MacMadame

Well dh doesn't get home until 6 and I don't get home until 7:30 or even 8:00 so even planning wouldn't help us. :thumbup: Plus I think plain is more his type. I am so old, I've never seen The Real World. But I did watch The Osbournes for a while.

We eat dinner around 8pm most nights.

You can lift and push with the toe clips too. We'll see. I also need to learn my new bike and get used to the new way of shifting. Maybe once I can do that without falling off, I will be ready for clipless shoes. :thumbup:

50 minutes of pilates.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! P.S. Plain owes me a coke! :thumbup: Oh wait, we can't drink Coke any more.

Be sure to check out his patient reviews on ObesityHelp.com too. Dr. Aceves made my "Short List" of doctors but I decided to stay local so I never got past talking to him online and researching his credentials. He has tons of happy patients though so you should be able to find info about him.

And you people will NOT suck me back into watching this show. You will NOT, you will NOT. :thumbup:

Just a little? :thumbup: No, because I know I sing bad and wouldn't go on AI thinking I was the shiz. Statistically it's about 20%. But statistically the EWL is better than the band even given the problems with regain. So if you go by how people do, well bypass still wins. I wouldn't get one, but not because people don't do well with it on average, but for other reasons. And then they go home and start gaining it back. It's really sad to me. I know the inevitable conclusion and I feel like the show gives people false hope and reinforces the idea that the only reason we're obese is because we're lazy. You can eat around any surgery. With all of them you can eat ice cream all day or milk shakes. You can also graze. Yes, you can only eat a little at time but there is nothing to stop you eating every hour or even more often. Plus, with his weight, he might have been a better candidate for a DS. The RnY bypass only has about 20-30% malabsorption and there is a small window before the intestines learn how to absorb more (I think it's 12 months). DS bypasses more and has a longer window. Big Medicine! Plus those are people I can relate to... they are going through what we're going through. Another complaint... I don't think they are actually that good trainers. You don't need to be like that to motivate people.

Welcome nomers. You need to start researching surgeons. =See who is in your insurance plan and then search the web looking for info about them. Once you get a small list of acceptable surgeons, you can start going to their seminars. Once you pick one, you schedule a consult and they take it from there. Hope that helps!

I am really glad you said this. You are REALLY hard on yourself. Think of it this way: the first couple of months with any surgery are a learning period and an adjustment. You are no more a failure than someone who takes the training wheels off their bike and then falls down a bunch before learning to ride without them. As for the fill, it may just be a lack of chewing, but sometime they take as little as 0.01 cc and it makes a world of difference. So I still say talk to your surgeon about this. They have the experience and can ask the right questions and make some good suggestions.

I ended up getting a sleeve on 9/24 and I've lost 38 lb. since then, 67 total, including pre-op. Though the way my doctor keeps track, nothing pre-op counts and the weight the day of surgery after spending a day on clears and doing a bowel cleanse (i.e., unusually low) is my start weight. So he only thinks I've lost 35. Silly man!

Maybe. :tongue2: But first my bias: I hate Kaiser's WLS program and I've heard of cases where I don't believe they were honest with people in order to force them into doing what they wanted. First: They really try to get everyone to do the bypass. As I said, sometimes they won't even talk about the band at the seminar. They make *you* bring it up. They also do the sleeve but it's even harder to make them give you that. Usually you can just insist you want a band and they'll cave but for the sleeve, you almost always have to meet some special criteria. Second: every location does things a little differently and you could have a very different experience depending on which surgeon you get assigned to. Some surgeons are much easier to get the band out of than others. Some programs are easier to get a band out of than others. I'm going to go out on a limb and make a guess.... your BMI is over 50?? If that was true, I can see Kaiser, based on what people I know who have Kaiser tell me and my own experience with Kaiser many years go, saying "we only do bypass on people with High BMIs". But if you don't, then who knows what is going on? The person you talked to could be misinformed. Or they could hate the band. Or they could honestly think you should get a bypass. But here's the cool thing: If you go into the consult and they deny you a band, you can appeal to the DMHC and the DMHC has a really good attitude towards WLS and will most likely support you. The DMHC has made Kaiser pay 100% for people's DS surgery done by an outside doctor, for example. So I think it's worth continuing with them and seeing how it plays out. Going to Mexico is always an option that will be there. But, if you go to Mexico, will Kaiser cover your fills? If not, you'll be paying for them too. So you could end up spending a lot of money when it you can probably get Kaiser to give you the band for free. (Minus co-pays.) I recommend going to the CA section of the board and asking "who had a band at [your Kaiser]" and seeing what kind of response you get.

There is one person who has that signature. WASaBubbleButt. She's cool. But she had her band removed because she was having esophageal spasms and had been on liquids for 4 months because regular food wouldn't go down. What she means is that if she had just had the band taken out and not had the sleeve, she would have gained all her weight back.

My surgeon recommends a high Protein, low carb diet because in the thousands of surgeries they've done, the patients who follow this diet do better than the patients who do not when it comes to losing weight and getting to goal. Their EWL stats for the band are 10-20% higher than published averages. So clearly it's working. New research into nutrition and dieting supports the low carb approach as the best way to lose weight whether you've had surgery or not, btw. I am happy to eat like this until I get to goal and then add in more carbs. Since my surgery, food doesn't interest me that much anyway, so why not eat what they say and lose faster and more? That's my philosophy, anyway.

Kaiser in CA will pay for the band. Lots of people on this site have gotten their band from Kaiser in CA. Kaiser does the bypass, the band and, in some places, the sleeve -- though they try to get you to do bypass and at the info seminar, they may not talk about the band and will most likely not talk about the sleeve. When you have surgical consult, bring up the band and tell them you want it and don't let them talk you out of it and you'll be fine.

There is no advantage and it's unlikely insurance would pay for the sleeve even if it paid for the band to begin with. Insurance will not pay for a revision unless the first surgery fails somehow (like the band slips or erodes). Plus it makes no sense to have two surgeries instead of one surgery (i.e., just getting the sleeve first). Having the second surgery is more dangerous than just doing a sleeve at the start because of scar tissue and it's more expensive too. Then again, I haven't seen anyone saying they plan to get a sleeve at goal, either. :tongue2: I've seen people saying that if their band ever gave them problems that they'd revise to a sleeve, or that they wish their insurance would pay for a sleeve but it won't so they'll get a band instead and, if it goes bad, maybe *then* insurance will pay for a sleeve, but not that they'll get a band and then get a second surgery once they get to goal and have been successful. That doesn't make any sense.

Hey, good luck! It's good you got help with your problem and hopefully this time it should be better.

I avoid them. They have so many CARBS! Most of them have more carbs than Protein.

I see no one answered you. I bet your message fell down too far -- the board is busy! But, yes, this sometimes happens. He'll either tell you to wait it out for a few days or come in and get a slight unfill. At least that's my guess.

I had a hiatal hernia fixed. It did take me about a week longer to get back to business than if I hadn't. But I don't know how applicable that is to an incisional hernia.

Hey, I didn't know we had a Low Carb forum until I found your thread!

I moved it back and I'll lock this one.

Have you talked to your surgeon about maybe getting a slight unfill? Because you shouldn't be PBing on chicken if you chew it well.

It depends. Once you get denied, you get a certain number of appeals and you have a certain amount of time to make them. Plus, they can always find something to deny you for that they didn't notice before because they were focusing on this requirement I'm not sure why your surgeon submitted your paperwork before you completed all the requirements. That could come back to haunt you, if it used up some of your appeals.

Welcome to LapBandTalk! I'm going to move this to the Intro section so people can see it.