WASaBubbleButt

I totally get everything you are trying to convey. I was fretting over even starting this thread because I was seriously afraid of everyone telling me that I am indeed - crazy, and suggest intense therapy. But it was a choice, either calling my psychiatrist husband (something I would have regretted a great deal at a later time) or starting a thread here. I know what you mean about people hearing about it too much. I found that the one place I am totally comfortable and at ease is in Mexico at the hospital I was banded at. I used to volunteer quite a bit of time in Nogales, Mexico working for a trauma surgeon and I slowly switched that over to Mexicali, Mexico. I can do just as much good in Mexicali as I do in Nogales, I like Mexicali better, and it's just as good for me as it is the patients. So I do some volunteer time there. It started out as a joke between my surgeon and I that it was my own therapy time and it ended up being something I really enjoy. I have had the opportunity to see various procedures in OR, I work with patients before, during, and after surgery, I do all kinds of things. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I feel at ease there and not self conscious about how I look. It's safe there. Nobody is thinking thoughts such as, "WOW! She's FAT!" I talk about it a lot to friends here and if they aren't fat or in medicine, they just don't care. It doesn't interest them in the least. I get really excited about how much connective tissue is cut to repair a hernia vs. banding. HA! I know I know... that makes me a nerd at the very least. But I find it sooo interesting. I want the whole world to know about it. I have to stop myself because I bore them and I know it. But to hear me the last few months you'd think the only issues in life that I care about is surgical technique, weight loss, weight loss facts vs. myths, and current science regarding obesity. Name most any food and I can tell you the calories and carb count without reading the label. I know more about types and quality of Protein than any single person SHOULD know. Suffice it to say, it's probably out of hand at this point. I catch myself starting most every post with, "Studies show...." so I tried to stop writing that and now I find I'm just rewording the same thing. When I look at another large person and happen to know their weight I can't help it but to wonder how similar we are. They could be 100# more than me but I still think we look very similar. My eyes fight the intellectual side of my brain non stop. I've quit asking people in real time about these issues because they don't get it. Only people here get it. Keep posting, you are doing great!

I agree with you, your dietition needs to check out the "hairloss poll" we have going now. So far it appears that about 50% of us lose hair to some degree. One of the MANY reasons banding was better for me than bypass was that I too, thought hair loss was limited to bypass folks. That was soooo wrong.

I suspect they will go back to normal if you watch your sodium intake. Is it both feet or just one? If it is just one that is indicative of a different sort of problem. But really it seems that what it comes down to isn't a matter of fills/overfills, it is the type of food you are eating when you are filled/overfilled. The older we get the more weird stuff affects us. Ten years ago I could lick a salt lick all day and I wouldn't notice a difference. Today I drink one glass of something filled with sodium and I know I'll have little old lady ankles by morning. It's sooo not fair, the older and wiser we become the easier life should be. Not ankles that hang over your shoes. Heh

Whoops, that was supposed to be faSt gain.

:faint: Keep in mind one big huge issue here. If you are too tight your band can erode. Then you'll have no band at all. Better slow weight loss vs. fat gain.

HA! I thought I was being brave by saying that I was going to post a photo. I thought I backed myself in a corner by writing that I was going to do it so now I'd have to. Then I uploaded the photos to my computer and I can't find a single one of them that I could ever post. Maybe at goal I can do it. It's kind of amusing in a way. I have worked harder on head issues through all this than I did food issues. Working on head issues made food issues fall into place fairly well. I had NO clue there would be more head issues after losing blubber. Not a clue. I was totally unprepared for this one. Issues don't typically tend to catch me off guard and when they do, I deal with it. This one has been huge for me. Someone wrote a post regarding embarrassment and working out at a gym. I wrote that I understood and was dealing with the same thing. Someone else suggested I look in a mirror. I had no clue how to respond and Julie saved my butt on that one. More than she likely realizes.

