lndshark

My consult/psych eval was on 8/8/2008, I was also scheduled that day for surgery 10/6/2009. I was self pay, so that helped things out alot, dealing with insurance will take longer. You doc may be able to help expidite the insurance process.

Realize bands suck. Just look at them, they look like complete ass. Just my 2 cents

I know how you feel. I cleaned out my closet last night and threw out a bunch of "fat clothes."

I freaked the shit out. I starting having palpatations in pre op, etc. etc. If you've picked a competent surgeon you will be fine.

Depends on how smooth your surgery goes, and how tough you are. I read some surgery day stories from people who said, they were in extreme pain and yada yada yada. I had a prescription for liquid loritab which I never took. I didn't even take ibuprofen, tylonel, however you spell it, or anything. My experience was my surgery was equivalent to doing about 5000 situps. Very sore, but no pain. I was banded on a monday at 7 in the morning, the next morning hada checkup with my doc, then drove the 5 hours home, I didn't drive. Was back at work the next day. Don't get me wrong, you will be sore, you will be tired, you will feel drained, but I think alot of people on here are wussies. If you are serioulsy considering doing it, get on with it. get a consult. I wasted ten years of my life being fat, and I'm pissed about it. By the time I was banded I had balloned to over five hundred pounds, which wouldn't be bad if I was nine foot six, but I'm five foot nine. At that point I couldn't walk more than fifty feet, or stand up for longer than a minute. This past week I walked between 2-3 miles everynight, and last night, friday, I walked 4 miles. I had some many issues going in to lapband in retrospect I probably shouldn't have done it untill I had thoes taken care of. However, if I can succed at this anyone can, if they try. Good luck and get moving on it.

That's freaking stupid. I had seven fills to finally get some restriction, it would have taken me 56 weeks to finally get some restriction. Crazy.

Took me 6 or 7 fills to get restriction. as previously stated, when you get there you WILL know it.

After our first month our doc lets us get a fill every week if we want it. i have four fill my first month post op. No big deal. the quicker you get your fills the quicker you will get restriction.

I always go eat after my fills. I want to gauge my level of restriction from the new fill. They won't let us eat a couple hours before, but afterwards we can go at it.

just ask for verced, or however its spelled. after my second dose I would have given a shit if they said they were going to cut my weiner off. Good stuff.

Maybe so, but come on, I don't like the blowhards that yammer all the time and don't "walk the walk" Sorry for all the cliches.

Then stop posting your stupid crap. nazi:smile2:

where do I start.

The by the book approach is the most is the ultra cautious most conserative approach. If you can do it an not be miserable, great, if you can't great to. On day 7 my mushy day I ate nachos, just chewed the shit out of them. I bet I've puked 100 times with my band now, not that big a deal. You will find out that you puke alot at first, and then as time goes on, puke less and less. I haven't got stuck and puked in probably two weeks. I still get stuck from time, but can generally get it down. Oh, and by the was don't listen to restlessmonkey, she is a band nazi.:wink2:

Be more worried about gas pains than anything. my doc gave me leiguid loritab and I neve even took it. Shame to waster such killer stuff. I was out of the hospital the day of my surgery at noon. They shot me up with numbing stuff pretty good so that was no prob. I went to my post op the next morning, and I just felt like I did a shitton of situps. Pain was nothing, just sore. I was banded monday, drove home tuesday, and was back to work on wednesday. Easy as pie. I was sore, again, felt like a ton of situps, for about a week and that was it. I need to get two teeth pulled, and I would rather be banded again.

adfadfsdaf

Congrats and good luck.

Self pay rocks, I went from consult to banded in less than two months. I heard some of the hoops the other insurance people have to jump through.

dont expect one fill to get you where you need to be, I had to get about 7, to get me where I am. So don't get your hopes up too much, odds are, you won't feel any different. However, you will, maybe not after this fill, or the next fill, or the next fill, but you will get there, and when you do, it is great. I just got back to my store from running errands, and we had some old crusty bean and cheese burritos left over, I grabbed one of thoes peeled the petrified tortilla off and ate the insides, and I am plum stuffed. My wife wants pizza tonight, and I just said, about a minute ago, I don't care what you get, I'm not going to have any. Without my band I would have been like, "Hot Damn, pizza, lets get two larges, cheesesticks, and buffalo wings", for the three of us, we have an employee working too, that could have never happened before. Just for reference these bean and cheese burritos and the 4.5 ounce of something similar Fernandos buritos, So figure the tortill was probably half the calories and half the weight, so I am freaking stuffed on about 2 ounces and maybe 150 calories. Sucks, from my old perspective, but awesome for my new life. In the old days I could have eaten 10. Anyway, you will get there, maybe not tomorrow, but you will, and you will know it when you do. brian

