MacMadame

Is it time yet? :thumbup:

The way I look at it is: if the world-wide rate for a complication is something like 2% and a surgeon has 2, 3 even 5x the normal rate, that's still 90% of his patients that don't experience that complication. Therefore, the fact that a doctor has patients who haven't had complications, doesn't mean he's a good doctor. Yes, all doctors have patients who get complications and all doctors have patients who don't get complications. But wouldn't you rather go to a doctor with a 2% complication rate over one with a 10% complication rate? I know I would.

Heck, I know so much about good nutrition, I could GIVE the nutritional consult. Which is why when my dh asked why not go see a nutritionist instead of getting a band, I seriously had to decide if I was going to let him live. :ohmy:

My surgeon recommends coming in once a year for a check-up after the 2 year mark. Before that, you are coming in more often. I've never heard of a bypass being reversable. The stomach is stapled into two pouches and pieces of the intestine are cut off and placed somewhere else. There are plenty of bypass patients would love to have their bypass reversed due to complications, but that doesn't happen. You can always take the band out if your complications require it.

Until we have a better idea of both the causes of obseity and how to cure it, I don't want the government coming in and telling some family that all they have to do is sign their kids up for some sports and their weight will come off and they won't do that, they'll lose their kids. How many of us were told "just start going to gym and your weight will come off"? I bet most of us. And how well did that work? I'm guessing not too well or we wouldn't be getting banded. Obesity is a complex issue and some social worker with no expertise in the matter is going to break up a family unit over her (or his) own preconceived notions about how to deal with weight. Frankly, I'm horrified.

lapbandjourney.com is an alternate link to the lapband.com website run by Allergan, btw.

No, you shouldn't get the band removed at goal weight. It's meant to be permanent. You would only take it for medical reasons (i.e., some sort of medical emergency). The band works by controlling hunger and portion size. If you take it out when you reach goal weight, you'll go back to be hungry all the time, start overeating, and gain all your weight back like you have with previous diets. (You being "anyone who gets a band".)

How can that happen? The band is on the outside. :biggrin:

Except the mortality rate for bypass is a lot higher than from lap band surgery. That's a big one for me.

That's the one I'm talking about. :crying: I've shot for 16 hours with only 20 min. breaks with that thing. Standing on concrete the entire time. Towards the end of the event, I'm kind of leaning up against the hockey box, hopping a strong wind doesn't blow through the rink. :wub: I'm assuming weddings are a bit easier on the body. I know they pay better. :thumbup:

My experience with shooting like that is that it's more stressful on your body than a non-photographer might realize. Definitely take it easy and let someone else carry everything. How heavy is your camera? My 1D is about 5-6 lb and my biggest lens is another 5-6 lb. That's 10-12 lb. without the tripod and my shooting events usually last 12-16 hours. I assume the wedding will be shorter. :crying: OTOH, I'm just using a monopod so I'm still hefting a lot of weight. Maybe a tripod will be easier. I'd still take it easy and let the second shooter do most of the work.

What I don't understand is why someone would think that hearing some story (probably 2nd or 3rd hand) about someone having a bad experience would suddenly completely change whether or not getting banded was a good idea. Am I missing something? Something can go wrong with every medical procedure, whether elective or otherwise. It's not like the idea that something can go wrong is a totally new one you haven't considered at all prior to now, right? I think it's kind of cool you told her you weren't interested. I probably would have listened just to be polite and then been seething all day about it.

I wouldn't worry about it until you are at goal. The weight comes off different parts of our body at different rates. Right now I'm thinking it's coming off your bottom faster than your top. Eventually, you'll run out of bottom, though, and more will come off the waist and the top. However, even thin people don't always have perfect figures so you may have certain styles that will never really work for you. At least now that you are mostly in the regular sizes, you have more choices. :crying: You may have to get your tops in one kind of store and your bottoms in another. But right now I have only two stores in my town whose clothes fit me at all so I'm looking forward to having more choices even though I know my proportions are always going to be an issue for things like dresses even when I'm at goal.

I tried a Capri Sun to do thingie today and no heartburn. Then I did a Fruit Punch Crystal Light To Do and I'm getting heartburn. It's just so weird. I'm going to try using hot Water and see if that makes the difference.

I prefer the Daily Plate too.

