Danimal

Hallelujah.girl - Good to hear you found the supplement that works for you. I'm too found using Unjury really helps me in feeling full. I don't know how I would of got through my 10 day pre op with out it. Right now I can go about 4 hours and then i get the hunger sensation. This curbs it. I only get 4oz 4 times a day though but it works. Good luck in starting your new life!

I've been lucky and haven't had too much trouble with the diet. The doctor started me doing 2 meals a day on the protein drink with a normal light dinner. When I switched to my pre op diet, the first day was a little tough but hasn't been bad. I think I was somewhat used to it. Now I'm on a 800 calorie a day plan drinking 4, 4 oz protein drinks and 4, 4oz fruit juice. If I feel hungry I usually just drink my flavored water. About once a day I get to treat myself with chicken broth. So far I've lost 12 lbs in 7 days.

It's fast approaching isn't it!! Tomorrow is my preop with my doctor and go the the hospital to get paperwork completed. I have all my things bought. I've also doing 2 meals a day on unjury. May 1 I start my liquid diet and I'm not too worried about it. I think easing into the full liquids has been helpful. Of all things my biggest concern is PB's and getting stuck. Good luck everyone!!

Well certainly the worst is behind you and take care of your new chance in life. I don't have the full experience to provide a recommendation, just yet. Only my opinion. I had my heart bypass 4 years ago at the age of 48. Certainly livable but something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I was 278 lbs and my doctor told me if I didn't change my ways, he would see me again in 10 years and the out come would not be so good. Strong message that scared me to death. I was able to get down to 238 but after about 4 months after my heart surgery, I wanted food. Before that, I only ate because I was suppose to. Well once again I lost my control and and reached 299 in December 08. I have researched and researched. I watched friends who went through gastric, and have decided on the lapband. My reasons were less stress on my body and this came recommended by my heart doctor. May 4th, 2004 is a special day now in my life. It was the day of heart bypass. May 11th 2009 will be another special day for me. The day I become banded and receive a tool that will allow me a chance to live longer. My goal is not to go through heart bypass again. Good luck with your decision and all the best as you still recover. Dan

Thanks all for your support and suggestions. I'll provide a few more details. My wife has worked for the company for 7 years and has had 5 different HR managers. She is quite knowledgeable in the HR field and takes care of nearly everything. Her boss who is the HR manager relies on her extensively as my wife knows the company policies quite well. She has found that a company can deny her surgery date but it is also not recommended for companies to do this and highly suggested for companies to contact legal advice before asking an employee to change a surgery date. What she can't do is force a manager to change their mind even if their decision is risky or unethical. My wife does the payroll with in this job and is trusted with very confidential information. She has never missed a Monday when payroll had to be ran and has worked sick in order to insure a lot of people get paid. Her back up works for the accounting manager. The first of the month is month end for accounting and this is when their work load is the heaviest. The problem is that this back up misses at least one day a week and has missed multiple times during this accounting high work load. She also sits next to them and hears them say they don't have enough to keep them busy. So this morning my wife went in and was going to stand firm on her June 1 date. She printed out her back ups missed days so the accounting manager couldn't use work load as an excuse, because she misses so much work. She pulled in the HR manager and the accounting manager to discuss this situation. The accounting manager was upset that she brought in this data about his employees time and considered it none of my wifes business. It is since she tracks everyones absenteeism and he was using work load as an excuse. The accounting manager said we were stressing his employee (the back up) out. When my wife asked about her stress through all of this he said it was of no concern to him. Nice guy. My wifes boss suggested another person but the accounting manager refused to allow that. The HR manager finally said that my wife could keep her June 1 date and the accounting manager said in an upset tone "we will have to suck it up." We believe my wife was approached to change her date because she is a kind people person who usually will burden herself before others. She will make others happy before making herself happy and her standing her ground was probably not expected. On the other hand, her back up is very out spoken and will step on who ever in order to get her way. Somehow she doesn't have to follow the rules of the organization, misses a lot of work and still gets good raises. We can figure it out either. Bottom line, we are moving forward. I will be banded on May 11 and my wife will be banded June 1. We will go through this journey together, no matter how difficult.

I sometimes think insurance companies do things in hopes that you give up. My wife and I are trying to do this together. I have been approved. She has not. First off, our information was submitted early Feb. We thought there was a 30 day waiting period before a decision would be made. Wrong. They wanted 45 working days! We did everything right. I called and verified they received the paperwork and followed up each week. I confirmed the due dates that an answer would have to be given. For what ever reason, my approval came early. Nothing on my wife. When I called them back up and asked them about her, they said they had no paperwork on her at all. Impossible! They had been verifying all this time 2 different receive dates of when each of our paperwork arrived but now nothing. They now had to contact the doctors office and resubmit her information. They put a "rush" on the decision process and apoligized to us. Said it would take another 14 days to make a decision. They just keep stringing us along.

