MacMadame

UHC used to cover the sleeve but now they don't. Morons.

Check out my profile on OH for some links about the sleeve including some 5 year results. That can help with the "unproven" angle. I'm "MacMadame" on there too.

I started waking up at night pre-op. I blamed it on Mr. Mac's snoring but then he got a CPAP machine and stopped snoring and I still was waking up. I found it gradually got better but going to bed and getting up at a set time helps too.

I workout 5-6 days a week with a total of 8-10 workouts. It works out to about 10-15 hours a week. I swim, bike and run, 2 - 3 x a week, and do strength training 1 day a week. I started back to the gym at 2 weeks, but held off on anything that worked my abdominal muscles much until I felt comfortable doing that.

Hey, I'm aiming for 115 g a day! :biggrin: I think of my protein goal as a floor. I want to get in *at least* that much. So, if I get to my floor by 4pm, I still have protein after that, just not as much as in the first part of the day. I think of my carb goal as a ceiling I want to stay under though. Same with calories.

I think Gagner is still in FL. He's a sleeve pioneer. But he's moving back to NY soon.

I never had a band. Stories like yours scared me off it. For me, I never felt full before surgery no matter how much I ate. And now I do. If I eat too much, I do get a horrible pressure in my chest, but mostly that doesn't happen. It only happens if I deliberately push it or I am not paying attention. Nothing is ever truly "stuck" though. If I wait long enough, the pressure goes away. I haven't thrown up in months either. (I'm 10 months out.)

Most people love their WLS in the first year... that's true for all the surgeries including the sleeve. To get a more full picture, you need to hunt around for people who have had the surgery longer. You can find lots of unhappy people if you go to more established websites with revision sections, too. You also need to lurk on the boards for a while to get a true picture. I spent several months on LapBandTalk and during that time I slowly found people who were raving about their bands when I first got there having problems. It was scary, quite frankly. But in terms of statistics, there are a number of studies coming out about how the long-term complication rate of the band and they are not pretty. They show anywhere from a 25 to a 40% re-surgery rate for people with bands by the 10 year mark. These studies are a large part of why I don't have a band. Between that and the people who did everything right but still couldn't get restriction, I realized that the lap band is the least effective of the surgeries and had a unacceptable (to me) complication rate.

I eat fried chicken sometimes. I take the skin off because I've never liked it, but the fact that it was fried to begin with means the chicken is moister and goes down better. I don't think having WLS means you can ever eat certain foods ever again. It's all about moderation and making informed choices and that means sometimes you choose to eat something high in calories, knowing it means you can't eat something else later or you have to work out more the next day.

I would have taken a full two weeks off too, but I'm not sure I would have done much more than that. It can be convenient to wait until you are off liquids though.

Okay, I was going to try to catch up, but it's just impossible. Had a great trip to Tahoe. Triathlon was just so-so but ended well with a great run. Hate my job.

Check out the egg bite recipes too. I make a lot of them but now I just make up my own with whatever I've got around the house.

It's basically a Protein shake made into ice cream. Go here: theworldaccordingtoeggface And search for protein ice cream and you will get a TON of recipes.

I am usually on 7 and it's fine. 3 isn't quite good enough to chop the ice.

Mine is a Hamilton Beach. It has 9 speeds but I never really change it since I only make protein shakes with it. I'm going to us it instead of the blender for my next batch of protein ice cream and see if it turns out creamier than the last couple of batches.

He hasn't been quite as brilliant lately, but I think that's because of our finances more than anything.

You should definitely post about your experience! People need to know everything that can happen ... information is power.

I thought once you eroded, they didn't want to put another band in you because, most likely, you'd just erode again??

I gained 10 lb. in the hospital and it took me a WEEK to get them off. But after that, things picked up.

I kill Magic Bullets. So I bought one of these too. I also have a blender. They all have their place, but, if I could only have one, I'd have the stick blender.

Dr. C is crazy about Protein. If you want to bulk up, he'll be right on board with that. :001_smile: I consume an average of 120 g of protein a day. My calories are around 1600-2000 depending on the day. I think anyone who is only consuming 500 at one year out has other things going on and I wouldn't consider that to be the normal experience. I'm almost 10 months out, btw. I know WLS guys who also do triathlons who eat 2000-3000 calories a day. They didn't have a sleeve, but it's really not that different. You can eat a bit more at a time with a bypass at one year out, but that just means we need to eat more calorie dense food and/or more often. I start the day with a Protein shake made at 1.5 strength. I generally end the day with protein hot chocolate, but not always. It depends on whether I've made my protein goals or not. In between, I have 2 more meals and 2 more Snacks. I can't eat a ton at any one time, but I can eat enough. If I needed more calories, it would be incredibly easy to get them, just by changing the types of foods I eat. I still go for reduced fat cheese, for example, and don't eat a lot of nuts. So I could do full-fat cheese or have nuts more often for my snack. As for stomach cancer, your chances of getting that go down dramatically. If you do get it, they do the same thing as they'd do if you had no sleeve. They cut out the part with cancer. My aunt had stomach cancer and the first time they cut out most of her stomach and the second time they cut out the rest. You can live without a stomach. You just need to chew your food to mush. The only thing you wouldn't be able to do is certain operations where they wrap a piece of stomach around your esophagus. I think they do that as a cure for certain types of hernias and/or GERD. But there are alternative treatments that you can have instead. Also, there is a blog feature on this site... that might work better than a thread for documenting your journey. Threads get buried easily.

It doesn't do anything directly one way or the other. But some people get more interested as they lose weight for various reasons -- feeling better about themselves, having more energy, etc. -- and some are less interested for various reasons -- feeling weird about their changing bodies, lack of energy due to recovering from surgery.

No reason to be concerned. Just listen to your body and stop doing anything that hurts. (This is for all exercise, not just swimming.)

The only insurance I know about for this is BLIS and your surgeon has to be in their program. You think 30k for a revision is bad? There are surgeons who charge that for a virgin surgery! The top sleeve surgeons in the US all charge under $20k so my feeling is, don't pay more than that.

Mr. Mac used to be great at gifts. He'd always get me something I didn't think to ask for, but really wanted.