008 for a consultation, what happend after that, and how long did you have to wait for your surgery, many thanks.

Hiya Lesley Ann. Mr Woodcock is lovely - like a great big teddy bear. Don't be nervous.

My schedule ran sométhing like this:

I first met Mr Woodcock when I suffered gall stones during my last pregnancy. After the baby was born, he took my gallbladder out - that would have been in December 2006. I had a follow up appointment with him in March 2007, and in the meantime I found out that he was a bariatric surgeon. I asked him if he could do something to help me with my weight and he told me that I would have to ask my GP to refer me, but inthe meantime he weighed and measured me and told me to try to lose weight.

So, I trollied off home and spoke to my GP who ummed and ahed and tutted, and said that there were procedures to go through. She told me that at the very least I had to see a dietician and to try a focus group at Wansbeck hospital called "Food for Thought" and they had a long waiting list, and only when I had seen them and given their philosophy a try would she be able to consider referring me.

I was so disappointed. I contacted the focus group and they told me that the waiting list was over a year long and that I had just missed a new start, and they only started up new groups every 3 months, so I wouldn't even go on the waiting list for another 3 months. I was so frustrated - anyway, I sat down and wrote to Mr Woodcock, advising him of my situation and telling him that I would keep on trying to lose weight and that it might be a long time, but I would keep on giving it all my efforts until I was referred to him. Bless his little cotton socks - he wrote to my GP and gently but firmly pulled rank. He basically instructed my GP to refer me to him ASAP and I had an appointment within 6 weeks!

So I saw him in May, and I had started dieting properly the week before. By the time I saw him for the firtst official appointment. I had lost a little weight (about 21 lbs - remember I was 248 lbs to start with) and he told me that if this had been my second visit he would have been scheduling surgery there and then, but we had to have 2 visits before surgery could be scheduled - so I went away and kept up the new diet regime (low fat, low carb, relatively high protein) and went swimming every day and walked for miles and miles each week (about 3 miles a day at the start rising to running 5 miles a dy these days). At that first visit he asked if I had tried diet pills, and I had, but he prescribed some for me anyway, just so that we had ticked all the boxes. He gave me reductil which is supposed to make you feel satisfied more easily - but they made no difference to my weight loss. I didn't lose any more or any less when taking the pills - but the weight kept on coming off.

It may seem a little odd asking people to lose weight when the reason for their approaching hiim was because they could not keep their weight within normal limits, and I certainly asked him about this one. His reply was simple: if you can't change your habits before the surgery you wont be able to do so afterwards either, in which case the surgery would be a waste of time. My problem was never that I could not lose the weight - I just could not keep it off. I would always lose whatever weight I wanted to lose but then gradually regain it once it stopeed being the main focus of my existence. THat is what the band does for me - it keeps me focussed on what I have eaten and reminds me when to stop.

I saw him for the second official bariatric appointment in September 2007 and the surgery was scheduled for the 17th December 2007.

I had the surgery and I am feeling great. I am still a little overweight - about 10 lbs, but the weight is still coming off. It is much harder to lose weight now that I am so much closer to a healthy weight, but it is worth making the effort. I can wear normal clothes (UK size 14) and I can run and play with the kids. I can walk for miles and I run 5 miles a day. I am about to enter my first half marathon and I am so proud.

A word of caution though. This surgery does not do the job for you - you still have to take control over what you put in your mouth and it isn't a licence to sit on your butt all day - exercise is very important - in fact more important than ever if you don't want to be swathed ina shroud of excess skin and flabby tissue.... I don't particularly like chocolate, but if I did, and I chose to eat it all the time I would still be fat. There are some foods that I can only tolerate tiny amounts of: bread, potatoes, rice, Pasta. I can only manage about half a slice of bread before I am so full I am in pain - real pain. And if I ignore the early signs of being full up and just eat up anyway, even only 1 extra mouthful of yoghurt, then I will be sick and that is very unpleasant.

Likewise, apples, and other "firm textured" foods fill me up so quickly. I can't eat chips or cheese or anything firm textured like that - but if I wanted to I could eat bowls and bowls of porride or stew or ice cream or chocolate biscuits - and then I would regain all the weight I have lost. I eat my meals froma side plate, and I have come to accept that if the food doesn't fit on the side pate then it wont fit in my stomach without causing me great pain.

Especially now that I am nearer to a normal weight, I have to make sure that I exercise strenuously and regularly, or the weight loss just stops - but that is OK because I have really come to enjoy my exercise - it is my "ME time".

Hope this helps. If you are local I would be happy to meet up with you and chat about this. There is a bariatric surgery support group at Wansbeck every 3rd Thrusday, I think. I used to go but found the politics a little difficult. They are a really nice bunch though and welcome pre and post operative patients. Is there any way to pass personal info so we could pass on contact details without sharing them with the whole WWW?

Ohm

Edited September 22, 200817 yr by Ohm
Typos and had left some thoughts out

Well, here I am more than 2 years on. I have a normal BMI - currently 24.1 -although I have a had a few minor fluctuations in my weight. I have had to have plastic surgery to deal with the huge baggy belly skin and I will have my upper arms fixed up in 6 months or so.

This thread being in the introductions forum, I wanted to let any newbies know that, for me, this procedure gave me what I needed in order to accomplish a normalisation of my weight. I'll always be tall (a lap band can't fix that) but apart from that I am entirely unremarkable to look at. I look normal. Anyone passing me on the street would never know I ever had a weight problem.

To those people thinking of being banded I would like to say that this procedure gave me my life back. It didn't change who I am inside, but it allowed me to re-align my physical presence and image with my internal representation of myself.

As a result of my weight loss I do find that strangers treat me differently - but not vastly so. Women tend to be more ready to view me as an equal -people are less surprised by my educational qualifications and that kind of thing. People who have known me for years but haven't seen me for a couple of years walk past me on the street without recognising me (which isn't so odd, cos I often find myself catching a glance of a woman in shop window reflections of mirrors - especially those alongside excalators - and I find myself thinking "ooh, look, there's a woman wearing exactly the same clothes as me" and then I realise "ooh, wow, it IS me!" - Very nice feeling but a bit wierd.)

Edited March 14, 201016 yr by Ohm
typos

What a wonderful story , and thanks for coming back with your success....

I have just started my journey and love to read how this proceedure has changed lives....

WELL DONE....

Ohm, thank you for bringing back your thread. It was nice to read your journey.

I posted new 2 month post op arm reduction pictures if you want to check them out.

Congratulations on all your accomplishments,

Mimi