DianaG

I am so glad that you hung in there and did the work to make it happen!!!! Now you are on your way!!! CONGRATS!!!!WAY TO GO!

Fingers crossed until we hear that you got approved!!!:thumbup:

Hi Sam, Don't think that it is a rule about long hair after 50, it is just that I have seen several(ages 60+) women around where I live (including my aunt!) Who have dyed their long grey hair coal black (with some cheap hair dye) and have absolutely no highlights. That coupled with their deep facial wrinkles does not look good! So, if you are going to get a really good professional hair color...go for it!! If you have the money to really go all out on your makeover, why stop at a tummy tuck? If you want a face lift ....go for it!! I am saving my money for a tummy tuck a couple of years after I reach my goal weight! Wish I could have a whole body lift, but will have to rely on my wardrobe to cover up other saggy parts!! I am really looking forward to having that new wardrobe!!!!! and maybe some new glasses also.... and of course SHOES!! Do whatever makes you happy and have fun doing it!:drool:

I have to agree with LollyMoe. I am 64 now and have my hair cut short because I think that older women (like over 50) who have long hair, to try to hold on to their youth, actually look older. Not as old as those who think black hair will help them look younger. There is nothing like coal black hair to emphasize those wrinkles ladies!!:drool: So, if you are over 50 and have long black hair perhaps you should get a face lift along with the tummy tuck!!!.......Hummm, perhaps I should reconsider:wink2:

Abby that is great news. I will keep my fingers crossed for you!! Wouldnt that be a great Christmas/New Year's gift for you...:scared2: Let us know what happens.

Carlos, I just wanted you to know that you are to be admired for doing all you can to help your BF throught this. I have a very supportive husband and I know that sometimes my selfdoubt has been hard on him. He kept telling me I could succeed with the lapband and I am just about to believe him....3 mo. after surgery!! So just keep doing what you are doing and also take time to give yourself a pat on the back now and then! He is very lucky to have found you!!

I had the Dermabond also. It is Great Stuff!! The doc said I could take a shower (not bath) the day after surgery, but that I should use anti-bacterial soap and not "scrub". He said that I should not try to pull the Dermabond off, but that it would come off by itself. It did! and I am glad that I didn't have to go back in to have staples removed!!! Hooray!!!

Keep Smiling! BE HAPPY! Congrats!!:sad:

If I were you, I would rejoice about the pregnancy , and ask the surgeon if he would consider applying the money as a "pre-payment" for the surgery at a future date!! I am sure he would, and perhaps that way you could avoid any increase in price of the surgery between now and when you get it. Just a thought!:sad:

As others have said, after a fill my doc has me go on liquids for the next 48 hours. Then I can start adding mushies and regular food back slowly. Seems to work for me.

Hey Gatorgal, I just read your post to my DH and told him that I am sure hoping someday that I can make a post of my own about buying a size 14 again!!!! You give me hope!!:thumbup:

I was given the liquid hydrocodone and it helped me a lot. Can't imagine even being given a pill to crush and take with applesauce right after surgery! If the pain meds make you nauseous, call your doctor and ask for some phenergan...it really helps a lot. Good luck to you...keep telling yourself that it will get better!!!

I take Centrum Silver chewable (I'm OLD!:cursing:) and twice a day I take a chewable calcium with vitamins K&D.

I have had bread get "stuck". My surgeon says that bread seems to be one of the things most people have trouble with. He says that bread forms a "dough ball" and you will have the urge to drink Water to help "wash" it down. He says that whatever you do, do not drink as it will just pool up on top of the dough ball and make things worse. I asked him what I should do when bread is stuck and he said to get up and walk around, hold your arms over you head, and be patient because the bread will sooner or later pass on through. Not fun!!

Hey Tiffany, it looks like this is a case where basic pays better than standard, as long as you go to a preferred facility! That's great! :cursing: Courtney, I can't believe what an ignorant person you talked to on the phone!! Obviously you will never be able to explain anything to her!:cursing: You can talk to her until you are blue in the face and all she will tell you is the same thing over and over. She has dug in her heels and won't move. It may well be that she is sticking to the clinic's policy of having a 3 mo diet, but it is certainly not the policy of BCBS FEP. I suggest that you call and ask to speak to her supervisor. You may even have better luck if you make an appointment to go see her supervisor!! There has to be someone there who has dealt with our insurance program. If you do go to see the supervisor, you could give her/him the phone# off the back of your ins. card and have them call while you are sitting there. The Ins. co. representative should be able to explain what the requirements are. You could also tell them about all of us on this site who have had the surgery and that it HAS paid for us. Just some thoughts. Hope you can get some positive answers! I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Hey Phyll, Good to see you pop up on here again.:blushing:.I am glad that you are having a good time in the RV and someplace warm for the winter. So sorry I couldn't meet you in New Mexico this year....you know that shortcut to California!!:laugh: It would have been fun!! How is your knee doing? Hope you are ready to go dancing by now. Do you go to the same RV park each winter, or do you vary your schedule? It is getting kinda late here in Arkansas, so I guess I better stop for now and get some sleep. Hope to hear from you soon!!

