sleepyjean

My incisions just started itching yesterday and they've been itchy ever since!

Poor Randy :confused:

YIKES that's a big font, LOL The people who have lost weight and reached their goals aren't here. When I've been banded for two years and have lost all of the weight, I doubt I'll be here either. (Unless I decide to get plastic surgery and have a lot of questions.) We're all here because weight is a problem for us. When it is no longer a problem, the need for support diminishes.

Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!

I was banded last week and I did it all by myself. I initially had some reservations about going it alone, but turns out I'm actually glad that I did. I don't like being fussed over and I also see no reason for someone to have to take time off work just to drive me to the hospital and sit in the waiting room for hours doing absolutely nothing. The hospital staff took excellent care of me. Basically, I was able to go through this process without worrying about anyone hovering over me or bugging me, so it was the perfect solution for me. HOWEVER I had the surgery 20 minutes away from home. Going to another country is very different. I think generally going to Mexico alone, you would be absolutely fine. But the fact is, Mexico doesn't have the same laws and protections that we have here, so if something goes wrong and you're all alone, you're hosed.

Wha..? Don't you have to get up and pee in the middle of the night?

I was banded on May 1 and I'm on liquids for three weeks. My program doesn't distinguish between clear and full liquids. Doc says I can have anything I can drink through a straw. Nutritionist says any liquid is ok so long as there are no chunks. After the first three weeks, I have mushies for two weeks, then 1 week of regular food before my first adjustment.

I haven't really read anything about that around here, which is a little surprising. Exercise, exercise, excercise is all you read in the magazines these days, so it seems like the surgeons would tell everyone to get moving. I'm wondering if most bandsters start doing some kind of exercise, or if the band pretty much does the job all by itself? Those who do exercise - do you feel it's made a difference in terms of speed of weight loss, excess skin, etc. Or does it mostly just make you feel better overall?

LOL - I agree. On the front end, their customer service is not great. the admin staff are nice, but not terribly organized. But once I submitted everything for insurance approval, things started to happen very fast. My insurance was submitted and approved in less than a week. Once the insurance was approved, they scheduled my pre-op appt for the following week and the actual surgery the week after that. The hospital experience was extremely easy for me. They took great care of me - I was there by myself, no family or anything. They were very attentive, the nurses were fantastic, the nurse techs were great, it was all very easy - I had no worries at all. Plus, Cedars only has private hospital rooms, which was a big bonus because I couldn't sleep and wound up watching tv all night! You can't argue with the fact that Cedars-Sinai is an excellent facility - one of the best in the country - and so are the professionals who work there. So if you can put up with the admin staff long enough to get submitted for insurance, you're golden, and then after that you don't have to deal with admin ever again.

If you give in and buy some, as soon as you get home, open the container and sprinkle salt over the ice cream. I gua-ran-tee you will not eat that ice cream.

That sounds like total bull to me.

I have my 1-week post-op appointment tomorrow afternoon. I'm not really sure what it's for. I'm guessing they'll grab the nearest doctor, s/he will take a gander at my belly, ask me if I feel awful, and then send me home. Reeeaaaall productive. I'll probably spend more time in the waiting room than with a doctor. Don't mind me. I'm mopey because I'm going back to work tomorrow, and I don't want to! Nobody except my boss knows I had surgery so I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of BS-ing tomorrow. And then I have to explain why all of a sudden I'm drinking these Protein drinks and eating broth. I don't want to lie but I don't want to tell the truth either. Plus I still have the odd knife-in-the-belly twinge and those are hard to play off. Not looking forward to it. Pity Party, please come to the hostess stand. Your table is ready.

