UrsulasShadow

No preop diet here. Just changing eating patterns before surgery, and fasting the day before.

Excited for you! Luck!

I don't know what effect on your surgery, but I've heard they've developed new, excellent treatments for carcinoid syndrome. Best of luck!

I'm over 50, so it's a requirement of my program that I pass a cardiac stress test before surgery. I've been on treadmills before, and have been to the gym, and never had a real problem with it, but recently have been a bit lazy and have gotten out of shape. I still thought I wouldn't have any real issues, since my heart has never been a problem for me. Well, I failed. It even surprised the cardiologist. He actually said I did really well, and shouldn't have any issues for surgery before he looked at the readings and saw an abnormality in my EKG. He looked so sorry for me, and told me that it could be a false positive reading, but I'd never get the surgery based on that test. I thought I was going to cry. Then he says, we can bring you into the hospital and do a cardiac catheterization on you. If it IS a false positive (something common in younger women than I), he can clear me for surgery. If there really is a blockage in my heart, it's best to find out about it now and treat it, before it takes me out. Let me tell you, I had a very rough couple of days after he said that! Anyway, I did go in for the cardiac catheterization, which was rather a big deal, and a little scary. But I passed! I passed! I passed! My heart is good to go! Now I just have a few more group appointments, and a nurse practitioner appointment, and they'll be submitting to my insurance. I'm hoping for the first week in December. Let's hope it's smooth sailing from this point forward!

I would never ever encourage anyone to be anything but completely honest, but be aware...you might have the process prolonged if you show any hint of binge eating disorder, or even if you exaggerate a little on how much you can eat at a sitting. So be honest, but aware. And know that sometimes the extra therapy might help you in the long run. Of course, I think that they may use the "extra therapy" to weed out candidates whose insurance doesn't pay as much...just a conjecture, but in some cases it seems to be applied to state provided insurance at a more frequent rate.

I may end up switching to Wareham. I went to a seminar in town, and since BID in Boston has put me on a 6 month therapy requirement (which kind of puzzles my therapist, since he doesn't see a reason I need it), I'm hoping to move it along a little quicker at a more local hospital.

I had a hard time getting a sleep study lab to schedule me. The one affiliated with my bariatric program wouldn't call me back, so I kept calling them. They then told me I needed a referral from my doctor. I told them the bariatric center sent the referral. They said that my PC needed to send a referral, which is bullpucky, because my insurance doesn't require a PC, but i had it sent anyway. Then they told me it would be a 3 month wait. I gave up and booked closer to home. That wait was 6 weeks, but I asked to be put on a list for cancellations, and I got called in the very next day. I'm glad I had it done, because now I have a comorbidity and don't have to worry about dropping too much weight presurgery ( I'm at 41 BMI).

My psych asked a lot of questions about my eating habits...have I ever eaten past fullness, do I eat when sad, angry, etc. Because of my answers, I must go through six months of weekly counseling before they will consider me for surgery. If I had it to do over, I would not have been so dramatic about the details (I have a tendency to exaggerate). They diagnosed me with binge eating disorder. Not to say I haven't binged on a bag of chips before, but its not a common thing. Oh well...my advice is to be honest, but don't dramatize or exaggerate!

My advice is to post this on the Post-Surgical board. Lol!

Ok, I'm calmer now. I spent the last week trying to reach my LicSW to find out why oh WHY she had me down as a binge eater. Well, she read back her notes to me, and the notes of the meeting that the whole team had, and guess what? She has me as a binge eater because that's what I TOLD her I am. Some of the things I told her were that I eat beyond hunger (usually because I eat too fast), and that I eat when I am not hungry, but possibly angry or stressed or bored. Although some of the things I said to her may have been a little exaggerated, they were close enough to the truth to have given her no choice than to label me a binge eater. So, even though I don't consider myself as one, I must be treated as one. I may continue with this program, I may switch to another program, but in either case, I'm documenting everything I eat, along with my mood and life events, and going to start counseling whether or not it's required. I didn't get to this weight by mindful eating, that's for sure, and if I need a little help getting a grasp on things, then that's what I'll get.

I'm in Plymouth. I was considering BID for my surgery, but they required me to go through 6 months of counseling, which I believe to be unnecessary in my case, so I'm thinking of Tobey. What has your experience with them been like?

I'm absolutely crushed and disappointed...angry, too! Same thing just happened to me. I am NOT a binge-eater most of the time, but I admitted to finishing off an occasional bag of chips over the course of my life. Now I need 6 months of psychotherapy??? I'm so upset. I may not have insurance in 6 months. I was holding off any career moves until I got through this, and now half of my year is lost. I'm hoping that another program will accept me without the therapy, so that's what I'm exploring now. If I thought I needed therapy, I wouldn't hesitate to accept this, but I have binged maybe 5 times in my adult life, and not recently.

Hi Arlene! I think I'll be using Dr. Schneider as well, for my RNY. I'm waiting for the team meeting now, and we'll see what happens after that. I hope it moves quickly. I'd like to be done and healed before the holidays.

I'm from south of Boston, and looking forward to scheduling an RNY at BID around the end of August, if all goes well!

I'm 53, and tomorrow I find out if I can move forward with the RNY. I've done sleep studies and EKGs and ultrasounds and pulmonary testing and psych eval and bloodwork. I've had one appointment with my NUT and tomorrow is the second one. I meet with the director of bariatric surgery tomorrow as well. I'm hoping that I get my insurance approval and my surgery date tomorrow, but I really don't know. The "not knowing" is really driving me nuts! I'm trying out different protein drinks and trying to get into a routine of exercise. I bought a scale finally, and am losing a little weight, which is exactly what my NUT recommended...hold steady or lose just a little. I'm on the borderline for approval on the weight, but since sleep apnea has been diagnosed, I have a medical reason to have the surgery, so I'm not really worried about losing too much weight and losing approval. So let's hope that I get approved, and get my date. Hoping for late August!

I know NOTHING about any of this, because I haven't gone through any of it yet, but it seems like going to refried Beans is a really big jump. They give me bloats now! And don't they have a lot of fat? Or is this a special refried bean recipe? Everything I've read so far says to start with simple pureed foods, like baby foods. I've already stocked up on some of these. It's a baby stomach...makes sense to go with simple foods first, and watered down oatmeal and grits. I would like to hear about how this turns out, since I'm still in the information gathering phase here.

I have recently made the decision to go ahead with the RNY surgery, and was going to tell no one but my partner. But I didn't think that was fair to my daughter , so I told her (she is surprisingly supportive about it). My son is in the Army, and will be coming home soon. I will tell him then. My children love me, and will support me. I just didn't want to worry them, but they'd be pissed if I went under the knife without them knowing. However, the one person I shouldn't have told, and I KNEW I shouldn't have told, but did anyway, was my mother. My relationship with her has always been rocky, and she has always been hypercritical of me and my father's "fat family", so I knew what I was going to get. And I got it, in spades. All the voices in my head are now clamoring about how I'm weak, this is what lazy people do, if I just tried I could have lost the weight on my own. I'm 53...if I could have done it, it would have happened already. And even though I haven't been obese all my life, I've always felt obese. So I've made my path just a little more challenging by sharing with the wrong person. So, anyway, that's my rant. I have to get her lousy voice out of my head now, and do what I need to do to get healthy.