Well Doddie, it looks like you and I are in total agreement about Facebook and Twitter. I have not tried Twitter, because frankly I don't care to know if my friends are brushing their teeth, in the grocery, at the doctor's, reading a book, fishing, hiking, etc. on a minute to minute basis! I signed up for Facebook and promptly "unsigned". I haven't gotten the messages that you did, but just decided it wasn't for me for some of the same reasons you mentioned. Besides, I find that I don't have the time to devote to it, and I much prefer being able to talk to people on this site. Soooo, do you think we are going to end up being the only ones on this 60's site and only able to talk to each other...surely Jerseygirl,roxie,KarenIn,Bradley,Shar Pei, and some others will join us here!!! It would be bad to be just us 2 and very lonely!:closedeyes: Hope to talk to you later!!

KarinIn, I can sympathize with you and your mother. It is a very hard thing to adjust to the fact that the roles are reversed and basically you are now the "go to" person for all problems and decisions. I went through that tough period a few years ago and yes, I did gain a lot of weight then. Of course, there was no lap band with me then!!! I am truly impressed by how well you are doing. Keep it up! We are cheering for you!! Jerseygirl, I am glad you are doing well and must admit that I was surprised that you had 5cc put in the band right off! I have had 3 fills and am now at 4cc. Sorta holding out here until we see how I do for a while and then the doc says that he will start "tweaking" the band until I find my "sweet spot". Can't wait. I keep a check on messages in the 60's group and we seem to communicate less than some of the others. I have reached the conclusion that it is because we are much more involved in our lives and are extremely busy doing fantastic things!!! What do you think???:closedeyes:

Courtney, I just now noticed that you mentioned that your surgeon was in the basic network. Good Deal! One thing I don't understand is that if your BMI is 40.3, how come they are still saying that you need the supervised diet. The brochure I quoted the info from doesn't make any distinction about the requirements for Basic of Standard. It only makes a distinction about the payment of benefits and how much is owed. It wouldn't hurt to call the phone# on the back of your ins. card and ask them why if your BMI is 40 or over, you were told that you would have to do this but that a friend (me:wink2:) with a BMI of over 40 had the surgery in July and was not required to have a supervised diet. I do have several co-morbidities, but was told that those didn't matter since I was over 40 BMI. After all, the requirements are supposed to be the same in every state!! Sometimes I think that the answers to questions vary between personnel. Whoever answers, the phone one time may not tell you what the other person told you on a previous call! O.K. I am done ranting now.:closedeyes:

Just checked to see what my BMI was when I started this process..it was 43. Bridget, where in NE are you located?. I have a son and daughter-in-law who live in the Omaha area.

Hey, Bridget that is great! Your approval was even faster than mine! Courtney, I asked the RN in charge of the lapband program, at my clinic, about losing weight while pre-surgery. Not that I thought I would lose tons of weight before surgery:rolleyes2: I was particularly interested in what would happen if I lost weight while on the liquid pre-surgery diet. She told me that the weight that mattered was the weight you started at and that was what they based the approval of the surgery on. You might check with whoever is the charge of the program you are in to see if they do the same thing. That might help. Although a PB&J sounds pretty great to me:lol:!! I assume you are going to a "preferred" (by BCBS FEP)surgeon and hospital? It sure does save a lot of money. You are all going to be so glad that you got the surgery! I am 3 months out now and have lost 32 lbs. When I went in to see my surgeon Tuesday, he said that I didn't need a fill now, but in a little while he would start "tweaking" the band to get me to the "green zone"! Can't wait!!!!! Keep me posted on what goes on with ya'll. I am really interested and will be the "cheerleader" for ya!:closedeyes:

