theantichick

Funny, you don't look "Druish".

LOL. Looks can be deceiving, dontchaknow?

Yep. Well, druidry anyway. Used to be very involved with the local community as a generic pagan, but got fed up with the nonsense. Am just now dipping my toe back in the Water with a local grove.

I live in Arlington, and work in Irving. I'm hoping for a mid-August surgery date, we're closing in now on all of the insurance requirements.

This is going to sound really strange, but it used to do wonders for my old girlfriend when she had a migraine...sex

http://www.livescience.com/27642-sex-relieves-migraine-pain.html

NOTE: I am not volunteering to help.

I think there is something to this though because every study I've seen is women are incapable of not thinking except during an orgasm. But look at what happens to the brain during sex here: , and you get oxitocin.

LOL. All I can say is that I'm happy she found something that helps. And that she must not have the same effects from her Migraines as I do... between the light sensitivity and any movement causing stabbing pain, and the nausea... I can't see sex as being even remotely an option for me when I'm migraining.

I have had knee problems my entire life due to kneecaps that don't track right (subluxating patella is the $15 name for it). I have huge holes to the bone in the cartilage under each kneecap. I've had surgeries that didn't really help, and a lifetime (I'm 46) of various treatments including a surgery that really did help, but I had to fight tooth and nail to get it approved by insurance.

Everything depends on what is structurally wrong, and how much cartilage you have. Advice for one type of knee problem will aggravate a different problem.

The best thing in my opinion you can do is go see a sports orthopedic specialist. Even if you're not an athlete, it's my opinion that a sports oriented doc will work to get you the best function. Also, find one who specializes in knees.

Mine did Xray and MRI and then walked me through my options for treatment. Interestingly enough, both knees have the same cartilage damage, but only the right one was causing pain. So cartilage damage alone doesn't account for the issues we have. So we haven't even treated the left knee in my case and won't until it starts giving me problems.

I'm someone who is pretty open about things, and tend to over-share.

At work: My boss knows because I need to coordinate being out for all the doc's appointments and also prep for being out for surgery. She's been super supportive. I haven't discussed it with any of my co-workers because I haven't been here long and haven't really formed any relationships. If it comes up, I'll likely share.

Family: I haven't made a point of telling family I don't see regularly, but the ones I do see know about it. My sis had the surgery, and she's been pressuring me to do it. My Dad thinks I should just have more willpower, and my Mom is just worried because my sis has had a bunch of medical problems that Mom attributes incorrectly to the surgery. The rest of the family just want to support me whatever I do.

Friends: I have a group of very close friends, IRL and online, and I posted about my decision process. A few are very worried about complications. One has a sister who died and he blames the WLS even though it was years before her death. Another of our friends also died several years after hers, and some blame the WLS as she had all sorts of struggles after it. Besides concern for me, they're all very supportive.

I think the decision is very personal, and there's no "right" answer. I know that by being open about it, I leave myself open to criticism and negative feedback. I'm fine with that, as I've always been a matter-of-fact person who stands by my convictions and will argue my position with anyone, and I don't let people's opinions of me impact me. Much, anyway. I very well may regret being so open about it down the road.

@Djmohr

Thanks for the info about what you take. I am going to have my daughter ask about the DHE. She had a status basilar Migraine that put her in the hospital for a week taking ergotamine infusions. But her neuro at the time said that he didn't have an ergot to prescribe for her at home. Her triptan injections are starting to be spotty in relieving her Migraines. She's on a high enough dose of topamax to have slight aphasia, so that can't go any higher. They haven't tried any beta blockers on her yet.

I always think it's interesting to see how different docs' treatments vary. Her neuro advised us to take OTC's as needed, sometimes the Excedrin with a coffee or cola will break a migraine fine if taken early enough. He also said that on any day that we have a headache migraine or not, when we go to bed that night take 800mg ibuprofen along with a good dose of benadryl to stop the inflammation cascade that can then trigger a migraine or keep one going. And "good dose of benadryl" varies... I'm incredibly tolerant to it and can take 75-100mg without a problem, my daughter can only take 25-50mg. That neuro said migraineurs need to drink caffeine, but after he left the practice her new neuro griped her out for having a latte.

A friend of mine with bad Migraines tried it, and got some relief, but not total. It has to be re-done a few times a year, as I recall, so it's not permanent. Like so many other Migraine treatments, results vary.

Everyone in my family has migraines. I have been able to reduce mine by avoiding triggers. I take Excedrin at the first twinge, and have my triptan as a backup. My daughter has basilar migraines and takes a seizure medicine to reduce them, and she has injectible triptans for when prevention doesn't work. My sister was on beta blockers for years to reduce her migraines, she'll have one for weeks.

All I can say is anything is worth a try, don't give up. Most people can't get rid of migraines completely, but there's lots of options for reducing them and hopefully keeping them from messing up our lives.

