BigT

First off I want to apologize if I offended anyone. Also please read all the way thru before condeming me. I am having a bit of a time getting something out of my head. I have a problem with seeing fat people in public and thinking to myself negatively regarding that person-even avoiding them. You know-looking at that person with sort of a disgusted look on my face-wispering to myself what happended to them,how could they not care. These thoughts coming from a 430ish pound guy-probably looking worse off then the person I just saw. Does anyone else have or previously had this same thoughts? I am not sure what is the cause of this but after some thought I came up with a few ideas. The first one is that society in general forsters this kind of thinking and it is socially accepted to "make fun" of an obese person. Secondly, my weight got put on me quickly with my thyroid quiting suddenly-leaving me with a mental body image quite different from reality. I sort of knew I had gained weight but always thought I looked better then I really did-sort of a glory picture in my head of days long ago. Then as time went on I noticed my weight in different body parts-my face,my belly and finally my first overall body viewing in a full length mirror. I was an obese man--I weighed it, I looked it, I felt it!! Then a sort of depression set in-only punctuated by periods of time of intense effort to fruitlessly loose some pounds only to regain it back. I am a very caring guy- I stop and pick up hitchhikers, pull cars of people back onto the road that ran off of snowbound roads, hold doors open for people going into a store after me, spend as much time as I can with my kids playing games with them-yet I cannot understand my "hatred" of obese people! Perhaps I cannot come to grips with the fact that I am one of "them" and despise what I let happen to myself. How could I let myself "go" and not care about how I looked for so many years? How could I bury my head for so long till I opened my eyes and am now such a socially disdained person. Could my slow social evolution from being semi-social to being isolated to being avoided be caused by my weight gain? Could my hatred of so-called friends that are now no longer around now that I am obese be fuelling my own dislike of obese persons? Never being a popular person has me,at least that's what I think, of being more than aware of my "social" standing-perhaps paying more than the usual attention to it or to the lack of it as the case may be thru my life. Sort of always wanting more of something that I never really had. Now I am at the total bottom of the social ladder and my sense of competition has taken a huge blow. Has my years of thinking I am better than many around me taken its toll and I have become prideful in my own little way? Am I afraid to eat some humble pie and accept myself as others view me. Just a few days ago- I was checking into a motel for the night- I noticed that they were remodeling and the new rooms looked very nice. I saw some people going in to the new rooms earlier so I asked the clerk if I could get a remodeled room. She told me that they are very picky who they rent the "new" rooms to and that I couldn't have one. I was amazed- my first recollection of discrimination based on weight. This hit me like a ton of bricks. You see I had always been raised at the middle to higher middle range of the socio-economic scale and always treated people nice and was treated in kind back. Now because of my weight I was no longer middle class but something lower-sort of a lesser human. And now this is my problem- I was a lesser human because of the choices I made for myself-not because of who I was born to or some life tragedy. I made bad choices- in what I ate, in how much I ate and in what I did or did not do for excercise. I made myself this lesser human and now I cannot seem to do anything on my own to get myself back. Am I alone in my thoughts? Has anyone else has similar thoughts or feelings? As I work on rooting out this negativity, I appreciate you comments and ideas. T

How about we put our collective thoughts together and come up with a fast food list of band and health friendly foods. Since I am pre-band - I really don't know what I am talking about, but I do know that since I travel alot and alot of my food was fast, I am wondering what, if anything is band friendly? Having a nice concise list to look over before going into the restaurant will make choices alot easier! Thanks so much! T

Hello, I am Tony, a 6'2" 435 ish guy looking for info. I have been researching lap banding for several weeks and have come to love the info shared here so I thought I would take a jump and finally ask some questions. Being a person with a high BMI- will this procedure have any additional problems that I might face being a higher weight then the averages I have seen here ? Also as a person with lousy health ins. I am self pay (currently real close to having the $$$) so obviously Mexico is what I am researching the most now. However does anyone know of cheaper USA surgery for self pay? Also as I see several are from Mexico here already--What would the cheapest doctors and hospitals be without compromising good care in Mexico? Phone numbers and any referalls would be much appreciated. My email is able to be viewed in my profile if need be. Some of the info I read about experiences seemed to leave me confused as the posts were later updated with less then good notes so by starting new here I can have some more time that has passed with these comments then the previous "older" ones. I would appreciate the "good" ones and the "bad" ones as well. Things I already know from research--try to go direct to the doctor for the best price. Be sure to find a local fill doctor that accepts mexican fill doctors prior to anything happening. Be sure to use the Inamed brand for best doctor availability in USA. Any other tidbits to remember? Thanks, Tony