Something I learned a long time ago was to only keep clothes around in the size that I am. I spent so much time hating my body and not being happy with it when it was actually a pretty decent body and I don't want to be like that any more. Accepting the size I am and buying close that fit the me that I am is part of htat. Congrats to all the non-plus sized people. I hope to join you some day! :crying:

I believe that I am fat because I am hungry all the time and my metabolism is not what it should be. Plus, I tend to prefer sedentary activities. I am not sure why I am hungry all the time, but it seems to be related to entering puberty. My metabolism is not what it should be, because I fell into the trap of yo-yo dieting. As for being sedentary, my body has always fought to be at rest. My mom would make me go outside to play and I would sneak out a book and find a place to sit and read. I wish I could go back in time and never start that first diet when I was 13. Maybe the rest of it never would have happened, if I had loved my body when it was beautiful and accepted myself as I was. I tell myself that I’d be about 150 and healthy as a horse -- overweight, but not morbidly obese. But who knows? Maybe my hunger never would have fixed itself. I do know that dieting has made everything worse. But I don’t know what it would have been if I hadn’t dieted ever. That's the short answer. :biggrin2:

Saying you are a better candidate for bypass isn't the same thing as saying you need bypass, though. Surgeons have their own ways of evaluating the risk and benefits of different WLS. Their values and beliefs about how to weigh the risks and benefits aren't yours. So you need to find out *why* they recommend one procedure over the other and then decide if that is a compelling argument to *you*. In my case, there is no compelling argument that will convince me to have any WLS that involves cutting up my internal organs in a permanent way and especially not anything that involves malabsorption. So my choices at this time are between Lap band and not getting surgery at all. If you feel the same, you need to say so to the doctor during your first consultation. If he continues to push bypass, then you need to find a different surgeon. But most likely, if you explain yourself well and show that you understand the issues, he will say "okay" and happily do the lap band.

There is evidence that some aspects of obesity are genetic.

I want to be a competitive ballroom dancer.

DH is watching the 10 Commandments. I'm in another room to escape. That's fun enough for me though I'm thinking about going into an even different room to watch Mythbusters. Now THAT's my idea of fun!

Um... well, okay. :wub:

Here's what I've gotten from Google: There are about 7-8 band manufacturers. However, three seem to be the main manufacturers and only two of them have their bands FDA approved. As far as I can tell, the 3rd hasn't started the FDA process and doesn't seem to be interested in doing so. Of the two bands available in the US, one is made by Allergan (they bought it from Inamed) and is called the Lap-band®. The original bands they did clinical trials on have been upgraded a bit so there are currently quite a number of sizes and styles out there. The newest bands are called the AP System and come in two sizes. This style has just recently been introduced in the US though they've been used in other countries for a while. The improvements include making the reservoir (where the saline goes) go 360 degrees around, making it wider (supposed to help with slippage), and having it semi-divided into sections. Their web site is here: Home WARNING: it plays music. And if you wait long enough, some lady talks to you. (Man, I hate that) The other company is Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson company, and they bought their band from a company in Sweden and renamed it from the Swedish Band to the Realize Band. It already had a reservoir that goes around 360 and is in the new wide style that most modern bands use. The plastic is softer (supposed to help with erosion) and the reservoir doesn't come pre-divided. It did get upgraded right before being introduced in the US. The upgrade was to have a low profile port and to make the port so it can grip the stomach muscle with little claws. It's up to the surgeon whether or not they use the claws or sew the port in place the way the Lap-Band port is installed. (The Lap-band does come with a low profile port option but you have to work it out with your surgeon to get it and some charge slightly more for it.) The claws are supposed to be better for preventing port flipping. Here is their web site: Home - REALIZEBand.com Both bands come open and are buckled together during installation. Both bands have a good record of weight loss. The Realize band at one point had a better track record with slips and erosions but that was before the Lap-band upgraded to the reservoir that went all the way around with the creases. I haven't found any studies comparing the Lap-Band AP system with the Realize Band, but doctors say they perform about the same. The 3rd band is the MIDband and it's made by a French company (Whose initials are MID) and is sometimes referred to as the French Band. You can get this band in Mexico, if you go there for surgery. It came out after the Realize band and also is wider, softer and the reservoir goes all the way around. It has a titanium port. (The other two have silicon ports, I believe.) If you get one, you need to make sure your local fill doctor will work with it. Some won't fill a non-FDA approved band. If you aren't getting fills locally, that's not an issue. Their web site: Hello and welcome to the MIDBAND™ website Finally, Allergan is working on a revolutionary new band that doesn't need to be filled via saline. It's adjustable with some sort of remote control device. It's just entered the FDA approval process: LAP-BAND: Laparoscopic Obesity Surgery | Easyband I've also found some info about the history of the different bands. However, all the articles contradict each other and some are heavily oriented towards whatever band company wrote them. So it's hard to know what to trust. :wub: Also, the reason I keep saying "supposedly" and "thought to" is that there are lots of claims made that this band is better than that band so it's hard to know what the truth is. Plus our understanding of band technology keeps changing. So far, the surgeons I've talked to say they perform about the same and many use both the Realize and the Lap-Band AP. I personally wouldn't get an older Lap-Band -- it's not like a tv where last year's model is good enough. At the same time I wouldn't wait for the next improvement -- because it seems like there is always a new improvement coming.

I always keep my shoes on at my doctor's office. It sounds like the surgeon's offices don't do that ... I had planned to wear my running shoes. They weigh 3 lb just by themselves!

I just made my appointment. She said it would take about an hour, maybe 1.5 if I need to do a questionnaire to be screened for depression. So this one does the talking first. It seems like a lot of others do the questionnaire first.