MacMadame

I was going to ask about it at my next check-up (Which is in 4 days), but I'm reluctant to do anything that might lead to more surgery. I'm kind of surgeried out and it's not like it's having a big impact on my lifestyle. I barely notice it and the worst thing is that I can't get off the PPI.

You guys need to talk and come to some agreements. Examples of things to talk about: -Does he want to take your sleeving as an opportunity to change anything in his diet or exercise regime? -Do you want him to be your food police or butt out? -What types of food can he eat around you or bring into the house during each phase? -How much help will you need around the house at first? Some people ask their SO not to eat real food around them when they are on liquids, for example. I told my family that I'd probably be okay, but that if I wasn't, I'd ask them not to do that and I'd expect them to honor my request as it was only going to be for a short time. I also told them that anyone who was my food police would die. But different couples will have different issues and answers. The main thing is to talk about it so you are on the same page. There is nothing worse than a guy who thinks he's being helpful, but is actually driving you insane, IMO.

Exactly! And congrats, Wasa. It doesn't seem like it's been that long.

My situation isn't covered by any of the choices. I had no trouble with heartburn for the first 6-7 months. Now I have what I consider "pre-heartburn." Which is to say my throat is often sore or raw feeling, but there isn't that traditional burning sensation lower down. I suspect I'm making more acid these days for some reason. The pain in my back that went away when my hiatal hernia was repaired is also back and the two things together concern me.

Biotin will help your new hair grow in nicer though.

I'm just lucky that I get along with my surgeon and we have compatible styles as patient and doctor. It's not as important with other types of surgery. The surgeon is in and out. But with bariatric surgery, you end up in a long-term relationship and not getting along with your surgeon can really hamper your efforts. I know people who can't stand their surgeon (and sometimes their surgeon is *my* surgeon :thumbup:) and they never go back for follow-up and that's bad. Or they don't listen to what the surgeon is telling them, either because he's lame (doesn't keep up with the latest research or gives bad advice) or because they clash in their styles. So when you newbies are out there picking your surgeons, make sure you pick one (and a program too) that you can have a good, compatible relationship with!

I didn't see a bare finger either, but I've watched about 10 different sleeve videos and the bleeding in that one was about 2x what it was in any of the others.

Surgical clips at the start of the cut. There should be no reason to use surgical clips like that.

It's not happening any more on my Mac. I didn't do anything. It just started working. :confused1: I'll see if it still happens at work.

Before you go to Pleatman, you might want to watch this video: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcYH5lWa9Rk]YouTube - Laparoscopic Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy[/ame] After I watched it, I crossed him off my list.

True in theory, but in many parts of the country, there aren't that many choices. Oh wow, there are four a year! By different companies! You must live in the mecca of bariatric surgery! LOL Dude, most surgeons put on a minimum of one a MONTH around here. I could go to a seminar 4x a WEEK if I wanted to. I'm pretty sure they have more than 4 a year in Seattle too. It's not *that* podunk. Why? There are good surgeons everywhere. Right, because everyone is exactly the same and therefore should have the same surgery. :confused1: Oh, so you are coming to CA to see LapSF, then... Because speaking English is a guarantee of excellent medical knowledge and skill. Not. It doesn't when you go to Mexico either. You bring a cashier's check just like you do when go to the US hospital as a self-pay. How I wish that was true. People go all all over the world FROM the US because our health care is not affordable. What good is being able to sue, if you are dead? Because everyone is different and in different circumstances and with different concerns. If I lived near the border, I would have gone to Dr. Aceves. For me, having my surgeon be local so I could easily see him on a regular basis was important to me and Dr. Aceves was the best of the local surgeons in the San Diego area (where I used to live). But I don't live near the border any more. Instead I am lucky enough to live near the practice that has done the most sleeves of anyone in the US and has some of the best stats out there. How many sleeves has your "Cadillac" surgeon done, btw?

Prevacid is a PPI but Zantac isn't. So Zantac only helps with acid after it's produced. Can you talk to your doc about increasing your prevacid dose or switching to a different PPI.

Our program is: 2-3 weeks of thin liquids followed by 2-3 weeks of softs. Though we get individual adjustments. I had to wait until 7 weeks to start regular food, for example.

I hate surgeons who go into this with "realistic" numbers that are incredibly low. I think that's very wrong because it sets people up to settle. I think they do it so you'll feel like a success no matter how little you lose. I think of it as sand-bagging -- picking a goal you know 100% of the people will make instead of setting a stretch goal for each person. A lot of surgeons are happy if you get to a BMI of under 30 so you are only overweight and not obese though. A lot of my friends post things like "I got to my surgeon's goal at X months and my own goal (always lower) at X+2 months". My surgeon is NOT like that AT ALL. We didn't talk goal weight until my 3 week follow-up visit. He told me that my chart showed a range of 130 to 115 lb. and how did I feel about that. I said it was okay. 130 is not a BMI of 30 for me, it's not even 25. It's 24.6. 115 is 21.7! So he's definitely not sand-bagging with my goals. :confused1: Since then, he's thrown out numbers anywhere from 116 to 118. IMO these are all doable but they are very aggressive. He also had me shoot for 50% EWL at 3 months and 80% at 6 months. Again, aggressive. He also told me at our initial consult that while they officially consider anything under 30 BMI as a "success" that they really prefer people to get under 25 BMI and that there was no reason I couldn't do that. (And there wasn't.) Some times it puts some pressure on me, but I never would have gotten into triathlons if I had a surgeon who settled. I did that because my surgeon told me my weight loss was slow in the beginning and I needed to exercise more. So I added in more days and then I wanted to do something besides bike every time so I started running. Then, every time my weight loss slowed down, I put in more time at the gym because I really wanted to get to that magic 50% for my 3 month check-up. So the next thing you know... I am athlete! I will be 118 at my next check-up (assuming I don't swell up like a balloon from TOM, that is). So I will definitely be within the range in my chart and in the range of the numbers he's been quoting lately. I wonder if he'll want me to go lower or tell me I really need to stop.

