MacMadame

They've been banding longer in Europe than they have in the US so I can't imagine it will be a problem finding someone. Insurance might be an issue though.

I don't have that section. Weird.

Naw, the grades are BS too ... I'm 50 and no one has ever asked me about my HS grades and I only got asked about my college grades the first couple of years out of school when going on job interviews. Good grades in HS will make it easier to get into college, but once you are accepted to college, they become meaningless.

There is someone in Fremont doing this surgery?! Oh wait, I forgot about Kaiser. Did you have your surgery there? I drive by there all the time. I don't have Kaiser and the closest East Bay doctors I could find were at Alta Bates in Oakland and ValleyCare in Pleasanton. The Oakland guy hadn't done enough lap bands for my comfort level though.

Just go for body fat percentage and waist to hip ratio and forget BMI. Not only is it too "one size fits all" but it's not based on the best data.

I really don't know what the answer is, but it makes me nervous to see people who haven't finished growing having surgery and getting foreign objects implanted in their bodies. This is elective surgery when it comes down to it, so why not elect to wait a few years? It may seem like forever to you now, but 3-5 years is nothing in the scheme of things.

You could always have Free Sale too. It's like a garage sale but you don't charge any money.

I'm new and haven't even been banded yet. But feel free to not believe me either.

oops. didn't see someone post this exact same info.

I am thinking about switching from Aetna (WLS not covered by my company) to UCH (WLS covered if you have co-morbidities) and from what I can tell, the requirements really seem to differ depending on which UHC policy you have. Which makes me nervous. I think I am going to call and ask for their policy in writing before I definitely switch at Open Enrollment. But if they don't require the 6 month diet, that would be great since I can't switch until Aug and I want to have surgery in Oct.

I have been told that since they changes the weight history requirement to only 2 years instead of 5 that they've become much easier to deal with by a surgeon's office. Doesn't help me, though, my company excludes the surgery.

I'm a photographer and I'm not a guy. I think I got you confused with PhotoEgor.

Oh there are more of us. Unfortunately not enough to stop him from appearing in enough places that I can't avoid him no matter how much I try. I think it's more that people don't listen than that they weren't told. There was some study about how much info people retain from their doctors visits and it's something really low like 30%. It's interesting that HH went for lap band. Lots of people post here that over a certain weight their surgeons try to steer them towards RnY and maybe that would have been a better option for him.

Bemused? Is that why in the very first sentence of your very first post you say "I'll assume that some of my comments won't be all that popular here"? Then you don't "get it" at all. We have no problem with you telling us about your complications. If we did, there wouldn't be an entire section on complications and another whole sections on "life after banding". The problem is that you are on a mission to stop everyone from getting a lap band because you had problems. :thumbup: Except you seem to think your mistake was in getting a band to start with. I think you mistake was not getting your port infection taken care of right away and also letting your insurance lapse instead of paying the big fat COBRA fee.

