rebandit

having a hard time finding time to get to unlocal fill drs.

I havent been on this site for a while and i just saw that you started a support group in march , its now april and im wondering if you will be doing it again this month. I think id like to attend

Im not a Texas resident , I live in S.W. La. but had my surgery by Speigel. Just wondering how your experience was with him.

Just a bit of information for all the ones preparing for the band. I thought that since the band wouldnt allow me to eat more then the small amount your pouch would hold that my problem of being an overeater would be solved. HOWEVER, there are things that the band will allow to slip right on down. You would think that after going through the trouble and financial expense of having surgery that you would automatically stay away from such foods but unfortunately you will still be an overeater after the surgery and will sometimes want to look for such foods to feed that inner addiction. Well its these things I wish I had known before surgery. I would have still had the surgery but I would have better prepared myself for resistance to these things. There is so much I wish I had known. I am self pay and my dr. didnt require any psych evals and preparations .He just made it all look pretty and said come have it , it will change your life. BE MORE PREPARED!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been an overeater all my life. Since the band , of course I can only eat so much. I am very inspired by all of you who say they only eat what they are supposed to. For me , I still cant seem to motivate myself to eat only healthy . For the first 9 months or so I did real good. Like sooooo many other diets in my life , I ate the right foods and didnt throw up and really did lose a lot of weight. and again like so many of my other diets I lost it. Now I can only eat so much if I eat the right things. I wont say what kinds of foods so that I dont tempt any one else to try those foods, but there are some that just slide right down. So my question is if any of you out there were dieters before and kept failing, after months of the band when a regular diet would have failed you , what inspires you to continue to eat the right food? Im not a rediculous person and Im waiting for answers like ( the weight loss or you feel great about yourself) . Well thats exactly how I felt when dieting before the band. but still I would lose that motivation. I really wish that something in here could motivate me to only eat right.

<p>OK BANDORITA</p> <p>im in this with you. Im gonna take control today too. Besides im so sick of food. Lets get healthy together.</p> OK SANTA!!! IF YOURE LISTENING, i WANT WILL POWER AND A STRONG DESIRE TO LIVE FOR CHRISTMAS.ILL TRY TO BE A VERY GOOD GIRL

Tina the body bugg is a gadget that you wear strapped on your arm. It monitors the amount of calories you eat by the way your body reacts to food. At the end of the day or any time in between you can check the amount of calories youve eaten vs the amount youve worked off. To me it would be cool to have . I know that Ive been eating more then im working off but I think if you looked at the gadget and it said ok you have to work off 320 calories youd know about where to start. Ive seen a few people in here talk about it. Bandorita Thats exactly what ive been doing. Of course its nothing like eating 2 steaks or a giant bowl of mashed potatoes like before but it could prevent you from losing. im so confused sometimes at how restricted you should be. if i were any more restricted then I am now then I wouldnt be able to eat mashed potatoes but since I can eat the mashed potatoes and quite a few other choice things , ( then i do) I dont think i could return to the 110 lbs bigger that I was originally but i do see myself regaining a bit of them.

I read about the bodybug and It looks wonderful but I find it a bit pricy. Who knows ? I guess if you can find the money for the surgery then another $500 shouldnt be that big of a problem. But Id have to hear a lot more about users of them and the longevity of their use with it. Im the kind of girl who buys a treadmill and uses it for 3 weeks. Id hate to do that with the bug and not use it.

I didnt have one defining moment but I had just started gaining back weight from a diet ( again) and I thought I just couldnt handle (mentally) doing that again. I started praying that God would just help me to take control of my life. Well I wake up one morning, and I tell my husband, " I know your truck is 8 years old and we will have to get you a new one soon but when its paid off I want a lap band. Im very cheap and I couldnt believe that I had made that decision. Well my husband says " Baby my truck is fine theres nothing wrong with it. GEt your band first" I cried because hes almost as cheap as I am. I really feel like God just took me through it.WEll less then month later (Voila!!!) I have a band.

Sades maybe in Australia they do put all of them in I.C.U. but in the states many of us have the surgery in the morning and sent home by 1:00 same day. Im thinking that maybe only Sleep Apnea or people with other complications get put in I.C.U.

