StrawartS

Dody, Regarding your comment about Mexican doctors operating on anyone...I have no experience with Mexico, but I wouldn't be that generous to American docs. I didn't have to do ANYTHING to have my surgery. No sleep study, no nutritionist, just a chest x-ray and and blood work. My mom and I were both banded by the same doctor, and he laid eyes on her for the first time LITERALLY when she was being wheeled into the OR. He only met me the day before my surgery because I scared his office staff with the story about my mom. Anyway, my comment is irrelevant to this discussion, but I always like to point out that when it comes to a quick and easy self-pay patient (or two), American doctors are no less greedy than Mexican ones.

Here's the thank you thread http://lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?p=193540#post193540

I voted for a complete loss of sensation, but what I really lost was PLEASURABLE sensation. I can still feel there a little, but it does NOT feel good. I also have very little feeling on the sides of my breasts, and I agree with Cashley about the itching. They itch, but when you scratch them, there's no relief due to the numbness. It's the same feeling you get when the novocaine starts to wear off from the dentist's office. And forget about being with a guy who's into boobs...I just don't want to be touched there because it feels so weird. At least there are some ass men. I had my reduction when I was thin, and it was more because my breasts were very saggy - I only lost a pound off each. They grew a little when I gained weight, but not much. However, the saggy thing is genetic. I now need a lift. No matter how small you make them, if you are predisposed to sagging, they will start sagging again on their own. And I didn't have the greatest surgeon, so they are different sizes and the nipples are in different locations - VERY noticeable when I'm cold.

No, stairs were the best thing for gas pain! I was up and down all day when I got home.

Beef jerky, string cheese, crackers, dried fruit, regular fruit

In laws. Also check out this thread for my description of PB: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=15400&highlight=pb+worst+experience

http://lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=7959

Of course, bring whoever you want!

Hey guys, we've decided to do a potluck at Mary's house in Spring. As the date gets nearer, we'll PM you directions. For now, please sign up for a dish to bring. See post #5 above.

Ok, here's a list of possible potluck categories. Please let us know which one you'd like to bring: Meat/seafood entree-type thing Vegetable Starch Bread (haha, just kidding!) Fruit Dessert and most importantly...BOOZE! Bandster-friendly dishes would be appreciated, and printing out your recipe to share with the group would be fun, too. Ok, Houstonians, come on...you don't want just Mary and me sitting around eating mashed potatoes and getting drunk all afternoon, do you?

