Bluesea71

There are people on this forum who have medi-Cal and have been approved for surgery. I've seen previous posts. Try doing a topic search and see what comes up.

Continue what you're doing and try not to let what the scale is reporting discourage you. Lesson learned here from someone almost 13 months out at goal weight BUT if I was to do it all over again, I would have changed my strategy. I noticed early on post WLS that my weight loss would slow down every time I exercised, so I didn't exercise the majority of the time post surgery. I reached my goal in no time but I was left with a skinny fat body. I am now working out harder than ever and building muscle. This process is actually making me GAIN some weight which is kinda freaking me out, but my muscles are becoming lean ad strong. I'm losing inches despite the slight weight gain as I build muscle. In the long run having that muscle will help us both look better and let's face it, exercise will be vital in maintenance. Keep it up. You are on your way to an awesome, toned, healthy body!

Ouch! It hurts for me to drink soda post surgery. Even a tiny bit. My days of drinking it are long gone. I actually don't even crave it anymore. It tastes like carbonation water to me.

I went to my orientation in January 2014 and could have had surgery in March less than two months later. I waited until April to schedule it during a time I could easily take time off of work. I wasn't required to lose weight prior to surgery as my BMi was "only" 38. Others in the program seem to have had a 10-20 pound pre-surgery weight loss required. Only a few classes were required and a psyc. eval. It's been a little over a year now and I'm below goal weight. Easiest weight I've ever lost!

Yes, this happened to me. I remember the area around the incision became a tad inflamed but in the end the wound healed up just as nicely as the other ones. The internal stuff poking out was similar to fishing line in my case. I cut one of them back with sterilized nail clippers and my surgeon cut the other one back. I tried on one attempt to pull it out and almost ripped my incision open! I tried again a few weeks later and it just slid right out. Whatever you do, don't pull if there's any resistance! It will eventually dissolve but you may need to remove the part exposed like I did. I actually went back through my posts and found where I posted about this. I'm a year out from surgery but it was under a posting called "something hard coming out" started by another member. You can look through my posts or search for it if want more details. I will cut/paste the pics of the stitches that eventually came out.

I only like the Apple Pie Quest bar and have one everyday for Breakfast. I can't stand any of the other flavors either!

35 pounds in one month is awesome! Remember, the heavier a person is, the more weight they will lose early on. It isn't a contest. Besides, you really don't want to lose too quickly or you're going to be left with a lot of saggy skin. It takes your skin 2-3 months to adjust every time you lose weight. Give it some time to catch up! I'm a year out from surgery and lost all of my weight at a snails pace. I remember panicking that it wasn't coming off fast enough. Now I feel grateful because 1) I am at goal weight with a big fat happy smile and 2) I have almost zero saggy skin. Trust in the process. Follow your plan. Eat your protein. You will be at goal weight before you know it ????

BXB26 - do you take an iron supplement? If so, it may be (in part) to blame. Traditional iron supplements are notorious for causing constipation. My dietitian specifically told us to buy Ferrous Gluconate (a type of iron) which doesn't cause constipation. I found it tricky to find as most are just marked "Iron." I had to ask the pharmacist at the drug store to find it on the shelf for me. Also remember that you are eating very little food at this point. There isn't much to dispose of at this point. Trust me, things will get moving along in time!

Thanks for the feedback on twilight sedation. It sounds like most of us were too loopy to care what was actually going on in the surgery to care what was going on. The idea of having a tummy tuck while awake gives me a panic attack but I get really nauseous after going under the traditional way, so I will continue to entertain the idea. It sounds like it is most often used when having multiple procedures at once. I am just interested in a tummy tuck. Possibly breast augmentation. Will they perform those two operations together in the states?

Ha Ha Jamie. I wouldn't have mentioned the weird belly button if I thought you and sweet pea had weird ones Looks good to me ????

