Hi everyone,

I thought that I would start this thread mainly because I have found reading other peoples so helpful, it is so much better to read actual experiances than listen to a surgeon give you their veiws!

I actually looked into having a FTT done before I decided to get the band, I have had 6 kids and have a fairly horrific scar from and apppendectomy that got badly infected when I was a child.

Just before I had my initial appointment I decided to get the band fitted too, as much as anything to break the yo-yo pattern of dieting that I had fallen into for years now. One of my biggest worries was that I would have the TT and lipo and then 2 years later I would have put all the weight back on!

I discussed at length with my surgeon whether or not to leave the plastics until I had reached goal, but I am going to the maldives for 3 weeks for my 40th in September with my DH and I wanted to be looking good for that

I am very lucky in so far as in my surgeons words I have 'strong skin' but my tummy is a bit of a mess with the scar and the baby pouch left from the kids.I have NEVER had a flat tummy, even when I got down to 105lbs in my 20's so this will be a whole new experiances for me.

I am a bit gutted that I havent lost more weight, but I am going to get back into the zone now that Christmas is over and I am hoping to lose more in the next 5/6 weeks.

I have got my final consult and pre op on the 16th of Jan, and then the op is booked for the 11th of feb.

I am having major lipo (he thinks about 7/8 litres) and a FTT this time round, and then 6 months after that I want to have the puppies lifted back to their rightful place and refilled ( breast feeding 6 munchkins has not made the puppies happy) I asked him about doing it all at once but he said that 7 hours in theatre would be needed just for the FTT and lipo and he couldn't do a BL/Aug at the same time.So its just the bottom half of me that is going to get revampped this time. Does anyone know what is the minimum time that I can leave between the 2 ops?

I searched all over the net to find my surgeon, and I am having to go to France to see him, but I was so taken with his methods and te fact that he pioneered some of them ( he uses High Tension Stitching in a kind of quilting pattern under the skin so that you dont need drains, and he never cuts through the lymph system) and the fact that he trains others in this method that I figured I would rather travel.

The other thing that swung me towards him is that he keeps you in his private hospital for a week afterwards,with full access to morphine if you need it!! ;:speechles)

So thats me I will try to get my before pictures out of him when I go over this time so that you can see what he is up against!

Here is his website if anyone is interested, I think he is pretty amazing!

Docteur PASCAL - LYON - FRANCE

Nina x

My favorite kind of food to cook is french.....mmmmm.....I love all the cream sauces, and I am pretty dang good at it even if I say so myself.

Those are 2 major no-no's now though, I have been told to eat dry meats ( bleuuk) and defo no cream :eek:

I have driven thorugh France more times than I have stopped there,my parents had a house in Spain when I was growing up so we used to drive over to it.

I had forgotten oranginas! Have you ever had a good old fashioned english roast dinner with yourkshire puddings?What am I doing???? I am sat here drooling now!!!

Focus Nina focus!! So back to the Protein shakes.....LOL

It will all be worth it soon

mmmm... yummie Protein shakes ... caramel latte shake ... yummmmmmm

i would not be able to handle any sort of dry meat, bring on the sauce. i figure i eat so little now anyway a tablespoon (not serving spoon) of sauce is not going to kill me...

My dietician went beserk about me having sauces, told me that I couldnt even eat casserole :eek: she reckoned that it makes it flush through the band in half the time and that was why I could eat such big portions.

I am like you, I hate dry food, it is really testing me to the limits trying to come up with new rubs and marinades so that all my food doesnt look yeuuuk.

I think I might try my shakes again tomorrow!

I am giving up on weighing myself, it is just negging me out, I think I might drag the dreaded tape measure out tomorrow.It is weird though, 5 or 6 people have said to me in the last week that I look like I have last weight but the scales say otherwise!

Just a note to myself really, I think it will be interesting to look back and see what was going through my mind after all this!

I spoke to my band clinic today, they rang me to see how my exercise program was going and i told them about the issues that I have with the band, one of the things that sold me on it was that as long as i didnt eat crap my diet would remain the same, I just wouldn't be able to eat as much of it. That I could get my head around, me providing the 30% about choosing healthy foods and the band doing 70% by massivly restricting the amount.That hasnt been the case so far though and all they ever seem to do is tell me to eat dry food, well if I could have totally changed my eating habits I wouldn't have needed the band. Almost all my cooking is one-pot cooking, it is good healthy wholesome food, but now i am being told that I have to have dry chicken breast or plain fish and vegatables, I am sorry, but that it a DIET!!! and me and diets have a baaaad history, I just feel like if I had decided to eat dry chicken and fish without the band I would have lost a shed load of weight, so what did I pay £8,000 for??? :cry

On a much lighter note I spoke to my friend who is going with me to have surgery and we got really giddy on the phone, we have talked about the next step in the new us program and agreed to try to book May for our breast lift/augmentations :grouphug: we also agree that we would look at any tweaks that we still needed on the bottom half and maybe have those done at the same time.

