Wheetsin

I took the question as serious also. Trust me, with the questions we see here, there's no reason under the sun to think you were being facetious. :grouphug:

Actually the band has been done in the US since at least 2001, which is in the enighborhood of 5 - 6 years, and possibly longer - 2001 is just the earliest case I personally know to be valid. I know sisters who were banded in 2001. One has had complications (due, they believe, to the materials the bands were created with back then) and the other has not. The one with complications has gone from something like a 36 to a 0 or 2, the other has gone from 32ish to 14ish -- if I'm remembering correctly. So depending on how you define "success" - both could be, or both could be failures, or it could be split. Keep in mind that a lot of the people who come to these boards do it for support - either they're lonely and looking for friends, or have questions and aren't sure where to turn, or have problems and are looking for others in the same situation. Or countless other scenarios. Point being - any time that you're on a message board, you have to assume some element of the exception rather than the rule. Look for a thread called "our own statistics" or something like that. If it's still around.

What I hear most frequently is, "I know they're lying to me, but there's not a damn thing I can do about it." That said, I also hear, "We know they're taking advantage of a broken system, but for us - the one person we help that really and truly needs us is worth the 6 or 7 who don't." I rpobably deviate from them there, but that's another thread. :grouphug:

I don't disagree at all, and never once did I make the claim that all poor are on welfare. Those people would fall into what I described as "it being the only thing they can't take away" - the core ability or right, if you would, and the associated gains (gains being not monetary, but emotional, spiritual, what have you).

I'd gues that for about 95% of the people posting to this thread, or more, the point/intention was never to try and change someone's position. If that's why you post your opinion, you will see little success.

That sounds about right, maybe even a bit low. I know the average for my area is 16k - 18k. Keep in mind those figures are for surgeries done in the US.

My best guess (I work for an insurance company, but am not personally in the insurance business) is that going out of network is always seen as optional. And I can't think of any insurance company that is going to see "I want someone with more experience" as a reason to accomodate coverage for an out of network provider. I believe the site is obesitylaw.com, or something similar.

Well - perhaps, I have nothing but my guesses to argue that with, but I would have to question why the ability is so valued - beyond the obvious of people wanting children, and it being perhaps the one thing (as of now) no one can take away from them. I'm not going to say a majority, or even guess at a percentage, but a lot of people value their ability to reproduce because they see it as a way to get more. I have family that works in various branches of DFS and they estimate that 1 in 6 of their clientele truly and "legitimately" needs the help, whereas the other 5 are either taking advantage of the system, or intentionally put themselves into their position (including having children they knowingly can't care for), in order to reap the benefits, so to speak. Is it logical, is it just, is it ethical - I'm not trying to judge the actions. I'm just saying that there is more than a small population of people who value their ability to reproduce because babies mean money.

I could feel my port for the first few months, but now cannot feel it at all. I expected the opposite.

Your stomach is probably making "gurgling" sounds, I would guess? "Sounds" is a little amiguous, but if it's a gurgling sound it's normal. Mine gurgled close to non-stop post-op, and gradually tapered down, and now only does it when I'm stuck. I can remember coming back to work after my surgery and it being so loud the people across from me could hear. Not sure why you would feel a ball in your neck and chest. Where in your neck? The back? Side?

Way beyond supposedly. Gaming drives development of new technology, and porn drives development of connectivity.

I'm really scared of getting an unfill. I have such a long and ingrained history of weightloss without any long term maintenance (longest I've maintained is a matter of months). Now - if I was physically unable to eat enough for healthy baby growth, OK... of course. And if it was causing some undue discomfort or distress for some reason, OK... And I'd be ok with a partial unfill - enough to ensure I was going to PB (even though I haven't PBed in a LOOONG time anyway)... but really like the idea of keeping enough in there to moderate my appetite. Good point Robyn about the GB patients, that's true, and even on my worst day, I can out-eat my RNY friends without even trying. So remind me again when you're leaving for your cruise? I'm jealous! We loved our last cruise (also was our first) and want to go again. For our last 3 anniversaries my husband has been on call & paged in the evening, so we haven't really been able to do much. Our solution was that next year (our 10th) we'll be out of the country so we *can't* be disturbed. We think another cruise is the perfect answer. (That or a week in an all-inclusive, still debating). No chance you'll bring home a special little "souvenir"? :grouphug: Holli - I'm the same way, very random in my restriction. Some days I can eat and eat, and other days it takes me 45 minutes to eat 3 bites and then I just give up b/c it isn't worth it. Some days food will slide right on down, and a few days later the same thing is hanging up on the first bite. Just our bands reminding us who's in charge, I guess!

