Marimaru

OH boy...... I could write laws against stupidity for DAYS!! The lane ending one gets me, but almost worse than that, is people who do the same thing, on the freeway, getting into an Exit lane JUST before the exit... slowing down everyone behind them and cutting off everyone who was in the correct lane to begin with! I too would almost rather hit someone than let them in. People with multiple driving offenses, or extreme driving offenses should lose their licenses. Maybe for a period of time of 6 months or a year, but if you lose your license a 2nd time, it's FOREVER! Example: Fiance is driving home, goes to turn left, and he's the only one in the left hand turn lane, the lady stopped at the light in the 'going straight' lane, decides she must turn left, so she scoots over in front of Mike, and now is in the left turn lane AND the going straight lane. People going straight are not thrilled and tell her so. (She is on her cell phone) She pulls forward into the intersection (red turn arrow), then reverses (trying to adjust to the correct lane), is still just as much in the going straight lane. When the light turns green, she hits the gas, NOT HAVE PUT HER CAR BACK IN DRIVE FROM REVERSE. All of the 3 or 4 cars in the left lane laid on the horns. Mike was directly behind her, but fortunately left ALOT of room between him and her. Around here a few years ago there was a law created about driving while talking on your cell phone; you HAD to have a hands free set, it was a big deal for about 6 weeks and the dissappeared. I think they should reimplement it, and inforce with an insane strictness. There should be cops cops. Cops that drive around looking for cops to break traffic laws. I can't count the number of times I've seen cops blow red lights, not use turn signals, turn from the wrong lane, turn on their siren to get by a red light, and on and on and on.... Ok, need to stop now...

If I had doctors throwing me around like that I'd probably say to one of them that they should call the other so that they could figure out what was wrong with me! Have you tried Gas X? There are other gas products out there as well, but it might help. Alternately, if you haven't had a bowel movement, you might try something to get you 'moving along'.

I WILL have my breasts done, lol.... As for everything else, I think there's a decent amount of skin I could tolerate, but if it's at a certain point, I'll have to get rid of it, lol. IE: if I feel like I have to wear a size larger shirt to 'hide' it, I'll probably have it taken care of. Then of course the question is when.... shortly after getting to goal before having kids (risking I might want more done later), or waiting until I've had kids, getting the body I want in my 30's! (You know which way I am leaning!)

I have the same problem. I tried the daily notification thing, and then none at all, but I still get all the notifications. *shrug*

I hate laundry like almost nothing else. Doing the dishes is second, but at least I have a sink in my house to do the dishes in. I live in an apartment with no laundry hookups, and there's not community laundry. I have to drag all my crap to the laundromat. That seriously happens every couple of weeks, usually when my fiance and I start to wear shirts that we don't usually wear. "Hun, we really need to do laundry tomorrow..." and tomorrow is usually 3 or 4 days after that. THEN, the laundry comes out of the dryer, we look at eachother funny, then SHOVE it all in the laundry bins with an agreement that we'll fold it and put it away RIGHT when we get home. That works about half the time. I own an Iron. My mom bought it for me because I didn't own one and I wore a wrinkly shirt in front of her. I've used it exactly once, to appease her. If I have something that I want to wear that is really wrinkly, I'll use it again, but only in that case. I don't iron things just so that they are ironed. That's why I TRY to put clothes away right when we get home... so they aren't wrinkly. But I'll agree that clean towels really are the best.

