SpecialK

Yes, who would have ever guessed in 3 months any of us could have lost this much! I had my 2nd fill today and got weighed at the hospital and was down a total of 9 lbs from 1st fill 6 weeks ago, so that is more than 1 lb a week losing -- I'm thrilled and just have to be reminded that this is how my own body works. 2nd fill was 1.5cc's to get me to a total now of 6cc's in my 14 cc band. I'm on liquids today, pureed tomorrow, mushies the next they back into full foods. Hoping this is the right fill level for me for awhile.

I got my 2nd fill today with Dr. Miller and Missy at MCW with fluro. Dr. Miller actually did the fill and he hit it within less than 30 seconds of trying. Very painless 2nd fill. He said I can do my next fill in the office, no fluro needed. I have a NSV too -- Missy walked up to my tummy and started to feel for my port and she had this big smile and said I can feel your port!! :behindsofa: just like that.. so I guess the 9 lbs I lost in the 6 weeks from 1st fill on April 29 to June 10 (today) is melting away some of that abdominal area fat! According to my home scale this puts me about 35 lbs since my pre-op weight about March 10 when I started a voluntary pre-op diet and lost some before surgery. 2nd Fill done 6 weeks after 1st fill and they added 1.5cc's to my 4.5cc's from first fill so I'm at 6 cc's total in my 14 cc's band. Actually Missy said that if I have any issues and had to go into an ER for help while on vacation that I was to tell them 6 ml's. Do cc's and ml's equal each other? Actually I'm now anticipating getting on the airplane this Friday a.m. and seeing how close I come to buckling the seat belt without having to then still get the extender. I can't wait until I no longer have to go through that embarrassment.

Fenton - love your idea of how to contribute to a charity that feeds the world to Celebrate your loss. It is so interesting to see how varied things can be from one person to the next out of the same office and getting banded about the same time. The two people who got their first fill on the same day as me were able to get their 2nd fill at 4 weeks and 5 weeks respectively but I was told they were holding hard and fast to the 6 weeks between fills so I've been hanging in there. I sure can relate to Kerri's wanting her 2nd fill. I am lined up for tomorrow under fluro for #2 fill.

I think there has been a Realize personal band journey tracking site for awhile but I found that Allergan has the My Lapband site up and running too Lapband.com - Sign In to My LAP-BAND :driving: Warning they need to tune up performance on some website functions so be patient, at least they have it up. :incazzato:

I was trying to find some Allergan Lapband info and stumbled onto the fact that they have the personal My Lapband website up and running now and you just register and can start adding some basics about who your surgeon and surgery date was, and then there is a progress tracker chart. I put mine in today. I figured it might help Allergan in researching the kinds of progress people with different starting BMI's have. Lapband.com - Sign In to My LAP-BAND I will warn you, the website needs tuned up some, slow performance on screen response time :incazzato: on some things but at least they have it working. I posted a Feedback to them that I was surprised they didn't ask the type and size of Allergan Lapband the person had nor did they have a section on the site yet that asked about number of fills or fill dates and size of fluid in the band. I think it would be helpful to be able to have your fill date highlighted on the graph. I'm going to try to log my weight on this at each fill date and at least 1 time per month if I don't have a fill. :driving:

Hi Shamrocks! Believe it or not I'm "happy" :incazzato: to report that I only have paid $2000 total out of pocket for everything related to my March lapband surgery and that covers the hospital, surgeon, pre-op testing and physical, and my first fill post op. Now why would I be happy at $2000, because its my Out of Pocket Maximum for the whole year for 2008 so every bill that comes in now that has an amount over what the insurance covers, and above my basic co-pay, is written off and I pay $0. Hallelujah!! Now why am I really, really happy? :huggie: Because I had knee surgery April 17 just one month after my Lapband surgery March 17 and all of the excess cost on the knee surgery got written off...$0 for me to pay. What a blessing. So, besides the out of pocket costs I had to get through the hoops to get approved, including some expensive cardiology clearance things, I am thankful that insurance covered most of what others have taken a loan out for $12,000+ if they are self pay. So, I guess, my word to the others who are still hoping to go through this is, yes, it is worth jumping through the hoops the insurance companies make you do in order to use your insurance to cover WLS. :driving: Ohio is at 90+ today too! :sad:

Juli and Niki-- I was told by the lady that supervises the church playland that they like people to bring their own socks if possible but they keep a hidden stash under the counter for those kids who happen to show up without socks so if you'e exhausted from working the night before and forget socks on the kids, we have a backup plan.

