snogirl

Regine, you need to look at the exclusions listed for YOUR specific plan. I have premera blue cross and did NOT have any WLS exclusions in my plan, and my surgery was covered. However note that my employer offered two different plans through PBC- one had the exclusion, and the other didn't, so when choosing my plan, obviously I chose the one that didn't have the exclusion. Employers are the ones who choose what they will cover and what they won't, not just the insurance companies. So before you get discouraged you need to get the right information. Also, you can always try to get approval because of medical necessity even if you have an exclusion.. it's worth a try.

My Dr. is in Federal Way which makes going to appointments a bear, since I'm on the eastside too. However starting this month every Friday he's in Kirkland for fills and appointments which is super exciting for me. I am not sure what his policy is of doing fills on people he didn't perform the surgery on, I am thinking he doesn't do that, but it wouldn't hurt to call and check. His info is on my signature.

Just wanted to say hello to everyone. I am relatively new to LBT, I've been lurking for a couple of days and used to be active on other forums before I just got really tired of them and took a break for a while. After just starting to poke around here I really like what I see. Everything is laid out really well and stuff is so much easier to find, and they seem to be drama-free, how wonderful! Anyway about me- I'm 33, no kids (but will TTC after a year or so), I live in the Seattle area and was banded 5 months ago. I really couldn't be happier. I've lost a total of 62 lbs, 37 since surgery. I've had 4 fills and am up to 7.8cc in my 10cc APS band. I'm married, have 2 cats and a giant Alaskan malamute. My hubby is a game developer and I am an IT manager. We moved to this area about 18 months ago and I don't know very many people here, though I love living here. When I'm not working I like to scrapbook (CM), play video games, read books, watch movies, and explore the area via hiking or snowshoeing. My weight loss is going pretty well, but I really need to kick up the exercise, because other than walking I'm not doing much other than snowshoeing (which is still walking!). I love doing yoga but keep finding excuses not to go (usually $ and time). My story is pretty similar to everyone else's, so I won't bore you by writing it here, it's all on my blog anyway. So HI! I'm looking forward to hanging out here and getting to know you guys.

Ceviche is a Mexican dish, I'd describe it as raw fish salsa, but that sounds really gross. What happens is the fish is "cooked" by the acids in lemon/lime juice. So it's usually like diced up fish, cilantro, onions, maybe peppers, or whatever else, with lime juice.. that's how I remember it in Mexico anyway. It is very good even if it sounds weird.

Don't be discouraged, 4jin. You are right where you should be. It's very uncommon for people to lose much (if any) weight when they start eating mushies to the time they get their first fill. I think I lost 2 lbs. during that time and they said that was good because a lot of people gain weight! Mushy foods are by nature usually more calorie-heavy, things you wouldn't normally want to eat very often once you have restriction. Things like macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, etc. It's ok, the most important thing is for your stomach to heal, and the weight will start coming off once you get your first fill. Don't stress about it too much. Just try to do the best you can, and hang tight until your first fill! You can do it!

Ditto what they all said. I know after my band was put in I couldn't feel a thing and could still eat quite a bit, though less than before (like 2 cups vs 4). There were days where I wondered if I really had a band inside me at all, until I got the first fill. They tell you to start eating like a bandster so that you get used to adjusting your habits, and there are actually people who DO feel restriction after surgery (though it doesn't seem as common) so people do need to take it easy with food. The best advice I would have is still to eat that Protein first, and don't drink with meals even though you CAN still. It'll help you to not be hungry as much. Do your best following the rules now, it'll make life after your fills easy!

I don't know if this will help you or not, but I have found that if I get anything stuck, it's best for me to go on liquids for the rest of that day and possibly the next day to allow the tummy to un-swell and the irritation to go away. Otherwise it seems you get an endless cycle of getting things stuck and your stomach doesn't recover and you can start to get into problem-territory. I have been dealing with a tight fill as well, for 13 days now. I have made the mistake of taking tiny Vitamins which have gotten stuck on two different occasions, and then later that day i tried to follow up with food, which got horribly stuck and irritated my stoma so bad I could barely drink down liquids, had reflux, and major heartburn. I've been on liquids the past two days and it made things so much better. Gave my tummy a rest. The swelling has gone down A LOT and the heartburn has gone away (as has the acid reflux). However I still will probably get .1cc taken out because I think I'm a tad too tight...But liquids are going down fine and I ate some Beans and ground beef today...taking it slow. I guess I'm sharing this because it sounds like you're about at the same place. I'd say if you can give your tummy a rest and have liquids for a day or so, and then stick to mushies or other things that won't get stuck, you would be fine until March 6. You also *may* find that once the swelling goes back down you can eat normally again.. though chances are you could use a bit of an unfill like me... I haven't figured out when I will get an unfill either.. my next scheduled appt. is March 21 and I don't know if I want to wait that long but I'm trying to work with it for now. Hang in there and take care of your tummy in the meantime!

