supbanana

Hi Annie, I'm biased because I adored Dr. Illan and had an amazing experience, but I truly believe you're in incredibly competent hands! I would have surgery with him again in a heartbeat. Are you referring to the Team Illan group on Facebook? If so, right on! That was by far my favorite resource pre surgery. If not, please join the group! I never came across a sheet of hard facts, unfortunately. Before surgery my dad was convinced that I would get to Mexico and they would take my check and leave me stranded. The only way to convince him how wrong he was was to come home, perfectly fine. I think your best bet, like the person before me mentioned, is to set up a phone call or Skype chat with Dr. Illan so your husband can ask questions 'in person'. Dr. Illan is very friendly and professional and was happy to answer any and all questions. Good luck!! I hope you love your experience as much as I did... Shoot, even if you only like it half as much, you'll still be happy with your choice.

I don't shave that area but my 'apron' has shrunk a lot so I can actually look down and see my pubes now. I imagine if I did shave down there it would be loads easier now. On the other hand, my facial hair is going crazy. it's always been a problem but now it's coming in really thick and fast, and worse is some of the hairs are jet black since the surgery (I'm blonde, wtf?). If I weren't blonde I would laser off this hot mess in a heartbeat.

I used to wake up crying and unable to move thanks to leg cramps when I first started a low carb diet. Potassium was totally the culprit. I bought lo-salt (half sodium, half potassium) and used it in place of salt and the cramps stopped immediately. I still sleep with a bottle of potassium pills by my bed just in case, those leg cramps are so unbelievably painful.

I'm sorry you experienced that. I've done the exact same thing and it's so completely miserable, ugh. Now I carry cheese sticks everywhere and make sure to eat one every few hours if I know I won't be home all day.

I would have had to take at least two weeks off just because of how weak and easily tired I was, but other people are ready to hop back in the game after a week or so. I would definitely let your professors know that you'll be having surgery and see if you can work something out with them so your grade doesn't slip if you're like me and need a solid two weeks to rest up. Also, going to school means you're focused on school, but don't forget to get your liquids in throughout the day! It's easy to forget when you're focused in class but it's so, so important.

Every so often, over the past couple weeks, I go through spells where I'm overcome with a wave of nausea and then muscle weakness and mild pain that starts in my chest and spreads to my shoulders. Right now the weakness is in my arms and down my back and I'm a little concerned but not sure how to express what I'm feeling to a healthcare professional (plus, no insurance, hence why I'm asking here). Has this happened to anyone else? Any thoughts as to what it could be?

Hm, yeah, I still have my gallbladder. I'll look into that, thank you all! Shumaked, that's what it feels like, I really thought I was having a heart attack or dying or just like something was seriously wrong.

It's happened only two or three times now, so I haven't noticed a pattern. Today I had eaten some refried Beans approx. 30 minutes before it happened. When it happened I was lying flat on my stomach reading. It felt like the area where my stomach is went numb, and then the weakness immediately radiated from there up my chest and down my arms. Walking around and drinking some Water seems to have helped but there's still residual weakness. Still curious if anyone else has dealt with this.

Hm, 29-32 ish? I've often wondered the same thing. (Eta, you look young 20s in your profile pic and I think late twenties/early thirties in the pic where you're not smiling, but I've always been so bad at this)

Hey, thought I would post this here in the Mexico forum because I'm looking specifically for Mexico-based docs for plastics. A friend of mine has lost a lot of weight and is looking for a good doc, especially for a tummy tuck/pannectomy type of plastics, has anyone here had plastics in Mexico with a surgeon you would 100% recommend?

I have one right now. Have been sucking on cough drops and Nyquil cough syrup, but the problem is that both are making me so sick! Like nausea and bowel problems sick. :/ I'm actually looking for ideas of what else to do to curb cold symptoms, so if anyone knows please respond or message me?

Ha, technically, the pic on the left *is* from when I was 21 but idk about looking glamorous lol. I've got to get me a good selfie for this site.

One reason I got this surgery is the opposite - guys generally don't like fat girls. That being said, my 'type' is tall fat guys. I'm a tall, fat girl and I only ever feel 'dainty' and feminine when I'm with a much bigger guy. Sooo, we're out there, but I totally get where you're coming from.

