MacMadame

My ds was born at Mercy. Anyway, Wasa says your lapband surgeon should have done at least 300 bands in her Researching Mexican Doctors thread.

This has nothing to do with anything, but when I lived in your area, I could see Grossmont Hospital from my front lawn. :rolleyes2:

I don't have any advice but I have definitely seen this in every place I've ever worked. There is always one person who really sucks but their boss doesn't see it. These people are really good at "managing up". I think the only way to defeat them is to become even better at it than they are.

It's easy to tell people they are stupid. But it's not very helpful.

You don't have to go to the home page. You can go to the forum home page. Just click on Forum instead of Home. Or type in: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/forum.html

Not if Dr. Phil is on there. Unless he's there to eat HIS words. All of them. About everything. :redface:

:redface: I think Oprah could benefit from a band. I'd love to watch her eat her WLS-hating words.

I just had one of those today. They are AWESOME. :tt2: They are also exactly the portions that the dietician showed me at my Nutritional evaluation. They are definitely more than 1/2 a cup of food! More like 1 to 1.5 cups. I will measure the next one before I eat it to be sure.

I've been biting my tongue about this, but I can't hold it in any longer. I hate that expression with the passion of a thousand fiery nuns! Maybe a million nuns. That's because every time I join a diet program, the people in it and the leaders say that. And then half the people drop out before they make goal and the rest gain their weight back. The truth is that food not only tastes great, it fills emotional needs. So in the short run, it often tastes better than being thin (an abstract concept that is far in the future for many) feels. My own motto is: I can do anything for 1 day. Or sometimes it's I can do anything for 2 hours or even 1 hour because that's all the willpower I have at that particular moment. I plan to use this motto a lot during the liquid and mushy stages.

I know some surgeon's offices say 1/2 cup, but if they also say eat only 3x a day (and most do), how could you possibly get in all your nutrients with real food? If you have 3oz of Protein at every meal, that's already over half a cup right there and you haven't even gotten to your vegetables. I wonder if they say 1/2 c. because most people are so bad about estimating and they figure if they say 1/2 c., you'll eat 1 cup.

I would want my surgeon to have done at least 250 Lap-bands. I would prefer if they did RnY or other bariatric surgeries too, but I wouldn't count it as lap-band experience.

I think they have more problems, personally. The complications after RnY are many because of the malabsorption. If you are interested, there are boards for RnY where you can lurk and see what kind of complications they have. ObesityHelp.com has boards for all the different types of surgery so you can look in on them all.

I was told only 3 meals a day. You can't do that if you get hungry 2 hours later. I get hungry 2 hours later now and part of why I want the band is to get that up to 4 hours. At my nutritional consult, the dietician said normal hunger is to be hungry every 3-4 hours. I think I would like slightly abnormal hunger -- say 4 to 5 hours. :tongue_smilie:

Aw, I liked Shallow Hal. I agree that there were Hollywood Fat (i.e., not true to life) moments but I thought it was sweet underneath. Hairspray is probably the best "fat acceptance" movie out there and it really isn't even about that. (Which is probably why it succeeds.)

When I was 11, all the girls in my grade had "training" bras. I was the only one who actually had something to put in them. Dd has been begging me for a bra since she was 7! She actually has something now at NINE so I did get her some training bras and camisoles. It's not really enough for a real bar but enough that I don't want to just grab her anywhere any more. My mom got hers at 11 ... I'm hoping dd won't be quite that early. I got mine at 12.75 which is right on the average apparently but I am sure I was the only kid in my class in JH who had it.

I gave up diet soda to see if I could. If figured if I couldn't, I would probably not be a good band candidate. It was a worry of mine because I drank caffeine-free diet coke EVERY SINGLE DAY. Sometimes up to 6 of them! The other day I was thirsty at a work event and there was no Water available, just beer, wine, soda and juice, so I decided to have one anyway since I still haven't got a band. It was DISGUSTING. I don't understand what I saw in it. It wasn't refreshing at all. I poured all but two sips (I couldn't believe it was really that bad after the first sip, so I had another one. Guess I'm hard to convince. :tongue_smilie: ) Anyway, my point is... it's sometimes not as hard to give up stuff you think is your favorite as you think it will be. I didn't think I could give it up at all -- but I gave it up easily and now I don't even like it.

The surgeon's office should submit your pre-diet weight diet. That's how it's usually works.

Yeah, I can see them now too. I thought I had gotten a rep comment, but I guess I hadn't until then.

I was watching Good Luck Chuck and it really annoyed me how Chuck took the fat woman on a date and she ate something like 3 lobsters and was just pigging out, food spewing every where. That is just not realistic. Most of the time, when I go out to eat, I don't eat more than everyone else. I eat about as much as the woman and less than guys. Of course, two hours later I'm hungry and eat something else while they aren't hungry for hours, but they don't see that part.

I only clean out my cache when I am seeing old stuff instead of new stuff. Even then I don't generally clean out the whole thing. I just refresh the page with the Option key held down. (It's probably a different key on Windows.) That tells the browser not to use the cache. Sometimes the browser uses an old copy in the cache instead of getting a fresh copy from the server because it doesn't realize that it's been updated. This happens a lot when a web site gets a face lift.

But it's something people need to be aware of ... that it can happen. With all these surgeries, there is a risk of weight regain. With bypass and the sleeve, the stomach gets stretched out by people over-eating. With lap band, people eat around their bands.

Yes, that definitely happens.

I looked into gastric sleeves when I decided to get a Lap Band. I even watched a surgery on that OR Live channel. (I swear I am addicted to that channel. ) Basically, they put a tube into your stomach and run a staple line up the tube. Then they take the tube out and you have a stomach the shape of a tube. The rest of the stomach gets cut off and thrown away. There is no restriction and your stomach functions completely normally, it is just much smaller.

After you are pre-certified, they'll begin the pre-op testing and other requirements. How much you have to do and how long it takes depends on your insurance and your surgeon's program. For the co-pay, it's just going to depend. It seems bariatric surgeons are all over the place -- some want it upfront, some bill you after they get reimbursed from insurance, some want it all at once, some have payment plans, etc.

Everyone has their own comfort level with the risks of WLS vs. being obese. I was once at a point that you were ... I had no big health problems associated with being overweight and I didn't let it interfere with my life ... or so I thought. Of course, I couldn't wear the kind of clothes I wanted to wear because they didn't come in my size, I ice danced for 10 years and never found a partner, and a host of other small things that I was so used to that I just accepted them. But still, overall, I was happy and WLS was not for me. Maybe it's not for you right now either. I would ask myself a couple of questions: Are the negatives of the band something you can live with? Are the positives things that seem positive to you? Have you dieted successfully before but gained it all back and, if so, what makes you think this time is going to be different? Are the risk factors something I can live with? Are the lifestyle changes that are required something I can live with?