Hi again, Sorry if I misslead anyone about this issue of BCBS FEP!:closedeyes: I have had so much trouble getting people to realize the difference between our insurance and the regular BCBS that I jumped in to tell ya'll about my lap band experience with the insurance and I didn't even think about the difference between the standard and basic. Courtney, I have standard and when you mentioned basic, I pulled out my booklet from BCBS FEP and read it again. I can see now where the difference may be.... On page 52 at the bottom of the page it says: "....a condition in which an individual has a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or more, or an individual with a BMI of 35 or more with co-morbidities who has failed conservative treatment; " I had a BMI of over 40, so if yours is between 35(with co-morbidities) and 40, it looks like that is where the medically supervised statement comes in. I apologize again for not checking it further before I spoke:blushing:. Courtney, have they scheduled your surgery yet? There is one thing that you might want to check out though, and that is the difference in the co-payment amounts between Standard and Basic. I know that the amount of monthly premiums is more for standard ($356.59) than basic ($216.48), but it also pays higher co-pays than basic. So you might want to see if it would be cheaper to change to Standard for a year, have the surgery, and they you could change back to the basic next year. There is an "open season" each year starting in November and during that time you can change companies, or coverages without any penalties or pre-existing conditions being a factor. Of course you will have to see how much the monthly premium for standard and basic will be in 2010!:w00t: Again, sorry for causing any confusion, but hope some of what I have told you will be of help!

I also had my gall bladder out before the lap band(same surgeon did both). In fact it was taken out in 1998. It was done laproscopically also. I have had other abdominal surgeries that were open (appendectomy and hysterectomy). I know that scar tissue builds up in the abdomin after any of these surgeries, but it must not have bothered my surgeon because he did not mention it after he put in the lap band. So unless something unusual is going on, I can't see why they would want to do an open surgery on you. Also, I was in a lot of pain with my gall bladder attacks and never once was I refused pain medication. They usually prescribed a generic hydrocodone/tylenol for the pain and it really helped a lot. If it makes you nauseous, they can give you phenergan for that. The hydrocodone/tylenol in liquid form is what the surgeon gave me after the lapband. Sure hope you get some help soon. Do you have regular doctor you could see for some help with the pain? You might seriously consider finding another surgeon like your husband suggested. Good luck to you.

Hi again, Yes, the purpose of the 2 week liquid diet (I had Optifast Protein drinks) is to clear your liver of fat. The doc told me that 2 weeks is plenty to clean out your liver and for some reason I thought that it would have taken much longer...boy am I glad it didn't!! Even though the Optifast came in strawberry, choc, and vanilla, I got tired of it fast. I was glad that more would not have gotten my liver any cleaner from fat and I didn't have to drink any more:thumbup: One thing we know now ladies, is that our livers are becoming healthier than they were before. I am so glad that I could offer a little bit of information and that it was useful to ya'll. Good luck and please let me know how things are going with you.

Hi again, My husband has offered to add some more info here that might be very useful in dealing with your provider. So I'll let him type now: The Federal Employee Health Benefit Program is an annual contract between insurance companies and the Federal Government. The benefits and requirements are the same in all 50 States. The booklet provided by the company you have chosen spells everything out; but, some things need a little additional explanation. However, if a procedure is approved by a company it is the same everywhere.....no exceptions. The coverage provided to Federal Employees is not directly related to coverage offered to others by the same company. Now, not all companies provide the same coverage. Diana and I have elected Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS). When she started considering lap band surgery, she contacted the individual at BCBS responsible for the Federal program in both ARkansas and the one in Missouri to make sure that we would not encounter any problems. Both, cited the same necessities as far as co-morbidity, etc. was concerned. My advice is to go to the individual responsible for the lap band program at your location. Explain that you are in contact with others who have had the lap band procedure and are covered by BCBS. Tell the provider that these folks are telling you exactly what they had to pay for and what was required prior to approval and that none of this can vary State to State because of the Federal contract. If you are still encountering problems ask the provider (Clinic, hospital) to call the Federal rep for your State. Diana was asked to do some initial research by our provider. When she contacted BCBS they said, "That the Clinic is having you do their work for them. Usually we are contacted directly by the provider." But, they gave Diana the info, she gave it to the provider. We did encounter one situation where the provider was unsure about payment. They called BCBS and were told, over the phone, we will pay....do it! O.K. I'm back:tongue_smilie: Just another quick thought..The billing for the lapband at my clinic is separate from the billing for the rest of the clinic. They have one lady who does the finance stuff (ins. selfpay.etc) for the lapband patients. She is the one who called the ins. co and was told that yes indeed they will pay for the procedure. If we can be of any more help, let us know. Also, if you haven't already, search for this topic on this site.