chowchows

LOL-Lucky! Who is your insurance with...I need to get with whoever it is!

Hang in there! I do appreciate all the people who provide reality checks...if I hadn't seen a few 'reality check' posts before my first stall (and many more during) I would have totally freaked out. I think it's good to see the good and the bad before we make our decision, and as we go along. It's nice to know there are others in the same boat...and it's encouraging to see others get over the obstacle. Again, I think you are doing great with your weight loss, but I know we all want it quicker!

Actually, My doctor has had bariatric surgery. That is one of the reasons I chose him..I figured having gone through it he at least understood the issues. In that aspect, I was very happy.

I have been there...if you look back through my posts my first stall started at 2 weeks and lasted almost 2 weeks. boo! I was very discouraged and voiced a lot of frustration on here. It took me about 3 stalls to kind of figure out the pattern and stop being so upset about it. I have come to the conclusion that our bodies lose strangely after this surgery. Not sure if your weight loss includes the presurgery diet, but 32 lbs is great!

Thank you! I do that too..up and down, up and down...and then all of a sudden it will drop a lot (usually). I had to learn not to get too discouraged over this. It really freaked me out the first time the scale went up 3 lbs!

How are you doing? I hope you're feeling better today-hang in there!

I honestly chose Dr. Verboonen/Cancun because I was mainly afraid to go to Tijuana. We go to Mexico all the time, but Tijuana scares me. (he does also operate out of Tijuana, at a cheaper price, but I only considered Cancun and there are just a few docs that do it there. Verboonen seemed the best out of all of them)

$5500 for surgery + $1000 upgrade to Gallenia Hospital +$500 for hernia repair=$7000. It was going to cost me about $4000 with my crappy insurance, just to get my hernia fixed here in US, so I joke that I only paid $3000 for surgery. Hubby and I spent a week at a resort, and we would have done this even if I didn't do the surgery (we do it once or twice a year anyway), so I don't count the airfare or resort into the price. Plus we have travel benefits, so technically it doesn't cost anything except taxes/fees to fly.

I used dr. verboonen. I thought he did well in the surgery, but there was a significant language barrier at the hospital in Cancun (nurses and staff). I have heard conflicting reports on whether others experienced the same barrier in Tijuana, so this might be an issue everywhere. I have been less than pleased with the aftercare though...I thought I might have a leak several weeks ago (intense pain, but turned out to be unrelated to the plication) and though he replied to my email, I thought he was rather dismissive. He was correct, that it wasn't the plication, but I didn't feel very cared about.

Maybe it would be worth also making a post where we all list our docs...then if someone is considering that particular doc, they have a potential wealth of information (good and bad experiences) just by PM'ing the people who posted. Just a thought.

I had my plication in Cancun two and a half months ago. I would go out of the US again for surgery, but I would prepare myself better (language and all). I am torn on whether I would go with the sleeve or do the plication again if I had to do it all over. I still have cravings, just not like I used to. Weight loss is slow, about 7 lbs a month for me at this point, but I also like that it gives my body time to recover better. I also didn't want to lose part of my stomach. I think you can find plenty of people who will tell you one thing, and plenty of people who will tell you exactly opposite. I would research both operations, make a list of pros and cons (personal to YOU) and see which one comes out on top. Only you know your life, your issues, your fears and expectations-only you can decide which surgery is best for you. I too doubt I will ever be super skinny, but I want to be healthy and live within a somewhat normal range. I wasn't that before. Good luck, whichever way you go!

At two weeks out I was losing 1.5 lbs a day...then it stopped abruptly. It took awhile to come back, but now I'm losing about 7-8 lbs a month (almost 3 months out). The early days are nice, when the weight falls off at such a quick pace it's incredible. Just try not to get too discouraged when it stops or slows. It most likely will come back, although slower. A couple of people on here have had the weight loss end at that point (and are very unhappy with the surgery because of that), but most of us just slow down and settle into a slow, but steady, weight loss. I will take it over not losing, or gaining. I was very scared that I was going to be a failure when I first stopped (because it had been going so well up to that point and I stalled so early into the game). Good luck in the journey!

That is inspiring! Congrats!

I was online this morning, thinking about upgrading a couple of bathing suits (since we're in Florida I have almost as many bathing suits as I do shorts, lol). I went to my usual website for plus size bathing suits, and realized that I am too small to fit in all of the underwire swimsuits I was shopping for. There wasn't a single one on the site that was small enough to fit me. While I realize that I am not "small" by any stretch of the imagination, this made me feel kind of good!

That's too cool! I am in the transition process of trying to run my own business and leave corporate America. Do you sell online?

Do you feel that the amount you can eat now is drastically different from what you could eat a couple of months out? At two months I already feel a big difference in the amount I can eat, and I was never one of those who could only eat two tablespoons. I am still losing, although slowly, but I worry about this. I saw your post on another board, would you think about revising to the sleeve? I think about it, and might think more seriously about it if I stopped losing totally, but I don't really want to go through another surgery. Do you feel that your food intake (calories) is low enough that if you didn't have the plication you would still be losing? My contention is that the plication slows our metabolism. While I do like the fact that it helps me limit my food intake, without the plication my weight loss is at a much faster pace at the same caloric intake (but of course keeping that low amount of calories is SO hard without the plication...catch-22). That being said, I think you've done really well! I wish I was a size 12! Congrats on all the hard work and the journey thus far.

I was told that any beverage with less than 10 calories per serving counted.

While signed in, click on "signed in as 'Lmom1980" in the top left hand corner. A drop down list should appear, then choose "my profile". Once you do this, an edit profile button (orange) will appear on the right hand side of the page about 3 inches from the top. Click on that, and then you can adjust your profile and add a signature (which is where you will put the link in from the ticker.) Hope this helps!

That is awesome in so many ways! Congrats!

That's very close to me...maybe I should have pushed this avenue. Oh well, it's good to know there's someone near me that knows what I have going on inside me!

LOL, I like the way you are thinking now Diva!