ParrotheadCathy

The Lap Band Goddess needs to forgive me too, LOL. My adult granddaughter lives with me. I'd bought Halloween candy for Saturday but I had NOT opened the bags as I planned to do that just before the kids starting showing up. Well, my granddaughter opened ALL THE BAGS and dumped all the candy in a huge basket and put it on the piano. I stood right there and ate 4 fun size Milky Ways. realized what I'd done and took that basket of candy into her room and DEMANDED to know why she opened all the candy. Her excuse...it "looks nicer in the basket". So I had to explain to her that once the bags were opened the candy was fair game, too easy to snag a piece. Then I told her she had to keep all that candy in her room where I couldn't see it. She weights like 120 pounds and I know she doesn't understand the concept of closed bags = unavailable. Geez, I was kind of mad at her at first but like I said she doesn't understand. Guess I'll just have to be mad at me, LOL

You wouldn't be the first person I've see on here (and another site I go to) to say that they were denied...only to discover their doctor's office didn't send all the pertinent paperwork. STAY ON THEM. It's just not that difficult to get it right. Demand that they do.

Okay, for your reference, here on the site under FAQ LAP-BAND Surgery and LAP-BAND Discussion Forum - FAQ: LapBandTalk Forum Frequently Asked Questions PB is a productive burp...you know, that bite of food that got stuck and came back up? DH....Dear or Darling Husband The link will help with other abbreviations and "lingo" Welcome!!

I'd suggest you ask your doctor's office about this. Never heard of an extended warranty on a band either. The one thing I do know specifically is that my doctor stitches (by means of a stomach fold over the band as I understood it) so that it can't slip. Does your doc do anything similar?

Creed, the hardest thing for me, hands down, was getting into an exercise mode. But it makes a big difference. You have a dog. Darn their hairy selves, they LOVE to walk along and walk and walk and walk. So don't do it for yourself, LOL. Do it for your hairy child. Instead of 15 minutes, try for 20 or 25. When the route gets a little boring, add another 10 minutes to it. Your pup, ehr child, will love it. The good news is you're losing. Okay, it's not as fast as you'd like, but YOU'RE LOSING. Otherwise, in these 11 months, you would have gained. You know it. I certainly would have myself. So take heart in your success rather than finding misery in it not being as great as you'd want. Change doesn't have to be some huge thing. For a lot of people it's Go Big Or Go Home. But just try adding a little to it. Go out in your car and figure out a couple of "markers" that are 1.5 miles from your house. Aim for getting to one of those markers and then back home. But you don't have to do it today. Just walk farther than you have been. Take pride in your successes (you are losing, you're adding a little bit to your exercise)...and pretty soon you'll find a few more pounds gone and that's certainly worth a bit of personal pride!! Keep on plugging and keep us posted. We care!

I drink some iced tea, artifically sweetened. You can add a sqeeze of lemon or lime (my favorite) or even just a tiny bit of fruit juice to jazz it up. Or brew it with some peach slices added even. I like Water, so I don't have a lot of suggestions....

EAT (don't drink) your Protein. liquids do not provide a feeling of satiety because they pass through the band so quickly. Eat your meals as the dietician recommends. If you get hungry in less than four hours snack on SOLID protein...low fat cottage cheese (12-14 grams in a serving), a boiled egg, an ounce of low fat cheese. Once you get a couple of fills, you will find that you can go longer before you get hungry and eventually you should be able to go 4 or even 5 hours before you get hungry.

Okay, it was a few months ago BUT I vividly remember gaining and losing the same 3 pounds several times in the first 4 weeks, which isn't all that uncommon. You're healing and shouldn't be expecting miracles on the scale. Remember, you're going from liquids to mushies to real food in this time and that changes the volume in your bowels from almost nothing to "normal"...and that weighs a bit. Once you get back to normal eating, you will start to see weight loss.

TJ, your SO's problem may boil down to this: the unknown. Yeah, she's losing weight but you're looking at something a bit more extreme than, say, Weight Watchers. That pretty much equals permanent changes. And so, she sees her relationship with you being at risk. Will social things that involve food and drink become a thing of past? Will you surpass her weight loss and find some other woman to replace her? Will you become a hard ass and be less tolerant of her size after you fix yours? Hopefully, she just needs some reassurance. Just make sure she understands that you are doing this for you...your health, your future. And (of course, as long as this is true) that such changes will in turn allow you to be there for her and with her in that future. My 20 year old granddaughter and her little girl live with me and she was afraid that we'd be eating "rabbit food" after my surgery, that I would change personality wise. But once she saw that we eat real food at real meals as a family AND she realized that nothing could change how I feel about her or her little girl, well, it was all okay.

