TheGh0st

You have to do what works for you and you alone. Many bandsters I know (especially us women) do find that their band feels tighter in the mornings from overnight tissue swelling. Good check would be do your rings feel tighter in the morning or at another time of the day? if so, then so will your band. Early on I was able to lose weight without being so tight I couldn't eat in the mornings. Then for a while I found that I needed (wanted?) to have a fill level that meant I was a bit too tight for foods in the morning, because at a lesser fill by afternoon my band would feel so loose I'd be ravenous the rest of the day. Still you have to be carefull not to cross that line to where you are battling a fill that is too tight. (*edit*) I started to post a little essay on what it means to be too tight but decided to delete as I'm not a doc and the idea of too tight can mean different things to different people.

I did have to visit the Cardiologist and even run on the treadmill (What a laugh that was). But then I had a pre-existing heart issue, so they just wanted to make sure it wouldn't be a problem for the surgery. I do still go to support group meetings. But sadly I no longer with Hoehn's group. I miss seeing everyone there and have been thinking about going back for a visit ever since I heard Billie was back. Who knows one of these months if I ever find the time I might just pop in.

Yippee!!!! Jon boy is gone. What a creep. I'd bet the farm that he really hadn't wanted to get voted off and his own stupid scheeming just bit him in the proverbial @ss! I am so glad he won't be around anymore. I'm routing for James, Ozzy, Cirie & Yau-man. Suppose, with that smile of his, James would have to be my top pick though. Wouldn't you just love to see a little wardrobe malfunction on that man. Mmmm Mmmm Good.

Losing I hate you. I need to get work done but NOoooo I'm wasting time trying to best your score for the last 2 days. Yipee... Finally reached 800. Not competitive am I?

Oops... I hadn't finished my post. I meant to end it with and if/when the doc tells you she won't then sue her sorry @ss! (Forgive my language) Ofcourse I'm not a doc or even in the medical field so I could be wrong but this really sounds like a stupid incompetent mistake she made.

I can't believe it!!!:regular_smile: How terrible! OK I can believe it strangers can be so RUDE some times, even family and friends. Still I think you showed much more restraint than I would have. I'm afraid if it had been me, I would have been posting this from the prison computer after my reaction:cursing:.

Sorry to say it but I'd tell her she needed to refund any money given you PLUS pay for a different doctor to do the surgery and money to cover the extra time off work and "emotional trauma". I realize that any surgery has it's risks but that complication just does not sound acceptable to me.

Yup, Malley uses Flouroscopy for his fills. kcispy4 - Hey there. Good to see another KC area bandster (or Future Bandster)

I feel for you. Has your surgeon talked to you about a revisional surgery? He better be doing it for free. As you said despite his reputation he had to have put it in wrong if it is not secured around your stomach. Because there is no way it can become "un-snapped" and fall off your stomach. The band isn't snapped around your stomach it is designed somewhat similar to a zip tie. It has a hole on one end, they wrap the band around the stomach then slip the port tubing and other end of the band through the hole and pull it into place. Once secured it can't unsnap any more than a zip tie can be pulled apart or a belt that is properly fastened. I'm not saying your wrong at all, I'm just saying the doc had to have made a mistake placing the band for it to not be properly fastened. The band once properly secured can't accidentally open any more than a properly placed zip-tie or belt buckle. He better agree to do the revision for free and cover the hospital costs as well. If he tries to suggest he will only cover it depending on what he finds inside I'd insist on the surgery being taped for legal record. That ought to put the fear in him.

How terrible! And it couldn't have been at a worst time with your in laws coming and all. I remember the stories you've told. I feel for you.

I hate the all caps as well but, just a thought. At my work we use strictly all caps for our data entry so if I come to LBT during a break I have to consciously remember to turn the caps off. I'm pretty sure I've always remembered to but who knows I may have inadvertantly been one of those annoying all-caps posters in the past. I know I've been the long winded poster from time to time, and probably with bad punctuation to boot. I tend to write more stream of thought. I try to self edit but don't always have the time to re-read and re-write my posts just to please someone else. I figure if people don't want to read it they are free to skip it. Actually, same goes in real life. My real friends now when to tell me I'm rambling and need to shut up. I usually pout but get over it as I know they are right. FYI - I spent nearly 5 minutes reworking this post am still not pleased with it.

