sleepyjean

I don't have kids so I wouldn't dare give any advice. All I will say is two things (1) you know your girls better than anyone and are in the best position to determine what they can handle and (2) 12 year olds are SMART. They're going to find out sooner or later.

The best thing you can do is hang around here for a few weeks. It's absolutely the best way to prepare yourself mentally. Since everyone's path is different, reading the posts here will acquaint you with the possibilities, but you won't know what your journey will be like until it happens. I'm a consultant, and in my business, the answer to just about every question is "it depends" LOL. In terms of your bandster journey, it's all over the place - not just because everyone is different, but also because everyone's doctor has different rules and guidelines. Some people have to do a pre-op diet, some don't. Some have restriction and start to lose immediately, others have to wait several months and get multiple fills. Some people go home the same day as surgery, others stay overnight. Some are up and walking around the next day, others feel like hell for a week. Some PB (spit up) a lot, some not at all. Some tell everyone they know, others keep it to themselves. Some lose hair, and others don't. Some people lose weight steadily, and others do it in fits and starts. A few discover that they are "turtles" and lose very slowly. I spent about six months hanging around here, jealous as hell, before I got banded, so there weren't too many surprises. There were only a few things that I didn't anticipate: 1. Exactly what restriction feels like. It's hard to describe and hard to conceive of pre-band. But once you've got it, you KNOW it! 2. For a while there, eating became a chore. I never thought I'd see the day. 3. Experiencing how truly nasty some Protein shakes can be, while others are actually quite yummy. 4. Feeling "in the groove" for 7 months and then losing restriction and sliding back into my old eating habits without realizing it. 5. Losing weight messes with your hormones. It threw my body out of whack in few ways before I found equilibrium again. For example, my menstrual cycle was crazy for a couple of months and I started having problems with insomnia. 6. I am an emotional eater and getting banded completely cut off my primary tool for comforting myself and dealing with bad/sad feelings. I knew it was going to happen, so I started seeing a shrink about two months before surgery. She's helped me learn some other coping skills, but it's slow going. As far as preparation goes, I'm sure you'll get lots of great advice from the gang here e.g. find a protein supplement you like, find chewable versions of your Vitamins and medicines (I like Centrum chewables and also take a Biotin supplement), take a 'before' photo, and stock up on good-tasting liquids to last you through the first couple of weeks after surgery. Good luck to you, and welcome!

I don't know how many answers you'll get to this post, LOL. In a roundabout kind of way, you're asking people how much money they make. A point of clarification: The rule isn't that you can deduct 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. You can only deduct the medical expenses you paid IN EXCESS OF of 7.5% of your adjusted gross. (IRS info here: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p502/ar02.html#d0e299) The amount of the refund you get back, and whether it covers your surgery depends entirely on how much you paid for the surgery and how much money you make. If you get it done it Mexico, it's going to be way cheaper than it is stateside, and therefore your deduction will have more bang. I have read about people here paying less than $10k in Mexico, while others paid more than $20k here in the US. As for your adjusted gross, that's going to be different for every single person. Here are a few examples (let's say the surgery is $15,000): Adjusted Gross = $30k 7.5% = $2,250 You can deduct $12,750 Adjusted Gross = $60k 7.5% = $4,500 You can deduct $10,500 Adjusted Gross = $100k 7.5% = $7,500 You can deduct $7,500

I WISH! I still tend to be overly warm.

If you like your doctor, think they treated you well, are at your goal, feel you look your best and are feeling great about all of it, go for it. :-D

I agree, it's different for everyone. I have a hard time with chicken, but I can swallow my ginormous omega-3 supplements with no problem. Lists of foods that bandsters can and cannot eat are just some of the ones that are most common across bandsters are are likely to give you some trouble. You will discover on your own what does and doesn't work for you as you go through the liquids --> mushies --> solids process. I daresay every bandster here has tried foods on the "don't eat this or you'll be sorry" list. If you loved pizza before the band, sooner or later you'll be tempted to try it again and see what happens. The good news is, when you're experimenting, it only takes a second to figure out which foods go on your personal HELL NO list. For better or for worse, Mother Nature has given us an amazingly responsive spit-up mechanism.