My best guess is that if you are eating normal food vs. liquids due to overfill, you are likely consuming a lot more sodium. Sodium is in everything it seems. So maybe go to Calorie Counter, Diet Tracking, Food Journal, Nutrition Facts at The Daily Plate or NutritionData.com NutritionData's Nutrition Facts Calorie Counter and enter all your food AND Water. See what your sodium intake is like. I can look at my feet and see how much sodium I have consumed the day before before I ever even enter the info. If I drink a s/f drink such as Hawaiian Punch I can bank on fugly old lady feet by the next day.

I think one issue is to put it all in perspective. You already have excess skin, it's just filled up right now. It's better to have empty excess skin vs. full excess skin. I'm with Julie's Dad on this one. There is no way to avoid it. There are certain factors that make a bit of a difference but overall, it's just going to be a reality. I'm already gearing up for plastic surgery. I've worked hard and I deserve this.

That's fantastic! I know how hard you have been working so 2lbs is mega fantastic! I've seen Denise in real time and I'm here to say, she's not only beautiful but she is thin! She's looking GREAT!

Sorry, a lot of it is exercise. If you aren't doing any you really need to start. If you are doing it, great. Here are some ideas: http://www.digitalhorsewoman.com/plateaubusting.htm WeightWatchers.com - Weight-Loss Plateaus - Visitor WeightWatchers.com - Increasing Metabolism - Visitor With that said, what is your exercise routine? What is your typical daily diet? How many calories? How many carbs?

If someone is rude enough to ask you about a personal medical issue such as WLS, simply ask them why they are asking. When people have to explain why they are being rude it tends to shut them up and rethink their manners.

Faith.... Seems to me that if this stuff is any good he should have sold enough to be able to afford to actually pay to advertise vs. spamming Lap Band Boards. I'm still interested in seeing the ingredients list. I'll have to go look again and see if I can find it.

You would find several of us giving spammers a bad time, "Proteinguy" who isn't selling his product. Next question?

I agree, those are very harsh words. You have to walk in the shoes of the OP before you can make blanket statements such as you have. You don't know her, I don't know her, how can either of us say what is and what isn't within their relationship? Com'on... you have to admit, that is quite a leap. If you said the same about my situation you would be dead wrong. The OP hasn't claimed she isn't going to tell him ever, she isn't going to tell him until after surgery. It's her decision.

Mary... Since they are telling you that you are cured and sending you off with an open wound, something is very wrong here. It isn't up to a medical asst. to determine if there is an existing infection. Medical assistants are wonderful people that do a great job but they simply are not trained to determine if an infection has cleared up or not. And to permit such a person to make these decisions is unprofessional and simply... cheap. It's cheaper than having a trained person determine this. Matter of fact, I wouldn't even permit a medical asst. to pack a wound. It wouldn't happen. They are really trained to assist others in doing these things, they are not trained to actually do these procedures. If I were in your shoes I'd be changing docs in a split second. One concern here is that at this point your port is surely at risk. If the infection continues it can travel up the tubing to the band and then you are really in a world of hurt. You *will* lose your band at that point. This is really quite serious, nothing to have a medical asst. diagnosing. Try a search on "infection" and "rib cage". There is a person that posts here (can't remember who) that had a similar infection and s/he ended up losing his/her entire rib cage to infection and osteomylitis. Don't let med assts touch you, you have every right in the world to have a trained person treating you.

Nope, not a bad day at all. Pretty darn good as a matter of fact, but thanks for asking! You register today, every single post you have written has been about this Protein powder you are selling, you have targeted threads regarding protein products, you spam the boards with this nonsense and then claim you aren't selling it. Do you really expect anyone to believe this? People here pay to advertise, that's how it works. There are rules here and we all follow them. If your product is that great then buy the advertising vs. spamming threads with the same stuff each time.

I can already tell you why they use collagen. It's cheap. It's the cheapest Protein they can use for raw materials. It is the garbage parts of the animals. Something that is of great quality is very expensive, whey for example. Think of it this way, there is no dispute that they use collagen for their main protein, it's right there on their label. If you wanted to give your child a protein food, would you use meat or would you use cow hair and gristle? That's the only way I know to put it in perspective. No doubt they'll respond with some song and dance about how great their products are, but the science doesn't back up any claims that they sell quality protein. Collagen type products are what Jello is made of. You could drink Jello and essentially get the exact same benefit as the type of product you are using and at least that would be cheaper. :cry

Sorry, I am no help whatsoever. I am in the same boat as you, Rainer. I finally went out and bought a treadmill and Bowflex so I can be embarrassed all by myself. Of course, I don't have room for a Bowflex but I'm thinking it will be darned pretty sitting smack in the middle of my living room!