I believe you are right Bethany. I know a guy who worked with the insurance company a few years back said they almost always deny the requests just to keep from paying them. Don't know how true this is. Well the good news is yesterday the insurance company called me and approved my wife as well. All of her pre-op visits will be the same as mine. Monday we go to see the surgeon. My surgery date is May 11, my wife's date hasn't been finalized just yet. The good thing is our payment is only $280 for each of us. Hope all goes well with your approval and keep in touch. Good luck!!

I'm glad you asked this question because I've been thinking the same thing. I will have about 14 days from surgery to our camping trip. I know I will be in my transistion stage but I am somewhat concerned of hooking up the stabilizer bars on our travel trailer to the truck. Takes quite a bit of force to lock these in place. At home it won't be a problem because my son can do this. When we arrive at the campground I was afraid of the force when I disconnect. I've been wondering if I'll be able to do this or have to get help or cheat with a longer pipe. Just don't know what to expect.

I have a May 11th date. I don't start the pre-op diet until May 1. I've been dieting since the first of the year and am down 33 lbs but I'm losing my momentum.

Hello everyone, I’m not much of a poster but have read this forum nearly every day. This is a great site that has educated me immensely. So I thought I’d post my long journey to get banded. Over 2 years ago in 2007, my wife and I considered the lapband but after running up against the mighty insurance requirement, we both decided to once again try dieting. Well you can all imagine the outcome of that decision as we both ended up weighing more than we had before we started our diet. This decision is such a change of lifestyle but we felt it was needed. Five years ago at the age of 47, I had already had bypass surgery. At that time I was told if I didn’t change my habits they would see me in 10 years and the outcome wouldn’t be so good. Even though this haunts me, I would continue to sabotage myself and gain weight. In the fall of 2008 we both once again began talking about lapband and decided we needed to approach this again but follow all the way through. Force the insurance company to make the decision. October 2008 – went to the group meeting at the hospital to get weighed in and signed up. November 2008 - Was informed our insurance administrator would change at the first of the year. Should probably wait until January before having our doctors submit information to avoid confusion. December 2008 – Began our diet. Both weighting the most we ever have. Tough time of the year but we felt if we can do it during the holidays we could continue this life style. Set up our appointments for the first of the year. January 2009– Completed our appointments with the Dietitian, Physical Therapist, Psychologist, & Surgeon. Being the first of the year, we had to meet our $800 deductable plus the Surgeon wasn’t on our plan. We would both have pay the $3,000 Surgeon fees and possibly the entire surgery. The Dr’s office is trying to get accepted with our insurance. February 2009 – Information was finally sent to the Insurance Administrators. March 2009 – The Surgeon is now on our prefered provider list!! Follow up calls we were led down a 30 day wait to a 45 day wait to a 45 working day wait. March 27th I was finally approved but we haven’t heard anything yet on my wife. I only have to meet 10% of the cost. April 2009 – End of the month I am scheduled to once again see the Dietitian, Surgeon, R.N. and the Hospital pre-cert. May 11 2009 – I’m scheduled for the lapband. Now the wait for my procedure and my wife’s approval!

Greeting all. I am new to the site and I am so glad I found this place. This is my first post but I have spent the entire week reading and learning from all your experiences. Thank you all! Addict, yes. My addiction isn't drugs. My addiction is food. I've always considered myself to be no different than a drug addict. Our only difference is with our/my addiction is if I'm to stop, I cannot cut myself clean from food and stop eating it forever. I can never walk away from my addiction because I need it to live. My addiction, I must learn to use it in moderation. Wife and I are both planning to have the lapband surgery. We have went through the initial class and have filled out our paperwork and submitted it to the doctor. We hope and plan on going down this road together. Why not, we gained our weight together. My wake up call was 3 years ago when I had heart bypass surgery. I lost 50 lbs during that time and dropped to 240 lbs. I was told I need to get to 200 lbs after my surgery. I felt so good about myself, but after 4 months, I regained my cravings, couldn't stop, and gained it all back. Although I'm in good health other than my weight, my heart doctor told me I should have a good 20 years left. Longer if I lose some weight. 20 years! Yikes!. Here I am 50 and had my first realization that the clock is ticking away and I must do something different if I want to have any retirement years ahead. So here we are. We've made our decision and hoping someday we can be posting the success we have had in breaking our addiction. Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences as you help those like us as we begin walking down this path.