Im not totally unsatisfied with my experience with Speigel. I think his surgery techinique might be fine but his personality is awful. I think he should have other follow up drs and just stick to surgery. But i have seen a few things in here said that I didnt find true. 1. his siminars are free??? if thats true then the port naches office owes me $200 . Thats what I was charged 2. He said in his siminar that he had lost only 1 band out of 3000 or so Back when i had my surgery, well I know 3 people personally who lost theirs. 3. While their office staff has always been kind to me, kindness doesnt repair an eroded band. I found an extreme incompetence , when I called after a year of having a fill unchanged I wasnt able to eat anything And the office lady who calles me hon ( which I cant stand) said to come in for an unfill. Well after a year , Id doubt very seriously that what the problem is , is being overtight. I asked specifically to speak to the Dr. she said he wasnt in until ###. I knew my body and that I needed medical attention so whoever it was that said if it were her that shed be in an emergency room or go to her dr. thats what i was trying to do. when i finally did speak to the dr. he put me in the e.r. right away. He said the band needed to be removed just from the symptoms i was having ( which i had conveyed to the office person). By the way not all E.R. s are equipped to manage the band. And Dr. Speigel takes patients from all over. So how are they supposed to go to the E.R. at the drop of a hat? Plus, When y ou are trying to pay for a band out of pocket theres not alwyas the funds to just pop in the hospital everytime you need a little drs help. This might sound like im bashing Speigel. Im not , I think id go to him again . But I do think he needs to have follow up Drs. where im from , The orthepedic surgeons do surgerys and a follow up visit but then The regular drs follow up with their care , I think Speigel should stick to surgery wheres hes very competent.

Dr Speigel did my surgery and as a surgeon I had no complaints. But after my band eroded he was absolutely sure to let me know it was my fault and not his. Other things I have read suggest that theres no way you can tell if it was the surgeon or y our own non complaince that caused the mess up. But he did another surgery and replaced my band so im waiting to see how it turns out. NOw on aftercare, He should stick to surgery and let other drs do his follow ups.He is always in a hurry and you have about 30 seconds to ask any questions when y ou go for follow ups. And yes Dr. Speigel is h is own advertisement. I live in La. and He has commercials advertising how he is the best in the U.S.A. I didnt do enough research before my band and I can tell you that as a self pay. I called one week, they told me to go to a paid siminar and the following week I had the surgery. No preop , no psyche or nutrition evals. Just a bunch of papers to read. I dont know if id go to him again. The price was within my limits and his so called being the best in the usa made me pick him so id have to find another one inmy price range and with good credentials. funny thing is that I needed one with the best rep since i was a self pay in case of complications and i still ended up with complications

I walked almost everyday (2 miles) before my surgery. now that im down 110 lbs I cant seem to get motivated. I have some doozies for excuses. 1. If I walk before I before I shower in the morning then I have to get dressed twice. (OMG!!!) once for workout and once for work 2. If I shower before I work out then im all sweaty and Id be yucky for work. (OMG AGAIN) 3. If I work out at night then Id have to shower at night and again in the morning . (HELP!!!) ANYway, When Im good and motivated , I cant find any good excuses it just comes easily. I do wish I could get there again. Im sure it would be so much easier to workout 100 lbs lighter. Ive never been a runner. I dont have proper technique and I cant seem to get it. Id love to be able to but I have bad chest pains when I do. I dont breathe right I think. Plus I have bad knees ,(Im sure due to being overweight forever).But I have speed walked for years. I love walk away the pounds. and prevention has a tape out that I love. Its actually 30 minutes but It feels like 10. I think its called tone and something.

Ive come to feel like this support forum is only for saying keep up the good work and keep your chin up things will get better. WEll If all were good with this band then we wouldnt need support forums. Someone said that I should have checked out things better before I had my band , well if I would have checked in this support forum , I would have had an unrealistic view of how and what things are. In here all is well and will get well, Thats not real life with the band. Maybe for some people its all been great and im glad for them but there are some people out there that are misinformed and should hear the whole truth.

Musta been pms ing when i wrote this sorry guys. What do you think my husband must feel like when im like that?? I know I was being a s***t head.

the drs told me my erosion was probably due to being too tight for too long . However i didnt end up with quite those problems. I did have a lot of scarred tissue. The pictures they showed me freaked me out . All my dr had to do was remove the old band and install a new one higher. I hope that was safe . I still have a bit of pain from the old one. I hope you dont have to go months of recovery. Good luck to you.

i once thought that a slippage is like if you put a metal ring around a pencil and it just slid down but when i was rehospitalized they explained that if you had a slightly filled baloon and you put a ring around it and only one side fell it would like fall and make a kink. thats why , if you have a slippage and are unfilled then you may be kinked. JUST A THEORY!!!

I dont know how long its been since you were able to keep anything down but be careful. When it happend to me my potassium dropped so low that my heart rate had gone down to 37 and I was very ill. I hope for you that it will go back in place but in my experience I had to have mine replaced. But mine had eroded not slipped . Same symptoms.