Holy crap - that's a whole lotta people getting banded in one week! Good luck everyone

I'm not being a very good bandster. I'm struggling, but not for the reasons I expected. Prior to this, I was a "one huge meal a day" kind of person. I find this constant sipping throughout the day to be tough. Also, making sure I get in all of supplements and my regular meds is a real pain. Since I can't eat a ton of food in one sitting like I used to do, I find that I'm not eating much at all. It didn't matter so much earlier this week when I was spending most of my time on the couch, drifting in and out of conciousness. Now that I'm alert and able to get around pretty well, I'm having some problems. Yesterday, my stomach was hurting really bad. It wasn't until late in the day that I realized that it's because I'm hungry. Totally foreign concept. I can't remember the last time I was hungry. My obesity is because I eat for every other reason besides actual hunger. And it's the weirdest thing, because it's not head hunger. I'm not sitting around like "oh man, I realllly miss fooood!" It's pure physical "can't I just scarf down a burger or something and make my damn stomach shut up?" hunger. Strange. I just can't seem to pace myself. It's like I have ADD or something. I set out to drink my 6oz of fluid each hour, but then I put it down and forget about it. I have all these half empty cups of liquids around the place. Anyone else having problems adjusting?

I have this book and I really like it. I read through it cover to cover when I first got it and I still flip through it occassionally. The author has an interesting insight as she is a doctor as well as a bandster.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It was the sin of disbelief. When those who paved the way for me spoke of the wisdom of the recliner, I said "I don't need no stinking recliner!" Okay, so NOW I get it. The recliner isn't so much about sleeping comfortably as it is the ability to get up and down without feeling the burn. Seriously, help me out here people. I don't have a recliner. The only real chair I have is a pappasan, so I'm sleeping on my bed. Is there some technique that would make getting up off the bed any easier? Because right now it burns like a mother and I have to psych myself up for a good five minutes before each attempt. If it wasn't for the fact that I need to sit up to take my drugs and sip, sip, sip, I'd probably stay perpendicular for the next ten days. Ow! owie owie owie ouch ouch ouch!

This is piggyback on a post in the "what size do you want to be" thread. This got me thinking. Many of us are resigned to the fact that we will never be thin. I don't mean underweight like a model or thin as compared to obese. I'm talking about "looking good in a swimsuit because you don't have any rolls or thunder thighs" thin. Why is this? Sometimes it feels like it would be settling for less than what I could accomplish if I were willing to work hard enough. Other times I think that coming from 268 pounds, I should be thankful if I can shop somewhere besides Lane Bryant and who cares if I'm still a bit chubby by "normal" standards? I mean, if you were obese does that mean that even if you lose the weight, you will still be...ahem..."fluffier" than many of your peers? Maybe it's a vanity thing. I mean, I want to be healthy, but I'll admit it - I want to look good too! As good as I possibly can, anyway. Do you guys ever go back and forth on this too?

Hi everyone, I'm back. Thanks so much for your positive thoughts and prayers! My surgery was completely uneventful, which was GREAT. I was able to get up and walk around pretty easily. Well- walking anyway. The getting up and down is still a challenge. Everything was just fine, no problems at all and they cleared me to leave at 7 this morning. I have some pain around my port incision, but other than that I'm just fine - no gas and no pain anywhere else. The hardest parts were using my triflow, which makes me cough and that hurts, and sleeping last night. I never sleep on my back, so it was a hard night for me. I'd sleep for an hour, wake up for two hours, and fall back asleep for another hour. I got so sick of lying in that bed! Luckily I had a private room so I was able to read and watch some tv without disturbing anyone else. The folks at Cedars took really great care of me. I'd recommend that facility to anyone! I wound up not getting home until noon and then I took a nap! After that, I went to the pharmacy to get some drugs. Port is hurting a bit, so I'm going to knock back some of this fruity-tasting syrup and go lie down. Good luck to the rest of the May-ers. Pretty soon we'll all be banded and reminiscing about this month. :grouphug:

