gaarmywife06

For a while, every doctor may have a different answer for this, but yes, for some period of time after surgery will have to avoid more extensive exercises. Stick with walking until the doctor gives you the go-ahead.

Hi. I'm Lizzy and I've battled my weight for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I never really thought too much about weight, but I do remember being too bashful to change for PE at school or participate in any of the activities and I certainly didn't get involved in sports. No way. Both of my parents were overweight. However, none of my brothers were and my older sister certainly wasn't. My younger sister and I were the exceptions. (A couple of my brothers are now overweight.) I had low self-esteem and didn't respect myself in high school...or afterwards for that matter. In 2001, I married one of my best friends, who was a US Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I was told by doctors that I would probably never have a child and if I did manage to get pregnant, it would probably do me more harm than good. Hubby and I tried for quite some time to no avail, even seeking the help of a fertility doc. In 2003, my husband got out of the Marine Corps and the insurance for the fertility doc was no longer available. In December of that year, I was angry with my husband and uttered, "That's it! I don't want children!" A month and a half later, I was pregnant. I was also sitting on 300 pounds! I was concerned by my OB/GYN didn't seem as much. When I asked about it and asked how I was going to deal with cravings and my weight, he simply told me to eat what I craved because if I didn't, it would just torture me. I was fortunate enough to not end up with gestational diabetes. I didn't gain any weight until I was 4 months along and then, it was only 5 pounds a month for 3 months. One morning, during my 7th month, I got up to eat breakfast. Suddenly, it felt as if my heart was going to take off running right out of my chest. I tried resting, but it just wouldn't slow down. I went to the emergency room. They were perplexed. Since they didn't have a cardiologist on hand, they transferred me to a nearby hospital with one. They connected a monitor to me that would record my heart beat/rhythm so they could hopefully determine the issue. At one point, I started feeling nasty. I went into the bathroom to clean myself off. That's all I did. I came out of the bathroom to find the doctor and a nurse standing there looking stunned. I said, "WHAT?" The doctor asked, "What were you doing in there?" I said, "Cleaning up. I felt disgusting." He said, "From now on, you let the nurses take care of that. Your heart rate jumped up to 180 beats. That's too high!" I was in shock. I stayed in the hospital the entire weekend so that they could figure out what med to put me on and at what dosage because the med they prescribed also lowered my already normal blood pressure. The problem as it turned out: MY WEIGHT. My cardiologist was optimistic the problem would go away after having the baby. I ended up gaining 53 pounds with her! Thank goodness, that cardiologist was right about the problem going away. My weight on the other hand, didn't go away. It went down some. In 2006, my husband joined the Army. In 2007, I was diagnosed as having Sleep Apnea. We started out at Fort Leavenworth, then while he did a year in Cuba, I went home to stay. In 2009, he came back and we were sent to Fort Lewis, Washington. My weight didn't improve. To make a long story a little shorter, I was diagnosed by my Gynecologist as having Endometrial Hyperplasia without Atypia in May 2010. Basically this means that my uterus produces a lot of cells, causing a thick lining, however, there's nothing abnormal about the cells themselves. My Gyn asked me if I'd ever considered weight-loss surgery, which I had, but just not to a deep extent. She put in the referral for me to have gastric bypass. I decided against following up with it because I knew we were moving soon and I wasn't sure how long the process of getting approved would take and I didn't want to A) get started in the process in one location and then move and risk having to start over again or I didn't want to move while recovering. I told my husband that once we got settled at his next station, I would go for another referral. And in March 2011, that's exactly what I did. The doctor didn't hesitate and put the referral in right away. She didn't mention whether it would be gastric or lap-band and to be honest, at the time, I didn't really know anything about lap-band. I don't remember if I knew it existed at the time either. But anyways, once I got my referral authorized by the insurance company in April, I made my appointment. I went to Weight Loss Surgical Center in Overland Park, Kansas. That particular day, April 11th to be exact, I weighed in at 361 pounds. That's the highest weight ever recorded for me. I sat down and talked to the PA, who took my measurements and calculated my BMI. He explained to me that they would submit a request for the surgery to my insurance company and that if they required me to do any extra things (like seeing a Nutritionist, doctor-supervised dieting, etc), I would just need to do those things and then I could have my surgery. He said I should hear something within 30 days. If I didn't hear from the insurance company or their office, to give them a call back. Thirty days came and went without further word from the insurance company. I called the office as instructed. They tell me, they didn't take my insurance. As it turned out, when I went to see that office in April, they were in the process of getting approved by the government insurance companies (TriCare/Medicaid) to perform the surgeries and they just hadn't got the approval yet so they just started telling patients that they didn't accept the insurance. I was devastated. I would have to find someone else to do the surgery and start over again. I gave up though. I had too much on my plate. My dad's health had deteriorated terribly. The following month, we lost him and I left the state of Kansas and went home to be with family. In the middle of June, I got a call from Weight Loss Surgical Center informing me that they finally got their approval and they wondered if I was still interested. I was still grieving and it was the last thing on my mind...and besides, I was still out of the state. I told them to call me back some time around the middle of July because I should be back by then. On Friday, July 22nd, I got another phone call from WLSC. They asked me if I was still interested in having the surgery with them. I told them if they could get my insurance to approve it, I certainly was. She told me they would be submitting it to insurance on Monday morning and that I should hear back within 30 days. On Thursday, July 28th, as I was celebrating my 33rd birthday, I got a call from a nurse with TriCare informing me that I'd been approved - THREE DAYS after they submitted it to insurance. I asked her if I needed to do anything else. She simply said, "No ma'am." Five minutes after hanging up the phone, I got another call from WLSC letting me know that my insurance had approved the surgery (which of course, I already knew). She then set up an appointment for me to meet with the doctor to go over everything with him. The appointment was August 11th. Funny thing though....the following week, WLSC contacted me again. This time, they wanted to know if I would be interested in having the surgery on August 11th. I was in total shock! The 11th was the following week. I had so many questions. All the information that was given to me back in April pointed to the patient being on a pre-op diet for about 2 weeks prior to surgery. When I asked her about that, she said that the information in the booklets were recommendations and that not every patient has had to follow everything in those booklets to every letter. I questioned whether I could change my lifestyle in a week. But my husband made a couple of good points. He said, "If you wait till you're ready, you're never going to have the surgery." This was so true. Then he said, "It's like when I quit smoking. It was hard. And some times, it's still hard. There was no 'right time'. I just had to suddenly go for it." I knew he was right. So I agreed to having the surgery. I asked her about the doctor doing the surgery. She said, "I can schedule you an appointment to meet him if you'd like." I said, "Uh, yeah, I would kinda like to shake the hand of the man that's going to rootin' around my gut before he does it." So, on August 10th, I met with the surgeon, Dr. Drahota. I may have had 2-3 questions. The next morning, day of the surgery, I weighed in at 358 pounds. The surgeon even gave me a picture of the Allergan Lap-Band he'd used. You may wonder, "How'd you go from gastric bypass to lap-band?" When my referral came in for the surgery, it specifically listed Weight Loss Surgical Center. I discovered they only dealt with Lap-Band surgeries and so then, I researched the hell out of the lap-band. I discovered that I didn't like the thought of the side effects gastric had if I ate something that didn't agree with me or that I got stuck. Lap-Band...sometimes a little pain, but you basically just throw it up and you're good to go. You may also be wondering how I've done since my surgery. Good. I've lost 80 pounds in 9 months. It could have been better. Over the holidays I struggled terribly as I was dealing with the grief of losing my dad and not having him to call for the first time ever on Christmas Day. But I'm getting back on track. Feel free to ask me anything. Sorry my story was so long. Good luck on your journey.

