Ok the whole story. Been heavy nearly my whole life. Decided it was finally time to change the whole dieting bouncing back thing. Researched banding a year ago but couldn't bring myself to really get into the process for financial reasons. Started searching again a couple months ago and found out that medicare pays for it if you go to a center of excellence. I am in the process of getting the things done that medicare requires. I am halfway through my psych eval and I go for my stress echo on the 5th of August. I am so excited with the whole process. My current weight is 430 with a BMI of 78.2. I am so excited to finally being able to do something more permanent in my weight loss journey, and I am extremely glad I found this site, which I must admit was homework from my therapist lol. She told me I had to find an online group or a live group somewhere so that I could talk to people who have had and are in the process of having this done. This site has been so very helpful and I know it will continue to be throughout my journey.