GeezerSue

What Donali said, except I'm yelling. NO BLOOD. Thank you.

Loosen the band, grow the baby, TRY to be reasonable, and come back to weight loss when the important stuff is done. (PS--Will you be breastfeeding? Usually, that REALLY helps with weight loss.)

Uh-oh. Pretty soon you'lll stop dressing like the dedicated mommy you are and start looking like those Sex and the City types. I can see you already!

Also great. He does my fills now. And he has a new pretty hospital as well as his old one. It's just that, as a big city girl, I am more at home in the larger hospitals such as Rumbaut (and I think Sanchez) use in Monterrey. In a way, it doesn't matter, because what I should really care about is what my doctor is doing. But I guess I operate under the fantasy notion that if there's a problem, there's a better chance I'll survive if there's an assortment of other physicians of other specialties nearby. Maybe I'm way off base, but it's just what makes me feel safe. And. Monterrey is a center of industry and education and Tijuana is a border town that got big. All of these guys are competent. And Leo has yet another doctor in Tijuana, but I don't know him. But ya know...you need to figure out SOME local backup. For example, I'm having the abdominoplasty thing done, so I think need to have the saline out. And I'll need it put back in after that surgery. And if you end up with any reflux or GERD symptoms, you may need someone who can empty the band nearby. Have you asked around of others in your area?

I've been to both of them. Their prices are similar. Rumbaut (my surgeon) operates in a state-of-the-art training hospital such as we are used to here. there are many surgeons of many specialties available 24/7. Ortiz (used to do my fills) uses a nice, modern place, but it is essentially an alternative treatment place for cancer patients, with just a few doctors on the staff. They are both proctors, which means Inamed thinks they are competent. But Rumbaut has placed twice as many bands as Ortiz has and is a band patient himself. The adjustments issue thing is HIGHLY individual, and depends on how YOUR body adjusts and what other stuff you've got going on. Sue *who didn't mention which one is a nice, down-to-earth guy, and which one went through three costume changes at his own wedding, scheduled at the same time and in the same location as a major bariatric surgeons' convention, so that EVERYONE could watch his performance.

In Bandlandia, "leakage" usually means something happening inside, like a leak from the plastic tubing. I think you have drainage. From your port incision? Is that right? if so, I think others have had that too. They can comment.

From the Aetna Policy Bulletin: ...Aetna considers any of the following laparoscopic procedures experimental and investigational because the validity of their effectiveness has not been established in prospective, randomized studies with long-term follow-up: 1. blah 2. blah 3. blah 4. Gastric banding for morbid obesity, including laparoscopic-adjustable silicone gastric banding (see CPB 157 - Obesity: Surgical Treatment) 5. blah 6. blah... So, since their only grounds are the incorrect claims above, then I'd contact Don Mills at Inamed and Walter Lindstrom. Someone, somewhere on another board was reimbursed by a company. I don't recall which or why, only that they did collect after the fact. And that was before there was good research, so I'd think you have a better case. Good luck, Sue

I understand, intimately, government disability retirement. So, that leaves selling stuff, and you can always replace it later. Can you move down on cars? Got a boat? Yard sale? The deal is, $14,000 ÷ 365 = $38.36/day. You can do that and have the money in a year!

Are you doing okay?

Denying you because _____? What's their reason? Do you and/or your husband work at a company which has a "Section 125" account for medical expenses? (Most people are used to seeing them used for child care.) Which prices can't you get a loan for? Any? The fees for LapBand run from around $8500 and up. Don't give up completely. Sue

Just for the record, I DO know how to spell "well." (Went to school, graduated and everything. Did NOT do well in the typing class.)

Just to confuse things...I wish someone HAD told me. I can eat the "dried" friuit if I rehydrate it first. But when I eat dried fruit--with the slow moving esophagus that often goes with being old--it spend so much time getting from mouth through the esophagus that by the time it gets there, I might as wasll have eaten a bag of concrete. I'd say...proceed with caution and see how it works for YOU! Good luck, Sue

Some days, getting on and off the scale becomes my only aerobic exercise.

DeLarla... LMAO. The good news: once you get your band AND HAVE APPROPRIATE RESTRICTION, you will lose weight. The bad news: if you have been a hundred pounds overweight and had a big belly for any length of time, and then lose the weight, your hangy pannus (or sometimes it's called panniculus) will get hangier. As will everything else that stuck OUT...boobs, belly, even my double chins have become a wattle...not so red as the average wattle, but swaying in the wind nonetheless. Just check your insurance to see the criteria for "reconstructive surgery," ususally listed under abdominoplasty or panniculectomy. Sue

~c~ Here's a link to a rather graphic depiction of what a "Grade 1" through a "Grade 5" pannus looks like. (I'm 2-ish, but because of two previous abdominal surgeries with vertical pubis-to-navel incisions, it all hangs rather like Austrian drapes...you know with the whole thing raised in the middle.) From what I've read, most US insurance companies require BOTH (although some require only EITHER) that the pannus be Grade 2 or better and that the ongoing intertrigo is documented. Backaches are a consideration as well. (In fact, when I first lost weight, I had to hit the chiropractor's a couple of times because I was standing/walking like someone who had more belly weight to hold up, and that was causing back pain.) Find out what your health service requires and then see if you meet that criteria. The hardest part :sick is showing it to someone to document. A digital camera might help. http://www.cstobesity.com/articles/p531.htm