I had a lot of hair loss too. It just comes with the territory, especially with rapid weight loss. (And yours sounds pretty rapid to me!)

What I want to know is whether you realized the Contreras also works in a scam cancer clinic with his father and, if so, why you would trust him to do your bariatric surgery after learning that?

Multi-quote isn't working for me! :confused1: First of all, I think it's really popular to bash on the current generation but today's kids are better behaved than my generation. They take less drugs, commit less crime, do more volunteer work, etc. Teenage pregnancy rate are down... As for putting kids on diets ... it didn't work for us so why do we think it will work for kids today? I don't think that's the answer. I think the answer is to change society. This includes fighting for smaller portions at restaurants, making it less acceptable to go out to dinner so much or snack so much on the one hand, but what we really need to do is throw out that damn food pyramid that is so carbohydrate heavy and get kids into an active life. Moving more is really the key IMO. You can overcome a lot of bad nutritional advice if you exercise regular and it's just a natural part of your life. But also, we have to accept that the average worker isn't out tilling the fields or digging stuff up from mines (and, if they are, they have machines to do all the heavy stuff) and so doesn't need a carbohyrate based diet. And, on a related note, I found this article today and I thought it was appropriate to this thread: Love your fat child, don't shame them | Marianne Kirby | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Oh, okay. I haven't been keeping up with Facebook either. And the other message I wanted to respond to didn't multiquote and I can't remember what it was. Anyway, they laid off 300 people at work. Only 12 in my division, none in our group, but 241 in the division we work very closely with and used to belong to. Lots and lots of long-timers who really know the code base were let go too.

No, it's completely biological. I chunked up because I was going through puberty and my body wanted extra stores in case there was a famine. That's very reasonable of my body. Once puberty was over, the stores would not be needed and would go away. Instead, I went on a diet. Now my body experienced that famine it was worried about and decided I need to not only put all that weight back on, but add in an extra 10 lb. just in case. If the famine (diet) hadn't happened, then there would have been no biological need. I spent over a decade involved in figure skating and I got to see about 700 little girls grow up in that time. Many of them got chunky during puberty, even though they were training 10-20 hours a week. But then they'd show up at the rink around age 16 or 17 and they'd be 5 inches taller and all slimmed down .... unless their parent fussed about their weight and they ended up dieting. Then they'd struggle with weight the rest of the time they'd remain in the sport. A lot of the judges and officials were also skaters as kids and during a time when weight was more strictly controlled. Their years of struggling with weight limits and diets caused them to be obese adults with very slow metabolisms. IMO, dieting is not for kids!

Even today there are people who aren't comfortable with the lack of long-term stats on the sleeve. I can respect that. I can't really respect the people who just get whatever procedure their friend had that did well with it or choose a band or RnY for some other lame reason that isn't even true. :001_tongue:

When I was growing up, there was no McDonalds at first. When one opened up, it was a really big deal to go to it. We did it maybe 3x a year. My mom always cooked. I don't think the food she made us would meet today's standards of healthy, but it was considered healthy at the time. (And who knows what will be said about today's diets when our kids are adults with kids of their own.) We rarely had soda and other junk. We didn't have dessert with every meal every night. My parents did everything they could think of to control my weight as well. None of it worked. The thing is, looking back, I wasn't *that* fat and I'm pretty sure, if they'd just left me alone, I'd have gotten through puberty and slimmed out. Instead, they nagged me to death and I went on my first diet when I was 13 ... it started my trend of yo-yo dieting and I'm also the shortest one in my family. I have to wonder if dieting when I was growing didn't have an impact on both these things. I know our modern lifestyles have made the problem of obesity worse, but that's not the entire story. I also think it's convenient to blame the parents when kids are overweight (or do anything we object to, really, that kids do) and it's not always that simple. Think about your own childhood -- did your parents try to control your food to "help" with your weight problem and did it work? I'm guesing "Yes" and "no". :001_tongue: You can't force another person to eat or not eat. You can control the food you give them, but, unless you control their entire environment, there are limits to your control even over that. It's just a very complex problem and it's largely biological in nature.

Well, my grandmother, who was taller than me was only 90 lb. But she had no boobs and hollow twigs for bones. I think I could get down to 110 and still be healthy. Anyway, I had an "ah ha" moment last night. I realized that when I first started swimming, I was burning 600 calories an hour and now I only burn about 300. I forgot that as I get smaller and more fit (and, in this case, improve my stroke efficiency), I won't be burning mega-calories when I work out. So I do think that things will stabilize eventually and I don't have to fight so hard to stop everything right this second.

I agree that you have to take what you are told by the office and see if it makes sense. My surgeon started doing sleeve in 2001 or 2002 (I have it written down somewhere but I can't find the exact year right now). So when he says he's done over a thousand sleeves and then how many procedures over all he does in a year, that number is believable. I asked for how many of *everything* he did and also his partner. That way I knew I wasn't getting the combined stats of the medical practice. When I added up all the numbers and divided by the number he does in a year, I got a number that was similar to the number of years he'd been in practice. So I knew the stats were legit. The thing I find interesting is that some docs clearly pad their stats while others seem to pick a lower number than they've actually done. The LapSF ads on OH say "over 1200 sleeves" which is true. But it's a LOT over 1200. It's closer to 2000 for the entire practice including ones done by a doc who left them to start his own practice. Lots of practices would include that doc's stats too, but they don't seem to be doing that.

I was! :laugh0:

Okay, I must have missed something. What happened to the live-in bf?