Great Job!!! I'm so happy for you!

Try to take heart. I know it is hard to stay positive and I can't explain why you aren't losing. Except to say that there are many of out there that have experienced the same problem of initially losing a decent chunck then fighting like heck not to gain it all back before a fill. I swear I spent my entire first year (and 14 fills!) feeling that way and yet despite all my constant feelings of failure I ended up losing 80 pounds that first year. Hardly a failure I'd say but it still didn't stop me from feeling like one throughout the year. All I can suggest is to try to keep your chin up and probably stay off that infernal scale until you go in for that fill.

Great to meet you Teri! Good Luck on your journey.

OK we are getting WAAYYY off topic here. But Ireland would be perfect. I lived in Scotland for 3 years and loved the weather despite the jokes. Winters averaged in the mid to high 40's with everyone running around screaming its freezing if it actually hit 32-degrees (Can anyone say 20 below windchills here?) Then in the summer it averaged out in the high 70's. I swear I was in heaven. Just cold enough to know it was winter and just warm enough to know it was summer. Hardly anyone had central heat and central air in a home was pretty much unheard of.

LessNLess - No one like a bragger.:eek: Especially those of us sitting up north in the wind and snow. :biggrin: That's alright I'll just remember you this summer when you've had 60+ days of 100+ weather and I'm "chillin" in the 80's & 90's. :frown: :eek::party:

My experience was pretty much identical to lessnless, except for the horses and haybales ofcourse. Not too many of those in downtown Kansas City. Still compared to my previous surgeries this one had to have been the easiest. I also could have been back to work much quicker but chose to take the time work had given me. And as Bradleybanana said there are some very good an informative threads about the lapband process here at LBT. I would suggest reading some of the "stickies" in the Lap-Band Surgery FAQs and References Forum: Lap-Band Surgery FAQs and References - Lap Band Talk Forum - The largest forum for Lap Band Surgery Discussion and Lap Band Surgery Support CKopasek - I'm not trying to "flame" you. However, you appear new to the board with only 7 posts. I congratulate your loss so far and admire your enthusiasm. But I would like to caution you. There are some employees of doctors offices that will create user names and fake identities here for the sole purpose of trying to get more business for their doctors. Other members of this board get very upset about this deception and can sometimes be quick to jump to the conclusion that a new poster is one of those imposters when many of their replies sound more like commercials for their doctor than an answer to the original questions being asked. Again, I'm not trying to accuse you of any wrong doing and only wish you the best. I look forward to watching your continued success with the band unfold and welcome your input on LBT.

I did the same as TarHeelLuv. Charged it to my frequent flyer card then immediately paid it off with the profits from a recent house sale. Had originally planned on using the profits from the house to pay of DH's student loan which was at 3.9%, $130/mo & tax deductible, but decided to pay for the surgery instead. Now whenever I refer to the loan as my husband's student loan he is quick to correct me and say it is my lapband loan. lol

Darn it all. Here I thought I was joining in some intellectual debate about a topic not directly related to my life and now I'm sitting here crying over a father that didn't leave my mother until after it was to late for Child Support to even be an issue. I think I need to go to bed.