Having temporary low blood sugar may be the problem. When you eat your starchy or sugary items, if you eat them with some Fiber or protein(to a lesser degree) it will help moderate your blood sugar levels and prevent temporary low blood sugar. The dizziness will usually happen several hours after a sugary/startchy meal or after several hours past your normal meal time if you haven't eaten it that day. Also if you have worked particularly hard without much food intake in the day. Some things to check out at least.... T

Even with the big band 4cc is alot. I had a first fill of 2cc and a second one with 1 cc and have decent restriction. Getting too big of a fill at once can result in stoma inflamation. Perhaps this doctor knew from the surgery her band was really loose? T

Many keloids take a long time to actually go away, some never do. I am a keloid former(not all people form them) and I have had some go away after a month or two and others go away 5 years later. I have found placing Vitamin E and other skin support liquids on them has helped keep the swelling down and speeds up the healing process greatly. Also be sure to take in alot of Protein to supply your body with the building blocks needed for the repairs. I have also seemed to get faster healing during times when I was taking a good food derived vitamin daily. T

Well I started off at 442 day of surgery and now I am in the 40x range--hopefully in a week I will be under the 400's--Yipee. I have a seditary job so I get very little exercise. I am trying to work on that some because I can already see sagging skin some and I do not want that--even though I expect it. I have really little fill at 2.5 cc but my appetite lately has been almost non-existant. In fact for the first time in my life I have to stop and think if I have eaten yet today because I can go till 3 pm and not eat anything all day-without even trying very hard. But by then I am feeling physically tired and need to eat. Its really great to not have hunger pains at all. My goal weight is the 260-270 mark so I have a way to go but then again I am a large framed man at 6'1" and could pass for a football player easily-and moreso as I loose more weight.

As a followup- I have the Vanguard and am at 2.5cc and I feel a good level of restriction, but then again I am very sensitive to any changes in my body. For example I can tell when my doc is injecting the saline for the fills. I can actually feel the band closing in more with the fill. He will have me stuck and then I tell him the exact second he starts injection without looking--he always seems a little surprised when I do that. T

If you had a competitant surgeon he should of matched you up with the correct band at the time of placement. The size is dependant upon the size of your stomach where the band gets placed. All bands take saline to fill them, and the Vanguard band takes more saline volume to have the same size opening formed in the smaller band. However if you got the Vanguard then you probably had a larger stomach and did not require the smaller opening. If you doctor did mis-size the band you can achieve the same results with the Vanguard but it will take more fills and unfortunately --more time. With you at 6cc you should be at a pretty small opening in the band- as many of the Vanguarders top out in the 6-8 cc range. The good news is that you should- at your next fill start to get really great restriction-- or you had better start looking to make sure that your band is not loosing its Fluid thru a leak. Also be sure to confirm with your doc the cc you are at as maybe you have mistaken the amount you are truly at or maybe the doctor will then doublecheck the fill amounts himself with a saline removal at the time of your next fill. This will confirm how much saline you ultimately have in your band and will also be the first step in seeing if your band is leaking. Chances are it is not but it is also good to stay on top of the doc to ensure good service. T

I have recently been checking into DLP projectors instead of a new TV for home theater viewing and was wondering what other people who have the systems think of them? What is good? what is bad about them? The model I was thinking of getting in particular is the Infocus 4805- so if anyone is familar with this model I would appreciate any info you could pass on. Thanks, T