Sorry gals. Meant to reply sooner but work/life has been busy lately! I am still loosing but it's at a snails pace. I don't have much body fat left on me, so I've had to rethink my original 140 goal weight. Actually, my weight went UP recently as I began training hard for an upcoming event. I have been around 150 and the last few weeks it suddenly went up to 154. Things didn't compute as my diet was the same and I was logging sometimes 14 miles per day! My size 8 jeans were becoming baggy on me, so I decided to focus on my measurements vs what the scale is reporting. Now my weight is back down to 151. My daughter and I wear the exact same clothes and she is 134, so I've come to learn that weight is just a number. I didn't like how skinny fat I had become and now that I am exercising, my muscles are becoming tone and I'm building muscle. I've accepted that I may actually gain weight as I continue exercising and as long as I like the way I look, I'm okay with that! As far as what I'm eating, I could probably clean it up a bit more. I log everything in my lose it app on my phone to maintain accountability. I eat carbs but they are not my main go-to like they were pre-surgery. A typical day consists of: a quest protein bar for breakfast, a few dried mango mid-day, a small turkey/cheese lunchables, beef jerky (although the sodium makes me retain water weight so I'm backing off a tad) and maybe a yoplait yogurt. At dinner I typically defrost one of the premade containers I have in the freezer ready to go. I find this helps me with turning to take out or drive throughs on the way home from work. Some current favorites are a stew and chicken skillet pasta dish that are portion sized and fill me up. I don't feel like I deprive myself. If I have a specific craving, I eat it. I try to avoid slider foods and there are certain foods that just don't appeal to me anymore. I can't remember the last time I had a sandwich. The idea of eating that much bread makes me want to vomit. I continue to participate in the challenges on this site and I find having to check in helps me with accountability.

Any pics you could provide would be great sweet pea and Jamie! I've spent hours looking at people's results on realself.com and can say there are some real hack jobs out there! I think I've become an expert if you will, at spotting a tummy tuck by analyzing a person's "new" belly button. Some just look weird! Other things I've noticed are what I think they refer to as "dog ears" where it puckers out on the sides and also some surgeons make a slight 1/2 - 1" vertical cut up the center of the incision near the belly button. Still confused what the purpose of that is? I am lucky that I don't have any excess skin except in my abdomen. I would need some time to save up for plastics and decided to wait a full year to consider having any work done anyway. The skin on my tummy has already retracted some. My Husband thinks it will continue to do so. I remind him how much my stomach stretched out when I was pregnant. It's never going to be flat again. Not without surgical intervention!

Your results turned out amazing sweet pee. The idea of getting breast implants freaks me out the same way the idea of a lap did did. I am having trouble with the idea of having something foreign in my body that I know won't last forever. Your pictures gave me hope that I may have enough breast tissue left to just do a lift. We shall see. I am familiar with the stitch you described. Would you be willing to provide an up close picture of your tummy tuck scar? I guess I could also attempt to view your pics on an actual computer monitor vs. my tiny phone. Haha

I had horrible IBS before surgery. Totally gone now post surgery. I think over eating was 99% to blame and of course, eating the wrong foods. I am now a year out and can happily report that diarrhea explosions, excess bloating and gas are a thing of the past! ????

Thank you for your response, sweet pea. Completely makes sense. I appreciate your response and I'm glad you took my question in the way it was meant and didn't feel under attack. My Husband thinks I'm nuts to even entertain the idea of plastics in Mexico, so it's going to take a lot of research and convincing on my part to get him to buy into the process. Anytime I mention good reviews online he wants to know if I've actually "talked" to those people. I think I've watched too many episodes of "Catfish" on MTV with my teenager and her friends with people pretending to be people they are not on the Internet! I have to say though, Medical tourism is big. If these Surgeons are smart, they will have full-time employees whose job is to market and recruit clients on different Internet forums. Sweet pea - now that I have your attention - can you explain how your surgeon closes his wounds? Something about internal stitching? I also noticed on your tummy tuck one side goes straight across and the other side goes up like you would be wearing high cut panties. Typically the incision just goes straight across. Why is that?

AZDee, I appreciate your response and your honesty. I apologize if my posting made you feel under attack. That really wasn't my intention.

Sweet Pea - I have been researching the surgeon you listed for awhile. He is one of three I am considering in Mexico along with the other surgeons mentioned above. I am anal about scarring, so your surgeon's specialized training appeals to me. Here is my concern and I really hope this doesn't come off as negative as this might sound. I am a researcher by nature. I do my homework. I read online reviews but you never know who is posting the reviews online. On the Bariatric Pal forum you get to know people's personalities and what's important to them. I guess a level of trust develops after awhile. I've noticed that you are very quick and happy to post pictures of your surgery experience, which I'm grateful for. What concerns me is of your 300 plus posts on BP, 99.9% of them are about your plastic surgery experience. I do believe you are a WLS patient as I saw one post about Protein Intake. Please don't take my inquiry the wrong way. I'm not a combative or argumentative person by any means at all. I'm just entering unknown territory entertaining the idea of plastic surgery and quite frankly, the idea of having it out of the country still scares me. The only way I can entertain the idea is to be able able to say, "Jamie went there" or "Cowgirl Jane had fantastic results". These are also BP members that post often about a lot of different topics. Not just plastic surgery. I'm just wondering which reviews I can trust..... ????Umm. AzDee. All of your reviews are about plastic surgery too on BP. Same surgeon. Maybe I am on to something.