I asked my doctor about erosion a couple of days ago and he said that every bandster us can reasonably expect the level of restriction to fluctuate throughout their life. There is more fluctuation during the active weight loss phase, but even after you've hit your goal weight, you still have to monitor your restriction. When you think about it, it makes sense because everyone's body changes over time. Using myself as an example, I'm 32. I expect I'll live to be 80ish. There's absolutely no way my level of restriction is going to stay the same for 50 years. It's just not possible. This could be a very normal explanation for your reduced restriction. Erosion isn't a myth, but it is rare and becoming even more so over time as American doctors get more exprienced with band placement. You were banded several years ago, though, so erosion might be slightly more likely in your case than someone banded more recently. I would imagine you'd have to have a pretty advanced case of erosion to notice a significant change in your restriction and then I expect you'd be experiencing other symptioms like abdominal pain or port infection if that was the case. My advice is try not to get freaked out about this. (I know it's hard) It's likely that there is nothing majorly wrong with you. Do have your doctor check it out as soon as you can. If you haven't seen your doc in a while, it couldn't hurt to have him/her kick the tires, so to speak. Please try not to get worked up about it unless and until you *know* there is something to worry about. Let us know what you find out :-D

This is a followup to a thread I started a couple of days ago about periodic band replacement. I saw my doctor yesterday and asked him about this and a few other things. I go to Cedars, which is the same place where Sharon Osbourne got banded. In fact, I think my doc assisted during her surgery. They've been doing the band at cedars-sinai a lot longer than the majority of programs in this country. Anyway, my doctor is a great guy. Here's what he had to say: - When Sharon O. says the band can only be in your body for ten years, she's basically talking out of her rear end. (He didn't say it that way, of course). Obviously he couldn't give me details (patient confidentiality) but he said Sharon an atypical case because of her other health issues like chemotherapy, bulimia, etc. - The band is for life. Barring unexpected issues or complications, once it is in there, it stays in there. Period. - I asked why it is then that things like breast implants have to be replaced periodically but the band doesn't. He said those are more fragile, move around a lot more, and are more vulnerable to outside forces like car accidents, someone hitting you in the chest, etc. Those types of things aren't major issues for the band. - I asked what about erosion over the long term from the band rubbing against the outside of your stomach. He said that the band is stitched on and doesn't move much at all. It's not like your stomach is in constant motion like your heart, so there's not a constant rubbing rubbing rubbing going on. He also said that erosion is very rare in their practice. - I asked how often he had to convert the band to bypass because of things like having to have the band replaced, erosion, etc. He said he has only rarely had to do that procedure. In the few cases where he has done it, it was because the person learned how to cheat the band. They try to catch people who take in a lot of liquid calories during the screening processs and steer them towards GB rather than the band, but people can also defeat the screening process if they try. - He said people usually have several fills during the weight-loss period because their innards are changing. (This was only my second since last May) The stomach shrinks, there's less fat pressing against it, hormone changes, etc. So you may have great restriction at one point, but that will probably change over time and you will need another adjustment. (I imagine this is less of an issue for low BMI bandsters. It also makes me wonder how many people have to have adjustments after tummy tuck, lipo, breast implants, other procedures, etc.) - He said you have to be aware of your restriction level for the rest of your life. This is something that always perplexed me because if you're at your goal weight for years, you'd think your body would be used to eating a certain amount. He said nope, that's not the case. You could be banded for ten years, and the minute you take that band out, the weight will probably start creeping back on. It's not that you'll all of a sudden start bingeing, but your body does realize that there's a lot more room in there than there was before and send that message to your brain. You are likely to increase your caloric intake gradually, without even realizing it. Ten pounds can slowly creep up on you in a year. And if you gain ten pounds a year every year for ten years, you'll eventually wind up right back where you started. (He wasn't trying to scare me or preach gloom and doom, just explain that this is really a lifelong process that doesn't end once you've reached goal weight. Obviously, you don't have to be as vigilant after that point, but don't expect that you can simply have the band removed or forget about it entirely - unless future medicine brings us some great new drug or other weight control method we can use instead of the band)