Marcelle, I hope you don't mind, but I made your post a bigger font. It was a size 2! I hope more people will read it now. ******************************************************** I'm going to go kinda in depth with my life, and I'll let you know that before I begin this is a long story. I am 24 years old with a 2 year old son, i've had obesity issues all of my life, and that is the god honest truth. I have a husband, whom I adore, and a past I can't seem to stop thinking about. My first love, he was a sweeitie and a jerk, I contribute that to being young. I was totally in love with him. Almost every first a young girl could have was with him. I loved him so much that I was just awfully depressed when we broke up. In college we had on and off intimate relationships, brief ones or should I say affairs since he was already involved. With a good friend of mine after we went off to college. I was with him from 8th grade until I guess my junior year of college. My family as always been on me about my weight. I've been called everything from baby whale, to miss piggy, but I'm not blaming them for my weight problem.:straight Please don't get me wrong. After my last episode with my high school sweetheart, I met my husband, a year later married him and 6 months after that had our first child. I love him and my son, but I feel as though I was totally selfish about the whole ordeal. I moved too quickly on the relationship and marriage just to get my ex out of my system, which I was unsuccessful with until recently, I had my son just to get out of school, well just the school I hated, which my mother wouldn't let me leave. Just recently I got into it big with my closest cousin, we're the same age only she's 1 month older. She relies totally on government assistance to get her where she is, she's made countless mistakes in her life and I'm always trying to help her, always trying to lend her helpful advice, but she never takes it. She has 3 kids, 8, 7,and recently a 2 month old all boys. She suckered a guy who already had kids into getting her pregnant. Pressured him into marrying him. Don't get me wrong he has problems too, I mean we all do, they're just a little nuttier than most. Anyway, she asked me for $ to help her pay a BGE bill, me thinking of the kids gave her the $ on the promise that she would repay it the next day. I don't know why I fell for that okie doke knowing that the girl doesnt work anywhere to be able to pay me the $, but I had just taken her to david's bridal to try to find her a $99 wedding dress since she was so intent on getting married the following week, needless to say she didn't give me my money claiming that she was waiting on someone else to pay her that "owed" her money. I ended up having to track the girl down and retrieve my $, because there was no telling if I would see it if I hadn't. Anyway she accused me of going behind her back and started cursing me out, so I got ignorant right with her. I wanted the $ back because I had to do something to my car and I wanted to get her a wedding gift but she didn't care, My account ended up being overdrawn, and now we're not speaking, she just recently moved to Westminister, I don't know where, and right now I don't want to know. But I do feel terrible about the whole thing. I feel like no matter what I've done for her and no matter how much I've struggled as a result of helping her, she doesn't care, and I'm truly and deeply hurt. My husband of course is upset because he feels she cheated the system for everything she has and doesn't appreciate what we do for her. She says he disrespected her and doesn't know her like that and I should have put him in his place. He was trying to calm the situation down, but it got out of hand and they started yelling at one another. Not to mention my husband is a total pessimist. We were living beyond our means in the townhouse we were renting, so we've abandoned our lease ( i know not the smartest idea) and came to live over my late grandmother's house which my uncle owns. He does no home improvements only is seen when rent is due. I live with my other uncles and my uncle/landlord's brother in law, whom we think pays no rent, My food gets eaten, no one cleans when they cook, it's ridiculous. We're neck high in debt, and there may only be one ray of hope for us getting out of this situation, which would be a merger between companies that may end us up living in FL, all expenses paid, which would be great!!! But my husband feels as though because we're living here he's not taking care of us, that we should be enjoying our paychecks and not giving it all to bills, which I totally agree, but it's just not the way the world works, he's always so mad at the world. I say all this to give you some sort of insight on my life. I love my husband. I feel as though I have been wrong and cruel to him because I hadn't let go of my baggage before I met him. I love my son, and I've been cruel to him because I brought him into a situation that I wasn't particularly ready for. I want to finish school, I want to do alot of things, lose weight is top priority, but on friday I was sooooo depressed, and I didn't know why, I felt like I had no control over anything. :think I had 6 chocolate chip Cookies on friday. I don't think I'm an emotional eater, but maybe I am, maybe I try to take too much on. Maybe I brought this all on myself. I'm eating the right amount of calories for the most part but it's still more carbs and fat than Protein. I have to get a replacement card for my gym membership before I go back, and there's no one close to me to walk with, although I know these shouldn't be excuses but they're the ones that are flying through my mind right now. :help: I want to move to FL so bad but it seems as if it's not going to happen, although we won't know until the beginning of the year. I just want to get away from everyone and everything. I mean I know that new problems may arise and I may eat 6 more chocolate chip cookies, but I've been so good at resisting sweets, and now I throw it all away and I don't even know why. Today I had 3 more cookies, weren't as good as last night though, freshly made, warm and soft. I feel like a failure, and I hate it when I can't seem to cheer my husband up or when he takes the weight of the world and puts it on his own shoulders, and never wants to talk to me about what's wrong, just takes it out on us. I talk to him about this. I let him know that it isn't fair to us, and I'm his wife, I want to listen to what's bothering him. But I guess he feels he can make it work on his own. Sometimes I feel like I dont even matter to anyone. I've gotten so low with my self esteem that I dont even want to wear makeup or do my hair anymore, i need new clothes, although I haven't changed sizes yet, new shoes, new accessories. I used to care about those things, I also used to have my own money and no real debt to speak of. Sometimes I just wish that my ex still wanted me so I could rebuff him. Make him feel like he made me feel when he wanted my friend instead of having a life with me. We were young. I know, but when I told him that I dreamt he died on instant messenger one day just recently, he just put up an away message that pretty much said it's not gonna happen ever again. Which I know was directed to me. Still a jerk. I guess I just want to stick it to him, I want to be slim and trim so the next time he sees me strolling by and he's drooling I can just pick his lip up off the floor as I pass him holding hands with my hubby. Perfect dream. :heh: I've lost 11 lbs so far. My period came on finally since my surgery. So the scale stayed even this monday when I weighed myself. This coming monday, I'm afraid it'll tell a different tale. Anyone have any suggestions on how to eat healthy and within range on a serious budget, or just how to get me out of my funk? If you're still reading, I'm all ears. :cry Sorry so long, but much needed. Marcelle

Oh, I love that idea! We could do a potluck! Ask your husband, and we can change the thread to have people sign up for what dish they'll bring.