Thank you so much for the pep talk! I really needed it in this moment. Dr. Khalili is doing my band, but I met Dr. Nishi on Tuesday and he was a really great guy! Everyone over there has been really nice and very helpful and professional. Meanwhile, less than 24 hours to go and I'm a little teary. I thought I would be jumping up and down with excitement, and I was - until this morning. But you can't begin one thing without ending something else. And even though what I'm ending is a life of obesity, isolation, and depression, I'm still a little sad. It feels like I'm saying goodbye to a little piece of myself. :cry ...on the other hand, I have to take that nasty fleet phospho-soda in about an hour and I have a feeling that after that, I'll have ... ahem...<i>other</i> things on my mind.:eekB:

My theory is that it depends on why you were obese in the first place and also how long you had the band before you lost it. A person who gets banded because she's hungry all the time or just plain likes to eats different from a person who gets banded because she is an emotional eater or a binger. The former group will have a tougher time than the latter group if the band has to be removed. It also seems logical to me that the longer someone has been banded, the less likely it would be that that the weight would come back because they've had to learn new habits and develop a new lifestyle.

I had my pre-op visit with the surgeon this week. It was a group session with four of us who are getting banded next week. It was basically an opportunity for the doctor to review the risks with us and for us to ask questions about our individual situations. During the session, it struck me how comfortable I am with this process and that <b>it's because of everyone here.</b> Thanks to LBT, I've known what to expect - the good, the bad, and the ugly - for months now. I'm totally prepared. Other people haven't been so lucky. Had I been in the shoes of anyone else in that room, I think I would be one very nervous cookie right now. One week before surgery and they were still asking "beginner" questions - how long will the surgery take? what do you mean there's no fill until six weeks after? how quickly does the weight come off? Why do I have to get up and walk around after? I just had surgery - let me rest! I had a few very specific questions - what size band does this particular surgeon use? Where exactly do they place the port? If the port sticks out visibly after I've lost the weight, will they replace it with a low-profile port? Do they check for erosion on a regular basis (e.g. 1 year out?) Do they do fills with or without flouroscopy? The other three people in the group looked at me like I was speaking Japanese. If the shoe were on the other foot - if someone came into my session and started asking questions about things I'd never even heard of, much less thought about - I truly would've freaked out. I'd probably be having second thoughts, wondering what else was involved that I didn't know about. Of course, it really doesn't take much to freak me out, but still! But again, thanks to this place, I feel totally prepared. I know I'm doing the right thing. I know what to expect. And I'm 100% ready. <i><b>Thank you.</i></b> I wish every band doctor would give all of their patients the url for LBT. It's better than any book, pamphlet or support group out there.

Hi Mae! I remember "meeting" you last fall and throwing a fit because I wanted my band right that second and couldn't bear the waiting. Ever since then, I've had you in the back of my head, reminding me to hang on because it will all happen in due time. You were right! I want to thank you for being such a great example. Not an example of someone who had a perfect journey, but someone who had her fair share of bumps along the road and STILL got where she wanted to be.

Woohoo! Awesome

I don't want to make anyone who has to pay for the band out of pocket feel bad. But I also feel the need to share how completely relieved I feel right now. I thought for a while there that I'd have to self-pay. I agonized over it because I don't have the cash and I fear debt like little kids fear the boogeyman. Today I put my $250 insurance co-pay on my Visa. Then I logged onto my bank account and paid the $250 off. I don't think I've ever felt so relieved. It's hard to believe that it only takes $250 to change the entire course of my future. Thank you, thank you, thank you Blue Cross of California.

<b>let the countdown begin - WOO!</b> pre-op physical - check! pre-op appt. w/ surgeon - check! advance registration at the hospital - check! insurance co-pay paid - check! books to read and new batteries in the clicker - check! All that's left is some shopping (benefiber, gas-x, fleets, popsicles, Jello, and tea) and packing my bag for the hospital (pillow, slippers, magazines, toothbrush, etc.) I'm cleaning my apartment from top to bottom over the weekend and them I'm ready to roll. There were times when I thought this day would NEVER come. But all of a sudden, it seems to have snuck up on me!