MacMadame

People talk. Butter, butter, butter! (I'm not feeling annoyed enough for LARD. I can't check in my changes because the stupid build won't work. I've been waiting since 7pm!)

But it's arbitrary. It assumes that "last resort" is the same for everyone. Chemo isn't preventative though. People do get their breast cut off when they have a family history of breast cancer--the virulent kind that kills you. Surgeons are often in the forefront of treating new diseases. Their work often helps us understand the disease well enough to come up with non surgical treatments. I see a lot of breakthroughs coming out in the next 5 to 10 years, at least some of them non-surgical now that we understand about ghrelin -- which was only discovered in 1999. When there are other viable choices, less and less people will get surgery. Not I think surgery is always the last choice. Sometimes it's less risky than non-surgical alternatives. I got my gallbladder out when it had stones instead of having the stones smashed by a laser and taking medicine for 2 years to dissolve them, for example, and I'd do it again if I had the same choice to make over again.

Well, lard is a four-letter word .... LARD, LARD, LARD!! (At least I'm home now.)

I'm sorry, but no one who is morbidly obese is completely healthy and I'd argue that (almost) no one who is obese is completely healthy either. You may not have outward signs, but your inside are feeling the extra weight and it's going to come out and bite ya eventually. I understand your attitude because I used to have it but now that I've finally accepted that I can't do this on my own, I find my previous attitude towards surgery to be misguided. Whether or not people have tried things is not a function of their weight. Some people who are 300 lb. have never tried anything, not really tried. Personally, I have been dieting since I was 13. I once lost 70 lb. and got down to a normal weight and kept it off for a few years. I've been on Jenny Craig, I've been on WW, I've been on Nutri/system. I did Atkins back in the 70s when only crackpots did it. I've even done it on my own. Getting surgery is not about lack of effort on my part. It's about finally realizing that doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result is madness. It's about finally being willing to do something extreme because it works and my fears of the extremeness of it being outweighed by the fears of what would happen if I didn't do anything about it. But let's say I hadn't... should it really matter? We know that diet and exercise doesn't work once you have a significant amount of weight to lose. We even know why. Why should we force people to try something that we know won't work for them and also make them be in an unhealthy state for years (2 to 5 depending on the insurance company) before we're willing to give them a medical treatment that actually works? I think it's madness. Can you imagine if we made cancer patients have to prove their worthiness for chemo? Or if we wouldn't give them treatment that works until they'd spent two years trying herbs and hypnosis? Just imagine the uproar! None of this is about health or doing what makes sense medically IMO. It's about making people prove they are worthy. Frankly, I don't approve.

Butter! Butter! Butter! (I need to swear a bit. I'm still at work again and my programming isn't going well.)

I think the mental game is the hardest part of this process. Just wait until your outsides match your insides... people will not put you in the Fat Club and will talk about Fat People around you as if you aren't one of them. That will be weird too. In the meantime, just look at them funny. I find my "mom" look shuts up more than my kids.

I wish more people had a sense of humor.

That's not really true. In the US we use the NIH standards but the band was developed outside the US and they use different standards. They will band anyone who is obese, which is a BMI of 30 or above. You don't have to wait to be morbidly obese like you do here. There have been some studies of "low" BMI'ers and the band and they are finding that it works great if you are "only" 50 lb. overweight. It works much better than it does for higher BMIs, in fact. So the thinking is changing that this can be preventative for those who are already past the point of no return with weight. If you have 50 lb. or more to lose, you are not looking at good odds with dieting and exercising. But having WLS will help you and you are more likely to lose all your excess weight and keep it off, thus never developing the problems that the morbidly obese get. I see the NIH changing their criteria over the next couple of years. Hopefully insurance companies will fall in line and it will be easier to get WLS.

At first I thought Cheryl was joining in the fun. But alas, she was serious.

Not mine. They are already long and droopy. Losing weight will just make them flatter but they'll still be long and droopy.

My "rock bottom" was 223. When I hear people whose goal is 200, I think "nooooooooo, aim higher" but then they turn out to be 6 ft or something and 200 is a normal BMI for them. Maybe it would be better if the poll said 100 or less lbs. to lose instead of below 200 lb.

I'm not mad at you. I'm just mad.

