JonathanLA

You should speak with your Endocrinologist about your pump since your basal rate will need to be adjusted while you are on liquids and mushies. Also your carb ratio and correction adjustments will need to be fine tuned as you start to lose weight.

It will be two years pretty soon and this band has changed my life. I went into this with high expectations and they have been exceeded.

I take Centrum Chewables and the trick it: Don;t chew them. Let them melt in your mouth.

I take 19 pills a day, including some for my kidney and pancreas transplant from many years ago that I must take every single day. Before my LAP-BAND®® 2 years ago I worked with my Dr's to see if the meds I take could be crushed. We did a series of blood tests over a month and they all came up fine. I started using a grinder that I got at Horten and Converse but after a couple of weeks it would start to clog up and it became harder and harder to use. Then I bought this heavy duty pill crusher online but it took way too long to crush all my pills. I finally got a good mortar and pestle (my mom gave me her old nursing school one from 47 years ago. lol) and have been using it every day and it is fine. I bought some small plastic bags from Walgreens and in the morning I crush my monring and evening meds for the day and I keep my evening meds with me in my pocket. I've found that putting the crushed meds in sugar free chocolate pudding works the best for me. The good news is that there's lots of types of sugar free puddings now. I use 1/2 a cup each time and I try and slide each mouthful down without letting it linger in my mouth so I don't taste it. In a pinch I can take it with anything - even water - but it is pretty disgusting that way. When you are in the hospital you need to let your Dr. and nurses know that you cannot swallow and pills and they will crush each for you and give you some apple juice or something. If you are still not able to get all of your pills crushed then you can look into getting your meds compounded into a liquid at a specialty pharmacy. It's pretty expensive and they may not be able to do this with all of your meds.

I had my surgery 1.5 years ago and the results have been what I was hoping for. I can't honestly say that they exceeded my expectations only because my expectations were so high based on my research before the surgery but I can say that the results have been simply amazing and has changed my entire life around. As you can see from the before and after pictures my appearance is so different as to be almost unrecognizable. I have a girlfriend and we are in a serous relationship. I met her at a New Years Eve dance party that I never would have attended before the surgery and we danced most of the night. I have been able to lower or go off of many of my medications and my overall feeling of well being is off the charts. My confidence is high and I can't help notice that woman look at me and smile and chat with me at the elevators in my office building a lot more now than before. It's small things like this that really make me see how positive the weight loss has been.

Eileen, The important thing to understand is that difficulty swallowing some foods and vomiting (or PB'ing to be more accurate) are not really complications from the surgery. They are a normal part of getting used to having a band around the upper part of your stomach, limiting how much you can eat at one time. Some people never have any of these and some people have instances when they don't chew their food enough or they try a type of food that just doesn't sit well with them. It's not the end of the world when it happens and it's a kind of behavior modification. Believe me when I tell you that after while you'll forget all about these few instances.

It happens to everyone differently but what I noticed was that even when I was not losing weight I was dropping inches around my waist. I could tell because I kept having to tighten my belt.

I tried pizza one time about a year ago and that was enough for me to know I won't be eating it again.

Clothes make a huge difference. I used to wear polo style shirts because I didn't want to wear anything with buttons all the way down as they made my stomach look too big but now I'm wearing button down casual shirts from Macy's (yay Macy's!) and they make me look slimmer.

Hello everyone. It's been a while since I was last here. Sorry. About two months ago I went to a singles dance and met some nice ladies. After dancing all night (something I couldn't do until recently) I got phone numbers from all of them and have been going out on dates with them and with others I have met. So far I haven't met anyone that I'd want to be in a serious relationship with but just getting back into "the game" is a big step for me. With my weight loss I have gained a huge amount of confidence, much of which has been generated by looks that I see some woman have been giving me. It's been quite a few years since that has happened. Today is my birthday (47) and I have a date tonight and I'm just feeling pretty good. Jonathan ...damn: can't spell "dating" :-(

Here we go...wheeee Jonathan. 46 years old. I live in Los Angeles and am single. I have a decent job in the IT field. Nothing great but it pays the bills. I'm looking for a woman to date in a serious relationship. :eek:

Good luck Lily. You may want to ask your husband to go with you to some LapBand support groups before your surgery so he can learn more about what will happen after you are banded.

