eyevory

A summary of my lapband journey so far: I had my surgery on 11-19-2004, my pre-surgery weight was 369.5. I had gained 50-70 pounds of that weight the previous year, my first year of law school, which had been extremely stressful for me. My surgery was through the Wish Center in Salt Lake City, Utah with Dr. Hanafy Hanafy. I was denied by my insurance and got a loan through care credit to pay for it. I lost 20 pounds in the first few months. My first fill was 2-3-05, 3 months post-op, a fill of 1 ml. It took 5 total fills for me to find my groove, about 2.5 ml was working well for me. The filling process is frustrating for me because the doctor typically will only do .5 at a time, and I pay out-of-pocket for fills, and I lose momentum and don't trust the band when I keep getting false starts. I was down to about 305 pounds in 11-2005 (65 pounds lost in one year), when I got pregnant with my first baby. I was extremely sick and throwing up and worried about the lap band slipping from my heaving or that the lap band was making my morning sickness worse, so I got it unfilled. During this time, the Wish Center in Salt Lake closed, then my doctor went to help Hurricane Katrina victims, then he came back and the office re-opened under another name, then he left again and I had to find another doctor for fills. I filled it again after the baby and was back to losing, when I got pregnant again, and again unfilled it. Then we moved to Michigan (Ann Arbor area) and I had trouble finding a doctor here who was accepting patients for fills only. I did find one (Dr. Andre Nunn at the Barix Clinic in Ypsilanti) and got a fill of 1.0 last September, and just got another .5 in December 2009. Currently I am filled at a 1.5, will probably need to get back to 2.5 to my "sweet spot" but I am doing my best for now. Current weight: 318 Current plan: eat three small meals and two small snacks, aim at 1200 calories per day, do pilates/walking