Kibby, the amount of fill has a lot to do with your individual doctor's preferences and little to do with whether it is a Realize Band or a Lap Band brand band. I have the Lap Band band and my first fill was 4 ccs (on top of .6 that was left in the band when they tested it in the operating room)...and it was too much, I was so tight I couldn't swallow anything, so they had to take 1 cc out. My second fill was the day after a significant car crash (an idiot pulled out in front of me and I hit him and totalled both cars). I got a fill but only .5. Others will tell you that all their fills are small, and still others will say that their second, third and event fourth fills were 1 cc or sometimes more.

Significant weight loss can trigger gallbladder problems. Happened to me in the late 70s when I lost 100 pounds. Plenty of others on here have had the problem. Never heard how the surgery could affect your band though. It is performed in a similar manner, laprascopically, short duration surgery, quick recovery. I wonder if, perhaps, the surgeon is simply inexperienced when it comes to the band? I would talk to my band surgeon and, if necessary, refer the general surgeon to the band surgeon for further information.

When you were a kid, did you ever take out the center of a slice of bread and squeeze it into a "dough ball"? Well, when you chew up a bite of bread the same thing (sort of) happens. Many days, I cannot tolerate bread at all. On some, as long as it's not slice of bread, I'm fine with it. Toast it, eat whole grain baked crackers (I'm really fond of the new Kelloggs Special K Crackers (17 crackers = 90 cals). Eat other breads, like cornbread. Rice I have no problem with, but a lot of bandsters do. Now, admittedly, I don't just boil up some rice. Plain rice is somewhat sticky and just looks like a problem waiting to happen. I cook my rice with granulated chicken bouillon added to the Water. Different texture, great taste without other additions..

Hey! You didn't GAIN that 75 pounds over a six month period but you've lost it in six months. I do agree with another poster -- if those chicken tenders are breaded and fried, you're taking in calories that are pretty worthless in the scheme of things. Is the sauce you're dipping them in fat free? If not, you're taking in a lot of fat with just lunch. Popcorn has salt and if you're eating it every day it could make you retain a bit of Water perhaps.

I was self-pay and knew I was from the start. My first contact with the surgeon's office was January 2 (I didn't attend a seminar or anything), and when I left, I knew what testing I needed to get done for a surgery date of 2/10. Self-pay is so much simpler, I will admit. Yeah, I'd have been much happier to have insurance that would have paid for this, but it is what it is, LOL.

Bottom line is....the woman was out of line. Age? yeah, maybe. The rest....HELL NO. The fact that she asked you was unacceptable. Complain to the management office of the facility. OR Forgive the tone of voice and think that perhaps she's wondering why anybody would do it...and how that might apply to her daughter. Life always offers choices.

And I was specifically told to let the steri-strips stay on my incisions until they fell off on their own and not to put anything on the incisions after the steri-strips fell off. And, of course, call the doctor if the incisions felt hot, etc.

LOL....Some of the old evalution questionnaires, from back in the 70s, had T/F questions that said things like" I often talk to God. God talks to me. I often have black and tarry stools. And so many others. And of course questions that seemed like they "went together" like the ones about talking to God were never close to each other. What, were they trying to trick people into something? LOL. As for that third one, I wanted to know why I couldn't write down "I don't usually look". But I was a psych major and it was part of my school stuff to take the test and I was told I was trying to be a trouble maker, LOL, and needed to work with the test as it was written.

Noura, a certain amount of nerves are completely typical and normal. The best way to calm yourself is with answers. Why don't you tell us your questions and maybe we can help with that part! You did mention smoking. Smoking is bad and you know that already. The particular issue is that it can negatively impact your recovery from any kind of surgery. And smoking and anesthesia aren't all that compatible either. Almost all surgeons will insist that you stop smoking. That doesn't mean you have to do it white knuckles; there are over-the-counter and prescription products that can help you with that. Diet? Do you mean the pre-op or immediate post-op diets? Or do you mean over the long term? Like I said, let us know what your questions are specifically and we'll try to answer.

I had surgery on 2/10 and went on an 8 day cruise 5 weeks later. Parrot Head Cruise 2009, 500 Jimmy Buffett fans on a cruise that raises money for breast cancer research ... Key words there are "Parrot Head". Yeah, I drank. No problems at all. Now, I only lost 2 pounds that week, the extra calories in drinks do add up.....