Lyn - Yes that is right that our docs do not put a prefill amount in the band at time of surgery. They are using the Allergan bands, the AP with the puffy pillows for holding the saline that go all the way around the band including under the buckle area. The older style Allergan bands and maybe the J&J Realize band do not have saline under the buckle part so the band makes more of an oval versus the AP it is just about all the way round. On band size, there are two AP sizes, Small and Large, the Small holds 10cc's and the large holds 14ccs. I've been told the surgeons determine the correct size during the surgery at the time of placement. I have the AP-L, I think Niki, Greg, and Katie all do too if I remember right when we were comparing notes after our first fill. We all asked Missy to tell us what our band size was at our first fill since she had our chart right in front of her. P.S. There is another Mt. Carmel bandster that also works at St. Ann's and her name is Darlene, something about HR area. If you PM me with an email I can send you an invite to a Yahoo group of the central Ohio bandsters where we have pictures posted, etc. Sarah is a nurse at MC, same with Niki too at MCE. The word must be getting out about lapband at the nursing community--lots of lapbanders I see work in that field. Greg would be the first church organist I've seen on the board :-)

I get a second fill this coming Tuesday and have been at the 33 lb loss marker for about 2 weeks, gently bobbing up and then down this number in tiny increments but not making it down to the next lowest whole number on the scale. I had a good loss period right after my first fill but now I'm not feeling restriction and I get hungry so its a battle to maintain these last 2 weeks while waiting out the 6 weeks our docs require between the first and second fill. A couple folks got theirs at 5 weeks but not me. So here is an idea I have that I'm sharing with my Central Ohio lapband friends that get together. We are each going to buy the equivalent in how many pounds we have lost in food staples (for me its 35 lbs of sugar) and we are donating it to a local food bank drive that my church is hosting as one drop off point. So by June 28th I am hoping to donate 40 lbs of sugar. I already bought 4 of the 10 lb. bags of sugar at a grocery today and the girl checking me out says, sweetly, Do you do a lot of baking?"...Ha Ha.. No, I'm donating it to a food pantry. Oh, I wondered what all this sugar was for! Now here is the real kicker that perked up my spirits, I couldn't imagine lifting 4 of those sugars all at once! We plan to take pictures of us holding the amount we have lost and see how long we can hold it before we give up and set it down. And to think we were carrying it around 24 hours a day for years... One of our girls OHJuli is trying to figure out how to buy over 100 lbs of some food for this donation fun day that won't break her food budget $$$. Just thought I'd pass this along as an idea that maybe others could try. P.S. No Wii for me either...no Xbox 360, no Nintendo,...very deprived. Love to read, quilt, and watch TV instead of play video games.

I actually had a coworker (another lady) instant message me at work yesterday (about 2.5 months post op now) and ask if she could ask me a personal question. She's significantly overweight as well and I suspected she might be asking about me losing weight. When I said yes, you can ask and gave her my phone # to call, she said "You're looking good, you can really tell you've lost weight". I said well I'm working at it very hard and am proud to say I've lost about 33 lbs so far. She said it really shows. How are you doing it? .....ugh ugh.... I did honestly answer her that I had lapband surgery but was keeping it very private about WLS from 99.9% of the people at work but would be willing to talk with her privately about it if she wanted to know more. She said, Yes, I'd love to know more about it. So she immediately sent me a luncheon invite for Wednesday of this coming week. I'm happy to tell her the joy I've found with this and also the trials too. I keep looking at pictures and am still struggling to see where those 33 lbs came off at... Silly. I'm just thankful they are gone! Fenton, I too don't like looking in a mirror at myself, tend to never look in a full length mirror for example only the big mirror above the sink or on the dresser mirror. That is one reason I'm bad about buying clothes in the size I think I need and taking them home to try on instead of at the store with their 3 sides of full length mirrors. Anyway... I am happy someone noticed I've lost weight!