thats great, but will power only takes you so far, I am generalizing, but if our willpower lasted forever no one would need a band. I did weight watchers for several months and lost 75 pounds, I kicked ass at it, but, after a while, my willpower faded and I gained back 100. My point was simply that we, and again I am generalizing, couldn't do it without the band, again, if we could, we wouldn't need the band. If you go the rest of you life without needing a fill, congrats, but theres going to come a time when the enthusiam slows down and it's not enough to sustain what you doing, then the band is there. The reason I am losing weight, is what I am doing and eat, but i COULD NOT do it with the band, bottom line. So if anyone asks, i pipe up about it. I would feel dishonest if I didnt. On the flip side, when you start getting your fills, you won't be able to eat much, and the cooler thing is you wont even want to. have a good day, brian

when you get restriction, trust me you will know it. I had nothing from surgery until about three months down the road. I was ready to quit, and actually did, told my 5 year old daddy was going to die, because I didn't feel any different and I couldn't stop eating on my own. Fast forward a couple more fills and BAMMM. If you have to ask if you have restriction, you don't have it yet, it will come though, be patient/ Depending on you band it may take a long time to get there. My good buddy got restricion after three or four fills, his band only hold 10 cc though, I think he was about 6.75 when his kicked in. I have the 14 cc band and am at about 10.75, i think. So i took a shitload of fills to get there. I though I had blew my pouch out for a while, because I just kept taking more and more, then, like i said, SHAZAMM, oh, hello, there you are. If you don't feel it now keep getting filled, you will. good luck brian

Don't let her being a downer disuade you, bottom line, if she hasn't had success it cause she can't keep her piggy mouth shut. I was 503 before the band, down over 100 now. I picked food over my son, my wife, though that wasn't a tough decision, I would chose a colonoscopy over my wife, and even chose food over being mobile, I was more or less sedentary, couldn't walk more that 40 feet, couldn't stand longer than one minute. Im still a fat bastard, last weigh in 397, but now im skipping around like a little fairy. Bottom line, the band is a tool, you have to learn how to use it and want to use it, and if you do IT WILL WORK. I quit after I got my band, just plain ol' said I was done. Finally got enough fills to where it started working the way it was supposed to, now it a whole new freaking ball game. if you wnat to do it, do it, F^#*& everyone else. And tell you F#$* off too. good luck

I am going to piss a whole lot of people off, but here goes. 1. I don't have a problem with the secret thing, as long as the weight loss is not being passed off as "I did it all myself" thing. My wife has a friend that had the band last august and she it taking that route, I just feel this is dishonest. Someone said something like, i will tell people I am just eating less and exercising, which is true. And it is true to a point, but if we could eat less and exercise on our own, who would have a band? It's just buged me when I read, I did the work myself, then why did you drop 15K on a band, BECAUSE YOU NEEDED IT. I tried dozens to fimes to eat less, but my chickens always came back home to roost. Now, with my band eating is not enjoyable anymore, so I eat a lot less. I know everyone is going to shit themselves, but I think passing the weight loss of as hard work on your part is dishonest. 2. Someone else stated that most people have a negative perception of WLS, well how is that going to change if 98% keep it a secret. If somebody ask me, I tell them. I have taken four people so far to info seminars give by my doctor. I don't care, shit, i was 500 hundred pounds and more or less immobile, now I can skip around home depot like a fairy, I don't care what people think. Also in that vein, you know someone that has a negative experience with the band is going to talk about it, so tons of negative stuff going out, and if no one's talking about it, ....ah, fiddlesticks. let the bashing gegin... wait... Oh, hope everyone has a good day.. Now, begin..

Yes, I was calling you a band nazi. I apologize, no, not really. I do take the nazi part back though, I think hypocrite is more fitting. I mean I can see if you were the band king/queen, but you're not. And as you pointed out you haven't done well with you band. So, don't spout hypocritical advice, don't do this, don't do that, you shouldn't do this, etc. when you obviously don't follew the advice your self. Reminds me a politican, family values, yadda, yadda, yadda, then they caught with a mistress and kid. Say one thing do another. So I do apologize for the nazi, I ment hypocrite. Anyway, have a good day. brian

Check for independant fill centers. If you haven't got restriction yet I can't stess it enough, you have to get there, and quick. I get free fills for 13 months after surgery from my doc, and the actually have fill nurses in about five different cities, so even though I was banded five hours away, i only have to travel twenty minutes for a fill. I felt just like you at the start, before I got restriction and the band started working. I had a 5 year old and I actually had a conversation with him one night about how daddy wasn't going to be around much longer. I told my son I was going to die. How's that for low. I was so discouraged because I would be good for a week, lose ten, be bad for a week and gain ten. I though it would never work. I canceled a fill because I was giving up. When i finally pulled my self out of my pity part and got some more fills, BAMM. When you have it you have it and it WILL work. I was approx 530 at my heaviest, i had trouble walking from my office to my truck, 40 feet. I would have ate myself to death, that's how much I love food. Without restiriction i couldn't lose weight, once I got it, man, no problem, I don't even care about food that much anymore. So if I, who told my son I was going to die, can hang in there, you can too. It will get better, trust me. brian