JanetC

That's AWESOME!! Congrats!!

Congrats! Can't wait to join you!

http://www.webmd.com/hw/health_guide_atoz/aa102618.asp Make sure you're getting your protein!! If you're not drinking shakes, you might consider Beneprotein, you can sprinkle it in/on stuff & get more Protein that way. http://www.resource.walgreens.com/store/product.jsp?CATID=100672&navAction=jump&navCount=0&id=prod389511 Good luck!

Happy birthday!!

Congrats Grammy!

Hope you make it Penni!

Welcome Steven! My hubby will be glad to see another guy on here!

Grats Emily! Can't wait to join you!

Congrats! It's great to see someone on their way!

My doctor requires a 10 pound weight loss, also for the liver weight. My husband HAS to lose 15, or the beds won't hold him, lol. He put us on 2 shakes a day & a low-cal, low-carb dinner. SOOOO not working for us. So we've basically gone on our own & are doing Atkins + shakes. We've used Atkins in the past, but quit it due to boredom & cost. This is only 3 weeks, so hopefully we can survive & lose quickly. We are doing more chicken then we did the last time we were on Atkins, hopefully that'll appease the surgeon. We've also started our exercise program already. We started with 5 min a day, but every little bit helps, right?! If worse comes to worse & we're not on track in 2 weeks, we'll go all shakes the last week (don't want to even consider it). We've both done all-liquid diets before **sigh** hope we can live through one more! I don't encourage not following doctor's orders... but I figure ANY diet is better then none, which was where we were after day 1 on his pre-op diet. Good luck with yours!! Hang in there!

Hi! My name's Janet (clever screen name, huh ). My hubby & I are in Keller, TX (Dallas-Ft Worth Metroplex) & we're very pre-op -- we go in next Tuesday for our initial evaluation. We’re hoping to self-pay, though (been saving a while), so hopefully it’ll happen quickly. He's a music d00d (teacher, producer, critic, writer, etc) & I'm a web developer (think Java, not Flash). We're in our late 30's & both MO. Heavy all our lives, we met each other at 33 (go eharmony.com!). We gave each other permission to relax & eat as we wanted... and boy did we!! We both gained 100+ pounds in our 3 years of marriage... and our "fun" list of activities has shrunk because of it. We’re banding together (pun fully intended, lol), so our eating habits will change at the same time. Hopefully we can both survive all the other changes headed our way! I’m SO looking forward to our new life together: Sitting on a plane without a belt extender (or an extra seat) Going to movie theaters where the arms don’t go up Sitting in booths at restaurants instead of tables Choosing our church based on other factors then seating (ha!) Walking to the store down the street instead of driving Seeing the outside world again instead of rolling from couch to car to chair & back Being able to sleep in a regular double-sized bed instead of requiring a King size mattress Getting into a car with ease instead of requiring a van / SUV More, um, adventurous private times :cheeky sleeping without feeling like I’m drowning in fat Kids!!! Living more then 5 years & hopefully avoiding diabetes A day where taking out the trash isn’t a huge exertion (and a day’s worth of exercise) And the list goes on… I’m so glad to find LBT, ya’ll seem to be a great group of folks & it’s awesome to find others going through the process! I look forward to our trip together! << Hugs!! >> Janet Keller, TX Dr Robert Sewell (I hope) http://www.mastercenters.com BMI 42 297 / 150

Hi all! I've been lurking, but decided it was time to finally post. Has anyone been a self-pay patient in the Dallas-Ft Worth area? How much did you pay? Would you recommend your doctor? What was the timeline from first visit to banding? How much are fills? Ok, yeah, we're just in the beginning phases of researching all this, but a doctor seemed like a good place to start. Thanks for the help! Janet

Thanks for all the kind words! We've finally got a date... they talked us into doing it apart (mostly because the surgery calendar was full). Mikey is 2/13 (my birthday! lol), I'm 2/15. We're on the pre-op diet now... and cannot WAIT to get banded & stop feeling so hungry!! We'll have to have a DFW get together sometime. :cake: Seems there's quite a few of us around!