Palarin - KTBugg's ticker says something different than her actual weight she has posted as a tag line-- it says "Can't figure this thing out. I am down 54.8 lbs total so far!!" versus her ticker saying lost 7.6 lbs so far. I'll let her explain more. When Katie and I were both at MCW for our fill with Missy, Katie had lost I think 30+ lbs at that time and she's handing off clothes she can't wear anymore. I'm so sorry to hear things have been such a slow loss for you. I think you are doing the right thing working 1:1 with Dr. Choban to find the sweet spot for you. I wish you all the best on this path -- since its the path you are walking on now... and keep us posted if she advises you to revise to RNY due to your special circumstances. BTW -- have you seen the forum thread call SLOW LOSERS UNITE! or something like that... Seems there are some people that it just takes time. I'm losing slower than Greg who was banded on the same day as I was with the same size band AP-L 14cc's and I think I got a different amount of cc's in my first fill 4.5 for me, and he only got less cc's that 1st fill day than me. Any whoo, to borrow a phrase from Greg, I am totally happy with my -33 lbs total at this point. I had done WW very faithfully for 18 months prior to banding and had only lost 12 total lbs. I was very very discouraged to lose so slow so I can say I do empathize with you. Best wishes and keep us posted how its going.

Greg - nice to see a post from you and your ticker is showing great progress. I get my 2nd fill this Tuesday June 10th and then I am getting on a plane on Friday a.m. June 13th. Lyn - I'm flying Friday after getting a fill on Tuesday noontime. I think I will be fine. Plan to stick to my liquids until I get through flying that day. I went back to work on Monday after having surgery the previous Monday. I'd say flying 2 weeks after surgery should be fine. You'll be on full liquids or mushies so be thinking ahead on what to eat while out to eat. I leave for Florida Friday...can't wait!

Heather - its to purchase enough to show how much you've lost - like for you 50 lbs of sugar or something on the list... not the full amount you weigh. ROFL!!

Niki - sorry to pick the a.m. timeslot not realizing you worked night shift. How about if we move the meeting time to 11 am...does that help a little? I think they ask the kids to wear socks while playing in the big pile of colored balls in the playland. I know lots of kids wear flip flops so I thought I'd mention this. The children's ministry group is really good about screening all workers who help in the playland. All have to agree to a police background check to help work with kids at the church which I think is great and makes a clear statement that our church take it seriously that we want the kids to be safe.

Let me look at the website on what hours they have the doors open on June 28th a Saturday and I'll post a time for us to meet. If you can only make morning or afternoon, let me know. I'm thinking along the lines of 10 am. Also, I will post the list of the kinds of foods they said they need for the food bank and see if butter or margarine is on the list...That was a good one Juli! If nothing else, cans of Crisco shortening is the equivalent and its shelf stable without refrigeration! I'm sure they will take any food donations they can get. I'm looking forward to this since I'll be in Florida for the June 14th Saturday get together. Here is the link for the Directions on how to get there: Westerville Christian Church on College Ave between Spring Rd. and Otterbein - more details in the link http://www.westerville-christian.org/Directions/tabid/97/Default.aspx Here is the link for the list of the food items the pantry is asking for... sorry no butter or margarine on this list. I think they might be limited to shelf stable items only. http://www.westerville-christian.org/Events/40WaysToShowWeCare/tabid/280/Default.aspx#WCS Niki and Juli - our church has a Playland like a McDonald's Playland that will be open at 10 am on Saturdays so let's plan to meet at 10 am and you can bring the kids to play while we visit!

Katie - are you thinking they are going to find from the fluro that your saline has leaked out and you don't have restriction from the 2nd fill where you and I were in the x-ray area back to back on April 29th? My next fill is June 10 and I feel I need it. I have some restriction but need more.

Hi all. I can see we hadn't posted anything on the Columbus thread in awhile and I had an idea come to me this past Sunday I'd like to throw out there. It seems its sometimes hard to picture and/or be thankful for those 30 or 50 lbs when you know you've got 100+ to get off or more to lose..Agree? Well, one picture I had cut out of a magazine years ago had this woman standing next to a pyramid of bowling balls -like 10 balls weighing 10 lbs each and it was such a physical reminder of what it means to lose 100 lbs and not be carrying that around any more. I had lost 100 lbs and still needed to lose more at the time and couldn't get going on losing the remaining weight. Anyway, I thought it might be a fun and silly thing to do to head to Columbus Bowling Palace some weekend and take turns taking pictures of us with as many bowling balls as we've gotten rid of individually and then enjoy bowling a couple frames too if we can. Let me know if anyone would be up for this. We could pick a different bowling location, it wouldn't matter to me. Second idea that was a community service thing as well as motivational reminder of how far we've come, the Westerville Area Resource Ministry, WARM for short, is a group that runs a food pantry to help those who are really struggling with paying for groceries and things when the price of gas has driven everything so high. One thing that is on the list of donation items is Sugar - i.e. 5 lb. or 10 lb. bags of sugar - to bring them to a get together of our lap band friends and have some fun taking a picture of what we look like trying to lift or stand beside the number of bags of sugar that represent what we have lost. Then donate the bags of sugar to the WARM charity. We could do something other than sugar too but I thought the idea of sugar having being something that probably contributed to our weight in the past being symbolic. My church is a drop off point for the donations so we could agree to meet there on June 28th if you want to do this and then head out for coffee somewhere. Let me know. I plan to buy at least 35 lbs worth of sugar to donate... more if my 2nd fill is helping me burn those pounds off.