Ok, here it is! http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=16587 Any DFWers want to make a road trip?

Oh my god, I actually laughed out loud at that! Are you sure you didn't trade in your size 10s for funny pants? Ok, I'm going to start a thread about it!

Hey Mary, I'll be home for the summer in May. We should organize a Houston get together!

Mary, that's great! Congratulations! You are going to disappear by the time you reach goal!

Woohoo! The gurgling means it passed! Does that mean that you just lost your post-banded pill-taking virginity?

Sounds like first bite syndrome. Here's what I do: 1. Drink HOT tea before first bite. 2. Take first very small bite. 3. Chew till the end of the earth. 4. Wait 1 minute. 5. Drink more HOT tea to wash it down. 6. Repeat 2-5 for next few bites. 7. Put fork down for 30 seconds to 1 minute between ALL subsequent bites. It's annoying and it takes me about 45 minutes to eat, but it works!

NewSho, I always read your posts with great interest. But you never mention who your doctors are, and I asked you in another post, but I don't think you replied. I am particularly interested in Dr. No, as I'm sure his other patients would be. Will you share?

Spiegel banded both myself and my mom last year. The man is a complete pompous ass, but he's a surgical artist. He's done the most lapbands in Houston (over 3,000) and has had zero erosions. He's blunt and his business seems more like a factory, but I have no complaints about him as a surgeon. Additionally, he bands people who have as little as 40 pounds to lose, and I'm not sure if Spivak does the same. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Spiegel to anyone, but that has more to do with the fact that I wouldn't recommend this procedure. However, he's the only band doctor I've dealt with, and as far as the surgery goes, I've been satisfied.

I was mentioning today at our Dallas meeting about how some of us get banded, lose weight, and forget how we got to be overweight in the first place. I'm trying not to become judgmental of what others eat because I am honest with myself and let myself remember that I didn't get fat eating 500 carrot sticks a day, I got fat eating at McDonald's twice a day. I know how it feels now to hear someone talking about eating fast food or a huge meal, but acting repulsed and being patronizing helps no one. And I'm sure that I'm not the only person who tried eating McDonald's after restriction and had to learn the hard way that wholesome foods work better with the band. And please don't forget how bad it used to feel to have skinny people preach to us about the crap we were putting in our mouths. I certainly didn't go through surgery to become one of those people, but it's amazing how quickly we lose sight of our own past weaknesses when we are given an opportunity to judge.

I don't buy the extra mucus theory. I think sliming is our own saliva that don't go down because the stoma is completely plugged up. I was very tight one morning and threw up "slime" for several hours, but there was nothing stuck in my band. I just couldn't swallow the saliva. I have found that spitting my saliva out during a tough stuck period sometimes helps. Or it just makes it easier to PB. Oh, the lesser of two evils.

Susan, you're welcome! I had so much fun putting your package together, and I'm glad you liked it!

Mia, don't feel bad, you're doing great! The people you see losing 20-30 pounds immediately post-op are the ones whose doctors have placed them on those ridiculous liquid diets. More progressive docs, like yours (and those of us who awarded ourselves with an honorary MD ), use a much more lenient diet. There is no reason to drink liquids for weeks at a time when there was no cutting done to your insides. I just wish ALL doctors wouldn't get our hopes up so high about rapid post-op weight loss and be more honest about how slowly it goes. Additionally, I can tell that you don't have a huge amount of weight to lose. If you think about your slow weight loss, it makes sense. Think about how many calories it takes to maintain a heavier body versus a smaller one. For instance, at my height, to MAINTAIN a weight of 350 pounds, I would need to consume about 3,000 calories. To maintain a weight of 200 pounds, I would only need about 2,200 calories. People on a liquid diet are getting maybe 500 to 1,000 calories a day. The jump from 3,000 calories (for a 350 pound person) to 1,000 calories is much greater than the jump from 2,200 calories (for a 200 pound person) to 1,000. So even though you are eating less than you were before, you are probably losing weight more slowly than someone who is much heavier than you. Does this make any sense to anyone? I came up with this theory after thinking about it forever. It sounds fairly pseudo-scientific, and I've been wanting to try it out on the board.

How about tomorrow? I voted for every day except Easter Saturday because I'll be home in Houston. Going to a Methodist law school is good for something - I've never had Good Friday off before!