I had my 4th fill on 2/15 of .2ccs and have been trying to work with it. It's been tight, and I've gotten a couple of things stuck a lot which has aggravated it. Last week I talked to someone at my doctor's office about it and she said to try to work with it and see how it goes until Tuesday (yesterday), and said if I needed a little unfill I could come in and the nurse could take some out. (My doctor is out of the country right now). So after being on liquids all day yesterday and no matter what I drank it gave me heartburn. I had some acid reflux last night and my stomach is just ANGRY. I realized I have been able to eat normally 2 days out of the last 10 and that if my band is this touchy then it's probably too tight. Well I called today and apparently NO ONE can do an unfill on me since I'm insurance, unless the Doctor is present in the office. I can self-pay and get it done, which I don't have the $ for right now. Otherwise I have to wait until Thursday of next week when the Dr. is back in town. Does this seem stupid to anyone else? I'm all for my doctor taking a vacation, but it seems like you'd want your patients to be able to get the care you need while you're gone. I've been very happy with my doctor up until now, and this has just pissed me off, I want to cry. I guess I will "work with" this stupid fill and stay on liquids. :biggrin:

I don't take big vitamins either. I take chewables, but I have been taking tiny Iron and tiny, I mean really tiny, like 1/8" by 1/4" oval gel and they had been going down ok until this fill. I'm switching to chewable iron and will try to get my Vitamin D with my Calcium citrate chewables. Hmm chewable aspirin, I'll have to look for that. As an update, I am feeling better after just being on liquids for a couple of days. My heartburn seems gone as of last night and I didn't get acid reflux either. So it's definitely calmed down. I still think I want maybe .1 taken out. Thanks though for all your support and messages, it's been nice to have people to talk to when I'm so frustrated, people who understand...

Thanks for your replies. About an hour after I posted I called back the Dr's office and talked to the patient advocate (who I also talked to on Friday, and was told to wait it out til Tuesday). I guess the NP and the RN who can do fills haven't gotten the clearance (yet) to bill insurance and so they can't perform them unless the Dr. is physically in the office. Or I can self pay. And it's only $125, so I guess that isn't terrible. I also found out today (after my 4th fill.. huh) that you have a 1-week window after a fill to go back in for a free unfill. Had she told me that on Friday when I talked to her, I would have gone straight there, since that was the end of my week! She said since I didn't know, I could come down and self-pay for a fill and then talk to the doc when he gets back and see if they can not bill me or something or give me some sort of concession for my troubles. They are being nice, it just seems really stupid to plan to leave the country for 3 weeks before your NP and RN are able to take care of the patients, regardless of how they pay.. maybe they were planning to have the clearance by now and just haven't gotten it. Regardless, my issues have been caused by me trying to take teeny Vitamins and getting them stuck. Last week it was Iron, this week it was a Vitamin D gel. I am doing liquids and my stomach seems to be doing better. I'm trying to choose things that are low acid and won't irritate me even more (staying away from tomato and chocolate things). I am able to get food down (soup) and Water and everything just fine. The patient advocate said that I would not be at risk for a slip unless I kept getting things stuck and or kept vomiting. If I just take it easy with liquids and give my stomach a rest, my band isn't going to slip. They are also trying to figure something out for me and are going to call me back tomorrow. So for now I'm just doing liquids, laying low and hoping my stomach calms down. It is definitely better than yesterday. I am thinking if my heartburn and swelling is going down I probably won't have the reflux but we'll see. I can definitely stick it out tomorrow and see what they say, otherwise I may go to the ER and let the on-call lap band doc take care of it. I think I'm afraid they'd take it ALL out or something...I don't want that either. Bleh. Anyway thanks for your support, like Grace said, if my issues subside maybe I don't need an unfill. But I think I'd be more comfortable with .1 or .2 taken back out. In the mean time I will just stay away from those other vitamins and find chewable replacements, keep drinking liquids and try to enjoy the extra weight lost from being on a liquid diet.

Thanks for the reply. I am trying to decide what to do next, if anything. I think my band will be ok if I just take it easy and stay on liquids for another day or two. I can drink Water and stuff ok so I don't think I'm in any immediate danger. It just really frosts my behind that I could get an unfill if I self-pay but not one with my office visit copay. It makes no sense. I even asked if the other WLS doctor could do it and they said they weren't affiliated with him, so no. I may call my insurance company and ask what the deal is...

Most of the time people slime because something is stuck, and if that's the case, drinking is the worst thing you can do. However... my RN told me if I do get something stuck to suck on a lemon wedge and that can help 'break things up' to get stuff to go down. I had a really really bad stuck episode last night and I tried the lemon wedge. I'm honestly not sure if it helped or not, I ended up going out and buying some papaya enzymes after having something stuck for 2 hours... I think those are finally what did it, or maybe it was a combination of the lemon and the papaya and the walking, or that it just took 2 hours to go through. Drinking water with lemon is a good thing to do in the mornings to open you up, or even if you have a cold, to break up the mucus. Or just after a fill to soothe the tummy.