The only people who could help you determine what you will pay is your insurance company. Your SPD should include a coverage matrix. Call Dr. Malley's office and find out his total cost, then plug the numbers into your matrix - keeping in mind that different services will have different coverage rates. Doing this should give you an idea of your total OOP accurate to around 2 - 4% variance.

Oh, and as for your original question of how much longer - IMO one day is too long, which is why I'm curious about what your surgeon has to say. It's not atypical to experience that with too much restriction... keeping Water down... but it is atypical for it to persist for nearly a week.

Have you called your surgeon? I certainly hope so... and my question then is, what did your surgeon say? Too much stomach in the ring sounds to my untrained ears like the band is too tight and "cinching" the esophagus too much, creating a gathering of organ that is contained by the circumference of the band. Either it was filled too much too soon, or your husband may have been better suited for a larger band. But truly, that's just my best guess. It has been a LONG time since I took any medical classes.

BTW Robyn, my annual physical is latish January, and one of the questions I have for my doc (whom I love & trust implicitly) is about my weight & pregnancy. I want her honest opinion on my weight & what that means. If she gives me her blessings we'll probably start trying as soon as my one year is up. If she tells me she'd rather see me lose 20, 30 more lbs first - then I guess I'll have the motivation to take my jiggly butt to the gym! But I'm not sure I'd want an unfill. Is it required?

I'm thinking about a fill appt too. I've been going back and forth on it for a while. Holli is your friend getting another band? I've always wondered - they say that if your band slips, you can try an unfill, but if nothing works it has to come out. Why can't they just reposition it? Anyone know?

No thorough analysis is needed when the contradiction is so blatant. You can't expect to tell people that if they see grey, they do not value human life, and walk away unchallenged.

Yes. Not a friend, but someone I know was raped & impregnated. She aborted the pregnancy. The father, from jail, tried to contest. They didn't let him, thankfully. He wanted to keep the baby. Because he knew it would hurt the mother. And that's a good thing, otherwise it might inspire the idea in some that women are nothing more than carrying devices for babies.

I'm sure there are people out there who have had abortions and believed they had no other choice, or who had the abortion only to regret it afterwards. No harm in giving them a place to seek consolation. I think some of the measures are a bit unusual (e.g. the picture), but people grieve and work through their emotions in different ways, and what works for me won't work for the next guy. Honestly - I don't think that's any more weird than open caskets at funerals. Or taking pictures of people in their caskets. Yeah, probably different reasons behind the death, but to me - you're still standing around looking at a corpse. Or taking pictures of it. Both of which I've seen numerous times. Disgusting to me, but an awful lot of people do it so it must help them. Likewise, the room may seem disgusting or an abborhation to you, but it has probably helped someone at some point, and it isn't hurting anyone.

Don't take this the wrong way, your life & your call, but if death is the alternative, is a "newbie" that bad? If I read correctly, your fears are now that you will die due to things related to your weight, but not confident that's enough to help you get the weight off in & of itself. Death, or a trained surgeon who has limited experience... all surgeons were newbies at some point, and if someone didn't go to them, we wouldn't have the experienced practitioners we did today.

That's one of the points I was making. If the baby is the result of incest, then it's a different story. But some incest is consentual sex among adults. So what's the determining factor here - value of babies with limited gene pool vs. diverse?

Breaking points added by me, so no one thinks I'm trying to make several statements look like one. I don't object to you saying one thing, then saying another. Or the apparent hypocrisy between your beliefs and your statements. I object to you making the claim that people who see grey in the subject of murder have no value on human life, then proceeding to have grey in the subject of murder... unless of course you would include yourself and your own value (or lack thereof) on human life in that statement. Then it's all good. Because when you equate grey to lack of value for human life, you're talking about me, and you're telling me that I don't value human life. And then you're saying that you see grey... so surely you aren't holding us to different standards are you?

Just want to add - it was several years ago that I researched this, and I make no claims that what I've represented is current law.

This is another great sticky sort of inconsistency. Last I checked, suicide attempts only went to court if the insanity was contested (feel free to reword that into legalese). In other words, someone who tries to commit suicide is not charged with attempted murder. At the time there was nothing making attempted suicide while pregnant any different than while not, and an attempted suicide that resulted in a living mother but dead child - well that was no where to be found. So it would seem that it's only murder if the baby is inside of someone else.