Just asking this question pisses me off. I really hate it when people try to grade "need" like this. I hate it when people moan that they are so heavy that they really *need* this surgery because they are 200 lbs. overweight while other people are "only" 100 lb. overweight and don't deserve it as much as them. That's just as ridiculous as this question. ANYONE WHO IS OBESE DESERVES AND NEEDS WLS! Once you are obese, dieting doesn't work and your risk of dying from obesity increases dramatically from being "just" overweight. I hate, hate, hate that in the US you have to wait until you are morbidly obese to get this surgery. It should be available to everyone who has a BMI of 30 or more. Would you ask if a diabetic needs insulin even if their numbers weren't as bad as some other diabetic? No. It's recognized that they have a disease and insulin is an excellent treatment for it and the doctor just prescribes it without the patient having to jump through hoops to prove they are worthy of it. Obesity is a disease too and WLS is the only treatment we have that works. Asking if obese people deserve WLS is treating obesity like a lifestyle choice and you earn the treatment by how much you've suffered. Most of the insurance requirements are like this... you have to be obese or morbidly obese for so many years, you have to do a 6 month diet even though there is no clinical evidence to support this requirement, etc., etc. It's stupid and wrong.

Ooh, I hate it when docs do that. I know they are trying to set realistic expectations but to convince their patients to aim for mediocrity is not how you have a successful program IMO. I went to a seminar where they said "these are the averages" and "you should aim for at least the average". My response: I'm outta here baby!

If it's an exclusion, you have to fight your company and convince them to buy the coverage. If it's an exclusion 'except in cases of medical necessity' you have to fight the insurance company to prove it's medically necessary. I have the first sort of exclusion ... and my company is an enormous company that prides itself on it's great benefits package so I am PISSED ... but I decided to go self-pay and work with them so future people don't have to go through what I went through.

Tell him that he needs to go to counseling to help fix you. Guys love to fix things. :thumbup:

Sometimes I think that if I never went on that first diet back at age 13, I would never be where I am today. Then I look at my parents and my sibs and I realize I'm probably fooling myself. :thumbup:

Jacqui, you don't look a day over 35 and even then you could pass for younger.

But not everyone is there. Some people are still in a destructive place where following off the wagon is not just making a mistake but an indication that you are not worthwhile as a person. food is "good" and "bad" and your food choices make you "good" or "bad". The way I got out of that place was to absolutely stop dieting. I quit it cold turkey about 3 years ago and started working on repairing my relationship with food. I was hoping if I did that, I would lose weight -- pretty slowly probably -- but it would happen because I was listening to my body. Unfortunately, my body is full of ghrelin and what it says is YOU'RE HUNGRY! So when I listen to it, I hover around 220-223. Then, this WLS journey I've started on is constantly trying to suck me back into the dieter's mentality where all your self-worth is tied up in food and your own food choices. I think it's pretty difficult for people who have been dieting all their adult life and still think of dieting as being a good thing that people who care about themselves do to make themselves healthy, to shut off those voices in their heads telling themselves they are bad because they ate something bad. There is a fine line between following the rules -- something that is essential for WLS to work --and defining yourself by what you eat. Not everyone stays on the right side of the line and I think that's understandable.

Ignore is an amazing awesome thing. It allows you to be out on the internet where anyone can post anything including some of the stupidest stuff I've ever seen and you don't have to see any of it! :thumbup: At my figure skating board, I have over 60 people on ignore. You will not believe some of the stupid crap people will get into over their favorite figure skaters. At least on a support board, people are more on their best behavior. Believe it or not. That really bothers me that people were mean to you after your article. But I find it very believable after reading all the stupid comments people post on the web for most WLS articles. It was because of your article that I realized that I might actually get down to 120 like all the charts say and it would be okay and I would look fine. It also made me realize that PS is not shallow and a waste of money, but that for some people it's actually reconstructive. So it did help people even if you don't know about all of them and had to put up with loons.

Sounds like it's time for some marriage counseling. Doubly time! Some guys aren't good at talking about feelings. Sometimes have a 3rd part who is fluent in "guy" can really help.

I hurt my toe yesterday too but today it's fine. Yeah, chincillas. Maybe they do fart. But if they do, it's really quiet and doesn't smell.

This thread has been awesome. I now have 6 new people on ignore because of it.

I think you should ask him what he meant. Maybe he meant "I'm settling". Maybe he meant "I wouldn't have picked you originally, but now that I have, I'm in love with you." But you don't know until you ask.

Our chins don't fart.