kaninag

My incisions are stitched under the skin and then I guess he glued the top. I dont know if he did a fill or not he didnt come out and talk to my family or anything!! I was kinda disappointed in that.

mmmmm...I'm only postop day 3 and 1 has already fallen off and another is trying to fall off....seems a little early to me.

My husband has gone to the store to get me some soups and some gasx strips...If the strips dont improve the sensations then I will call my surgeon on monday. Thanks!!!!

*thats not too bad!

Yeah--pain is better today I had a LOT of gas yesterday and since "its gone" I feel a lot better....thank God no nausea but occassionaly I get this sensation of something pulling up in my throat? It's not after drinking...its usually after getting up or moving?? It feels weird...like food is stuck in my throat but then it goes away...WHAT is that???

My doctor did not prescribe emend HOWEVER we use it in our clinic for chemotherapy pts...IT IS A WONDERFUL drug to prevent nause...however it is also pretty expensive if you dont have good insurance..good luck to ya!

I am on postop day 2 I had to do clear liquids yesterday and then starting today full liquids x10 days then to mushies x10 days....I feel like ass today though so I havent really gotten past broth...I'm REALLY sore and just dont feel like eating....Hope this goes away soon

OK, I have BCBS of Alabama PPO. According to the rep that I just spoke to these are the following requirements: 1. Medical records from the last 3 years stating ht and wt from Primary care MD 2. participation in a 6 mo weight loss program 3. Hystory and physical from your surgeon 4. and documentation stating that you do not or will not smoke 8 weeks prior to surgery. My question is this: my current BMI is 43 HOWEVER in 2005 I actually got down to a BMI of 35 will BCBS deny my claim due to this or does anyone know......I have all my records sitting here at my desk and am really discouraged bc I feel like due to this they will deny my claim!!!! Also, I dont have a primary care MD I have always gone to my obgyn...will that cause them to deny my claim???!!!

Well, Preadmission testing in complete...I am scheduled for surgery at 6am thursday 1/31...keep me in your prayers....I AM SOOO NERVOUS!!!!

I saw your having your surgey 2/4 I am having mine 1/31 so we'll kinda be going thru this togehter :wink2: GOOD LUCK TO YOU!!!!!

I got approved Friday and was going to call the dr's office and find out about my preop diet.....they were already gone.....Do I need to be on liquids??? My surgery is Thursday 1/31?????

Most doctors if youre self pay do not require you to have probs or have to jump thru hoops...IF you want to be self pay find another doctor that will take care of it for you....If you want to see if insurance will cover start your 6 mo diet.....it has to be MD supervised so if there is a local weight loss clinic go there.....Do you have any health issues?? High cholesterol, high bp, sleep apnea (to list a few) if you have 2 problems then insurance should cover you bc your BMI is >35. Do some research...you cant give up this easily if this is what you want....YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!! BTW...what insurance do you have....go to their website and search for "surgical management of morbid obesity" and that should pull up there policies about the lap band and that way you know exactly what you need!!!!! My insurance for example required the following: 1. BMI >35 with 2 comorbidities or BMI>40 (some insurances say for at least 3 year but mine did not have that stipulation I have Empire blue) 2. 6 consecutives months in a medically supervised diet 3. psych evaluation 4. nutrition evaluation 5. surgical evaluation Good luck to you KEEP TRYIN!!!

Good luck to you!!

Thanks so much :redface: I cant stop smiling I have been grinning from ear to ear all morning!

I was just wondering if anyone looks at their life preband and says If I weren't so big I would LOVE to do such and such? Here are a few things I would do IF I weren't so big: Have more sex:tt1: (sure my husband would love that) dress better Not worry about sitting in a chair and breaking it feel more comfortable in a bathing suit and not wear a tee shirt hiking and camping zip wire-where you zip over the jungle on a wire....you have to weigh under so much! not worry that ppl are looking at me when I am eating a piece of pie and thinking "she sooo does not need that, fat ass" What about everyone else?

SO, how long did I wait for my approval... well I initially submitted to BCBS of Alabama Dec 19th I think it was.....waited and waited and my insurance changed to Empire Blue on 1/1/08 so I had to resubmit everything....Empire blue was submitted by 1/9 and then they came back and said I had to have the pysch eval which I had last thursday 1/17 I received my approval TODAY 1/25

Whats funny is the insurance company CALLED ME this morning...LOL

:thumbup::tt1::hurray::hurray::hurray::party::party::party::party::party::party::redface: I GOT APPROVED!!!

I call but they wont put me thru to the nurse the only department I get to talk to is medical management.,.......Dont know what else to do....???!!!

bend over and tie my shoes without feeling like I am squishing my lungs underneath my stomach and not being able to breathe!!!!

Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, when I first started dealing with BCBS of AL this is what they told me. 1. for 3 years your bmi had to be >35 with 2 co-morbidities or 40 with no required co-morbidities....some ppl say that they have gained the weight and gotten approved even though their bmi was not >35 x3 years but thats not what I was told. 2. you dont have to have but 1 recorded weight from each year so pick your heaviest weights!!!! PLUS make sure youre as tall as you actually think!!! For example I always thought I was 5' 7" turns out that I am only 5'6"!!! Which put my bmi for the last 3 years above 35......good luck to you!!!! you can view BCBS policies about the lap band on their website...just do a search for surgical management of morbid obesity!!!

From what I understand as long as you have a doctor documenting your progress as you go along and is documenting your weight each month and that you are participating in WW...tell him that you are planning the lap band and that you need DETAILED notes about what youre doing, how many calories youre taking in, what exercieses youre doing ETC DETAILS!!! GOOD LUCK TO YA!

Ok, so I googled it and this is what I found..... "starvation mode" is a not-completely understood mechanism that evolved for humans over the 3 million years we've been (pretty much) humans. There were many, many long periods of time that there was almost no food available. During those times, it was crucial that our bodies be able to retain sufficient fat for survival--especially for the women, who needed to be able to hang on to well over 100,000 calories' worth of fat to make it through a pregnancy. Without pregnancy, the species dies off...so the fat-saving mechanisms evolved, and evolved better in women than in men, though they exist in both sexes. (Scientists refer to "the thrifty gene" in explaining this, but I've never come across an actual site for a particular gene that does this--analysis of the human genome project is far from complete) There are, in addition to sexual differences, some racial/ethnic differences too--some of us have inherited a better "fat saving" mechanism than others. Realize that historically, body fat only got unpopular in the last century, and it still isn't considered ugly in most places on the planet. Our bodies do not know about Kate Moss--they know about survival, and they'll do anything to survive, including dramatically shifting the way we process energy. In researches I did on Medline and elsewhere this winter, what I saw was that if you slip under about 1300 calories per day intake, you trigger the starvation effect. The most crucial change that results is that your basal metabolic rate (BMR--how many calories you'd burn if you didn't do anything in a given day) slows. If you stay under 1300 for a longer time, the likelihood of BMR recovery lessens. So a person with the flu, eating little for three days, will rebound and have a normal metabolism. If you eat a 800-calorie-per-day diet for a year, though, your BMR is permanently lowered. (again, degree of recovery may depend on genetic factors and gender--not enough clear data on this) So what, you might ask. Well, if you eat 800 calories a day, and your BMR keeps falling to equal that, you can never go off your diet! Or, rather, you can, but you'll put on weight eating 1200 calories a day. (this has happened to me, and I promise you, it's darned frustrating.) Further, when you drop your calories, you start burning off lean body mass, as your body cannibalizes itself to survive. This means burning off not only muscle, but heart tissue, liver tissue--not good news. (Heart disease rates among lifelong dieters, or even those rare folks who lost a lot once and kept it off, are much higher than for those who just stayed fat and never dieted--and this LBM cannibalizing may be the explanation) Lowered caloric intake also carries a number of interesting behavioral/psychological changes, in both the overweight and normal weight. Depression, fighting, suicide, murder, all sorts of bizarre behaviors result from chronic underfeeding. The desire to eat more after a long period of eating lowered calories is normal. It's not weak will; it's a survival strategy. Called "refeeding," it occurs for both the slender who have been starved and the overweight. Will power can resist the urge for awhile...but not forever. Like holding your breath, no one but the rare true anorectic can do this until death. Our bodies are smarter than us in this--they'll keep us alive. On this board, we say "eat 10X your own body weight," but I don't know where that figure came from. I have no figure to offer instead, other than a minimum caloric intake of 1350 to avoid lowering of BMR. Alternatively, go to fitday.com, enter your occupation, and see what caloric figure it comes up with for your basal metabolic rate (look under activities, and it'll give you a pie chart of basal/lifestyle/activities). To avoid lowering your BMR, eat at least that much. To optimize your loss rate, don't eat a whole lot over it. *most articles that I found were similar to this one. Hope this helps. From experience I can say that lowering calories works but you need to balance it. Good luck!

well. I'm still waiting for an approval...and I call call call!!!! CONSTANTLY!!!!!! these insurance ppl are pretty rude too...sometimes i'll get a really nice person and they'll tell me exactly whats going on....like this morning I called and the lady was like pending and thats all she would say....then I called this afternoon bc I am getting so close to my deadline and this girl said its still pending but if you want I can look and see why. and she said there was a note in there where the nurse had received all my paperwork and i should know something in 2-5 business days!!! Now why cant everyone else be as informative as her!!!!