Thanks for the info-- I finally chose to go take the plunge and got the 4805 and just hooked it up. I am amazed by how good of a picture it produces and the sound system that I got has made the audio great as well. The only bad thing is now I am going to spend more time sitting-- I guess I will have to take up another hobby that is a bit more strenuous to make for that. T

Well guys I have something akin to share. When I was growing up, my father had a violent temper. He had a very stressful job and did not know how to deal with it when off work. He never drank or did drugs, but his temper could flare with the wind. I remember once when I was maybe 13, with my two brothers, 12 and 11,- we found a pack of matches and were in the concrete basement lighting off a few as we were amazed by them. The smell linger for a few hours and my dad came home and smelled it. Boy did that set him off. We had a small bathroom in the basement that we ran into to hide. We locked the door and had to hold the knob lock button in so he could not unlock it. We waited there for hours with no sounds outside the door-it was now past sundown before we decided to try to make an escape. As soon as the door opened, there was my father swinging it open with an aluminum tennis racket in his hand for his weapon. We ran back into the bathroon before we realized that was a mistake. As we got beaten, we decided to make a run for it and each one of use got a beating as we tried to get by him. I went first and got a huge whack across the back that bent the tennis racket from an oval to a 1/4 sliver of a moon shape. I made a dash up stairs and out of the house and down the road. Following behind me in short intervals were my brothers, with all of us nursing out wounds. It was very,very late before we decided it was safe to go into our bedrooms. Another time while we yet younger still, we were playing in his garden (our lot was 3/4 of an acre and his garden was 1/2 acre with the rest of it being house) and apparently did some damage to some plant or something and he went off. We took off running and he started beating us with metal garden stakes (5 ft high and about 15 pounds) before he started throwing them like javelins at us. Several almost hit there mark,but we were quick runners and made our escape. There are alot of other "little" episodes that went on as well--so many that we became prolific escapers. We could pop the screen out of the window and jump out the window in record time - if need be to save our skins. We also found a great hiding place--hiding out on the roof- we lived in a one story ranch. But one time we were found out and he came up after us--so we ---yes you guessed it-- JUMPED! Not only that but after we jumped we then had to sprint away or we were not safe. My mom sort of let things go on like that till it appeared that we were in danger for our lives then she would step in and try to help. However his rage was something to behold and even with her help we got beaten,spit upon and called lots of degrading names. I can still recall her saying to stop before one of us kids died. One time in particular, when she was uttering that phrase, I was on the floor after being hit down there, with his foot raised up over my head, and all I could see was hit foot print getting larger and larger-then at the last second it came down in my belly. As time went on I finally became bigger than him and could defend myself and would actually grab his fist and hold it towards him, showing that I respected him but would not take his abuse any longer. Fast forward a few years more, my father changed jobs, the stress was better and he worked on controlling his anger some more-but by this time I had moved out and was not really intimately aware of the changes. My brothers would tell me things were better and my sister, who came along few years before I left home, never really got to see any of the carnage firsthand. Today- he is a much different man and for that I am thankful. However it leaves me with what, at times seems mountains of resentment, to be placed on an image of a person that no longer exists. At times it feels like it negates what I went thru, but then conversely I would go thru it again --or worse if I could of helped my brothers more. It makes me watch what I do more carefully now and has made me more aware of what I do and how I do it- so as not to start down that dark path that genetics leads me to, like some predisposition towards a raging monster that is just waiting for the right circumstances to show themselves before a full blown attack surfaces. As I have aged, that monster within has grown hoarse and has lost much of its punch, but can still evoke a dark moment of reflection as I assess what I am feeling and why I am feeling that way. Here is to legends of the good old days and of monsters and there demise - in real life or thru rebirths of types. T