Hear hear! There are three new newbies with infected ports posting just in the last few days and guess what? They were all banded in the US and all three came home from the hospital already infected so it wasn't the poster's fault. Does that mean all US surgeons are bad? I was so excited when I came home from Mexico, I got to keep BOTH my kidneys AND my liver! HA!

HA! I have to laugh because I was going to do the same thing on Monday. I bought the little thingerjigger to upload them to my computer since I lost the last one. I looked at those photos and thought, "Noooooooooo, I don't think so!" I'm not posting heifer photos on a public internet site. So I weenied out and sent them to Wendell. Suffice it to say, he's such a gentleman. LOL

Right, that's what they all say. Five of five of your posts are pushing a specific product with the web site and all. Noooo, you aren't selling anything. That's obvious to everyone who is reading. I was looking for the ingredient list in your Protein products. I found the nutrition label but couldn't find the actual ingredients. I fully admit I did not look very hard either. What company does the independant 3rd party protein testing and do you test on a monthly basis? As I am quite sure that you know, protein quality varies from month to month from the raw materials used. One month the quality can be great, the next month it can be quite poor. What is the source of quality testing done each time the raw materials are delivered? BTW, at a dollar a serving (not including S&H) that is some pretty expensive stuff you have there. The quality powder based products are usually half the price.

HA! I already responded to Spammy. I went to the web site but I couldn't find the specific ingredients in the product so I have no clue which protein he is using. I really wish these people would pay for their advertising so they don't mess up the threads with sales pitches.

Oh great, another spammer selling his stuff. You know, you can pay for advertising here. That way it doesn't clutter up the threads.

There are quite a few people who were banded before 2001. Before it was FDA approved people had to cross the border to get a band, it's the only way they could get it. I rarely meet any of them but as you say, they have little reason or need to post.

This is a verrrry poor quality of protein. You could literally drink Jello and it would be the same thing as the main protein in this product. It's made from collagen. Collagen is great for putting ON your skin or injecting IN your skin. It is absolutely horrible for ingesting as a protein supplement. Check out the ingredients: Ingredients: 67.4% Pure deionized Water, 31.5% Actinase® [patent pending blend of enzymatically hydrolyzed (predigested) collagenic protein isolate, whey protein isolate and casein protein isolate], less than 2.0% of malic acid, Vitamins [ascorbic acid ©, niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine (B6), riboflavin (B2), thiamin (B1), folic acid, Biotin and cobalamin (B12)], natural flavors, acesulfame-potassium, blue 1 and red 40. Do you know what collagen is made of? Keeping in mind that this is the main ingredient of this protein, collagen is made from cow & horse skin, hair, ligaments, gristle, etc. It's the garbage part of cows and horses. There is a scale to rate protein quality and it is from 1-100. The collagen based products rate between 4 out of 100 and 6 out of 100 depending on brand. Matrix and unjury are rated at 100 out of 100, Isopure is 80 out of 100. As you can see, this is a huge difference from 6 out of 100. There is an FDA study I just read two days ago. Remember those people from way back when that were on ONLY protein diets and they were dying? Of the 17 that died, 13 were drinking ONLY collagen based protein, nothing else. The study explains that this type of protein actually draws out protein vs. adding to your protein stores. Thus, their deaths. There is some whey protein in this product so it is not the same as the stuff the dead people were drinking, but the point is that the test tubes, shots, and shooters are some of the most expensive products on the market today and they are without a doubt the absolute worst quality protein you can buy. You are better off not drinking any protein supplements vs. the collagen based products. There are two large nutrition websites that won't even sell the stuff anymore due to liability. That's how bad this stuff is. Just be very careful, learn about the different sources of protein and the quality of the protein. Most products on the market today are not great as everyone has found lots of money in creating garbage products and selling them for high prices. Proteins are NOT all the same.