I went to the Mt. Carmel Bariatric Support group meeting last night. It was on nutrition and planning ahead for vacation. I met a few more of the lapbanders who spoke up in the meeting when they were sharing stories or questions. The one lady that had a major problem with rice was there and she gave a graphic description of what sliming is for everyone present and had the RNY's half laughing and half grossed out. July's topic is on Self Esteem and that is one I can use some work on. Take care and have a great day to all. Nice to hear the stories of managing the band when you know you're hitting the fullness spot.

I'm so sorry for this emotional pain you are feeling but on the other hand, your lapband surgery is your decision to do something totally positive for yourself, that you alone control how it is going to work for you along with your doctor and fills so I'd say YES, go ahead with your procedure. I'm assuming you went through all the hoops to get qualified for the surgery. I had to do a psych eval to make sure I knew what I was doing. She told me to please come see her anytime after banding if I needed help with head hunger or other issues. I highly recommend counseling as a great professional source of helpful guidance versus family and friends most generally tell you what they think you want to hear. Best wishes.

Niki - that is so good to hear your 2nd fill is helping already. Wow. Can't wait until mine on June 10th.

My doctors group had a pretty firm schedule of surgery then 6 weeks to 1st fill and then 6 weeks now to 2nd fill. Many of us definitely said we needed at least the first fill at 4 weeks and I would have been happy to get my 2nd fill 4 weeks after the first fill. I'll give them that feedback but its still up to the surgeon based on their experience dealing with their patients. I guess they are being conservative trying to make sure we are adapting and really working to make our band work. I'd rather go slow on the way up the fill path than to get too restricted and end up having to go total unfill and then back up again. So, I'm with you, we knew this was a tool that would take patience until we hit our sweet spot but hearing it and saying, Yes, I understand and living with things are two different things. We are living a dream though for me... losing about 33 total pounds since mid-March is more than I had been able to do with WW and my own dedicated food tracking in over 2 years before that. I can't not be happy.

I'm off to the beaches in Florida June 13-21 and I plan to walk and walk and walk some more on the beach. I get a 2nd fill on June 10th and I hope in those 3 days to be back on real food but feeling some more restriction than I have now. I'm fighting daily to stay around 1200 calories and right after a fill I'm able to stay closer to 800 calories so I'm with the other lady who said what restriction I felt after fill #1 has eased off. I'm ready for more saline..fill er up! I'm ready for a good book and a beach chair followed by a nap, then shopping, then watching sunset on the beach!

ND - glad to hear you're home! Keep up the liquids and you'll do fine.

Tyanna - That is a wonderful inspiring story! Congratulations!!!! :thumbup:

Niki - so how many total cc's are you at with today's +2 cc's on 2nd fill? Also for all - I had a really weird food type experience at work today - they have hot meat and vegetable entrees that I can get for lunch most days and today it was a lean pork tenderloin and steamed carrots I chose. Started eating the pork and it was fairly dry - didn't have any gravy on it so I was eating it slow and by the time I got through that, didn't have room for the carrots. So here is the funny part,,,, I got up really fast and was walking real fast to grab something off the printer to rush off to my next meeting and all of a sudden, it felt like my food was starting to rise up! It didn't and I went back to my desk and sat down and was fine but I guess I need to be aware that if you just ate, you should take it slow for a few minutes to let your food settle. I used to eat on the run all the time, wolf down my lunch or work through lunch and now I am trying to eat slower to get through lunch. This little mini-event today reminded me of my dear sister who had a little baby boy who had abnormal gag reflex from being a little bit premature and she would slowly feed him, burp, and dress him to get ready to go to the daycare, get herself dressed for work, gently pick him up to put him in the care seat and yeppp... productive burp all over him and her...back in the house to start again with clothes change for him, for her, back to the car... she used to get so stressed out. So, no more burping from running around for me. So lesson for today, take it slow to eat and slow to relax for a few minutes after eating.