Same here! I'm an awesome person, imo, and I feel pretty confident in general, but when it comes to my weight and body shame I'm a mess. "no one will ever love me at this size", and it gets worse from there. One major reason for having this surgery is that I want my outsides to be as awesome as my insides, lol.

At face value it's because I lost 90 pounds over a looong three years, then stalled for a year despite trying my hardest to break the stall, and then after going on a 1200 calorie diet recommended by my doic I started *gaining* weight back. That was it. I had tried for so hard, and so long, and I feel like I gave losing weight 'on my own' my best attempt and I was sick. Sick of being fat, sick of being undesirable, sick of society not accepting me (my main motivation for losing weight at all, really), sick of chronic knee and back pain... Overall, I'm just over being fat and everything that comes along with it. I'm a big fan of fat acceptance and health at every size, but imo health includes mental health and at my size and my size-based self imposed prison, I was verging on tossing in the towel on life in general. I have a history of depression. I don't think losing weight will fix that by any means, but even though I'm only 5 weeks out I have no regrets and I'm so happy and so relieved that I finally went through with WLS after researching it and skirting around it for 8 or so years. Losing weight may not fix my mental perception of myself, but I'll be happy if it prevents a knee-replacement in the future.

I think it's so hard to see our own progress, and it's so hard to determine when to stop losing weight. It gets even more confusing when you hear about people that have their loved ones telling them, "stop, you're losing too much weight", and they still have a lot to lose. Of course then everyone's body is different, some people have more muscle, some have larger frames... At this point I've decided that weight in numbers is just an arbitrary man-made idea and I'm going to focus on how I feel because how we feel is the most important thing! I don't have the vaguest clue what I 'should' weigh either, but it will be exciting to find out. Good luck with your journey! I agree! My original goal was 220 because getting under 200 doesn't even seem possible, but seeing other people's success here has me thinking that it's not only possible but completely doable! Now my goal is 170, so that I can say that I lost an even 200 pounds, but I still can't even comprehend weighing so little. It blows my mind and it's just this huge, exciting, almost forbidden thought, heh.

I'm right at 5'10". I've been 200+lbs since puberty so I have no idea what I'll look like at goal. I go off of what my sister weighs. She's 5'8" and when she weighed 165 she was a twig and I could see her bones. She looks stunning at ~180, so my goal is 175-180ish, but I figure I'll just get to where I look and, more importantly, feel good and readjust my goal accordingly.

I know Lamictal and certain other meds have a needs based program where you can get discounts through the company itself. Can you ask your p-doc about that option with Abilify?

I'm bipolar 2. It's for the most part managed with Lamictal. I'm five weeks out now and just so, so depressed. Right now I genuinely don't care if I live or die and I'm in a really bad place mentally. No energy to do the mountain of studying I need to do, which is perpetuating my feelings of failure. Ugh. I came here seeing if other people felt the same way and happened to find this recent thread. Thanks for posting it.

Ugh, my dad was like this constantly! He would call me multiple times daily to tell me they were going to shoot me and steal my check, or harvest my organs, or leave me stranded in Mexico. It drove me nuts. He was actually surprised when I got back in the US, perfectly healthy minus 85% of my stomach.

Good luck! Quitting caffeine has been the hardest part of the surgery for me. I depended on it to focus in school and now I'm completely floundering in a hazy brain fog.

Actually, yeah, it's bizarre. I have dandruff for the first time in over a decade (like really bad, scratch-my-head-and-it-snows dandruff) and my skin is just awful. I attribute it to not having enough water or fat in my diet but yesterday I felt like my entire face-skin was flaking off, icky.

Ha, I have kind of an 'all in one' deal. My grandma likes to tell me, "wow honey, you sure can tell you lost weight!" Which is great, but reminds me of how she used to say, "gosh honey, you sure can tell you gained weight!" My favorite compliments though? Apparently surgery increased my confidence or something because people keep commenting on my excellent posture, how regal I look, how I walk with 'poise', etc. I love it.

Yup. Fruit, 'healthy whole grains', etc. are marketed as a part of a healthy and balanced diet but they're most or less pure sugar.