Bonnie - I also have to say I LOVED LOVED LOVED your post about your personal experience growing up. Thankyou so much for sharing something so personal and painful. And I agreed 100% with everything you expressed. Luckily or unluckily as the case may be my parents did not divorce until over a decade after I left home, despite my constant pleas since gradeschool for them to quit staying together for the "sake of us kids". And my father is my biological father which basically throws me completely out of this discussion. However, in some ways I still feel I am dealing with some of the same issues as many children of divorce. Even though my father was still living with us, I never felt he was emotionally or even financially there for us. One of my biggest issues with him was that he had this policy that if he worked any overtime the money was his to spend as he wished. This was a two edge sword. First in that he would spend many hours away from home working to earn those overtime dollars, then just as many out spending them on his hobbies. While at the same time my mother was forced to both raise us and work a full time job. Even with both of them working and his overtime that he kept for himself we still qualified for free school lunches through most of my childhood. But my parents were too proud accept the assistance and risk anyone in our small finding out how poor we were. Each year my grandfather would slip a $100 dollar bill into my sister & I's hands. My mother would invariably start crying telling her father he didn't need to give us the money and that she could make do, then he would start crying to and insist we keep it. The truth of the matter was she was already wearing her own clothes until they were literally falling apart and could no longer be patched or mended in order to add another $50 to my sister & I's chlothing budget for the year. This was in the 1970-80's and though $150 was worth more than now it was still no where near average. The worse times were when I would find my mom crying over a box of family heirlooms that she was getting ready to take to auction so we could have enough money for food that week. All things considered I do still love my father and I know my dad loves my sister & I. He is only a product of his own difficult childhood. Still to have the memories of my crying as she was forced to sell her family memories just to put food on the table for another week while my father was out working overtime or spending it on another piece for his collection continues to break my heart and continues to have serious effects on my relationship with him to this day. For the life of him he can not understand why I don't just "grow up" and get over the past. I can tell it hurts him that we aren't closer now. He sees what happened back then as strictly between him & my mother and nothing to do with me or my sister. I'm really not trying to "punish" him for the past but like Bonnie I can only feel ambivalent to his "pain" when compared to the pain he caused me and my mother.

Since I am not Green I will leave it to her to choose whether or not to respond to the bulk of your post, however, I did want to point out that Green is a girl and I think you mistook her negative phrase at the end. I truly believe she was NOT stating her personal opinions of these husbands or wives, but her percieved opinion of the court system. Though I will say that any woman that would INTENTIONALLY lie to a man about the paternity of her child in order to gain profit is HIGHLY suspect in MY EYES. Yes, I know there are unfortunately many cases that could be pointed out where it was not intentional, but more wishfull thinking on the woman's part that led to the deception, and I am not making any judgements against those women. I also tend to seek the good in people and want to believe those that lie intentionally are in the minority. In my opinion she was only trying to describe how it seemed that in the situation where a man was (in the courts eyes, not necessarily hers) "foolish" enough to marry woman who would lie to him about him being the biological father (therefore making her appear to be of "of suspect morals"), then proceed to raise the child with the wife for a period of time believing her lies. The court appears to frequently take the "easy out" stance of making them pay the CS rather than deal with all the difficult issues surrounding this hopefully unique set of circumstances posed by the original poster. I think if you reread her post keeping the original topic in mind her comments may make more sense.

I read the article below from ABC a few weeks ago about how they had found that sitting for prolonged periods effectively shut down your lipase enzyme, which is reported to be a key enzyme in breaking down fat cells. It seemed to show that even if you exercized for an hour a day and had an otherwise healthy/active life, if you sat for hours at a time the effect on the lipase enzyme could still result in weight gain. It was this article that made me wonder if maybe using an exercise ball at work might keep those core muscles active enough to stop the enzyme from shutting down. I went so far as to track down the head researcher at the university that did the tests to ask him his thoughts on this. He thought it sounded feasable but wouldn't commit one way or the other. I'd like to try it but as I said before I'm the only gal in an office of guys that already like to poke fun at me I'm afraid the ball might be just too easy a target for them. Still I might give it a try. If I do I'll let you guys know if it seems to help. ABC News: Overweight? Standing May Be Solution

Good on you girl, you can do it!

For several weeks after my surgery I found that if I cupped my hand over my port for the first few minutes lying (sp?) in my stomach I could then pull out my hand and the port wouldn't bother me. Otherwise I felt a bit like the old princess and the pea story. It didn't exactly hurt but was annoyingly uncomfortable. Good luck to you.

How did you like it as a chair? I've been thinking about the same idea but wondered if it would really make enough of a difference to be worth the ribbing in an office full of men.