I'm interested to know what everyone's "process" was from the moment they decided to look into the surgery to the actual procedure...how long did it take? Any special diets before surgery? How many different appointments? I"m just begining my journey and i can't get enough information about people's different stories! Thanks for sharing!!

Barbie:thumbup:

I've just started, but this is what my process consists of:

1) initial consult with psychologist (that was today, it was also an intro to the program)

2) medical consult

3) 2 (or more) appointments with nutritionist

4) 2 (minimum) appointments with exercise physiologist

5) 1 "intro to lap band" session

6) 5 group meetings (once a week for 5 weeks)

7) follow-up with psychologist

8) meeting with surgeon

Plus get approved by insurance, lose 30 pounds. They said they may have some flexibility on that because of my build (most of my trunk weight is in my chest, so they don't have to cut through much for the surgery). No liquid diet required before surgery, they just want to see the weight loss.

I went out and bought a date planner today to keep track of it all.

I started my journey at the beginning of the year. I heard of the lapband via the commerical and headed on over to lapband.com. That day I signed my mom and I up for a seminar. We both had intial consults with the surgeon about three weeks later. Then two weeks after that we had our round of tests. That was this week actually. Dr. Minkin and his staff (st. louis, mo) make it pretty easy on his patients. We don't have to set individual appointments for everything spaced out across numerous weeks. You do it all in one fail swoop! It's great actually. I checked in to out patient at 8:45 and was done with all my testing, psych consult, dietician consult, stress test/ekg, pulmonary function, and chest x-ray by 11:30 and on my way home then. Next is a follow up to go over my test results that's in two weeks followed by waiting for insurance approval. I know ahead of time it won't be approved so I'm working on my appeal right now, so I can just turn around and resubmit everything again. I hope to have my surgery in June when school is out.

Hope that helps, sorry it was kinda long!

those are both very helpful..thanks! I'm finding more and more people who don't have to wait an entire year before having the surgery. I've heard lately that the more health problems you have the longer it actually takes to get the surgery and that if you are in generally good health (minus being 100 lbs overweight and having a BMI of over 40) you get approved and can have the surgery sooner. I am completely expecting this to take much less that a year. I'm hoping to be banded in the next 6 months....well I also completely believe in The Secret so let me say that I expect to be banded in the next 6 months :tongue2: I'm excited to be one of the members here that can share my story instead of asking others for their story....