CALL YOUR DOCTOR'S OFFICE TODAY. Not to cancel, but to talk to someone, asking for help with the pre-op diet and getting through it. As another poster said, post-op I was on liquids for 10 days. for the first 7 I really didn't care if I ate any food at all. Liquids were more than plenty what with the swelling, etc. The three days after that, until I went to mushy foods, i just had as much of what I was allowed as made me happy .... sugar free puddings, SF popsicles, SF Jello, beef and chicken stocks (I made my own because it actually TASTES like food instead of that stuff in cans and boxes at the store), Protein shakes (put in the blender with ice to get the texture of a milkshake sometimes). Post-op is actually more lenient than pre-op for a lot of us. My pre-op was not all liquids so I was lucky. But please don't give up on yourself just yet. Talk to your doctor's office. Be frank with them. I'm pretty sure you aren't the first patient to struggle with this part of it.

BrookeLynn, Post-op is a frustrating time. You've been on liquids only, your bowels are pretty much empty (which is part of the 14 pounds more than likely). You'll transition to mushy and then solid food and you may gain a bit as your bowels return to their normal amount of stuff inside. Sommerbrez, Ditton on the Protein shakes. Stop them completely. Solid food will make you feel full longer and the change in calorie intake and just the change-up in what you're taking in should move the scale again. I've been told not to drink my protein anymore at all, except in unusual circumstances, that I should be eating solid protein like meats, eggs, cheeses, etc.

Slimmy, I suggest you go somewhere like GNC. Mine will let you sample protein shakes to find one you like. Milk alone is, as another poster pointed out, too low in protein. You need at least 20 grams of protein in a "shake" and just milk and fruit is too low in protein and too high in carbs to provide what you (your body) needs.

Okay, Muscle doesn't weigh more than fat. A pound of muscle (lean meat) is smaller than a pound of fat (which is sort of fluffy, for lack of a better descriptive term). Do you clothes feel any more loose? If yes, then you have replaced some fat with some muscle. The rest of it could come down to a combination of (1) you need to have a bowel movement....I've discovered that I don't go as often as before surgery and when I do, I can lose 2-3 pounds sometimes. (2) you ate more red meat than other Protein for a few days or ate food that had a higher sodium content than you usually eat, both of which can cause Water retention. (3) weight does fluctuate and it could have been a "high" day. Are you pre-op? Post-op? How much are you REALLY eating? I suggest that you JOURNAL. Write down every little thing that goes in your mouth. Yeah, even ONE M&M should be written down. Nobody is going to see this but you so be brutally honest. I also write down the time I ate whatever. You may discover a pattern of eating too much at a certain time of day, at a time when you aren't necessarily THINKING about what you eat. Then you can work on alternative behavior to help you control it. For example, I am almost 9 months post-op. I got stuck. At first, I though, oh, well, a plateau was bound to happen. But I decided to journal...and discovered that when I got home I was cooking dinner and eating bits of things (if I gave the baby a vanilla wafer, I'd eat 2, for example). And I figured out that I was just going too long between lunch and dinner. So I started eating an ounce of low-fat cheese before I leave work in the afternoons. Voila! I'm not starving while I'm cooking dinner so I probably cut out 75 calories of JUNK eating as a result.

Michelle, just don't try to compare your policy to someone else with a policy that is also Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO! A lot of people don't understand that each employer negotiates the coverage they provide their employees. So one person insured by your company might not have weight loss surgery coverage while another does. The single best thing you can do is to call your insurance company now. There is a customer service number on your insurance card. Give them your policy number and ask if weight loss surgery/lap band surgery is covered by YOUR POLICY. If they say yes, then ask them: 1. Do you need a history of weight/weight loss attempts from my doctor? 2. Is there a minimum BMI? If so, what is it? And, should my weight have been at that level for a specific period of time (for example, my girlfriend was covered IF her BMI had been 37.5 for a minimum of 18 months). 3. What doctors and surgical centers are covered by my policy? (Bear in mind that just because your doctor choice is covered, he may use more than one surgical center and not all of his options may be covered by your insurance) 4. What requirements do you have to approve the surgery? Do I need consultation(s) with a nutritionist? A psychological evaluation? In other words, do you homework BEFORE you get in too deep.

Okay, maybe one of you can answer my question! If I go to a runner's shoe store, can they help me with this problem: I have Haglund's Deformity in my left foot -- it's a big Calcium deposit under the Achilles tendon on the big bone of the foot that creates the heel. I had it on my right as well, but when I ruptured my Achilles tendon, they chiseled the deposit off. So, now my feet aren't exactly the same size. If I buy a shoe to fit my left foot comfortably, the right foot ends up with a shoe that moves up and down. Can they build up the inside of the heel so that the shoe stays in place?