Akafij

My response (When my band was working) was always "It was wonderful, I just don't eat very much" it seemed to work for me. I also only ever ordered an app or soup.

Ones anyone have experience with this site? They say $100 flat fee and it's all online. Seems like a great option if it's legit.

Hi all, I am new to this group but looking forward to participating. Here's my story in a nutshell: I had a Realize band placed in February of 2009. My starting weight was 268. The band was fantastic and I lost weight steadily, with the exception of a few months when I realized how easy cookies were to eat. In December of 2010, I hit the 100 pounds lost mark, I also found out I was pregnant that same week. At about 4 weeks pregnant I had a really nasty 3 day stomach flu. A few days after recovering from that, I started throwing up again. I could keep food down for a few hours, but it was all coming back up. I lost another 15 pounds in 2 weeks. I thought it was just severe morning sickness, even though in 5 previous pregnancies I'd never had morning sickness. I saw my Ob who told me to immediately get my band unfilled and if I was still throwing up the next day he'd have to admit me into the hospital. I got a complete unfill and immediately felt better, but with no restriction and absolutely no mental/physical/spiritual preparedness for no restriction, my love affair with all things bread and pastry renewed like we were never apart. I gained 40 pounds in the first 4 months of my pregnancy. I managed to gain back a little control, but ended up gaining about 60 pounds before I had my daughter in August of 2011. The weight gain took a great emotional toll on me, but I just knew that 6 weeks postpartum I'd get a fill and be right back on track... You know where this is going, right? In October of 2011 I got my band refilled. Pre-pregnancy, my fill level was at 7.2cc in an 11 cc band. We filled it to 3.5 cc and 3 weeks later filled it to 5 cc. I had very little restriction and it just didn't seem right. I'd also started getting heartburn. I went back a few weeks later and we filled it to 5.5. That lasted 24 hours, I had to go back in for an unfill and we went down to 5.2 so I could get water down. I still didn't have much restriction, but I did have terrible heartburn and vomiting in the middle of the night. I lived with this for a few months until I couldn't stand it and went back in and had .5 cc removed. This made the heartburn manageable with daily meds and tums always at hand, but there was no restriction. I could eat all the bread, pasta, rice that I wanted. I knew I had a slip, but didn't have insurance to cover bariatrics, so I lived with it. I tried eating less, exercise, weight watchers, even a juice fast but I've gained 20 more pounds on top of the baby weight. Fast forward to now and I finally have insurance to cover bariatrics. I went in a few weeks ago and had my upper GI. It showed a slip above the band, virtually my entire stomach is above the band, which is why there is no restriction felt, but the band was so tight that flow into the rest of my digestive tract was severely restricted. Food just sat there for a really long time, and the results of that we're just kind of gross. We unfilled the band completely to see if the slip would fix itself, although, we all knew what that result would be. The pregnancy hadn't caused the slip, the stomach flu had and 9 months of an empty band hadn't helped it unslip. I got that confirmation this week. My band is still slipped and the restriction is still severe even empty. I'm frustrated, but quite relieved that there has been a real issue this whole time and it wasn't just me. We're now going through the process of getting insurance approval to revise to a sleeve and I couldn't be happier.

I took it about 10 years ago for about 6 months along with Weight Watchers and lost about 50 pounds. I went off it because we wanted to get pregnant and I gained something like 20 pounds back in 6 weeks, it was ridiculous.

I'm working on revision surgery via Medicaid with the same surgeon. I know that they require the 6 month supervised weight loss for initial surgery. I don't have to do that for my revision, and once I get my pre-op things done, they told me around 7 days for Medicaid approval, which is very quick! Dr. Snyder has a great team and it has been my experience that his coordinators are knowledgable and will tell you pretty straight up how much of a battle you will have with your insurance. Have you talked with them yet? Good Luck!!

I'm really hoping I love the sleeve! I hate that I have to go through this pre-op "is it going to work" stress again. I spent a couple of hours on the phone today setting up all of my pre-op appointments and should have all of that done within the next couple of weeks. My coordinator said that my insurance only takes about 7 days for approval. I go on vacation the first week of August and I'm hoping surgery is shortly after that!

What I've never understood is that it seems to be fine to talk about your facelift, botox and boob job, that's all well and good, but having WLS is some kind of failure and it makes people uncomfortable. I was banded in 2009 (it's slipped and I'm working through the process to revise to a sleeve). I found that it worked for me not to volunteer anything, but if someone asked me directly I told them. Most of those people were waiting for me to give them some divine secret so they could lose weight too.

Actually, the term "band fail" came straight from my surgeon. The pregnancy occurred 22 months after my surgery and had nothing to do with the band slip. The band slip was due to severe vomiting for several days as a result of stomach flu, also a quote from my surgeon. I spent several thousand dollars on doctor visits and only stopped when we got to the band to a safe (but non restricting) level and I knew the next steps were going to be barium swallows and surgery, well beyond my level of affordability. It wasn't my intent to pass any kind of judgement or offend anyone, I was merely sharing my story.