I have plateaued many times this past year only to have the weight pour off in a matter of weeks. I have no idea why it is but I read about this often. I was stuck at 207 for the longest time and then boom! 2 weeks later and I'm at 198. I've never read anywhere about the first years loss being all you can expect and I would assume it is a myth as the year is simply a human way to measure time and is simply the amount of time it takes for the earth to make one orbit of the sun. It has no bearing on anything else. One year and one day would be the same as one year minus one day.

Hi Teresa, I live in LA - the Mid-Wilshire area and work in West LA. I'm also looking for friendship, dating and marriage. My life is a bit more sedentary then yours but that's probably because I haven't been with anyone with those interests. I'm a nice guy. I am single and have a stable job/career. The best way to reach me is through my email at: JonathanLA@shmoolie.com and then we can exchange phone numbers. Jonathan

Understand that the 1lb/wk is an average of every patient. YMMV. I have averaged 2.19/wk in one year so we would expect there to be one person who has averaged .5/wk just to keep both of our averages at 1/wk. That's just another way of saying that averages are only good for looking at large populations. They are statistically meaningless for an individual.

Hey Cheryl, You can definitely see the difference. You can see your hourglass shape now. I just posted a series of pics from my first year on the main pics page and the difference from day 1 through 6 months is not so noticeable compared with 6 months through 1 year where it is huge. But my weight loss has been the same for each of those 6 month periods. Keep it up. Jonathan

My pics at my one year banding anniversary.

Nice work. It has amazed me for a year how this weight loss works. I still haven't figured it out. I will stay the same weight for 6 weeks and then boom! 7 pounds gone in 10 days and over the next 3 weeks I'll be down 12-15 pounds.

That's so cool. No one has called me skinny yet but I've had two instances of people in the same apartment building do a double take when they walked by me and tell me how good I look now. One guy told me he thought I was the brother of the guy living there and I had to convince him it was me. That's was very funny.

My advice (for what it's worth) is to stop worrying and just try and get in the right frame of mind for your surgery. What you eat now and what you will eat after are completely different. After your surgery you will have a physical barrier - the band - to prevent you from eating as much as before. f you don't believe then just wait and try. The results will be unpleasant to say the least. It really works and not only does it cut down on your food intake but it adds behavior modification by causing unpleasant symptoms if you eat to fast or too much. Pavlov proved more than a century ago that behavior can be modified by an external reinforced stimulus. Pavlov's dogs are proof and the band has similar characteristics.

I did it! I'm now at 198. Whoo hooo!!!

Hi All, I just had my one year anniversary on October 15th. I've lost 114 pounds so far and am steadily losing. When I went in for my last fill about 5 weeks ago I mentioned that for the first time since the surgery I was having acid reflux at night and the Dr. checked and saw the band was too tight so he removed .2cc's and that did the trick. That was the first time I had an unfill. I'm scheduled for my next adjustment on November 5th. I'm off my insulin pump and am just on one shot a day of long acting insulin and the dosages are getting lower and lower all the time. My blood pressure meds have been cut by 2/3rds and I'm off the anti-cholesterol drugs. I have been able to lower the pressure on my CPAP by half. So far everything has gone smoothly and I haven't had any real problems with PB or "sliming" or anything else like that other than a few early instances. I've learned to eat slow and chew my food really well. My family, who are all fast eaters now have to wait patiently for me at restaurants. It gives them time to actually engage in a conversation. lol. My two weaknesses are sugar free Popsicle's and Fudsicle's that I snack on in the evning while watching TV or reading and Taco bell crunchy tacos (the regular ones without the sour cream. thank god). I need my once or twice a week "fix" of two crunchy taco's. I justify it by the amount of Protein and veggies :biggrin:. The drive thru staff must think I am the strangest guy for only ordering two tacos. They always act surprised like I should be ordering 4 tacos, a burrito and an enchiritio which is what I would order before my surgery. I want to eventually do some kind of tummy tuck but I doubt my insurance would cover it and I can't afford any extra expenses. It'll just have to wait. I've joined a gym and am working out on the treadmill and some cardio. I won a teeth whitening prize form a dentist the other day so I will use that (about $550 worth) to look a bit better (although I do have good teeth). The next step is going out more and trying to meet a woman. This might be harder than the surgery. :wub:

Hi all, It will be 10 months for me in 4 days and this morning I am down 100 pounds. Jonathan

Thanks. I see you're doing good too. Our ratios are almost exactly the same! Keep it up.