Actually, if I were in your position, I wouldn't be posting here at all. But if I did, I would type out the whole story ahead of time in Word and go over it and over it to make sure I was communicating clearly. I would take a few days to do that too, working on it slowly. Then I would post that as my first post. All the details up front. Not in bits and pieces. I would also cut out all the drama. Drama is fun for the person having the hissy fit but it turns everyone else off. Finally, I would recognize that my problem is one that a very small % of people have and the fact that I was one of the unlucky ones doesn't mean that no one else should have this surgery. Only if you define "a LOT" as "less than 1%". I'm amazed that you can't see that the lap band is a great decision for the vast majority of morbidly obese people and the fact that you had a port infection and erosion issues doesn't change that. I don't have to justify my decision because I've done the research and I know the risks. I know that can happen. The risk is low enough that I am comfortable taking it. Someone else might not. But neither of us is wrong or burying our head in the sand. Everyone's cost-benefit analysis is going to be different. As for people jumping in when all the facts aren't known, whose fault is THAT? You are the one who chose to dribble out the facts a bit at a time. We are debating what you are presenting. <o:p></o:p> I think you are the one who isn't objective. Something bad happened to you, therefore the surgery is bad seems to be your reasoning but that isn't logical. So don't do it. Ignore those comments and concentrate on the questions about what exactly happened to you. The questions you wouldn't have to answer if you had posted the whole story in your first post, btw. <o:p></o:p> Speaking of snippy... seems you can dish it out, but you can't take it. <o:p></o:p> No, I'm saying you should have perspective and concentrate on helping people going through what you are and not on trying to convince a bunch of people that they are idiots for having a lap band when the data doesn't support that conclusion. <o:p></o:p> That wasn't the idea. Once you make the blog, you put a link to it in your signataure. Then you go where people are who are thinking about having surgery (most of whom are not on this site) and you post a bit about your story and direct them to your blog for the rest. You will actually get more people to read your story this way and it's a lot less effort than going to every Lap Band site and posting in every forum your entire story over and over. After all, those threads will eventually die, but with a link in your signature, info about your blog could be on every post you make even if it's in the social section of the board or on a board not even about lap band. Btw, there are plenty of people who like to stir up trouble in the internet. They come here and post about how someone they know had lap band and THEY DIED and beg us not to have the surgery and then they sit back and lurk and watch the fur fly. Or they post some answers to some of the questions but ignore most of the rest and are really just posting to keep the drama going. You can't expect people to think you couldn't possibly be one of those people unless you post with credibility. While I believe your story, I don't think you've posted with as much credibility as you could and I'm not the least bit surprised that people are pushing you to supply more information before they will believe you. I am surprised that you expected to be believed right off the bat just because you said so. That's not realistic. People make up crap on internet message boards every day. We'd be dumb to just take everything posted here as the gospel truth. And, in spite of what you think, I am not dumb.

Can I get in on this following around thing? :thumbup:

My boobs haven't been pretty in years. So losing weight isn't going to change anything but what not-pretty size they are. :thumbup:

Okay ... why did I think you were a guy?!?! Most places want you to lose some weight but they don't want you to lose it before they officially weigh you in if you are borderline. I'm in that place myself. I want to start losing weight now but the surgeon doesn't want to see me for a consult until my new insurance kicks in so I can't lose weight for a couple of months. Which means I'm not having my surgery any time in the next six months. Ugh. I'm not sure why they want you to lose 5 lb. before the liquid diet but it may be a screening thing. There are definitely people out there who wouldn't be able to do it and the program might want to screen them out right up front so that they are doing the surgery only on the people most likely to succeed. UCSD is a great facility, with an excellent reputation. But if you decide that there are too many people there that you don't want to deal with on a long-term basis, there are other surgeons in your area. Plus you are close to Mexico. If I still lived in SD, I would have given up on my insurance ages ago and made an appointment with Dr. Rumbaut. In fact, I'm still thinking about it ...

I don't know why IOW and OTOH and stuff like that isn't annoying but U and UR is. But it just is!

How about on the Wide World of Webs? In fact, it's still the most common WLS. There are definitely people who make WLS a big racket. It's discouraging to me because I hate feeling like if I don't pay attention every single second, I'm going to be taken advantage of. Plus when I started on this journey, I figure it would be like any other medical procedure ... now I've got insurance issues, am petrified I'll pick a surgeon with a high erosion or slippage stat and lots of other crap I wouldn't have to worry about if I were just getting my gallbladder out. It wasn't that good. It was just "go listen to Tony Robins". I don't hate Tony Robins as much as I hate Dr. Phil, but I still hate him enough not to go listen to him. :wink2: He never said his colon was perforated. He said the port had separated from the band and traveled to his colon. I think it's likely he's telling the truth. Lap bands do erode and once they are in the stomach, they can travel. But I think there are lots of things he's leaving out. Like the port sticking out ... I bet that happened before the incision healed 100%, for example. And that stuff about how he's in danger of dying from the operations .... sure, taking a lap band out of the stomach isn't going to be a piece of cake, but I wonder if at least half of the 'I might die!" is because he has a really high BMI and any surgery would be dangerous. If he had just come here, posted in Lap Band Complications a straightforward version of his story and left out all the drama and the condensing preaching, it probably would all be more believable. It sure as hell wouldn't have been half as annoying. Ha. If he does that, we'll be all over him like ants on honey. There are several photographers on here who can spot a photoshop fake a mile away.