I picked June, because I'm running for an office in my homeowners thingy and the election date is June 12th and I don't want to be doing recuperation during "the campaign season." And my sister will be home from her cruise on June 9th, and can be acting daughter-in-chief for our mom. Gives me more time to get things in order...like finding a cheap, used recliner to live on. Intertrigo is the rash--I believe it's a yeast infection, but I don't know--that forms on skin that touches skins and sweats and gets nasty. Usually, insurance companies require that the pannus hang to a certain level (generally the pubus), AND that intertrigo that doesn't respond to treatment (I think it always responds, and always comes back) is there. I'd been hiding my ugly, hangy belly from my spouse, who had not seen the intertrigo. He's really impressed by how ugly it is and thinks I need to have this surgery to rid myself of the rash, if nothing else. Donali, I asked our daughter how she finally got brave enough to have breast reduction surgery, since her getting the shots she needed for camp as a child always turned into high drama. She said, "I think it's like when women are about nine months pregnant and decide that the kid is coming out, even if it means using a melon scooper. I was finally tired of all the pain and the lack of clothes that fit and rolling over my own tits in bed. That's how I knew." Summer's coming and I think I don't want to deal with yet another summer of this. I guess I'm afraid that it's not a good idea before reaching goal, but I know that Dr. Fobi does a panniculectomy at the time of the Fobi Pouch RnY...so I know it can be done. I'm just a coward is all.

:nervous ya think?

Candy, If I recall accurately, the Inamed list includes doctors who have SIGNED UP for learning how to do the surgery, but have not yet done one. Checking the list is a great idea. But make sure you also find out how many surgeries the surgeon has done. Sue

Rumbaut uses dissolving stitches. All you do is take off the bandaids (steri-strips or surgi-strips) a few days later. I think Kuri has you remove your own, and a really, really high percentage of those patients do just fine. :cheeky The others usually ask for help from a nurse or PCP back home. The staples????

Have you considered surgeons who are just a little father away, but who have experience and positive expectations? Where I'm going here is that surgeons who start with this attitude would seem to be the most likely to throw up their hands at the fist plateau and say,"Well, see, we TOLD you it wouldn't work."

I haven't read every word, because I'm trying to get to an appointment, but... If there is a doctor ANYWHERE who says that it takes a year until you need a fill, I'd avoid him. First because he's wrong. And second, because he sounds like he has an imagined "ideal schedule" and won't be too fliexible. Rumbaut is wonderful (and about $10,000), but you will have to get adjustments (fills and UNfills). To get to Rumbaut from Las Vegas, Aviacsa (not Avianca) Airlines has (had?) a non-stop flight and was very reasonable. ALSO, Rumbaut suggested that Cirangel in San Francisco might do my adjustments. I haven't been there, but...last I read anything about him, Cirangle was about $12,500, for the surgery and a fill or two. Finally, there are many cities in Mexico. And many surgeons, many of whom do adjustments on the patients of other doctors, both US and Mexican. So, you can get adjustments in Tijuana. Many patients drive to the border and cross into Tijuana for adjustments. There are options. Also, you wrote "original band." Unless something goes wrong, we each have only one band.

Okay, while those numbers ARE accurate, they make a mountain out of a molehill. What the research calls "nausea and vomiting" is not at all like any kind of nausea and/or vomiting you've ever experienced before. Because the stoma (the passageway between the upper and lower parts of the stomach) sometimes senses the food going down the esophagus as a blockage, it sends signals of a blockage to the brain. The brain (not having read the owner's manual) decides to send what seems like gallons of saliva, to wash the non-existant blockage through. But all that does is clog up an already full esophagus. If you can find a place to spit until the brain gives up, all is well. But, if you try to tough it out, and keep swallowing, then the nausea (the brain's back-up plan for blockages) goes to work and you need to empty the esophagus and maybe even part of the stomach, down to the stoma. This (erroneously IMHO entitled) Productive Burp is a regurgitation of the food which you have chewed and swallowed, but which never got to your real stomach. There is no stomach acid involved. So, the banded person's job is to not eat the stuff or not to eat so fast or not to swallow without chewing better, so that the entire episode described above doesn't happen. AND, this is a big part of the learning we all have to do. I can't eat much bread, others can. I can eat small amounts of un-doughy bread. I drink carbonated Water all day. But, I pour it and let it sit for a long time. If this helps, a huge part of being banded (and the part I'm working on as we type) is learning that the stuff you thought you needed to make your life complete, and deal with frustration, anger, loneliness, boredom, abandonment, etc. really isn't necessary at all.

Rumbaut and Lopez, while both in Mexico, are about a three hour FLIGHT from each other. Rumbaut was my surgeon, Lopez was Donali's. I haven't heard anything negative about either of them.

WHERE in Mexico? Which doctor?

Your guys ARE J.D. Salinger fans, right? The "Perfect Day for Bananafish" short story (or mini-novel) is one of his classics. Well, everything is one of his classics, because he's been holed up in New Hampshire or somewhere since about 196?. Seymour Glass committed suicide in his hotel room on his honeymoon...leaving, one can only surmise, his bride Muriel a tad pissed off. Here's a Salinger link: http://vision.york.ac.uk/articles/137/books/43137.shtml