I told my boss after my first consultation because I was going to need a lot of flexibility to go to all my pre-op appointments. He has been super supportive.

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I did, too. I haven't been here a year yet, so FMLA doesn't cover me, but I have time off and also can work from home as needed. I wanted my boss and I to have plenty of time to plan around it. I'm shooting for mid-August to coincide with my school break. My boss has been super supportive. I wasn't sure she would be, since she's a skinny Minnie who runs marathons, but she totally understood that this is to improve my health. She has been incredible with working around the multitude (it seems) of doctor's visits and such to get this all sorted.

I wish everyone could have a supportive work environment, but if you don't just remember that your first priority is your health, and the HR department can help with a lot of this.

I haven't had the surgery yet, but I have psoriatic arthritis and my rheumy said that the surgery can definitely help with auto-immune conditions because the stomach tissue taken out and the fat cells lost directly impact inflammatory levels. I know it won't cure my arthritis, but I'm hoping between the hormonal changes, inflammatory changes, and less weight to strain my joints it will help some.

We haven't had much activity there, but I started a group here for people with auto-immune and you're welcome to join.

http://www.bariatricpal.com/groups/455-sleeved-spoonies/

I am interested but the link didn't work.

My experience with various diets and WLS have convinced me that diet does impact autoimmune disease. But I think everyone has different triggers. It could gluten for one person and dairy for someone else. WLS provided a unique opportunity to discover mine. Also both psoriasis and fibro pain improved.. I know after medifast diet that soy is a trigger for me. Lost a ton of weight but had the worst psoriasis flare of my life. I also agree losing weight reduces inflammation so it improves things like autoimmune disease. My personal experience supports that but my dermatologist also said the same thing as your doctor. I love my sleeve!

Odd... some people the other link does better, some can't get to it. Try this one. Same location, just a different URL path to get there:

http://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/1258-sleeved-spoonies/

In California, once you exhaust your internal appeals with your insurance Company, you can ask for an Independent Medical Review with the Department of Insurance. They take info you submit, as for information from the insurance company and have an independent panel of doctors review the decision. I'm currently going through the process right now. I have Aetna and they denied a non-surgical treatment for severe GERD that occurred after my Sleeve. I've had a few insurance companies and Aetna is by far the worst one to deal with.

I had to file 4 appeals and fight for 8 months to get Aetna to approve a knee surgery I needed. They are awful. But just a caveat about the Department of Insurance for your state... if your employer is what is called "self insured" then they are not regulated by the state Department of Insurance, they are regulated by a federal law called ERISA, and it's incredibly hard to get it overturned in federal court. So find out if your plan is ERISA or not... if you do have the option to appeal to the state board, you have a fighting chance.

I haven't had the surgery yet, but I have psoriatic arthritis and my rheumy said that the surgery can definitely help with auto-immune conditions because the stomach tissue taken out and the fat cells lost directly impact inflammatory levels. I know it won't cure my arthritis, but I'm hoping between the hormonal changes, inflammatory changes, and less weight to strain my joints it will help some.

We haven't had much activity there, but I started a group here for people with auto-immune and you're welcome to join.

http://www.bariatricpal.com/groups/455-sleeved-spoonies/

Mine was an automated bipap machine with built in monitoring. When I went over 3 weeks without incidents I gave it to my mom because her's died.

I wish mine was auto. I hate the doc at my sleep clinic, so I won't go back. My primary doc writes the script for my supplies. So when I need to start getting it adjusted as I lose weight I'll probably need to find a new clinic.

Ok, Psych eval done. That was strange. I mean, I get all the questions he asked about my health and other therapy I'd had, my weight, the surgery. But the questions about things in the news, repeating strings of numbers back to him... I'm wondering what the point of all that was. Anyway, I didn't get any vibe that there would be an issue.

One more weigh in with the diet supervising doctor on Friday.

And my primary said she needed to hold off writing the recommendation letter until I see her on the 11th to make sure the new BP med was doing its job, but otherwise she's all for the surgery. Just wants me to be safe and not get rejected by the anesthesiologist the day of the surgery.

So things are coming along swimmingly.

Different Cigna plans must have different requirements. My Open Access plan only required 3 months supervised, with no specific weight loss needed. So I just met with a doc 3 times and got weighed and talked about nutrition and choices. I also saw a nutritionist, but I'm not sure if that was because of insurance requirement or my surgeon's protocol.

I just got a Spanx Power Short to try because I forsee a lot of drawstring skirts in my near future as I lose weight, and I have horrible "chub rub". They are doing great. They aren't to the knee, but I know Spanx makes some that are. The other Spanx I have put a lot more compression, these are more like the compression in a spandex bike short. I'll very likely get a couple more of these.