I am trying to work out how much weight I will lose with 7/8 litres of fat and the skin from the op, it has got to work out at about 14/16lbs, add on the fact that Intend to spend a week too mashed to talk let alone eat,and I am thinking that I should be further down the road to my ideal BMI afterwards!!

Only 5/6 days till I fly out for my final consult and pre-op!!!! WOOO HOOOO!!!! :whoo:

Nina: I have a hard time with dry meat also. The dietician isn't your boss. Of course you would lose more if you went on a high protien diet, but I'm with you, eat less and make life long habits. If your not eating a lot of sugar and other things that are bad for you, don't worry about it. 14 pounds of fat loss seems like a lot. Is that how much your doctor said he would be taking? Mine said, 7 or 8 pounds if we're lucky. I'm having some lipo on the sides, but not as much as it sounds like your having. Oh well. It will all be alright (my new mantra).

karey,

love that mantra...

it will be alright ... it will be alright ... it will be alright ...

nina,

eat some sauce ... you'll enjoy life SO much more, really.

I feel much better now after my rant :Banane26:

Thanks for the encouragement though and you are both right, life is too short to worry about it! I have made loads of changes, a bit of sauce aint going to kill me.

I am trying to find out how much 1 litre of fat weighs, most people have about 1 litre taken , just trying to shortcut a few months that all

googled it - heres the answer

What is the relationship between cc and pounds?:

Even though cc (cubic centimeter or cubic centiliter) is a measure of volume and the pound is a measure of weight, there is a way to calculate the relationship pretty closely.

1,000 cc = 1 liter

1 liter (of water) weighs 1 kilogram

1 kg = 2.2 pounds

- or -

1 pound = 454.5 cc (approx.) (Updated: 08/24/03)

How much fat did you take out? or What the heck is a cc?:

Everyone wants to know how much fat was taken out during their liposuction. Although understandable, it's not always quite as important as people think. As virtually everyone reading this site already knows, liposuction is a contouring procedure, not a weight-loss procedure. And unlike breast implants, where you can eventually see pretty much what you have, the number of cc's removed is not always as evident.

Before discussing this, let's go over a few definitions. A "cc" is a metric measurement of volume that is used commonly in medicine and science. 1,000 cc's, which is also called a "liter," is about a quart. A liter of liquid weighs about 2.2 pounds (obviously, a liter of air weighs much less, and a liter of Iron would weigh much more - remember, it's a volume, not a weight) and one pound is about 450 cc's.

When someone tells you how many cc's were removed, you really have to know specifically what they're talking about. Part of the confusion is because there are many different ways of counting it. In liposuction, a certain amount of Fluid (i.e., superwet or tumescent) is injected before doing the surgery. You need to know how much fluid was injected because if, for example, two doctors say a total of 3,000 ccs was removed, but one injected 1000 cc's beforehand and the other injected 2,500, it makes a big difference. One surgeon advertised that he typically removed 10 quarts from his patients but failed to note that he also injected 8 or 9 quarts of fluid, meaning that the real amount of fat he removed was more like 1 or 2 quarts.

So if you're quoted a number, is that the total amount of material removed, or does it take into consideration how much was injected and how much settled out? In fact, the most accurate method is if the surgeon lets the total amount of fat and fluid removed sit for a while (at least 20 minutes or so) and then counts only the supranatant fat; i.e., the fat that is floating, as opposed to the total amount removed. Fat is very light (lighter than skin, muscle, bone, etc.) and so it floats on top. (That's also why you don't lose as much WEIGHT with lipo as many people wish - sorry!) Even that, strictly speaking, is not completely accurate since the "fat" in that layer still contains some of the fluid injected, some blood, and other body exudates (fluids). And, of course, there is a limit to the amount of fat that can be removed safely in a single procedure.

At the end of each case, I use the following sample notation in my records:

3,650 (2,700/950); 2,500 - where 3,650 is the total amount removed, 2,700 is the supranatant, 950 is the infranatant (i.e., the stuff at the bottom) and 2,500 is the amount of fluid injected. When the patient asks me how much fat was removed, the answer in this case is 2,700 cc's. This method is less useful with ultrasonic liposuction which, because it emulsifies the fat, produces less clear separation of the supranatant and the infranatant.