According to my doc, our bodies are such complex machines, especially as related to hunger - that there are a number of other factors besides your fill that affect your restriction (hormone fluctuations, etc.) This also explains why our level of restriction is different at different times of the day. I would be interested to know if any of those who have the delayed restriction phenomenon get fills under flouroscopy? I don't understand how it works w/o flouroscopy. I have only had it done that way, where my doctor and I can clearly see the level of restriction he's giving me. I have to take several swallows of some icky potion to test the restriction level, but it means I always feel the restriction immediately after the fill.

What you are feeling is totally normal. As the big day approaches, it's pretty typical to have moments of "Oh my God, what am I doing???" The other thing you should prepare for is a short period of mourning/depression just before the surgery. I can't explain why it happens, but I've seen it happen a lot around here, and it certainly happened to me. I think you just have to trust the decision you made when your head was clearer. The fact is, you wouldn't be doing this if you hadn't already tried everything else. And as for the GB, you can get converted to that if you have problems with the band. Yeah, it's another surgery, but just as with the band, if you have to do it, you just have to do it. I wish you the best of luck. I'm sure everything will turn out ok

I watched it too. My observations: I thought the tone of the show was pretty awful. It seemed kind of cruel to play "let's put all this food on the table and see how long the fat guy can hold out." I also noticed that every time they showed one of those people eating, the camera would zoom in on the person's mouth. And they sure threw around a lot of words like humongous, huge, mammoth, enormous, etc. I'm not saying fat people automatically deserve compassion from non-fatties, but we don't deserve open meanness either. I felt a curious mixture of sympathy and anger for those people. I totally understand how compulsive eating can take over your brain, and I for sure know how dieting just makes you fatter and fatter. But it made me mad that all but one of them had given up completely and become a total burden on someone else. It's not fair to the family that has to take care of him, or the taxpayers who have to foot the bill for in-home care. And that one guy who swore he was only eating 2000 calories a day and never called for takeout - he was obviously sick in the head. But when they laid out all the food in front of him and he still denied that he eats that much in a day, I wanted to thump him on the head and tell him to snap out of whatever fantasy world he's living in. Mostly the show was depressing. It left me with the impression that there was no hope at all for those people. Did you hear when that doctor said it would take that one guy EIGHT DAYS to burn off the calories he consumed in a single day? And there was the other guy whose doctor said he'd have to lose 100 pounds before he could even consider gastric bypass. It seemed like it was a losing battle for all of them, and they were all going to die pretty soon. The black guy's family really pissed me off. They kept saying that if they didn't feed him whatever he wanted, he'd call for delivery. That is such bull. The guy was completely bedridden so somebody else must've been opening the door for the delivery guy. I guess it never occurred to them to turn the delivery guy away. Or pay for the food but don't give it to the guy to eat. Or how about this? Take the phone away. It's not like his family had no options. But I must say, it was almost comical when that one relative showed the plate of "healthy" food he'd prepared and it was a heap of white rice with an entire stick of butter melting into it. Basically, that guy's family was not trying to help him and he certainly wasn't trying to help himself, so I was mad at all of them. (Geez, I hope I don't get to my goal weight and turn into one of those evangelical dieters who hate all fat people.) The show was a real downer. But it made me hella glad I am banded and getting a fill tomorrow.