I've had 4 fills since my Sept. 07 surgery, and now have a total of 7.8ccs. My first fill was 6cc, then 1cc, then .6, then .2. Oh, and I'm TIGHT. Everyone is different so you may respond to a smaller fill level, but it sounds to me like he's being conservative too.. Always better to be too loose than too tight, but it seems like they could inject a good amount and then back it out and adjust the level, at least that's how my fills are done. The whole amount gets pulled out, then put back in and some added, then I sit there and drink 3 cups of Water with the needle sticking out of me to check the level. Works like a champ.

I'm going to chime in here and second the getting your thyroid checked. Dry skin is a symptom of hypothyroidism, something that I didn't know I had until 3 months after my surgery (thankfully my Dr. has my labs done every 3 months for the first year). My endocrinologist appointment is tomorrow, so I haven't started medication yet, but getting your thyroid/hormone levels normalized can help out all kinds of things like your energy levels, and even weight loss. I'd love to have more energy and lose weight easier. If you haven't had your labwork done in a while, you might want to get it checked.

That sounds so good, citygirl. I love yogurt, and bananas. I think I will have to take a trip to Trader Joe's this weekend and pick up some greek yogurt. I've never had it, just 'normal' plain yogurt, but I keep hearing about the greek yogurt. Yum!

I think I experienced acid reflux last night for the first time ever in my life. I kept waking up with gurgling stomach sounds and had to keep swallowing down stuff. It didn't really seem that acidic but today I have a sore throat and my stomach feels irritated and swollen. I just had a fill Friday, and it is a tight one. But, I've been fine the past four days and the swelling from the fill had reduced, I have been able to eat solid food (fish and veggies and even some chicken breast). Yesterday I took an Iron tablet and it got stuck in my stoma and stayed there until it dissolved. I think it was about 4 hours before it seemed gone. I know that iron is a stomach irritant and just having something be stuck is also..... I guess I am looking for advice since I'm not sure that I got acid reflux due to a too-tight fill. My inclination is to wait another day or two, I am taking it easy on non-acidic liquids and will see how I do tonight. If I get acid reflux again I think I will have them do a slight unfill. Do you think this is wise, or like how long do you "wait it out" with the acid reflux before you have them take some out? And is there anything else I should do to soothe my stomach/throat? If it was from a too-tight fill wouldn't I have gotten it immediately, rather than after the fill-swelling went down and such? Sorry for the dumb questions but I really have no experience with acid reflux. All I know is that it totally sucks and I don't want it to happen again. On that note... does anyone know of any teeny-tiny iron supplements? The one that got stuck was already pretty small...

I'm not sure why anyone would self pay if they had the possibility of insurance covering it, unless I guess you have endless $. True some insurances do require 6 month supervised diets and other requirements, but everyone I've seen who has had to go through that stuff initially is mad and then they realize it's for their own good and 6 months really isn't that long. That said I was insurance paid and didn't have to go through the supervised diet beforehand, and my process was really speedy. Still it would have been worth it to me to wait 6 months to not have to come up with $17000. As it was I had to pay about $1500 for out of pocket fees associated with the surgery, and my Vitamins and Protein cost over $100 a month. The other nice thing about insurance covering it, is that if they do cover it, then most likely they will cover your fills too.. I like knowing it's only a $20 office visit co-pay anytime I need to go in. Makes me focus on my health and not the $. Anyway, I wish you luck and hope that your insurance does cover it! I know if mine hadn't I would have gotten creative and found a way to self-pay too. Good luck!

A protein shake, and then usually a latte. Protein, and more protein.

Thanks for the tip! I've been thinking of going back to Flintstones since they have the iron, but I had switched to Kirkland children's chewables a while ago and they taste so much better. And I take 4 a day. Maybe I can find a good chewable iron supplement. I just didn't think they had that for some reason, I don't know why. If I can't find that, it's back to Fred and Wilma.

Thanks Julie. They only put in .2cc on Friday, but I already had decent restriction. Really it was just a tweak of a fill. I took prevacid before I ate yesterday and took it easy on liquids. Last night I noticed I kind of had a lot of little burps and some stomach gurgling but it didn't seem like reflux. I ate about 4 hours before bed so that seemed to help. The other factors are now I have my TOM and am getting rid of the Water I was retaining.. and I also seem to have picked up a cold or something. The sore throat I thought was from the reflux moved up into my sinuses and lymph nodes and the whole body hurts... I think I might be ok since I didn't get it last night but it's so hard with all this other stuff going on with my poor body. Anyway thanks for the suggestions. I'm just going to have to keep an eye on myself and be careful and take it day by day.

It's all individual, and I felt restriction after the first fill too. I have the same APS band but was given 6cc at my first fill. It was good for about 3 weeks then felt like I could eat more (but not as much as before!). Second fill was another cc and it was again, great for 3 weeks, then I was noticeably hungry and could eat faster. Third fill .6cc much much tighter feeling...good for 4 weeks, wasn't sure if I needed another fill at all but I did get .2cc more last Friday. Anyway that seems to be the pattern for me. Other people say they don't feel much difference and then 2 weeks later the fill kicks in. I only experienced this once and it might have had to do with my TOM... anyway hope that helps. Enjoy your restriction while it lasts! You'll be ready for more in a few weeks, I bet.