Another thought--- Alot of body wastes and toxins can be stored in your fat. As the fat is processed in your body these wastes and toxins are re-released into your body and blood stream and are expelled thru various means--urine, sweat,breathe. Often these wastes are a delicious food for bacteria and you get a BO that is different and or stronger. Drinking alot of Water and urinating whenever you have the urge will help a little bit. Cutting down on sugar intake can also help some. But I think,other then the suggestions above, thinking of your body cleansing itself of years of bad foods and toxins is going to make the bad "BO" just a touch more tolerable. I noticed a "chemistry" change of my BO for about 2-3 weeks post op before it seemed to normalize some. I do notice that while not as bad as during that 3 week period my BO can become uncontrollable quicker than before i.e. I have to wash well more often. By the way--keep up your Vitamins as that helps your body in the weight loss department. T

clg8579, I just wanted to clarify something---fills don't "take" and getting fills done at one place or another has nothing to do with how much Fluid it is going to take to fill your band and get the amount of restriction you need. In other words if it is gonna take 3cc's of fluid to get a good restriction, it is gonna take that much no matter who is doing the fills. Also the doctors can only put in so much fluid as too much fluid will cause a larger band movement and can result in a larger inflamation in the stomach. To much of a band fill and resulting inflamation and you can have a problem that will result in a swollen band opening area and then the doctor will have to remove all your fluid for you to heal properly. Then you will have to wait months for it to heal before getting fills again. So taking it slowly with only moderate amounts of fills is the proper way to fill for a safe fill. Why risk getting a large fill when the result is months of having no fill while healing up again? Also just to let you know--many people take 2-4 fills before they feel good restriction. Myself- I am at 2 fills now and have decent restriction. I am gonna ride this last fill out before I get my next one as I think I am close to getting really good restriction. I want to give my body time to adjust to restricted eating before it becomes super restricted. I am still losing weight and that is the whole goal. T

Paula, The reverse osmosis system is a good one for getting pure clean Water. Just be sure and check the cost of the filters and how often they will need replaced- as that is often the "gotcha" of many systems. Often hard water areas will increase the frequency of changing those filters- as they clog faster due to the minerals. Also most RO systems require you to leave the faucet dripping (to flush the impurities away) and your overall water usage will be alot higher then the amount produced (in case you pay for your water thru the city)- something like 2 gallons of water flushed for 1 produced . That is something to check also as different systems use various amounts of flush water. Some caviets of drinking distilled and RO water-- you do not get the minerals your body needs that often comes from the water. I have heard that it is good that if you are drinking Distilled or RO water to drink some spring water with it for the minerals. You can either mix some with your water or just drink a bottle of it straight-just be sure and get some in. As these minerals are already dissolved in water they are the most readily available for your body to absorb and use them,whereas, many of the Vitamin type minerals are of a less absorbable variety. Hope this helps some, T

In my weightloss journey, I have gone thru various fazes of being hungry, not being hungry and eating great and eating not so great. This is the way I look at things-- As long as I am staying "good" 80% of the time or greater then I am doing great!! Lately-after my last fill I am feeling less hungry and am getting by on very little everyday. However, the day of the fill and the next-- my hunger was voracious-- I ate a good amount-- I ALLOWED myself to eat a good amount and enjoyed it. I did not condem myself for doing so-but thought to myself that being so good for so long left me with the option of eating "bad" for a day or two. Also I do not eat anything low fat-low carb or any other way diet. The little bit that I do indulge in of those "bad" foods is not going to hurt me in my weight loss one bit- and I would rather have the full flavor to help me be satisfied and overcome the desiring of the "bad" food. In the past the "diet" bad food would not help in quenching the desire for the food and have a moderate amount of the real bad food was what worked for me. You need to remember that this is a long journey to travel with many miles and many years in the future and the occasional pitstop is what will help to keep you moving on the journey. Just remember to keep your pitstops short or your journey's travel will suffer. T