I can't speak overall, but my doctor has done 200 surgeries (he's a laparoscopic specialist who only started doing lap-bands 2.5 years ago). For those 200 patients, after 2 years, he's had ZERO bands slipped, eroded or removed. Oops, take that back. He had one band removed & replaced in the same day. The band was leaking & they were unable to fix the leak internally, so they replaced it with a different band. He had 2 that had flipped ports, so he changed his sutures (the "thread" he had been using had a tendency to break long term). Since the change, he's had 1 port flip. (According to him, the flipping occurs when one or more sutures holding the port in place break, allowing it to flip over.) He's had a 99% success rate (success is rated as double digit weight loss & loss of at least 1 co-morbidity). His average weight loss is 67 pounds in year 1, 30 pounds in year 2 & 5 pounds in year 3. Remember those are averages, you can be above or below those numbers, the option is in your hands. His average patient age is 49. WLS accounts for approx 50% of his practice & he wants to keep it that way. Again, this is just my surgeon's statistics. Why is his success better then Inamed's published numbers? He credits his personal surgical experience, the experience of his surgical team (he uses the same team he uses for other surgery), his team's excellent job of screening incoming patients & his overall aftercare program. When you're choosing a surgeon, ask for their results & for their aftercare program. One of the surgeons I considered told me to look elsewhere for aftercare (other then fills)... I took him off my list. Since you're already approved & waiting surgery, this may be old news... but since you've chosen that surgeon, go back & review why you chose him. I'm still nervous, of course, but my surgeon's skills are helping calm me... somewhat, lol. Good luck!

I had my pre-op psych eval Monday & he told me of some research that's come out recently. Every organ in your body communicates with the brain. If you lose more then 1.5-2 pounds per week for a period of 3-6 months, the organs start sending neuro-peptides to the brain saying that you're starving (even if you have 100s of pounds in body fat that you'd like your body to eat). So even if you're on a good, nutritious, low-cal diet & your bmi is still obese+ ... even with all of that, if you lose 2+ pounds per week for more then 3 months, your brain is going to go into panic mode & start telling you to eat, eat, eat... until you're back to pre-diet weight + 10 pounds. That's the brain getting back to status quo + a buffer for the next starvation period. (Weight Watchers has known this forever, but now the medical community agrees, lol.) So a balloon that makes you eat significantly less for 6 months & is then removed? Ouch! I'm rethinking my goals... I had of course planned on doing more then 2 pounds a week. But now it really seems to make sense to go slowly, and explains why other surgeries / diets don't work long term. We've been fighting our body's survival instinct. Maybe this time I can work WITH my bod instead of against it. Good luck with your decision!

http://www.bscdallas.com/about.html -- near the bottom they have a Tarrant County support coordinator. Not sure if you'd have to join their program, but worth looking into.

This last week at my initial evaluation, my doctor showed me a diagram of what happens when you're banded. It's sort of like a belt that gets cinched -- put your husband's pants on your son. The stomach folds in on itself, creating layers upon layers of folded membranes. A cross-section shows almost NO room for food to get through. Add to that the edema (swelling) from the surgery & you're probably not very hungry immediately following surgery... and liquids make sense. But the edema goes down soon after surgery (the rate of de-swelling depends on the person). As it goes down there's a little more room for food, creating more hunger. And per my surgeon, at about 3 weeks, food can slip through fairly easily (again, depending on the person). That's when we start mushies. At that point, the pouch is basically just an extension of the esophagus, so of course you're hungry. BUT... they don't want to do the first fill until the stomach has totally absorbed all the extra "folded" membrane. Doing so can lead to lesions and possibly the dreaded erosion. That occurs between 5-6 weeks. Hence their desire to wait that long. Mushies make sense, since solid food could get stuck in folds & create issues. As my doctor put it, "Yes, you'll be hungry. I'm sorry. But it IS only about 3 weeks & for your own safety you really need to suffer through it. We'll face it together. Call us if you need help." I haven't experienced it yet... but I figure I can tough it out for 3 weeks. Better that then losing my band. Sorry I'm not jumping on the doctor-bashing band wagon, but I bought his sales pitch. Of course, I'm not there, so I can't really know what you're going through. I'm sure I'll be groaning with you in about a month. :rofl: I'd try some warm Water, take a walk, then cold water, take a walk. See which works better for you. Get your mind occupied & find a support group to go hang with. Hang in there, it'll be over soon... and just THINK of the difference!! Good luck! Janet

My hubby & I are hopefully going to get banded the same day (we're pre-op). We both qualify & are self-pay, so cross your fingers that all goes well... our surgeon consultation is today.

Woohoo!! Grats Nessa!

Welcome Amy! I'm self-pay too, hard to wait, isn't it. But it'll be worth it!! Glad to have you on board! Janet

Welcome Shady! Congrats on the surgery & good luck with the fill! Janet

Wow, 4 years? That's awesome!! And such a great success story! Great to have you around for advice / stories. Welcome! Janet

I've seen as low as $10k and as high as 20k... shop around, some of the doctors post their cash prices up front, others say it's case by case. Good luck! Janet