Ha - I thought that would get your attention! But seriously, for those get a fill under fluoroscopy, do you have to take your bra off? I have to take everything off from the waist up and put on a hospital gown. My boobs are a real pain, flopping around everywhere, so I really hate going braless for even five minutes. I'd like to wear a sports bra for my fill. Since it doesn't have any metal in it, I figure my doctor will never know. The only part of me he sees nekkid is my belly. What do you think? Should I try it? I'm sorely tempted. On a related note, is fluorscopy the coolest or what? It's really trippy drinking that stuff and watching it go down. It means you can't fake your restriction though. I guess that's a good thing, because I'd have my doctor give me too much of a fill. The way things have been going lately, if he made it so I could never eat solid food again, I'd be okey dokey with that.

Okay ladies, fess up. How many of us saw the subject line for this thread and IMMEDIATELY clicked on it? Ha!

LOL, from the subject line, it looks like you're asking yourself the question :-D

It was 24 hours for me

That's where mine is too. You don't have to do the gown and all that? Lucky! I think in my case, it's just standard procedure for them. I'm going to take Juno's commonsensical advice and just ask. It's not like they're going to wrestle me to the floor and rip it off me. Then again, my doc is 6'4" and could probably take me down pretty easy.

That's a toughie. Do you really have to get his permission? On the one hand, I fear debt like preschoolers fear the boogeyman, so I understand where he's coming from. On the other hand, as they say in the ghetto, you are a grown-ass woman and can make your own decisions! The fact that anyone told me "no" would make me that much more determined to go ahead and do it. But marriage is a partnership and all that, so just keep talking and talking and talking to him until he sees the light. And in the meantime, put that $3k somewhere where you can earn some interest on it.

Sorry guys. If I was firing on all four cylinders today, it would've occurred to me that Sharon Osbourne is a less than reliable source. I think she's full of hooey anyway. She said she's having it taken out because she wants to eat more and because she wants to work on her issues through therapy rather than medical intervention. I'm skeptical about that, but hey, more power to her. On the creepy/morbid side of things, I'm glad the band will last. I am addicted to all of those true life forensics shows on A&E and court TV. It's nice to know that if anyone ever did something heinous to me and dumped my body somewhere, the investigators would find the band and have a pretty easy time figuring out who I am. Okay, I just re-read that, and it does sound waaaaay creepy. LOL I should start watching some other channels. Nickelodeon maybe.

I need a kick in the pants, or some encouragement, or hypnosis, or...SOMETHING. I've been kicking my own self in the pants for about a month and it's not working. Please bear with me as I spill my guts here. I hate to burden you all with my issues, but I'm terrified by my behavior and pretty much hating myself these days. Basically, I am out of control. So far in my bandster journey, I've been able to lose a little over half of my weight without really trying. I didn't exercise, but I didn't feel like eating much and the weight pretty much came off by itself. I knew I'd eventually have to put some work into it, but I didn't think about it much. (Dumb, I know) But ever since Xmas, it's a whole new ballgame. Something clicked inside my head and all of a sudden, the compulsion to eat eat eat is back with a vengeance - just like the pre-band days. I'm usually not hungry, and I sometimes eat to the point of pain, and my food choices have been dismal. I tried exercise a couple of times, but can't seem to get back into the habit. Every day I say I'm going to wake up at 5am and exercise - but then I don't do it. (I've been having a major insomnia issue lately, and am usually falling asleep around 3 am) Then I tell myself I'll work out after work, but I usually feel crummy after work (I kind of hate my job) and have a couple of hours of work to do for some volunteering that I do. I wind up scarfing something down while I'm working on my computer. Afterward, I always feel terrible about myself and frustrated that I can't figure out what's WRONG with me. After all I went through to get banded, why am I doing this? I know what it's like to be 70 pounds heavier than I am now. It sucked! So why am I doing my damndest to get back there? Why am I freaking out now that I actually have to *work* to make this happen? I have this major internal struggle because this feels like I'm putting myself on a diet and exercise regimen just like the old days - and in the old days, I failed every single time. Why would this be any different? If I fail this time too, I don't know if I'll ever have the courage to try again. I might as well lay in bed and get as fat as I can. I thought I would just go get a fill and that would fix my eating issue, but now I kind of doubt it. I don't get what's happening. I have 1cc in a 4cc band and up through December, that was plenty. I do have some restriction now, but I can still pack away a ton of food - way more than a cup of food in one sitting. I suspect that even with another fill, I'll still be able to eat too much - or that I'll try, and wind up hurting myself. I have a fill scheduled for the 31st, but I'm anxious because my doc only does fills before noon and I tend to be much tighter in the mornings. I wish I could go in the afternoon when it feels like my band is wide open. In any case, I have a whole long week to wait, and stew about it, and eat like there's no tomorrow. I hate this. Well...it looks like my frustration has once again devolved into whining and complaining. I hate the fact that I can't do this on my own, but I'm desperate so I'm asking for help. Somebody PLEASE help me get my s@*# together.