Christina, Dr. Pleatman is one of the doctors that feels that NSAIDS are fine on a sort term basis. The is no real PROOF of them causing band erosion, just the mental flow of logic that some NSAIDS are hard on a stomach if taken in high doses and over long periods of time, and that it may cause problems with the stomach lining thereby possibly causing erosion of the lining near the band. Also if a person is properly adjusted with the band there, many of the pills are to big to be taken and would lodge into the stomach stoma that is formed with the band. A liquid form of the NSAIDS would be a better alternative from the physicality problem part, however infrequent use of nsaids--especially if taken with with milk- should not be a problem or concern towards erosion. If a person is taking large dosages or taking them over weeks of time--then it could become a problem with the stomach in general. Right now it seems that the largest body of evidnece of erosion is that it is caused by surgeon technique in securing the band and if the surgeon removes the "fat pouch" around the stomach. The more body tissue cut into and/or removed the greater chance of the body forming a reactive surface to the band. That was one reason the larger band was created was so that the fat pouch could be left in tact with the band merely placed around the fat pouch and stomach while leaving enough room in the band unfilled. Another "thought" as to why erosion was caused was that sometimes surgeons closed (latched) the band on the stomach--in effect, pinching it partially in the band. This would cause an irritation that could "fester" into an erosion- hence another reason for the larger band. I don't think there are any definative answers as to what really causes erosion as erosion is a very small number--like 1-2% of all banded people and falls into the mainly non-event category of complications. Statistically speaking, the number is small enough that it could even be just due to different body types and chemistries having a reaction with the band or the material. Also these bands are placed on not the most healthiest people-many with other health complications and/or medicines and these could be causing some of these erosions as well. I am just glad that the numbers are as small as they are. If I remember the statistics right you had a greater chance of dying or became physically incapacitated from surgery than getting erosion. T

Just to clarify- Flouro refers to a machine that allows them to see your insides like an x-ray machine. It moves in real time an they can see what they are doing with the needle and with having you drink while on the machine. It is not something that gets injected into you. All bands,to my knowledge, just get injected with saline all the time. Dr. P. uses a sonogram to locate the port and that aids in not getting stuck or missing the port when getting fills. I beleive Dr. P. only uses flouro if the port is difficult to access (flipped port) or if there are leakage concerns. T Hope this helps.

Hello Kari Jo, Welcome to this site. I too am from NE Indiana and would like to welcome another local to this site. I haven't ran across any others so your my first local welcome. Stick around as this site has lots to offer in terms of information and support! T

Well at least you did not loose your sense of humor with the sleep deprivation....lol. T

Some things to remember when using these products or getting it applied to you. 1. Do not moisturize for at least a day before-including using a moisturizing soap. The moisturizing lotion blocks the tanning action of the active ingredients and can lead to un-evenness or blotchy appearance. 2. Wash well 1 or 2 hours before the application. Be sure to exfoliate well. This helps remove any body oils and will allow the product to penetrate well. The exfoliation will remove any large amounts of dead skin cells and reduce the possibility of darker/lighter areas. The dead skin layers are what get "colored" and that is why the tan only last a week or so as your body is constantly removing and renewing its skin. 3. Do not wash for at least 12 hours after application. This gives the product time to penetrate and activate. 4. If you are blotchy the best way to remove or even out the "tan" is to try an aggressive exfoliating product. You have to basically "wear" the skin off to lighten it again. 5. An intensifier product can help lengthen the time the tan looks good. Hope this helps, T

Christina, Sorry to hear of your slow healing. Believe it or not I was sleeping on my stomach on the day of surgery. I was still doped up from the hospital and figured a good nights sleep was what I needed, and since I too sleep like you - on my stomach with one leg straight and one bent- I needed that position for a good nights sleep. It hurt some but I was okay if I did not move much. The next 3 nights it hurt some to sleep on the stomach,less pain each night, but then after that it was pretty much all good. I have a high pain tolerance so maybe I overrided my pain feeling for a comfortable sleeping position. I have found that if I sleep in a recliner I can sleep on my back fairly comfortable if reclined to almost the flat position. The recliner or a car/truck seat are the only places I can sleep in the back position so that may be an option to try for a more comfortable nights sleep. Happy dreams! Tony

Yes, be sure that your incisions have no scabs and have no more leaking or seeping from them. Otherwise you risk getting an infection or irritation from the pool and its chemicals. You want to be sure they have "new skin" over them all and not anything that will allow in the Water. Tony

May your surgery go smoothly, May your recovery go quickly and May you visit with us again soon. T

You might try Doctor Pleatman in Detroit area. He is taking patients on a case by case basis. www.laparoscopy.com/pleatman Tony