Finally, the absolute amount of fat removed is not nearly as important as the relative amount. 500 cc's removed from someone who is petite is likely to produce a much more dramatic change and result than 3,000 cc's removed from someone who is significantly larger. Some of my best results (depending, of course, on how you want to define that) have been achieved by removing well under 1,000 cc's. The issue is really how much fat was removed relative to the individual body in question. Either way, it's often not what was taken out that matters the most, it's what's left behind.

<A href="http://www.liposite.com/surgeons/engler/index.html">Courtesy of Dr. Alan Engler, NY

Very interesting stuff! Where did you find this information? I guess, when I see my doc on Monday, I need to ask a whole lot more questions! I don't even know what kind of lipo method he uses. This is so good for me. Thanks.

I have done a bit more research on this and apparantly 1cc od human fat weighs 0.9g so 1litre weighs exactly 900g! So if he does take say 7 litres off me that that is 6.3kgs which multipled by 2.2lbs is about 14lbs!!

Have you been to the final consult yet?

Hi Mazie, thanks for asking :ohmy:

It was a bit of a mad week! The consultation was fantastic, all of my worries that he would say the I hadnt lost enough weight were groundless! He made a huge fuss of me when he saw me, told me that I was 'tres jolie!' and wanted to take photos so that he could show me how I looked now compared to when I first walked in to see him.

He also reminded me that when I went to see him I weighed 206lb and that since then I have lost 35lb!! I had forgotten that I lost weight before I had the band in so I have changed my ticker accordingly :biggrin2:

It wasnt until he made me a collage of pictures that I could see where the weight has come off so it gave me a real spurt to keep with it!

We also talked about my goal weight and I said that for now I am aiming for 140lb because I know that I can maintain at that weight, and I am worried that now I am older my face will drop if I lose too much!

On to the important bit!! We decided that this time we are going to concentrate on my bottom half, he is going to lipo my interior and exterior thighs,knees, back and front thighs, love handles and saddle bags, he reckoned that if he takes 4kilos off I will have a nice pair of legs!

I told him that I was worried if he took all of that off my hips I would lose the hourglass look so in addition to the tummy tuck he is going to lipo my waist, my abs and the small of my back:smile: He reckoned in total that we would be taking 5-5.5 kilos which is 11/12lb, if i can lose 7lb between now and then that will mean that post surgery I will only be 12lb from goal!!!

We also did a quick consult for my breasts and he agreed to do them in May. I am having a lift, augmentation and upper body lipo of my arms, pecs and bra roll.We decided to wait until April when I have my pre-op to pick the implant size as what I would need to stay an E cup might change by then!

I got fitted for my compression garment, my did I laugh!!! Like a cross between grannies undies and S&M gear!!

I went to the hospital that we will be staying, which I have to say was my first 'OHMYGODWHATAMIDOING!!!!!!!' moment but I think more than anything it was the language barrier that threw me, in fact I will have to remind myself to ask green to send me a list of handy French phrases, like 'touch me again there and I will bite you'

I seemed to be able to make myself understood with my schoolgirll french and pantomime gestures,but the key members of staff had some english so I reckon that we will get by.

The hotel was gorgeous we have 2 bedrooms a kitchen and a huge lounge so all the comforts of home AND room service:wink2:

They explained that after the op we are in hospital for a week and then when we go to the hotel they send a nurse round every day so that we can have a shower and she will change all the dressings etc for us. We have been told to start taking Iron and they prescribed Arnica for us!They would like us to stay in France until the dressings are off which they say could take 3/4 weeks:eek:

I would say that my mood at the moment is very excited, with a tinge of blind panic!

Nina x

How much is this going to cost Nina?

I've been in the blind panic mode for a while and I've got longer to wait than you do. Can't wait to see the pics and here all about it. Sounds like you're going to have a fantastic experience!

Jelbel - the surgery and drugs,nurse coming out and all that sort of thing is 12,000 euros

Karey - I rarely allow myself to look at anything other than the picture in my mind of where I want to be, I have been very successfully repressing anything to do with how I am going to get there!!! We are hoping that if we make it as fun/comfortable as possible it wont be too unpleasant an experiance.

I am going to take my laptop with me, but there are no connections at the hospital,so it will be a week before I can report back.We have agreed to take cameras so that we can take pictures of our progress so hopefully I will be able to get them up once I am in the hotel.

Anyone here know anything about eardrums? Flamin sure I've ruptured mine.....!

Nina xx