I still want to know what NMU means. Wah!

It's not weird at all. That's exactly how everyone works. It's just that some of us have yo-yo dieted ourselves into bodies that think they should be 225 or 340 or some other really high and dangerous number. (Or we have a health condition that sets our number that high.) Maybe you'll be lucky and 170-ish will remain your number. It's a lot easier to tell a 170 body that it's number is really 145 than it is when your body is screaming for the calories of a 225 pound person. I know this from experience! Aw, it's probably not that deep and dark. There are workbooks you can buy that help you work through your mental issues, if you don't want to do it through traditional therapy. Most people can work through them in months, not years.

I believe it. I can see that Headhunter has got "religion". He's like the guy who just quit smoking and wants to tell everyone how dangerous smoking is. Only he had lap band surgery and it went horribly wrong and he wants to save other people from that. This is very understandable, but it can also be very annoying. :rolleyes2: I think in this case the problem is that you didn't communicate clearly. Because lots of people got the impression you were saying that this is part of why you had problems, not just the ones who don't believe you. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> Obesity happens for very complex reasons. If it was as easy as "don't eat too much of the wrong stuff" then diets would work for more than 2% of the population.Look, Headhunter, the stuff you are recommending DOES. NOT. WORK. for the majority of people. WLS has a much higher success rate. Even if Tony Robins and the Fast food Nation works for you and you keep your weight off 10 years from now (and you don't know yet if that will happen because it hasn't been that long), you will be one of a very, very small percentage that that stuff works for. Telling people who have struggled with their weight for years, been in therapy for it, taking drugs for it, gone through various WL programs for it, etc. that they should just try one more time because WLS is dangerous is the kind of crapy advice and pressure that people who have never struggled with morbid obesity pull. It's about 100x more inappropriate and annoying coming from someone who has been there and should really know better. If you really want to save people from themselves, this is my advice to you: 1) This is a support board and there are two sections -- complications and life after band -- where you will be able to get and give ample support from/to people with complications or who are worried about complications. People who are researching the band are also lurking there and may be moved by your story -- your "target audience" as you call them. 2) Start a blog -- take the time to tell your story right rather than scattershot postings on random message boards and make sure what you post is okay with your lawyer. 3) Go to places where your target audience *really* is. Like a dieting site. By the time people get here, it's well past the point where hearing one horror story is going to have a major impact. 4) Tell us the name of the doctor and hospital where you had your original surgery done. That way, we can avoid the place if it's on our list of places we're considering the surgery. :tongue: Obviously, you don't have to do any of this. But if you really want to stop people from getting WLS, I think you should at least think about it. After all, that's exactly what you ask those us without bands to do. :biggrin:

Also, the OP titled the thread "will any surgeon help me" and the honest answer is "Not in the US". It may suck but it's the reality of the band at this point in time. Even in Mexico, you need comorbidities if your BMI is under 35 -- and even then not all surgeons will do it. Yes there are studies being done on the band with people with BMIs in the 30-35 range. But, as far as I have been able to tell from my research on clinical trials, they've already got all their subjects and aren't accepting new ones.

The Lap Band complications rate is amazingly low and the mortality rate is even lower. The band has been around since the 80s. It's been widely used in the rest of the world since the mid-90s. That's about 20 years worth of data including several long-term studies that follow lap band patients for over a decade. If it really was a death trap, if it really didn't work for most people, we'd know it by now. I'm sorry that you were one of the rare people with complications. I hope you find some good support in the Complications and the Life without a Band sections of the board. But if your only purpose in being here is to talk people out of a surgery that they've researched extensively, done a good cost-benefit analysis on and have come to the decision that is right for them, I predict you won't get much out of being here.