anyone know when this is coming out in paperback?

Boy do I know how you feel. You think you're going to get this band and everything will be different because your whole mindset will change. It's a crushing blow to find yourself struggling with those same old food issues again. I'm in that boat right now. I posted about something similar yesterday and the responses I got told me one very important thing: no matter what happened yesterday or over the last six months, do NOT give up.

I think you have to look at the rules and decide which ones you HAVE to follow for health reasons, vs. which ones are suggestions to maximize your results. For example, you HAVE to go through the liquids -> mushies ->solids progression. You can't just jump right back into solids. And you have to limit the amount that you eat in one sitting so you don't stuff yourself. But things like eating every 90 minutes, drinking 64 oz of Water, etc are, in my opinion "suggestions" or goals rather than rules, and as such, you should adapt them to fit your life. If you eat once every three hours instead of every 90 minutes, the world won't come to an end. If you drink 48 oz of water instead of 64, that's better than nothing. Once you are banded, it will become really clear which guidelines you have to follow right away and which ones you'll have to work toward. It looks like a lot on paper, but I think you'll find that overall, you're spending a lot less time thinking about food than you do now.

Thanks so much everyone I really appreciate it. I had this bubble of panic in my chest and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Reading all of your responses let the air of that bubble and now I can breathe again. It helps to come to such a positive place and be reminded that everyone struggles and that it is possible to overcome that. It's time to press my mental "reset" button. You are all right - I need to take this one day at a time and realize that there are going to be times when this is hard and I have to accept that and learn to deal with it. The idea of perfection is something I've struggled with my whole life. My shrink says this too - I need to learn how to relax and be more gentle with myself. I've never really grasped the concept though. If I'm not supposed to strive for perfection, does that mean I should strive for mediocrity and be happy with"so-so" results? I feel like if I don't focus on what's wrong, I'll never fix it! And I worry that relaxing my attitude would land me right back where I started. Basically, if I'm not worrying, I worry about the fact that I'm not worrying. So I worry all the time, LOL. Now you see why I have a shrink! The feeling of total panic has subsided, but I still have some work to do. So I will heed your advice and try to think about the good things and focus on today - JUST today. not everything I've screwed up over the past month and not how 100% perfect I need to be over the next year. I'm going to get that fill next week, and in the meantime, try to be a little less mental. I guess the only way to get better at handling the hard times is through lots of practice. One of the few useful things I got from a weight watchers leader was this: "When you are having a bad week, you need this group. But when you are having a good week, the group needs YOU." I'm going to get back on track and hopefully I will be able to come back here and help everyone else the way you've all helped me.

Holy cow - I would actually consider purchasing a swimsuit for that! Sounds fun, but I don't know that I'd fly somewhere to do it. If it was close by, I'd want to, though. (I'm in L.A.)

That's so awesome. Congrats!!!