What do you love about your band surgeon and their practice? The thing that made me pick my surgeon is that he advertises as the dr. with the most lap band experience in U.S.A. I now dont even know if that is true. What do you hate? I hate that I called the office to have the surgery (self pay) and they told me to come in for a siminar and I had the surgery 5 days later. No real pre op services. He has really not made himself available for questions. 30 seconds in and out for fills . What do we do well? Well id say that the actual surgery is the best of my experience. no infections at first. What could we do better? Inform, INform, Inform and demand psyche evals. Take time to actually look at a patient and see if he or she is concerned about something. Sometimes the patient knows whats going on inside himself more then the Dr. does. What more could we do to help you succeed? Suggest more support or make it a mandatory part of practice. How could we improve your customer experience with our practice? My first band was at physicians surgi center and it was a nightmare. We had to wake from our anesthesia and sit in a room full of patients all trying to wake up. It was like waking from the dead and It was very scary. My second surgery was at University General and it was my best hospital stay ever.Use good hospitals and take more then 30 seconds with a patient. I think for the drs. its just routine but for the patients its a big thing happening for them. i know not all people have the same experience , most in here are very very pleased with their surgeons.

I recently posted a thread about overeating and the comments I got back made me think that most of the people in here might not really be overeaters just overweight. I know I battle something in my that wants food really bad. Thank God for the band I cant eat what I want. But I was banded for a year and a half and I did real well , then my band eroded and I had to be rebanded. In the time I waited for a fill , I wanted to eat the house and I just about did. I would have thought that my life had changed but the fact is that once I could eat again , MY old addiction came right back. I would have to live in fairy land to believe that you can be completely healed of overeating addiction.

<p>Are you saying you didnt eat y our weight? I absolutely know I ate my way to 316 lbs. We were extremely poor when growing up and we knew we had to eat what was on our plate . Or we thought we knew anyway. So if mom and dad could afford to make a cake we clipped it that night. The whole bunch of us ate like there was no tomorrow. I remember if we bought Cereal and milk ( which was not common for us) we would eat 2 boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk in a day to make sure we had our share. we were some greedy little buggars. </p> <p> Im not doubting you but im curious as to how a person becomes large without sweets and binging.</p> I was also the largest child i knew in school for most of my life

I think im more like LIndata, I like the grandma kind of people. People who can see good and bad but Love enough to overcome the bad. I think the world is way too full of minipulaters and judgemental people. Everyone could be judged for something but it would be nice to know that you can be loved anyway. I also love honest people who you dont have to discern if what they are saying is truthful or not. Im not a real worldly person. The go getters are great and the world has to have some of each kind to keep going but my favorites are the lovers.

I realize that this thread should have been called "Am I the only food addict" not overeater. That is a whole other subject. Footballmom- You really do have to wonder where it all comes from. WE were talking about genes vs. raising habits. Before my surgery my daughter was chunky not real fat just chunky but she ate when I ate. NOt as much as me of course. Now shes in high school and she slimmed down and so did my son when he started high school but now im wondering if maybe she stopped eating when I stopped eating. My poor children have a double serving of the gene. My son did slim down when he was in high school but now in his college years he has plumped up a bit. Now my Husband and son are definitely not morbidly obese but good and chunky. I sooooo pray that my daughter was more habit then gene. She doesnt have a frame that can hold a lot of weight. But that whole twin thing sure did make me wonder about the gene thing.

i watched a tv special a few nights ago about twins separated at birth and the most interesting part i found in the show was that the as they were reunited in thier adult lives , they were all the same size. The heavy ladies had a heavy twin even though they had lived completely different lives. the thin ones had thin twins. I mean they were almost all the exact same size as their twin that they had never met. I say genes have soooo much to do with it. I do believe that eating is an addiction but maybe the genes is what allows us (or me anyway ) to have that addiction. My mother and my 2 sisters all have morbid obesity. One of my sisters had the surgery the same time i did and is skinny now. lucky her. My 2 brothers look like my dad. Sometimes I think that maybe we learn from our parents how to eat and my mom ate a lot but I think if I was adopted and had the skinny genes , it wouldnt have mattered how much she ate or how she taught us.

new life my band worked really well for me once restricted. I , and I only mean I, only lost about 20-25 lbs per fill up until about 85 lbs or so. I had complications with my band ( erosion) and I didnt have it taken care of right away. I didnt know it was eroding , I only knew i could hardly eat anything . then eventually nothing. so the last 65 lbs or so was lost unhealthily. But for ME I had to get a fill about every 25 lbs. Best of luck to you.