Marimaru

Something else to consider is how your site will look on different browsers. In theory, if your code is 'standard' it should work on standard browsers, but unfortunately that isn't always the case. I would at least make sure to check it on IE and Firefox.

I had one suture do this. No other issues. Just keep an eye on that open incision..

I don't think it's arrogant to talk about running marathons. Lots of people have goals to do things like that. I think that you would need to work the band to lose the weight, and then as someone suggested, have the band unfilled, partially or all the way. Of course (and don't take this the wrong way), it is also going to depend on how you gained the weight in the first place. If it's just a matter of eating too much, or eating junk, the band can help you eat less at one time, as long as you can work on making the right choices; but then can you be sure to not go back to those choices, when you unfill the band to eat more for training. hope this helps!

hehe, I wish!! My waist is still 38 inches, but if it really looked like that, I'd probably never get away from a mirror!!

So I had Xrays taken by a chiropractor, and he let me take a picture of them, because I thought that it was cool to see my band ("What IS that?!" he says). It's 2 of the images side by side, one unedited, and one where I traced my band so you could see it. Jack, any thoughts on my neck?! lol http://joygraffix.com/portfolio/oh/images/bandxray.gif

Sherri, I'm sorry you are going through all this. Please know that we are all here for eachother on lots of different levels, so please don't feel guilty for posting here for help with this. People do very strange things when they are afraid, and I'll bet that is what is going on. I really think you need to just sit him down and ask him what is up. *hugs*

BMI is a flawed measurement when thinking about 'ideal weight' in my mind. It's good for an average 'guideline', but I'm not even sure they should be using it to determine who is a candidate for WLS. I mean, if you power lift and you have 50lbs of fat on your body, chances are you are 'obese', or even 'severely obese', and by BMI you might qualify for surgery even though you don't need it. I think they should do something like body fat percentage or something. Then at the same time doctors could say "Your goal body fat percentage should be ___", instead of a scale number. My original goal was 145, which is well within "normal" of the BMI scale. I've since changed it to 155, which I believe is JUST inside "normal", but I didn't choose it because of that. I remember being on diets at 165, and I was shorter then than I am now, and I didn't have all that much to lose, so I think 155 would be very good for me. Of course, I'll probably cry when I get to 165 anyway.

I think that we should choose another topic before things get nasty(er) (as was requested by Wheetsin basically)

Yup, I think he's a great guy and surgeon too. I don't think I have EVER seen a negative word against him, lol...

It's physically impossible to have dumping syndrome caused by the band.... Lots of times cold things will make me tighter, and I'll get stuck or something, but nothing really that didn't make me sick before makes me sick now. Are you maybe lactose intolerant? That can develope at any time in a person, generally as they get older they become more intolerant. food alergies can also develop at any time.

I never really had a problem with the term. It simply means that you are at a weight where it can and will start effecting your ability to live. Just like "co morbidities". I agree there is plenty discrimination though.

If you have a tightness in your chest, you may be a little irritated and swollen in there, but I highly doubt that you have 'ruined' anything. Just continue to have thin liquids until you are given permission to move on (and even if you have permission, if they still make you feel tight in the chest, give it more time). You should probably call your doctor and clarify on the yogurt though. Yogurt will go through a straw and is usually included in a 'full liquid' diet, which it sounds like is what you are supposed to be on now.

As far as LAWS go, I agree that a child (person under 18 years of age) should not be able to get an abortion without the consent of her guardian. The idea of her guardian being the parent of that unborn child (I will not contribute to the definition argument here), is a special case, in which case she should be going to the police, or a social worker anyway. I couldn't get a belly ring, or even get a tooth pulled without my mom's consent, and this is far more dangerous physically and mentally than both of those things.

I probably wouldn't do lipo on my chin area before losing the weight because you don't know what the skin is going to do. If you want lipo later, you may also want them to take in the skin a little and in my opinion it would be better to just do that once, instead of having 2 procedures. And I agree that 2k sounds like alot for them to 'add in' that procedure.

Congratulations!!

I would also recommend to wait it out a little bit, but not too long. A 'tweak' can be as little as .1cc's, which can make a bigger difference than you'd think when you are "this close".

I believe that anyone can get to their goal if they work hard enough. I think at this point you are not working toward goal so much as a banded patient, but more like the vast majority who is arguing with 20 or 30 lbs. So.... yer normal! (don't slap me)

I think that there is definately a connection. I just out of being stuck at a weight that I was at for a long time when I was younger. I think the body says "Hey! I remember this!"

Ok, this is pretty sinful but I'll share anyway: I cut up almost an entire watermelon and put it in a container with most of a bottle of amaretto. The first day the watermelon taste was strong when you crunched on the watermelon, and the amaretto taste was strong when you sipped on the juice. Each day they melded more. I think I had it in there 5 days total. I've now put the watermelon into separate containers and put the 'juice' in a bottle. It's a very mild amaretto/watermelon liquer thing, lol.

Woop woop! I was at a store the other day buying a gift for my sister. The clerk asked to see my ID when I paid with my credit card and she said "Hey, you've lost weight haven't you!" It was SO COOL!!

I was at the point where I wanted surgery, and had done a decent amount of research on it. I had not money and no insurance, so I'd just pushed it to the back of my mind. One day mom and I were having a conversation about someone we knew who'd had the bypass, and I told her that I'd read about a new band that they did and she said "You should get that done, I'll pay for it". I was banded almost exactly one month later.

For people who will know you had surgery, but not what kind, you could say 'a women thing' or that you had a hernia repaired. I know there's some folks who say gall bladder, but that can come back and bite you if you still have one and it decides to go bad (which is a common occurrence in anyone who has big weight loss, not just WLS patients).

I used to scoff at people who got banded at around 70 lbs over weight (I was 140 over when I got banded). Now that I am about 70-75 overweight, if I lost my band, I would want another one. If someone had told me at the weight that I am now, that I was going to gain another 70 lbs, but I could stop it if I had a band installed, I'd probably be all over it. Fortunately, in talking to people who 'only' had 70 lbs to lose, I never expressed my thoughts at the time, and came to my senses, lol. There are probably plenty of people out there who've not really 'tried' to lose weight and turned to surgery, but then there are lots of people who have tried everything and then turned to surgery. I wouldn't know by looking at someone. And nothing by looking at someone 70 lbs overweight tells me that they haven't been struggling just as hard as I have and just want the struggle to go away (at least the hopeless part of the struggle). Of course none of that answers whether I'd fool insurance. I didn't have insurance when I was banded, and my BMI was 45, so even if I had, I'm not sure it would have been a problem. If I was 10 or so lbs shy of the limit, I'd probably just go gain the weight 'naturally', but then, I'm not sure that's any better morally than putting quarters in my pockets, you know?

I haven't used it before, but lots of people do, so it must work. Do you have meta tags on your site? That's basically keywords that search engines can find. http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_meta.asp That is a link to a site that teaches HTML among other things. The page on that site I linked you to is about meta tags and how they work. I would imagine that keywords are a very big part of how the google thing works.

Wow, if they could figure that out there may very well be a magic pill for obesity eventually. The question is whether or not it will ever hit the market because of all the other companies who make bank with diet crap.