GIRL, I am VERY PICKY and I still have trouble after all this time. I mostly eat lunch meat with a slice of cheese. The RN at the Weight Loss Surgical Center says that it's okay. If that's what I like, eat it. As long as I get the Protein in that I need and keep the carbs low. My friend is always coming at me telling me that I need to eat some veggies. I don't know how many ways to tell her that I'm fine. Yeah, I realize they are good for me, but my priority is protein. I don't have to eat anything else. It's bad enough that I've given up a lot of the foods that I LOVE...I'm not going to make myself feel worse by eating a bunch of foods I don't like. LOL

I know I can probably tell you all day long to not be nervous. Everyone is different, but for me, this was probably one of the easiest surgeries I ever went through. I wasn't even nervous and I surprised myself. You have to remember that although this is the first time you're doing this, this won't be the first time your doctor is doing it. Congratulations on getting banded!

Thanks for the response Rebecca. I hope this message finds you in good spirits this morning. You will get there. How are you doing on exercise? To be honest with you, the only exercise I do is walking. I don't like watching exercise videos. They just irritate me. I have a friend who suggests religiously to do the videos and says to me, "So what if you can't keep up...just walk in place when it gets too crazy for you until you can catch up. At least you'll be moving some still." I get what she's saying, I just don't like the damn videos. Anyways, walk walk walk! It's hard at first, especially if you still have pains from the gas and plus the surgical incisions and stuff. But it truly does help. Even if you have to start just walking around your living room every 30 minutes for 10 minutes (which is what I did). Good luck to you hun. Keep me posted on your progress.

Ha! I finally found your response! Thanks! Going to start with them. Only problem I have right now is that I'm heading to Georgia for a visit at the end of this month and won't be returning until the middle of July.

I'd stay clear of Weight Loss Surgical Center. I went there & they told me the day of consult that they accepted my insurance. I went thru the consult and afterwards they're saying they don't. What happened was is that they are trying to jump through the necessary hoops to get on with Medicare and Tricare so that they can accept them, but they haven't met those requirements yet. They only told me that they did in hopes that they'd have it completed within 30 days. Now they're saying I owe $320 because my insurance didn't pay off.

I got a referral from a PA at Munson a little over a month ago (here at Fort Leavenworth) and TriCare's referral letter suggested I see such and such doctor in Overland Park, KS. I went to them on April 11th for the consult and there they did my BMI and everything and went over the procedure, took my history, etc. They told me they were waiting on Tricare to come in and approve their facility (Weight Loss Surgical Center) to do the surgery and that if I had not heard from them within 30 days, to give them a call. Today I called them and when I was transferred to speak to someone about pre-determination, she told me they didn't take Tricare?! I was like, "WHAT?!" On TriWest site I log into, it shows me where TriCare has paid the claim for the consultation and now you're telling me you don't accept Tricare?! So I called Tricare to see what was up with that and they said that they were out-of-network but they paid the claim anyways because I did have a referral. I called the Weight Loss Surgical Center back and they said that when I came to their office a month ago, they were working with Medicare and Tricare so they would be able to do it, but they're requiring them to do extra steps. When they saw me back in April, they told to wait 30 days based on their hopes of being approved in that amount of time, however, now she tells me she's not sure when they'll be approved - if EVER. So now, I've went through a consultation and a 30-day waiting period that doesn't do me a bit of good. Now, I have to start my process all over again. My question is, who do I turn to now for the surgery? Who does TriCare approve in the area. I've been trying to find someone, anyone. Does anybody recommend any particular doctor? PLEASE HELP ME!