My therapist doesn't like the surgery. She keeps pushing the health at every size thing, and thinks I'm pinning too much hope on the surgery to improve my quality of life. I don't think the surgery is going to cure anything, but losing weight will absolutely help a bunch of my chronic issues, and she just doesn't see that.

I'm seeing her because of food issues, but it's a pretty specific post traumatic stress thing. I mean, I do emotionally and stress eat, and we're also dealing with that, but I don't really do full-on binges. I started seeing her before I decided on the surgery, because these are issues I need to deal with whether I get the surgery or not. I'm not dumping her because we're doing good work on those issues. I just used a different therapist recommended by the bariatric surgeon for my surgery clearance so I didn't put my therapist in a position to approve me for a surgery she doesn't believe in. So we'll agree to disagree on the surgery, and focus on the issues I'm actually seeing her for.

I think that the mental health professionals who see a lot of body image issues develop a bias against the surgery because they see so many people who think the surgery will fix all of the problems in their life. Instead of rejecting the surgery outright, I think they would do better to help people realize that it can be *a* tool, but it is not a magic bullet.

Around where I live the goodwill selection is much better if you go to a location in or near the priciest part of town.

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I am relieved. My primary is happy I'm doing something about my weight, especially since my blood pressure is way high and didn't really come down after resting 20 min. So I'm getting a new BP med, and approval for surgery. The med well get discontinued after some of the initial weight comes off and I get more active. And this is one more co-morbidity to give the insurance company.

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Apparently my boss decided to have a meeting with my director about my surgery. I was then pulled into his office and told if I insisted on having my surgery on July 25th then he would have to cancel some of my coworkers requests for time off. He was basically trying to coworker quilt me into delaying my surgery. He told me about the long conversation he had with my boss and how it just wasn't the right time for my surgery. He asked me to move it to 8/15. I told him that 8/15 would have been perfectly acceptable when I was trying so hard to work with my boss but that now it was too late. My surgery has been scheduled and my FMLA paperwork had been filed. He had no idea that I had asked my boss for appropriate dates and that I had tried to do what was best for the department. I showed him the emails and he got red faced and was very upset. I guess his long meeting wasn't as informative as he thought.....

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They always say the one with the best (most) documentation wins. Good for you, making sure you had it all documented. Bosses need to learn they can't bully people. I hope yours learns the lesson.

This is a fantastic post, you're an inspiration.

I was also a "healthy fat person" for a long time, and then everything seemed to fall apart. I think my body was compensating for the weight until it couldn't. I am anxiously awaiting the last of the insurance requirements and approval, and am *so* ready to get on with it. I have no desire to run mudders, but am glad you enjoy it, you look so happy.

It's doctor week. I see my PCP this afternoon, and am stressing over what she will say. I do not want to have to fire her and find a new PCP while I'm trying to get this surgery approved. I'm really hoping she's just glad I'm finally doing something about my weight, she's been on my case about it for years.

Tomorrow I get my psych eval. I'm not worried about it in the slightest, it's just one more copay I have to deal with in this whole process. Though I do have to remember to put my checkbook in my purse, the doc only takes cash and checks.

Friday is my last weigh-in with the supervised diet. I don't think I've lost any weight, I have had real problems sticking to the diet for a number of reasons. My family and I sat down this weekend and had a heart-to-heart about what's going to have to change in the house food-wise. My daughter is worried about her weight, my husband wants to eat healthier, so this will happen. We just had too much going on the last month with family visiting and an upcoming trip and everything to really deal with it. But we have a plan for when we get back from vacay.

I'm really hoping that the insurance company doesn't throw any more roadblocks up. I have a gap between school semesters in August that would be ideal for the surgery, and things are (knock on wood) slow at work right now but are due to really pick up this fall. So I'm crossing my fingers for a quick approval and a surgery schedule that fits right in the gap.

We'll see.

@@theantichick What's the name of your hybrid mask. I'm intrigued.

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It's going to depend on your specific situation and your medical team. I have auto-immune arthritis and have to be able to take NSAIDs and steroids for my treatment. My rheumatologist actually recommended the sleeve. My surgeon also said that a bypass is not an option because of these meds, and the auto-immune rules out the band. These meds aren't just hard on your stomach while being digested, they also change some chemicals in your body and make you slightly more prone to ulcers, even if you take them through an injection or intravenously. For me, it's a cost/benefit analysis and my medical team and I have agreed I'll take them when needed. Some surgeons may not think it's worth the risk, and will recommend never taking them.

It's all about finding the right mask. I can't tolerate a full mask. Nasal pillows were comfy but my mouth opens and a chin strap didn't work. Finally found a hybrid mask with a mask piece that goes over the mouth and nasal pillows on the top. Sounds elaborate but it's super comfy for me. Absolutely keep it clean. I ended up with a machine that pumps ozone through to clean the tubes because I couldn't clean it often enough fit my allergies. I'm going to be done with mine not too long after the surgery.

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