Jaqui, I worry about this for myself,as well as my sisters. Beyond 'society', we also had our dad put it us on strict diets and workouts (me starting from 8 years old), and so it's kind of engrained into our childhood psyche that we don't look good. I wasn't unhealthy when I was banded, and now that I'm moving farther and farther away from the health risks brought on by obesity, it's all vanity from here. I'm terribly afraid that even at goal, and even with the plastic surgery I want, I wont be happy with how I look, no matter what anyone says. I don't know if it's because I "wont look like those models in those magazines (which I honestly don't want to look like)" or because "I just don't see it". Plastic surgery wise, all I want is to get my breasts lifted, and then *maybe* a tummy tuck, and even more *maybe* is thighs and arms, and that all depends on skin... which may end up ok in the end without surgery. My youngest sister is about 125, soaking wet, and keeps starting crash diets. Fortunately, I know the weight she loses wont stay off, but she wont listen to anyone tell her she looks good now, and that she doesn't look good when she loses more weight. The middle one (I'm the oldest) wants to lose 35 to 40 lbs, but really probably only has 20 to lose, and I hope she can see it when she gets there. She was always a skinny little thing, but then got into, and then out of drugs, and gained probably 30 or 40 lbs, but has already lost a good deal of that. I wish they would quit airbrushing models. They are already models, they don't need extra fixing!!

For hardware (if you can't get it donated) I recommend newegg.com (if you can build your own machine). They've got good prices on the components and shipping is fast and cheap. I live in California, where they are based, and if I place an order before 3pm, I receive it the next day, even though I paid for 3 day shipping. I could talk my fiance into putting together lists of components if you wanted to go that way. Other than that, I would consider fund raisers before putting the add in the paper. I think people are more willing to give money if they get *something* even if it's a car wash. It's really amazing to me that in this time where most jobs use a computer of some sorts, schools wont put money toward technology, and I've always hated how the arts have been treated.

I don't wake up and have to eat, but nightime eating is what makes me go over my calories every time. If I can control my nightime eating (usually be being busy, or out of the house), my calories are always where I want them, or below, but if I can't keep it in control, my calories are good after dinner, and even sometimes with an after dinner snack, but then I keep going. My solution has been to find things that are low calorie, PLAN to eat them, and then count them in my calories for the day. There's a product called Dreamwhip, you mix it with a cup of milk, and a little bit of vanilla and you get 2 cups of whipped topping, it's about 240 calories for the whole thing and it makes 2 cups. I throw it in the freezer for an ice cream substitute. I can have 2 cups of that for the same calories as a half a cup of regular ice cream (being conservative, nothing like ben and jerry's, lol). I also recently found Crystal Lite candies. They are made with splenda, and 4 of them is 25 calories. I got them in a big tub at Smart n' Final. They are hard candies. A big bowl of veggies is good too. Corn and Peas are higher calorie tho. I know this doesn't really help solve the problem of eating at night, but it does help keep the damage to a minimum in the meantime. I've also started making ginormous jugs of iced tea and crystal lite, to drink some of that when I find myself browsing the kitchen 'wanting a snack' but 'nothing sounds good' (which usually means, I'm just rumaging, and not even hungry).

Thank you for sharing! Please let us know what the endoscopy turns up. I've never had reflux issues, but a while back my band seemed to get tighter for no apparent reason, and I started getting heartburn. I had a small unfill and that seemed to help. Is it possible your 2nd fill was just too tight?

I've lost 65 lbs all together, and had noticed access skin at around 50 lbs lost. I got stuck for a number of months, and some of the skin on my stomach seems to have tightened up a little. My panni (lower stomach) was never too big, but it hangs a little bit now, but it's not so 'squishy' as it was 6 months or so ago. My breasts of course haven't tightened up at all, and aren't going to. If I don't have anything else done, I'm going to have them lifted. I am hoping that since I'm 24, and with some exersize, the skin wont be too bad. At the very most hopefully I'll need the breast lift, and then minor work on my arms, thighs and stomach, but we'll see.

Congrats Dana!! Christa, when I went to my appointment the day before my surgery, my doctor said "One of the great things about this surgery is that if you were to get pregnant tomorrow, it would not be a problem." I suppose it could get a little sticky if someone were well restricted by the band alone, but probably they could do okay if they had protien shakes along with whatever they could eat. If you aren't restricted by just the band, and you are completely unfilled, I would imagine that morning sickness wouldn't be too horrible. But probably the risk of slippage is increased. I haven't heard anything about natural childbirth being a problem. Maybe we should ask Alex to create a pregnant bandsters section on this forum? There is a pregnancy section on obesity help, but I don't know how many people in that section would be bandsters to ask these questions. I hope to have children in the next few years with my fiance, so I'd be interested in 'experienced' answers as well.

