MacMadame

Dr. Barker does a lot of sleeves and his patients are very happy with him. That's a great price too.

Ha, ha. My grandparents had a bidet in one apartment they rented. Using the toilet was an "interesting" experience.

But if it continues to work for you.... Even in that scary Swedish study-- that I find suspect --where they had 40% requiring re-surgery by the 10 year mark, that means 60% didn't. So more than half were fine. Plus I think that the real number is probably closer to 25%. Plus, once you have a band, it's really slippage and erosion that are the biggies. Those rates are much lower. They were high enough that I didn't want one put in, but are definitely not high enough to take out a functioning band IMO.

Have they said they'll be embarrassed? I think we all worry too much about this stuff. It sucks to be fat in today's society where you constantly get the subtle (and not so subtle) putdowns and you are constantly "failing" at dieting. But our family is supposed to love us for whom we are and most of the time they do. :thumbup:

It depends on your insurance. You might want to ask in the Insurance forum. There are a lot of people there comparing notes about how to get approved.

Welcome to LapBandTalk. I love this site and I hope you do too!

Other people have been successful with submitting a picture diary. Sometimes the insurance companies like to see weight going up and down and up and down, too. It shows a history of yo-yo dieting. So it might be in your interest -- if they say they want a 2 year history -- to submit 5 years worth of pictures instead. I'm a bit shocked your doctor's office shreds records like that. How can you have good care if they only know what happened to you in the past 3 years? Do they have the records on computer instead? Honestly, if my PCP only kept records for 3 years, I'd leave her.

He might, but what would your boyfriend say?

Yeah, I told my surgeon I was going to have problems with this. But then I forgot all about it. Until it happened. I'm not one that responds well to negative reinforcement so I think that's part of the problem.

Unlike myself. :thumbup:

In my Post-op bible, it says expect 10-20 lb. the first month and 5-10 lb. after that. I've also seen at lot of people do 50% excess weight at the 6 month mark and goal at around 1 year. But a lot of this depends on how much you have to lose. Plus some lose faster and some lose slower than that. I've seen lightweights (BMI 40 or less) get to goal in 6 months. You have about 2-3 months before surgery, you can get a head start and that will help. For example, I was at 30% EWL at day of surgery (that took 7 months though) so it probably won't take me 6 months to get to 50%. It will probably be more like 2-3 months for me. OTOH, are you really doing to miss your brother's wedding because you don't want a bunch of people you never see to see you at less than your absolute best? Family is important; what relative strangers think of us is not.

I'm definitely not enjoying mushies as much as I thought I would.

Yeah, I know it's crazy to be so excited over oatmeal. It actually wasn't that good either. But it's not a "thin liquid" so I'm VERY excited! :wink2:

Congrats on joining the "loser's bench" and welcome to LBT. If you want to know about support groups, I think the NY state forum would be an excellent place to ask. Good luck finding one.

I did but I also changed my diet to have more protein and less carbs and I think eating carbs makes you crave them.

The issue with the donor violations is that in this new era people can donate $10 every week through the internet and put whatever info down they want. Both campaigns are dealing with this issue, but Obama more so because he's got more small donors than McCain. All these guys can do is comb through the records looking for suspicious donations and return the ones that aren't legal. And that's what they are doing. Most of the ones we here about are found first by the campaigns and have already been returned before the press even gets wind of it. So I don't see it as a !skandal! The voter registration thing, OTOH...

Ugh, I keep eating too fast. Mushies isn't turning out to be as much fun as I thought it would be.

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. You look like a monkey ... oh wait, that's the 9 year old version... Happy Birthday, dear Alex Happy Birthday to you.

I'm 5'1" and weighed only 206 when I had my consult (I was 223 when I started the whole process though.) I don't think the superiority of the sleeve is all about how high your BMI is. However, there is a concern with some surgeons that someone with a higher BMI won't lose enough with the band. So maybe that's why your surgeon recommended it to you.

I'm only 3+ weeks out but just starting on mushies and still eating too fast. I'm really bad about eating fast and about paying attention. What happens to me is that I get a pain in my breast bone. Once I had to barf up a bit to feel comfortable. The rest of the time, I just stop eating and the feeling fades. I get it while drinking too because I keep forgetting and drinking too fast. But obviously liquid doesn't get "stuck". Keep in mind, there is no stoma with the sleeve like there is with a band. That means food doesn't really get "stuck" or at least that much. It can be painful and you can get "foamies" if you eat too much or too fast, but it's not exactly the same as when a piece of food just won't go down because it's too big to pass through the band's stoma. When I was looking into both, one of the things that struck me was how many banded people had trouble with all sorts of foods compared to how many sleeved people had trouble. Most sleeve people can eat anything, or almost anything, once they get past the first 6-12 months.

Slippage has nothing to do with your port. It's when your band loosens up or moves and often a piece of the rest of the stomach rolls up under the band and gets pinched. If it doesn't get addressed immediately, you risk having that part of the stomach tissue die, which can be very serious. Sometimes slippage can be fixed by simply unfilling the band. Sometimes if you do that, the pinched part will slide back down where it's supposed to b and the band settles back in place. Unfortunately, though, once you slip once, you tend to be prone to slippage. Equally unfortunately sometimes an unfill isn't enough to get the band and stomach back where they can be and the band has to be removed.

I think Tyra *is* actually a role model in this area. She has gone on record as saying the tabs are crazy and, while she has gained a bit, she's no where near fat in real life and is proud of her curves. In other areas.... well, least said about that the better.

Hypertension is a co-morbidity for a lot of insurances. So is sleep apnea and a LOT of us have/had it. So maybe you can get tested for that.

I'm not an experienced bandster so I can't help with that, but I wanted to say: Welcome to LapbandTalk!

Oh, Jachut, how I love you. (er, not like THAT. ew.)