Could those who used twilight sedation during their surgeries comment on the experience? I had a broken nose fixed in college (don't judge) and looking back I must have been under the same and remember the whole thing. It wasn't painful per say but I remember odd things like the surgeon picking up the hammer to break my nose... And the pressure of him actually breaking my nose to reset it.... And I remember me being loopy under drugs and telling him he was really cute and I hoped I didn't have boogers in my nose! I remember afterwards thinking it was a horrific experience and wondered why I wasn't fully put under. Do you remember anything?

Hi Jamie I would suggest focusing more on the way you look or the size clothing you want to wear versus the weight on the scale. You know all to well the struggles I've been having with weight GAIN now that I'm training hard for an upcoming event. I have put on 4 pounds the last few weeks and the only thing that's keeping me from jumping off a bridge is my size 8 jeans are getting baggy on me! Still, I will take the the lean muscle thats developing over the skinny fat I was before any day. I stood side by side next to a client last week and we look the same size. We are both 5'7" She weighs 123 and she was shocked when I told her I weighed 154. That's a 31 pound difference and we wear the same size clothes! I'm technically in maintenance now and it's really not any different than what I was doing before. Except I've decided to lay off the butterfingers this week to see if I can do it. Ha ha. That's for another post ????.

I'm still 154. I'm beginning to think the scale isn't going to budge or my weight may increase the more I work out! Still training hard and now my size 8 jeans are baggy on me, so maybe I will focus on my measurements for awhile ????

Most plastic surgery is performed in the United States on a outpatient basis unless there is a complication. I suspect this is to keep costs down, not because we wouldn't benefit from the extra care!

Welcome to the 3 week stall. If you do a search of the topics on this site, you will see it is very common and happened to almost every single one of us. Carry on as usual. This too shall pass. One day you will wake up and be at goal weight like me ????. In the meantime, I found it helpful to read posts from others further along in the process so I would know what to expect. There seems to be a predictable pattern to this madness. I'm now a little over a year out from WLS and the repetitive postings tell me we seem to have similar experiences!

Have you tried Vitamin Water Zero? I like the dragon fruit and Aci-blueberry-pomegranate flavors. Zero calories and a great alternative (I find) to Gatorade.

I'm putting my defense shield up and getting ready to get lectured by the community ???? Do I dare admit that I have had 1-2 full size Butterfinger candy bars post surgery every week since the time I've been allowed to have solids? Yep. Ive enjoyed my favorite candy bar every week for at least 7 months now. Before you lecture me, let me tell you a little bit about my thinking process. I've always hated the word "diet" because it implies that one day you will go off of your current way of eating and back to another way of eating. When people "diet", they deprive themselves of the things that they really want and at some point cave and give in. I eat a pretty clean diet 99% of the time. I was able to reach and surpass my surgeon's goal by 10 pounds before a years time. I weigh myself daily, continue to follow my surgeon's guidelines and exercise. I also know myself well enough to know my limitations. There is no way I can have an endless supply of chips, cookies, candy and other "binge foods" in my house. They are way to easy to grab without thinking. However, I do enjoy an occasional indulgence. I record every single thing I eat in my loseit app on my phone. I account for those calories. Now can everyone handle this kind of discipline? Probably not. This is where you have to be honest with your own situation. I've never considered myself an emotional eater. I don't turn to food for comfort. I've never feared my need for butterfingers would increase as the weeks went on. I'm also willing to reevaluate and check myself if this starts to happen. I guess I have issues with any black and white thinking. It worries me when former food addicts become food nazis. I get that many of us need that kind of discipline to be successful. If I deprive myself of things I love, I start to rebel. Butterfingers make me happy. There. I said it. I don't have to have a case of them. I never did. I have created a new lifestyle for myself that includes healthy eating, exercise AND and an occasional treat. I'm glad I can still indulge once in awhile. ???? Confession time over.

Once the hair follicle is present, it will continue to grow hair. It doesn't just stop. With that being said, excess hormones are stored in fat, so if you have a condition like PCOS, many of the side effects of the condition will improve with weight loss, Unfortunately, a reduction in excess hair is not one of them. Laser hair removal is the latest treatment option available to remove excess hair. Electrolysis used to be the only permanent option and is much more time consuming and costly in comparison.