Gracie, I did not go through insurance, so most of what I know is based on what I've read here and at other forums, but I think the part of the pre-screening that helps with the insurance is if they discover any co-morbidities that maybe you didn't know about. Lots of people found out they had Sleap Apnea, or pre-diabetes because of the pre-screening for surgery. That may be what she thought was helpful. Hopefully more people will chime in that actually have experience with this. Good luck, and try not to stress yourself out!

Thank's Amy!! My mom is looking for a plastic surgeon, and I was wanting to find out where he was for her. Alice, also if you don't mind, do you remember the cost for when you had your eyes done? My mom wants to get her eyes done along with some other minor face things. Thanks!

I'm nearly 2 years out and my tummy still likes to join the conversation. It's not nearly so bad now, but every now and then it has something to say, lol.

Hey there and welcome! I hope you get your issue figured out. Maybe keep us updated on that so that we can watch for it down the line?

Christina, he sounds like a really great guy. The only thing is that if you want to be a stay at home mom, he may not be the right guy for that, OR he may not be the right guy for you to stay at home at FIRST, but then later you can. OR, what do you do for a living (when you are working)? I would love to be a stay at home mom, that can work from her computer at home when she needs to. I'd rather have that then just being the stay at home mom, cuz then I'd have other stuff to do during the day while the kids are at school (assuming the house is clean, lol).

Alice, I'm glad to hear you are doing well. Would you mind sharing the cost of all of your procedures? Also, where in Mexico is your doctor? Thanks!

I also have to say that drinking will make it worse. The slime is there because the body is creating extra saliva to try and push whatever it is down... and it's not going down. Drinking on top of that only adds to what's already there, and backs it up into your throat, and then your body decides it has to be rid of it RIGHT NOW!! I highly don't recommend trying this. It *does* feel like you could "wash it down", but you really can't.

It really just depends. I've had it happen quick within a few minutes of taking a bite I shouldn't have taken, to thinking I was okay for half an hour or so, and THEN feeling the pressure in my chest for a while (10 minutes, to maybe even an hour), and THEN PBing after that. Probably the longest amount of time I've felt the pressure in my chest is 3 hours (as a guess, I don't really time it), and that doesn't always lead to a PB, just an uncomfortable amount of time.

Your body probably hurts because it needs more nutrition and your body is going after your lean muscle tissue to get it. PLEASE get an unfill. It doesn't have to be much. My unfill was .3 cc's, but you can even get .1cc's out. This will not help you get to goal, and it's a miserable way to live. *hugs*

That's awesome Kathy!!

Honestly, it never even occurred to me that a "foreign object" would be in my body. I did a bunch of research on the band, when I had no insurance and no money, so hadn't really given it that kind of thought. When my mom offerred to pay for it, I was so excited to have some form of help with my weight loss, that I think I skipped over thoughts like that or something. The idea doesn't bother me though.

The difference is basically that a PB has no stomach acid in it. You are bringing up the food that was above the band, not what's below it. And then of course vomiting is what it always was. Hope this helps! Oh, and SLIMING is something different altogether, lol. It kind of happens when your food is stuck, but you don't PB the food up, just all of the extra saliva that built up trying to 'lube' the stuck item down. Someone once likened it to barfing up a jelly fish, lol. It's not too far off the mark!

I think if any doctor told me that I was their worst patient, or their least compliant patient, I'd probably walk out the door of the room, to the receptionists desks and request my medical records right there. Of course there ARE people out there, who are the least compliant, and the may need to be told that, but certainly not in the scolding unprofessional manor that I've heard it be said to patients. It's been a while since I read a post where someone's doctor told them they were doing horribly, but I believe it is still out there. Placebo does have it's place, but certainly an adjustable medical implant isn't one of them.

The pad comes separately because there is a whole series of games, and they have different soundtracks. I haven't picked it up myself, but then I'm not all that big into dancing, lol.